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Umm...I hate to spoil the illusion, but I think it's highly likely that Tudor isn't being entirely serious in his presentation on Showoff 3. It seems to me that he's just playing a "bad guy wrestler" sort of role to provoke a reaction, and it's worked, so well done Brian! The shooting of that...

In my opinion, the instantaneous/strike turnover is one of the most unnatural looking double lifts out there. Each to his own though I suppose! I think the best double to start with, especially if you haven't got a lot of performing experience, is to take a break way ahead of time by finding an...

Ah, I think we're talking about the same thing here, but in different language! I'd like to make a distinction between two ways of presenting a challenge. Firstly, there is the challenge with your persona. This is akin to Houdini's escape act, where your whole character is one who "can't be...

Not necessarily. An analogy would be blatantly calling someone stupid to their face. If you'd just randomly walked up to someone on the street, that would probably be offensive, but if it was a friend of yours and delivered in the right way it may be taken as a joke. In the same way, "challenge"...

Personally, I don't think the most powerful magic comes from the audience having "no explanation". I think that, if they literally have no idea how something was achieved, they'll jump on the easiest explanation, usually "fast hands", even if that wasn't consistent with what they saw. If they...

If it's the same one that's in the trailer, then I think the method is pretty transparent to most, if not all, magicians. (Ha ha...glass...transparent...see what I accidentally did there!?)

Recently, in my day job, I've been speaking to a lot of stand-up comedians, people who've been making a living out of entertaining audiences for years. In their trade, there is also a lot of talk about theory, the use of timing, tension and presentation to achieve certain "effects", maximise...

Close up encompasses a broad spectrum. If you're looking to go further with cards, then the Holy Trinity of essential books are Hugard and Braue's Royal Road to Card Magic and Expert Card Technique (you'll find a bit of crossover with Hugard's Magic Manual, but they're still vital), and...

I've been thinking recently about that story of the artist Giotto, how the Pope asked him for a drawing to prove his skill, and Giotto drew a perfect circle freehand and sent that as his response. To me, that sums up what this kind of debate rests on, it's the dividing point between art and...

As a general rule of thumb, the best interview questions are of the "Why" and "How" type, as they don't lead you down a blind alley of one word or one sentence answers. "What", "When" and "Who" only really need to be used if they're required to get a piece of information to set up a "Why" or a...

There are rumours that James Harto and Erdnase were working on a sequel to EATCT, but there's no concrete proof. Theo Hardison's book Poker, uses phrases taken directly from the book, so it's possible to speculate that this was the proposed sequel. However, EATCT is the only book definitely...

I think that the reactions you get are determined by the way you perform, and the meaning that you put on the effect. If your whole presentation is geared around "This is YOUR CARD, there's no way I could have switched it, it's the same card we started with, etc., etc.", then it's probably wise...

Your stat professor is slightly mistaken there. There is a slight tendency for the coin to land facing the same way it began with, but it's not 90%. The true figure is around 51%. Interestingly, the research on that was done by Persi Diaconis.

Criss Angel bashing doesn't seem to make much sense to me, as it's blatantly obvious that he does his job, within his own parameters, extremely well. We can have a debate about whether what he does constitutes magic, but he's clearly a powerful and engaging performer and personality, and that's...

I assume you're talking about the shifts here, specifically the SWE, Open and Longitudinal. I don't think any of the other moves could really be considered hard or with bad angles when compared to alternative methods. If my assumption is correct there are several answers to your question. They...

Excellent work! Just a couple of small points. On a couple of the shifts, there was a noticable flaring of the right thumb. I've found that this can be reduced by raising the thumb before the move is executed, so only the tip contacts the packet. This effectively achieves the same thing as...

My recommendation would be to look into billet peeks and switches.

Dice Deceptions is a little booklet by Audley Walsh, but it doesn't teach any genuine controlled shots, it's just stacking, switches etc. For real controlled shots, have a look at Steve Forte's GPS, or Ed Marlo's Shoot the Works.

That's happened to me a few times. The first thing I do is hand the deck out to be shuffled, just because you might as well take the opportunity to do it now when it doesn't matter. Then I get them to check that their card is still in the deck, and show it to any other spectators to prove it...

As with most effects, I think mathematical magic is most powerful when you elevate the trick by making it about something other than the method. For example, in a Derren Brown kind of way, you could make it about their personality, saying certain people choose certain numbers, then drawing...