Perhaps stating "the selling of videos is unacceptable" is slightly harsh. Selling of magic DVD's and such is extremely unconventional
I do agree. The statement is harsh. Times change, and with the advent of modern technology comes newer ways to do comerece. Selling a book, or selling a video is the same thing when you boil it down to basics. The artist is selling their information on either their handeling or their effect. The only thing that changes is the media in which the information is viewed.
...a result of how blatantly ignorant marketers are to the possible effects of hitting the most immature audience (teenagers and such, the majority of which cluster to sites like this), the effect being mass exposure.
If the job of marketing is to get the word out about a product or service, to increase brand exposure, thusly increasing sales then I think the job is being done successfully. It's like McDonalds pitching the Happy Meal Toys at the kids, KNOWING full well that it's the parents that are going to be the ones buying. All this is, is identifing your target audience and then putting the desired material into their hands. In the end it's about making a living, and putting food on the table for the family and kids.
It's just that the most accomplished magicians learned from books, and the old-fashioned way.
Unless you personally know a few "most accomplished magicians" in which you can get a quote to back this statement up from then at best you are running generalized speculation based off your own view points. This opinion at the least is jaded by your own philosophies. I'm dealing in cold hard fact. The fact that I am pressing, and defending, is that the creation of and thusly sales of magic DVD's (be they educational or performance) is a viable and acceptable form of making an income as an artist working in todays magic industry.
You may even ask the "older" magicians affiliated with this site, and they would agree with us. The preferable and most accomplishing method of learning magic is through books and group sessions, etc...
And I would argue to them that they need to get with the times. Technology is changing, evolving, and thusly evolving the way we not only learn but perform. The absolute BEST way to learn magic is to apprentice under anoter magician. Nothing beats hands on tutorials in method and theory. Books do a nice job, but DVD's are able to display the exact positions of the hands, give the artist an ability to explain the mentality, and be the closest thing to personalized lessons you can get without actually finding yourself a teacher. If we as a fraturnity insist on doing buisness and learning the exact same way our forfathers did then we fail to learn, and grow ourselves or our art form.
Learning from confusing books... promotes interaction with other magicians and ultimately leads to a faster learning curve and capacity
Unless you have a psychological study that has been conducted on this opinion, it is at the very least just that. Your opinion. One of which I think is flawed. I myself have a rather large collection of DVD's in my library. I'm also quite a social butterfly when I'm out in magic circles. Learning from DVD's has not hindered my social skills in the least.
... as well as leads to new discoveries in magic. For example, since the whole video marketing boom hit the world of magic, I think we have only seen a handful GREAT pieces or slieghts for card magic.
Stop the press here. Are you serious? First off, do you know how hard it is to create NEW material for card magic in the first place? It's like Latin, it's a dead subject. You're going to find a wonderful supply of new effects, tricks, and gaffs, but as for slights there is only so much that can be done with a deck of cards. Vernon and Erdenese(sp?) did a wonderful job of introducing to magic all the slights and skills the gamblers used to cheat, and make it an entertaining art form. You'd be hard pressed to find something these men who dedicated their lives to exploring this subject hasn't already found.
The incentive today to create magic videos is to earn money from them.
Duh. I think the point of releasing your work to the magic fraturnity at all is either to gain recognition or get paid for it. Usually both. This seems to be more of a moot point than a valid one.
If magicians, such as ones you mentioned before (Wayne H. , Danny G, etc. ) didn't need the money, then they wouldn't publish videos.
I think it is more a case of them utilizing modern technology to better suit their production needs. I'm sure there is nothing stopping them from producing books about their material, with the exception that pound for pound DVD's are cheaper, and easier to produce, market, and mass distribute.
Take Criss Angel for example.
I'd rather not, he's a horrible example.
These people make a living from their shows... and therefore need not sell more than a DVD or two occasionally.
You DO realize that they are on a certain level in this playing field that about one in ....oh.... I'd say 10,000 ever get to? These are the equivilent of super rock stars, movie stars, super models, etc. For every Tom Hanks do you have any idea just how many starving artists there is working in Hollywood? Thousands. I know, I've done this scene. I've worked with them on the long cattle calls for just about 2 seconds of just out of focus "fame" in a big budget motion picture. Their level of success isn't an option for every magician working in the business today and most of us know it. So what's wrong with suplementing their income with a few DVD sales between gigs?
I'm starting to think that you're forming way to many biased opinions without ever having worked on the other side of the arguement, let alone really having a complete grip at just how big the picutre really is. But I'm not all the way through your post yet, so that observation may be a bit premature.
There hasn't been much GROWTH since we started seeing mass marketed videos, even though we might have seen some "kickass" effects in the last few years. We haven't really approached a mentality where we want to continue the learning process, discover new theory and implement. This is mostly done by people not concerning their time with making videos to sell.
I see no evidence to support this assumption in the working world today.
