Hey all...so, last night was the Justin Miller lecture. WOW.
First and foremost, I've said it before. Justin is just one of the most generous people I've had the pleasure to meet. He treats you more like an old friend than a fan. I was surprised that he even remembered my name and who I was when I walked through the door too! HA!
Anyways, the lecture started out with autograph..and if you don't have it, get it. Seeing the trailer is one thing, but watching the entire performance is just crazy! The one thing I like about this is it's not just 1 trick, as in 1 climax. The signatures change places, change cards, and then the cards fuse. It has a couple different moments where the magic happens, and it feels complete. Very solid, and the reset couldn't be simpler. A real worker for sure.
After that, he went into some older stuff. 3 card melody...perhaps my favorite thing of his. Plays well for a large crowd, visual, and simple. I believe that's on an issue of Reel Magic Quarterly, as well as his dvd Backstage Pass. Moving on, he then did some cloak work. I don't do any thread stuff, but if I did I would strongly consider this. I can't say too much about it, but the stuff he did perform was killer. The main selling point would be how far away he walked from the thread, walk back and immediately go into the routine with ZERO effort. Simply put, it was pretty **** cool!
Now to be completely honest, I don't remember if he showed us anything after that or if he went straight to the ending. He ended up closing with Captured. Let me tell you this...one of the cleanest caps in bottle I've EVER seen. Place a bottle cap on your hand, slam the bottle on the cap, and the cap goes into the bottle. That's all there is to it. No funny movements, cover, showing of the bottle, NOTHING! When he announced that was only $20 that night, almost everyone pulled out $20 and bought a copy. I kid you not. (I know it sounds like a short lecture, but those were just the highlights for me...all said and done, it was around 1:30-2 hours. Intermission included.)
After Justin, a surprise person was there. Bob Smith. He did a couple things with Loops, then he performed one of the most spectacular mind reading things I've ever seen. I had the pleasure of helping him with that and am still dumbfounded. Basically, I wrote down a name on a post-it note, and stuck it in my pocket. He DID NOT SEE WHAT I WROTE DOWN...NO CHANCE AT ALL! He took a deck of cards, and dealt that number of cards that corresponds with the name, into my hand. And then he revealed who I was thinking of. It sounds so simple here, but man oh man, even thinking about it now still makes me laugh and scratch my head. I believe that's on his DVD, Universal Impressions. I'll probably pick that up this week.
Afterward everyone left, I stayed around a bit hanging out with B. Smith and Justin. We were just talking magic, then I pulled out some coins and Justin was helping me with a coin routine I'm working on. Showed me some subtleties, a new coin count (crazy good!), and just some random stuff (did I mention he did an in the hands version of captured on me?!?!? INSANE!!!!) Had them both sign my uncut sheet, and that was that. Said my goodbyes then looked forward to the 2 hour drive home. Overall though, I had a great time and learned a lot. Wish he did some coin stuff in the lecture, but oh well. If he ever lectures around here again, I'll definitely come back out in a heartbeat!! =)
Here are some pics that we took afterward....
Me and Justin:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...lecture016.jpg
Me and B. Smith:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...lecture015.jpg
First and foremost, I've said it before. Justin is just one of the most generous people I've had the pleasure to meet. He treats you more like an old friend than a fan. I was surprised that he even remembered my name and who I was when I walked through the door too! HA!
Anyways, the lecture started out with autograph..and if you don't have it, get it. Seeing the trailer is one thing, but watching the entire performance is just crazy! The one thing I like about this is it's not just 1 trick, as in 1 climax. The signatures change places, change cards, and then the cards fuse. It has a couple different moments where the magic happens, and it feels complete. Very solid, and the reset couldn't be simpler. A real worker for sure.
After that, he went into some older stuff. 3 card melody...perhaps my favorite thing of his. Plays well for a large crowd, visual, and simple. I believe that's on an issue of Reel Magic Quarterly, as well as his dvd Backstage Pass. Moving on, he then did some cloak work. I don't do any thread stuff, but if I did I would strongly consider this. I can't say too much about it, but the stuff he did perform was killer. The main selling point would be how far away he walked from the thread, walk back and immediately go into the routine with ZERO effort. Simply put, it was pretty **** cool!
Now to be completely honest, I don't remember if he showed us anything after that or if he went straight to the ending. He ended up closing with Captured. Let me tell you this...one of the cleanest caps in bottle I've EVER seen. Place a bottle cap on your hand, slam the bottle on the cap, and the cap goes into the bottle. That's all there is to it. No funny movements, cover, showing of the bottle, NOTHING! When he announced that was only $20 that night, almost everyone pulled out $20 and bought a copy. I kid you not. (I know it sounds like a short lecture, but those were just the highlights for me...all said and done, it was around 1:30-2 hours. Intermission included.)
After Justin, a surprise person was there. Bob Smith. He did a couple things with Loops, then he performed one of the most spectacular mind reading things I've ever seen. I had the pleasure of helping him with that and am still dumbfounded. Basically, I wrote down a name on a post-it note, and stuck it in my pocket. He DID NOT SEE WHAT I WROTE DOWN...NO CHANCE AT ALL! He took a deck of cards, and dealt that number of cards that corresponds with the name, into my hand. And then he revealed who I was thinking of. It sounds so simple here, but man oh man, even thinking about it now still makes me laugh and scratch my head. I believe that's on his DVD, Universal Impressions. I'll probably pick that up this week.
Afterward everyone left, I stayed around a bit hanging out with B. Smith and Justin. We were just talking magic, then I pulled out some coins and Justin was helping me with a coin routine I'm working on. Showed me some subtleties, a new coin count (crazy good!), and just some random stuff (did I mention he did an in the hands version of captured on me?!?!? INSANE!!!!) Had them both sign my uncut sheet, and that was that. Said my goodbyes then looked forward to the 2 hour drive home. Overall though, I had a great time and learned a lot. Wish he did some coin stuff in the lecture, but oh well. If he ever lectures around here again, I'll definitely come back out in a heartbeat!! =)
Here are some pics that we took afterward....
Me and Justin:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...lecture016.jpg
Me and B. Smith:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...lecture015.jpg
