Mercury (My Video)

[Cliff|Bumgardner]

Hey guys,

I made a video of me performing Mercury (or atleast my handling of the basic effect) and wanted some advice.

Let me first make a few comments on the video,

Yes, I am using shadow masters and doing an E effect... No I am not a fanboy. I got some shadow masters for christmas and they hide any "Edges" really well for the effect. And I chose mercury because of the amount of people trash talking the effect.

A few of my spreads were a little odd, I know. I am VERY bad on camera, this was actually the best video i've ever done. I also know that the positioning before the change took about a half second to long, my finger got stuck trying to move... ha

I am not a fan of doing a video over and over until its completly perfect and there is not even a small mistake, thats a bit fake. Also, the more I film the worse I get.

As to the editing, I tried to make the a begining kind of cool and while it seems way overdone, it plays well and unique to the laymen who have seen it.

The tv screen and black and white effect makes it a tad hard to see but I asked a laymen to watch it and they were blown away, hopefully the editing doesn't take away for you guys.


Thanks for any and all constructive critisism.

What Is Real? (Click Here)


Sharp

 

[joshua barrett]

you do the the spread like a robot. it won't take half of a smart spec to know what your doing handling it like that. i suggest you read card college vol 3 i think for how do it right.

the counting was a bit fishy and useless. what is the real purpose if this handling over twisting the aces or even the asher twist.

sorry to sound harsh but thats how we learn

 

[Cliff|Bumgardner]

I completely agree that my spread was weird. As I said, I have some trouble on camera and was trying really hard not to mess up and have to do it again... my mistake, I know.

Yeah, the counting is also odd and not my favorite thing about the routine. I am practising a way to remove the counting but it was not ready when this video was shot.

Thanks for the input man!

Any words on stuff you liked? I love hearing what I need work on, its the only way to improve, but if there is something a did well i'de like to know.... I am my biggest critic and to me, nothing is well done or good enough.

I don't mean to come off as complaining that you didn't say anything good, quite the reverse actually. I am VERY appreciative of your help

Sharp

 

[Sam Hardy]

I didn't think it was that bad at all. Just loosen up on your spread, act more naturally, not as if you've got something to hide. And I'd recommend either using coloured cards, or start with the Aces and turn them into Kings as it was a bit difficult to see when a card had turned over.

All in all, not bad, just needs a bit of fine-tuning and it'll be really good

 

[Ampersan5340]

pretty good but the spread's could be suspectable

 

[Shodan]

You handled the effect ok, so well done there. Unfortunately, you can polish a turd all you like and it's still...well...a turd.

Mercury is a truely dire attempt at a magic trick. There's many, many better twisting effects out there, including ones where the cards change at the end. I strongly recommend having a look at John Guastaferro's "Tailspin" and Bill Malone's variation on "Maxi Twist" for effects of this nature. Paul Cummins also has some excellent work on this concept in FASDIU vol 1.

There's a reason Mercury gets bashed my friend! Take one look at John G's Tailspin and you'll see why - there's vastly superior methods out there that accomplish the same thing. The Ascanio spread simply wasn't designed with this kind of thing in mind, and having 5 cards stand in for 1 is frankly unrealistic for close up; maybe you get away with it once, but doing it over...and over...and over again? You're asking for it.

Do yourself a favour, and apply your talents on something worth the effort.

 

[Sam Hardy]

I thought I'd take a look at Guastaferro's tailspin, and I thought I'd post this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q5-EfVJmmY

It is a much better trick than Mercury - Mercury is hard to pull off.

 

[Shodan]

It's not a bad try, but the performer doesn't really do the effect justice I think. There's quite a lot of mumbly, stuttery patter towards the middle, and naming the tens by suit at the beginning twice is not great in terms of flow and construction. Despite these negatives, the trick still manages to shine through though!

The great thing about this trick is that the starting position is common to several very interesting effects. What I think John has done is put together a really nice twisting sequence. When you start thinking about how to apply this starting point and twisting sequence to other effects, you can end up with some great hybrids. I put it together with maxi-twist, because I prefer the final phase/clean up to Tailspin's. Its a great worker.

Also works well when combined with David Regal's "Cheating" and Allan Ackerman's "Small Packet All Backs". John also applies it to a truely stunning "colour changing backs small packet transposition" - Out of the Blue - and a variation of the travellers called "Quickpocket", where the twisting phase actually represents transpositions. Really clever thinking there.

 

[Cliff|Bumgardner]

Thanks guys!

Mercury always looked good enough, but there was this little bit of discomfort when performing it... I get the point now about that spread not being made for that use... good point.

I will take a look at tailspin and is Bill Malone's Maxi-Twist on one of his On The Loose DvD's?


Thanks again,
Sharp

 

[Shodan]

On The Loose, volume 3.

 

[LingLing]

Good handling, you Ascanio is a lot better than mine. Mine is just loose, and not really an Ascanio. Try using cards with black edges, though. It seems to help hide the secret for me.

 

[Ineski]

Like said above, this is really a bad trick. Having twice as many cards as you're supposedly holding and repeating the excact same move is really dangerous and bad routining. I'd too recommend the Maxi Twist. It's something that you can actually do in the real world.

 

[Steerpike]

And I chose mercury because of the amount of people trash talking the effect.

I wonder how many people actually read this part? And how many did, but chose to complain anyway.

 

[Shodan]

I read that part, and I'm not complaining - I'm being helpful, which the original poster has expressed gratitude for.

Because of the feedback in this topic, he has been pointed towards much higher quality magic which is worth the effort to learn and perform. There's no bad here.

 

[Cliff|Bumgardner]

Yes, my point was to post something most people loved to talk trash about but never actually perform, and yes I do appreciate the ton of help I have recieved.

This is not my strong suit, that is for sure. Mercury is an awkard effect, no doubt about that. But to the people who say that it cannot be done live, obviously you have not tried. I have performed this several times live and while I will not anymore, the reactions were great.

Thanks for all the help guys!

Sharp