Sinful + Healed and Sealed

Apr 25, 2009
459
0
39
Yorktown, VA
Hey all,

So I am working on a small stage act (there are only going to be about 60 at the most present, and the bar isn't that big) for an open mic. I want to do Sinful and Healed and Sealed because I like the combination, but after some toying around I am just getting soda everywhere. I can't keep the hole plugged up (I have been trying it with Mesika's Magicians Wax) and when I do try something it tends to fall off the more I move the can for Sinful. I am thinking about just plugging the whole before the performance and just rolling with it then. What are some good products that you all think will be successful, or maybe another approach that I am missing.

Thanks for your time =D
 
Nov 8, 2007
1,238
3
Use two different cans. Use one brand new can for Sinful, then drop the can in a trashcan as you return the quarter to the own and put emphasis on that. Then, as an afterthought, reach into the trashcan and pull out the prepared Healed and Sealed can, making it look as if you are just taking out the same can you just used for Sinful. So you're jut doing a switch. I've done these two effects together a few times like this. Works well.

Good luck.
 
Apr 25, 2009
459
0
39
Yorktown, VA
Use two different cans. Use one brand new can for Sinful, then drop the can in a trashcan as you return the quarter to the own and put emphasis on that. Then, as an afterthought, reach into the trashcan and pull out the prepared Healed and Sealed can, making it look as if you are just taking out the same can you just used for Sinful. So you're jut doing a switch. I've done these two effects together a few times like this. Works well.

Good luck.

One of my main focuses though is that the spectator gets to keep the can after the perfomance. In the graphic novel, Wayne Houchin gives some great advice on this, and that is why I want to do Healed and Sealed first, then follow it with Sinful.
 
Nov 8, 2007
1,238
3
It's a good idea, and I appreciate your thinking on routining the two together, but in my opinion it doesn't make sense to do Healed & Sealed by restoring a can and then leaving it closed and going into Sinful for a few reasons.

1. After doing Healed & Sealed you want to show people the can and show them it's normal and not gimmicked. If you do H&S without opening the can and showing them there actually is liquid inside right after you restore it, you're losing half the effect. Once you go into Sinful and you're pouring out the liquid to show the signed quarter inside you're mixing two completely different illusions and, in turn, convoluting what should be two simple effects for people to follow.

2. Picking up a can and restoring it without opening it and showing it to be a regular soda can with actual soda inside is suspect. And dhis is what you will be doing--starting a new effect (Sinful) before you've finished the first effect in a credible way (H&S). The audience will think you just have a gimmicked can as you go into Sinful. If you do Sinful you start with an examinable can and end with one. If you throw it away as you hand the quarter back, then go back to the "already examined empty can" and restore it, then hand it out again to an audience member half full, you are leaving them with not only a souvenir, but also another examinable object.

3. It doesn't make as much sense to start with a destroyed can, restore it and do magic with it, then destroy it again. Storytelling-wise it makes more sense to start with a fresh can "from the machine outside," destroy it for your effect (Sinful), then restore it back to the way you started. You could even do it as almost an afterthought.

The whole plot and fantasy behind Healed and Sealed is to restore and create sustenance--like a modern version of Jesus multiplying bread and fish to feed people, but with a restoration. You do this so you can either drink the soda yourself or pour it and give it away to someone else, not so you can put a quarter in the can then pour out and waste the soda inside. Again, you're losing half the illusion if you don't drink the soda and/or have someone else do so after you restore the soda can. That's half the effect right there--proving it's real.

I think doing half the H&S illusion first, then doing Sinful and finishing the H&S illusion as you finish Sinful at the same time is just a bad idea. The two effects need room to breathe on their own to be fully appreciated.

Hope you take these thoughts into consideration.

Happy Magic
 
Apr 25, 2009
459
0
39
Yorktown, VA
It's a good idea, and I appreciate your thinking on routining the two together, but in my opinion it doesn't make sense to do Healed & Sealed by restoring a can and then leaving it closed and going into Sinful for a few reasons.

1. After doing Healed & Sealed you want to show people the can and show them it's normal and not gimmicked. If you do H&S without opening the can and showing them there actually is liquid inside right after you restore it, you're losing half the effect. Once you go into Sinful and you're pouring out the liquid to show the signed quarter inside you're mixing two completely different illusions and, in turn, convoluting what should be two simple effects for people to follow.

2. Picking up a can and restoring it without opening it and showing it to be a regular soda can with actual soda inside is suspect. And dhis is what you will be doing--starting a new effect (Sinful) before you've finished the first effect in a credible way (H&S). The audience will think you just have a gimmicked can as you go into Sinful. If you do Sinful you start with an examinable can and end with one. If you throw it away as you hand the quarter back, then go back to the "already examined empty can" and restore it, then hand it out again to an audience member half full, you are leaving them with not only a souvenir, but also another examinable object.

3. It doesn't make as much sense to start with a destroyed can, restore it and do magic with it, then destroy it again. Storytelling-wise it makes more sense to start with a fresh can "from the machine outside," destroy it for your effect (Sinful), then restore it back to the way you started. You could even do it as almost an afterthought.

The whole plot and fantasy behind Healed and Sealed is to restore and create sustenance--like a modern version of Jesus multiplying bread and fish to feed people, but with a restoration. You do this so you can either drink the soda yourself or pour it and give it away to someone else, not so you can put a quarter in the can then pour out and waste the soda inside. Again, you're losing half the illusion if you don't drink the soda and/or have someone else do so after you restore the soda can. That's half the effect right there--proving it's real.

I think doing half the H&S illusion first, then doing Sinful and finishing the H&S illusion as you finish Sinful at the same time is just a bad idea. The two effects need room to breathe on their own to be fully appreciated.

Hope you take these thoughts into consideration.

Happy Magic

I can't fully agree with this. Let's go through the numbers:

1. I don't really want it to be two separate tricks. Two separate tricks loses continuity and build up. With a continuation of build up, the audience has more to look at and more to be blown away with. You can still show that H&S still has liquid inside very clearly at the end of Sinful, and you leave them with a nice souvenir to take home. In your presentation (which isn't bad, just not what I am looking for) you have that pause with the can in the trash can, and you lose that build up.


2. As far as the idea of a gimmicked can is concerned, I feel that the more a magician worries about this idea, the more his gimmicks will lose the effect he wants on the audience. It is the true cross over from layman to magician, understanding the value of gimmicks. Laymen normally know these things exist, so they roll with it. And they can't think that it is gimmicked once you hand the can to keep at the end of it all. they can examine it all they want and they will find nothing (trust me, I have tested that much out).

3. As far as starting out with a destroyed object and ending with a destroyed object, the difference is that this routine would take them through the complete cycle of restoring it, and then emptying out the liquid (the same thing that you would do with H&S only now there is a pause for Sinful). The can can still be kept.

But my main point in all of this (because all I have presented so far is according to a presentation style that I want compared to the presentation style you want, which will get us no where fast because we are both right, with a twist of wrong for good measures) is that according to Wayne Houchin's released notes on Sinful, my presentation style is very much probable (and the one that he usually uses). He does both styles, and pulls them off well. I just want to know what I can use for the hole... It says strong Magicians Wax, but all I have is Mesika's...

Tips... Comments... Gripes... Moans???
 
Nov 8, 2007
1,238
3
I can't fully agree with this. Let's go through the numbers:

1. I don't really want it to be two separate tricks. Two separate tricks loses continuity and build up. With a continuation of build up, the audience has more to look at and more to be blown away with. You can still show that H&S still has liquid inside very clearly at the end of Sinful, and you leave them with a nice souvenir to take home. In your presentation (which isn't bad, just not what I am looking for) you have that pause with the can in the trash can, and you lose that build up.


2. As far as the idea of a gimmicked can is concerned, I feel that the more a magician worries about this idea, the more his gimmicks will lose the effect he wants on the audience. It is the true cross over from layman to magician, understanding the value of gimmicks. Laymen normally know these things exist, so they roll with it. And they can't think that it is gimmicked once you hand the can to keep at the end of it all. they can examine it all they want and they will find nothing (trust me, I have tested that much out).

3. As far as starting out with a destroyed object and ending with a destroyed object, the difference is that this routine would take them through the complete cycle of restoring it, and then emptying out the liquid (the same thing that you would do with H&S only now there is a pause for Sinful). The can can still be kept.

But my main point in all of this (because all I have presented so far is according to a presentation style that I want compared to the presentation style you want, which will get us no where fast because we are both right, with a twist of wrong for good measures) is that according to Wayne Houchin's released notes on Sinful, my presentation style is very much probable (and the one that he usually uses). He does both styles, and pulls them off well. I just want to know what I can use for the hole... It says strong Magicians Wax, but all I have is Mesika's...

Tips... Comments... Gripes... Moans???

Yeah, you're wrong. ;)
 
Oct 9, 2008
52
0
Here is a plot i have been working on to create a workable method to, you have an empty can...then put a quarter in the can while empty... and then heal and seal the can with the quarter inside. And when you pour out the new soda the quarter is inside. I think it makes sense.

Calen
 
Nov 8, 2007
1,238
3
Here is a plot i have been working on to create a workable method to, you have an empty can...then put a quarter in the can while empty... and then heal and seal the can with the quarter inside. And when you pour out the new soda the quarter is inside. I think it makes sense.

Calen

If you stop and think about what each effect is communicating, and why each effect has earned a reputation for being as strong as it is, I think you'll see that combining the two in this manner actually weakens the impact of both.

Just because you can combine two effects together doesn't mean you should.

Give it some thought and really ask yourself why you are choosing to combine two effects together before you do so. Are you doing it just because you can or are you doing it because the magic in each effect is strengthened by the other?

I really think starting with an empty can (not examinable), restoring it (but not handing it out for examination or proving there is soda is inside at the peak of the audience's interest in the effect), then stopping and starting another effect with a quarter (while the can has still not been examined by anyone), putting it inside, then opening the can and pouring out the soda (cross your fingers the audience still remembers or even cares the can was empty to begin with. And what should they be concentrating on now--what's the focus of the magic? That there is a quarter inside or that there is now soda inside? This is convoluted magic.) while at the same time revealing the quarter inside is just poorly structured magic.

Having an audience member select and examine a can of soda, then lend you a signed quarter for you to perform Sinful is clear and direct. You put the quarter inside. Logically, to prove what you have done you pour out the soda and fish out the signed quarter. The effect you set out to do is over. Everything is examinable at this point. But as a kicker, before your spectator leaves the stage you put the can of soda they picked out and examined back to its original condition, pour some soda out to prove your claim, then send the spectator back to their seat with a half full can of soda in a restored can.

Routining the two together instead of combing both into one effect works because the magic of each effect remains clear and clean. Everything is examinable throughout both effects. Neither effect muddles the other, and the spectator leaves with what they started with at the beginning of the routine--a signed quarter and a can of soda with soda still inside. Each effect is also allowed to stand on its own. And it's more logical--you destroyed the can of soda the spectator picked out to do Sinful, so to make things right you restore it for the spectator and give it to them as they leave.
 
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