Bright lights big city

Spent three nights under the lights. Probably have nothing useful to show for it.

My old Navy pal Rick Lakin drove up from San Diego with three cameras, tripods etc. We spent two nights in an industrial-looking room shooting instructional footage for the Fun Shop Cups and Balls.

I think the material is of value. I hope Rick can edit together some useful footage. My goddaughter Sarah, who is planning on attending film school at SFSU in the fall got some real-time experience running a camera and setting up lights. A Lowell light kit fell into our laps. It came in really handy.

I'd wanted to shoot some footage of my 17 minute act. We ran out of battery juju the second day, but fear not.

I was talking to Carl Willat of Carl's fine films. He's the guy behind the Hershey's Kisses ad where the kisses ring themselves like bells to a Christmas Carol. I told him what I was trying to do and he drove down from the city with a Saturn full of lights and cameras. These were the kind of lights you see on a movie set. One of our bedrooms was empty for an upcoming renovation, and we shot the 17 minute footage in there.

I've learned several things from the shoots.

1. I've gotten really fat the last couple of years. You guys should've said SOMETHING!
2. The magic is good, the presentation is not up to snuff.
3. I look at the props WAY too much.
4. There's hope.

Spoke to the mighty Howard Hamburg about all this today. He gave me some good advice and was enthusiastic and encouraging. He's a rockin' magician of Magic Castle fame. Thanks Howard.

Thanks also to Carl's Fine Film crew.

Thanks Uncle Rick, it was great just hanging out. We gotta hang way more often.

The adventure continues.

KG

The chase for a show so far in 2011.

Having recently bought Handcrafted Card Magic Volume 2 and worked up a couple tricks from it. Denis Behr's exhaustive references made me bust out a bunch of other magic books.

The research that crazy man goes through is awesome. I got to re-read Card Fictions by Pit Hartling.

All in all it's been a good magic year so far, for me. I've polished up the Sam the Bellhop story trick I do. I still don't have a name for it. I got to do it at all the local magic clubs. It actually gets a better reaction for lay-people. I've done it half a dozen times at work so far. (Real job) It is the longest magic trick I've ever done. It runs over five minutes. Without the core of that story I tend to ramble on. The structure is helping.

Having five full minutes of card trick the show sequence looks like this now:

Opener - Sam the Bellhop style trick

Triumph

Pawnbroker's Syndrome

The Cups and Balls

A pal is coming up from San Diego to shoot some video for me. I'll get a good idea how close to 17 minutes I am, at this point. I suspect I'm one trick short.

KG