Mercury

teddy · Mercury

Here's my performance of Ascanio's Mercury: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9LmSqSIp0M

I would love to hear your thoughts and constructive criticism. Please feel free to comment!

Ethan the Emazing

Well I personally dislike the actual cards you used quite a bit. In my opinion it makes them look like "trick cards." Remember thats just my opinion. The handling was good, but you need better patter. Why are the cards turning over, whats the point. Why did they change into aces??? All in all I give it 2 out of 5.

BrianMillerMagic

Alright Teddy. Firstly, you get bonus points for using Van Halen's Eruption right at the beginning, even though it was only for a moment. Secondly, I do have to agree mostly with Ethan. Your handling was decent, but the justification for the effect was missing, and there was basically no progression. The problem with most twisting effects is that 1) there is usually no point and 2) after the first two phases, the last two are redundant and uninteresting. This is no fault of yours, though you can certainly create a presentation that tackles this dilemma.

As for your handling, it was pretty good but it could be better. Your Ascanio spread was very forced instead of relaxed. Try to keep the cards moving a bit to enhance the illusion of the spread.

One last thing: for video, those cards look cool. In the real world however, if you want to be taken seriously by lay people and rise above suspicion as much as possible, I would not use cards that look like that. Just a thought.

Thanks for sharing! Hopefully you can take some of this constructive criticism and turn that effect into something new and show us again sometime.

Brian

Michael Kras

It's an extremely difficult effect to justify, really... what reason would they have to change into four aces? The only way you could make it plausible is if you performed another effect along with it.. possibly a transposition?

BrianMillerMagic

Difficult, maybe. To say that the only possible justification is to go into another effect though? That's thinking very minimally, especially for you Michael. I can already think of reasons to change four cards into aces, and they are just basic reasons at that.

Michael Kras

Let me rephrase that... It would be a good, effective justification... perhaps have a gambling theme to the effect and end with four cards that would be better for a poker hand? Some story about the cards passing through a warp? Talking about plastic surgery while changing the Kings into Queens?

BrianMillerMagic

Yes, those are certainly options. The justification issue I was speaking to was more about the twisting effect. As most of you know, I'm traditionally against twisting effects because of the lack of justification and redundancy that goes along with most. That's the reason for The Four Card Game that can be found in CCTT (Part 2). The goal was to show that even twisting effects can make sense and be progressive in nature. My suggestion is for Teddy, and perhaps everyone here as a creative experience, to take Mercury and create a new presentation for it that justifies the twisting.

teddy

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions! I just refilmed it and I will post the new link (with better patter and regular Bikes) when it finishes uploading.

Oh, and Brian, loved the Van Halen joke. Wink

Edit: Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MubB6M1CmQo

Ethan the Emazing

Much better Teddy. Good job.

BrianMillerMagic

Michael Kras

I admire you taking action on the advice you are given by other magicians! Great job as well!

teddy

Thanks guys! I actually didn't think your suggestions would make it better at first, but then I realized that the performance seemed more professional and, well, less boring. Thank you to all that helped, especially Ethan and Brian.

BrianMillerMagic

Glad to do it. Kudos on taking the advice and implementing it.

Ethan the Emazing

No problem, glad to help.

Liam

didnt catch the first preformance, but the second one was quite enjoyable.
i've seen so many increadibly boring mercuries, but yours made some sence.
the people on this forum really know their stuff