Time to be creative...

Ben Train · Time to be creative...

You show a burning match, place it in your empty hand (ouch!), it vanishes, and then...

what?

What happens next? Does it reappear? Does something else introduced earlier (say, a photo) change accordingly?

Let's see who can come up with the best response.

Winner gets a wicked trick, something few magicians know, taught to them via youtube (private video made specifically for them!)

Ben

Jeffrey Tong

Do we just post an idea, or do also have to come up with the method? Assuming the idea is possible.

Liam

can we enter more than once?

Huruey

You show a burning match, place it in your empty hand (ouch!), it vanishes, and then...

..you reveal a car-... (Joking Razz

)

...a flame suddenly bursts from the tip of your index finger. You use that for whatever you needed the match for in the first place.

...with a smoky cough you open your mouth and pull out the still burning match.

Here's my favourite one...

...claim that it hasn't vanished, only turned invisible. You hold the invisible match and proceed to light several candles with it. You ask a member of the audience to place their hand near it but not too close and to be very careful, and they can actually feel the heat of it burning. You drop it into your glass of water from a height. No match can be seen falling, but there is a sizzle and a whiff of smoke from the surface of the water, and the dead match can now be seen inside the glass, taken out and given away.

Reuben The Great

Doesn't it seem as if all of Ben's contests, may just be a secret call for ideas for his own routines? Razz

Just kidding (not really though)

Do we post the ideas here, and do we need methods?

Ben Train

Hey guys.

Enter as many time as you like!

Liam- I LOVE the lighting of the candles. Funky bro.

Jeff- method be damned. If you WANT to post one, sure. Otherwise just have fun.

Mr. Kazeem Mabubbi- I've only posted one thing I was working on. The other ideas were things I thought were interesting but haven't had the time to work on yet.

This piece though IS something I do in formal performances, and I have two routines with. Like EVERYTHING I do, I'm still not happy with it (well, I AM happy with it, or I wouldn't use it, but I think I can be HAPPIER).

So, it's a win-win. You guys give me some ideas, and I'll teach the winner something pretty darn cool.

Ben

Liam

That was Huruey who said the lighting candles idea, not me.

This is my entry... it doesnt really follow the contest to a tee, but i think its similar enough to post in this thread. And you guys might find it interesting. Smile

So far tonight i've done many magical things. Many of wich involved me impossibly moving something from one place to another. Your bill into the lemon. Your card into my pocket. The spongeballs back under the cup. Those where all impossible, you would probably agree. But now i would like to try something truely unbelievable.
*take out box of matches and an opake glass*
I am going to take one of the matches, and place it under the glass. Sir could you put your finger ontop of the glass? excelent now no one can get in. Now i am going to try something here that only a few people can do on this planet, and even of those who can no one can do it that well. I'm an going to transport energy from one place to another.
*Strike up a new match*
Now ask any physisist, fire is not mass. Fire is energy in a pure form, but in one we can see. Now here comes the hard part for me.
*Push flaming match through your right hand as a fist, it emerges with no fire on it. Grab the match with your left hand and with your right hand make a tossing gesture towards the cup*
I have done it! I have taken the energy off of the match here and placed it onto the mathc under the cup. Take a look.
*Everyone sees that match that was placed under the cup normal, is now on fire. Everyone knows they have witnessed something truely unbelievable*

So thats my entry.
Kinda cheated because the match doesnt disappear, but.... meh.

Ben Train

Hey Liam,

thanks!

Hu,
Sorry bro, and thank you!

teddy

"We've all taken physics classes in high school. However, there are some aspects of science that we still don't understand. I want to show you something that you didn't learn. You didn't learn it because it is one of the things that nobody, including myself, really understands. I only know how to manipulate this phenomena slightly.

Everything in the universe is either energy or matter. This match is wood. Wood is matter. However, the fire *lights match* is energy. It is easy to transfer energy, like sound waves which are passed along a telephone line. However, I can transfer energy without using any tools for assistance.

Matter is a different thing. It is pretty much impossible to harness and transfer by itself. However, when I do manipulate energy, some matter usually goes along with it."

The magician gives the match to a spectator to hold. He concentrates on the match and it suddenly goes out.

The magician holds up his fist and lets a spectator feel it. It is almost burning hot. He brings the fist up to his mouth. He then blows into his fist and smoke shoots out of the other opening of his fist.

"I transferred the fire (energy) to my hand. Needless to say, the third form of matter, gas, came along with it in the form of smoke.

I hope in a few years scientists will be able to figure that one out. I certainly can't."

Actually, this sounds pretty good. I have a working method for almost all of it as well. I can't think of how to make my hand feel hot, though.

Reuben The Great

Liked them both, will post mine soon (working on it still!)

Just a question, mainly for you Teddy but applies to Liam's too:

Who the hell gives a damn?

Read your patter and ask yourself, what keeps your spectator wanting more, interested, and as Ben said, if their food came, would they tell the waiter to hold on because they're watching your magic?

Energy transferred, matter, blah blah- why are they interested?

Just playing devil's advocate, not being a complete (insert bad word here).

Liam

Well first off, i would drastically alter the patter if i wanted to do this where the people might leave. Ei: table hoping
Second of all,
they care because, as i stated, i am going to show them something they wont see anywhere else. Not great motivation. But also, i tell them that this is much more impossible than anything they have seen yet in the show.
In essence there is no reason for anyone to give a danm about any magic trick. Think about it. If a trick actually accomplished anything worth doing i would be mass produced and sold to normal people.

Danm, Reuben Kazeem Mabubbi, you got me thinking of a justification and now i think my entry was crap due to the lack of one...

Well from all of the think i've done over the last year the two ways to justifie what you are doing are:
-Demonstration
-Story

I'm sure in not the first to come up with something like that, but that is what i've come to.

And i guess that my effect is a demonstration.
The magician is demonstrating a skill that no one has.
I'll try to come up with something better Razz

Teddy, i gotta ask:
Was your entry inspired by mine?
Not accusing, just asking.
Just because both of ours have to do with moving energy, and you also didnt vanish a match at any point. You didnt even put it in your fist Razz

Good job so far everyone!

Reuben The Great

Hey Liam, liked your phrase about the magician displaying a skill nobody has.

After creating absolutely shit effects, with absolutely garbage justifications I realized how garbage they were. Discussing how cards have weird molecular properties that allow them to morph back together, how cards are like b rothers and have a complex dna structure-- after the meeting with Ben, i was like; wow, everything I perform is garbage.

Like Ben said, if they were to have the waiter deliver their food mid performance, they should tell the waiter to wait.

Liam

yes that is a nice question to ask yourself
i think they probably would during mine, just to see where i'm going with it.

Reuben The Great

For me, they'd be like,

YO WAITER! YOU TRIPPIN' BOY? THIS SHIZNIT OVER HERES IS PERFORMING SOME MAGICO! MAAAAAAGICO! YOU GOTS TO BE KIDDING ME UP IN THIS BURNIN' HOUSE!

And my card is STILL on the top!

Ben Train

For the record, I can count on one hand the number of times people rejected food, or asked a waiter to wait...

In theory though it's a nice idea.

So, check this out:
I started a routine talking about global warming and how we're elminating a season...

what? What the fuck was I talking about? Who cares?

Doesn't matter. Why? It was the starting position for an effect premise (and method). The end result involves me being a psychic and solving a murder mystery.

Oh this one:
Someone picks a card and I predicted it. Who cares, right? Well, now it involves them going on an adventure (less gay then it sounds...) to win some prizes, and ends with me being a princess (ok, maybe it is as gay!).

The moral? Don't worry if you start week. As long as you keep certain things in mind and finish strong!

Ben
p.s.
I'll show the first trick I mentioned, with the weather/psychic/murder, at my lecture.

teddy

Liam

Another entry:
The magician demonstrate mastery of sleeving techniques iwth a flaming match. Basically, he secretly throws a flaming match up his sleeve, across his chest, down the other sleeve into his other hand. Without extinguishing the flame.
Very Happy

Michael Kras

The magi, feeling spunky, wants to woo all the chickadees at a sock-hop and decides to prove what a daddy-o he us.

He whips out his pack............ of cigarettes, removes one of the cancer sticks, and flicks it up into his mouth to show off his wicked cool skills. In the same far-out fashion, he produces a book of matches and tears a single match out of the book with speed that would make Jack Kerouac titter. He then proceeds to light that baby up, striking it sharply against his stubble. The DJ stops playing 45s, the dancers stop hand-jiving, and the entire party screeches to a halt. They watch in silence, waiting for the magi to light his cigarette. Oddly, he makes no motion to do so... just holds that burning match plenty far away from the cigarette between his lips. Suddenly, without warning, the flaming match just seems to melt away, becoming an object of nothingness. Eve Arden SHREIKS and points at the magi's face.... shockingly, the cigarette between his lips is now alight and smoking! The magi walks outside to finish his cigarette, while Johnny Casino and the Gamblers get on the stage to perform their rendition of Love Me Do.

Liam

Ben Train

Contest is... over!

The winner has been contacted.

Ben

Jeffrey Tong

God damnit, I was waiting for the last moment to enter. Lol, nvm now. Good job to the winner! (Contact me to teach me the trick Very Happy

).

teddy

Michael Kras

Liam

just the writting was ridiculous

Michael Kras

Sorry for being creative.

Liam

not ridiculous in a bad way

Michael Kras

I know

. I was just channelling Paul Harris when I wrote it. Smile

.

Huruey

And it seems there is no winner xD. Nice joke, Ben.

Liam

so you didnt win Huruey?
i thought it was you.
it wasnt me so it must be.... mike?

Michael Kras

Not me... Teddy?

Liam

Ben Train

Hey guys,

I had someone (who may or may not be a registered member here) who emailed me something that I thought stuck close to the effect but was super creative.

Remember- you were supposed to run free with the idea but you had a limitation: the effect had to be a match vanishing from the hand.

There were some super cool ideas here, but some of which got away from the EFFECT, which was: a vanishing match.

There's always next time.
Ben

Michael Kras

Thank you Ben! Alway enjoy your contests.

Reuben The Great

LIAR!
there , I said it.

Ben Train

Reuben The Great

Huruey

EDIT: I er.... I did NOT win...

Joe

Ben Train

Shhhh!

Doh! I meant to tell you to keep it a secret. You and someone else won- it was a tie.

Ben