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yeah, I seriously want to update my blog on a regular basis, but it's not entirely up to me, I am a busy man...muhahaha...
Well, in the beginning of Dec 2007, I've got my first convention booking in Shen Zhen, China. I was invited to give a lecture on close up card magic as well as delivering a short performance.
Unfortunately, the convention was more about stage magic than close up...so...
(I'll share more of my thoughts on the convention later on)
In the best buy department:
My hero Peter Duffie just released the latest vol. of his Move Mastery series:
A Third Collection of Amazing Moves & Sleight
Data DVD containing 1hr 40 mins of amazing sleights with playing cards. Demonstrations with explainations. Plus a bonus clip of Duffie demonstrating (no explanation) the Legendary Fred Robinson Middle Deal
DVD Contents:
Ace Production
Flush Cut
Mult-table Shift
Riffle Force
TouchSpread Pass
Spread Control
Triumph
Peek Steal
Shuffle Palm
Spread Switch
Middle Double
Da-Peeko
Charlie Miller Waterfall Control
Blind Cut
Ace Production #2
Second Deal Lapping
The Strike Second Deal
The Le Paul Second Deal
Bottom DealingPLUS!Legendary Middle Deal (Demo-only)
What are you waiting for? go to www.peterduffie.com now and get it!
I can't recommand enough of Peter's works, always top notch!!!
Let's talk about my Beijing trip last month! I have got a lot to talk about Beijing, especially when you are not allowed to access Blogger in China!
1: The income and general index of expenditure
This is quite outrageous, start off, Beijing, as the capital of china, is extreme magnetic to the people in the whole of China, and many from other countries too. Everyday there are countless people from different parts of China coming to Beijing and seeking for jobs, most of them are farmers from some less/undeveloped small cities/towns, and of course, uni students.
These ex-farmers are leading a life that's extremely harsh, with very little income considering the toughness of their works, the labour is, second to nothing, in many western countries standard.
They are generally making lot less money than uni students do, as predictable, however, I was told and reconfirmed with many different sources, that a fresh graduate uni student in Beijing is normally offered around $2000 RMB, that's approximately $270 USD for monthly salary.
Alright, you better believe it, but a new flat with size of 10 sq.m (which is a standard) in Beijing costs 1-1.2 million RMB!
Now, here we go for a more interesting forms of spending money--Clubbing.
I have an anti-social tendency, therefore, Disco, a place with a lot of people and loud music is the last place that I want to go. However, I was once being dragged to a Disco in Beijing by friends during my stay. The usual practice is that you buy a set, which includes a bottle of Chivas Regal [fake ones, but normally they won't casue you serious problems] and 8 bottles of soft drinks or green tea, so that you can do the mix yourself, a set of drinks would normally cost from $600-$800 RMB.
For girls I can understand, they won't have to pay, as the males will do the job, but now the problem emerges, how could a uni. student afford it?
Philosopher's Stone - The Dynamic Card Techniques of Zenneth Kok
The primary purpose of this Beijing trip is to film the DVDs that I want to release this year. I have redone the explanation for both Killer Badge and Change is Eternal, although, a higher quality video wouldn't change their fate of being produced domestically.
Okay, so let's move on to Philosopher's Stone, the filming is done and now still working on the post edition. I was expecting to release them by the end of this month, but now I think they are not going to hit the market until early April, if not any later.
The filming was taken place at 798 art zone in Beijing, the warm bed of Chinese comtemporary arts, previously a state owned factory.
The place is fantastic, I give it my highest recommandation, if you'll ever visit Beijing, you can't afford to miss out this place.
While the venue is great, the filming session proved to be an extremely tough one, mostly because of the weather. It was extremely cold in Beijing during the few days of the filming[ -5C to -12C?]
If I take off my gloves and let my hand get in touch with the thin air, my fingers will turn numb in just about 5 seconds, my sweaty hands will turn dry in about 10 seconds. I am not joking about this, the whole outdoor filming session proved to be the greatest technical challenge to me ever! When the video is out, pay some attention to the colour of my hands, it will tell you how cold they were!!!
I made a mistake of wearing a pair of glasses with "Transition" lens, which they will turn grey or dark subject to the changes of UV. Hence, when the video is out, for the most of the time, you will see me wearing a pair of black sunglasses, although the same pair of glasses will become a normal one when I was indoor, take it as an additional effect. Well, while I won't be looking very friendly on the face of it, as a matter of fact, I actually looked like a mafia boss or Agent Smith in the video, some scenes are quite hilarious, and I just couldn't pretend to be another person anyway.
Winter in Beijing has a significantly short day time, the lighting condition will be totally unsuitable for filming after 5 p.m., and even earlier if you want to film anything indoor.
I have scarficed a lot for the filming, seriously, for two consecutive days, I woke up at 6:30 A.M.! As it takes about half an hour by taxi from Shi Jing Shan [where I stayed] to get to Beijing Film Academy [where my niece and the crew stayed], and it takes nearly an hour by taxi from there to get to 798 art zone. =.=
While the 798 art zone is meant to be a place of free spirit and creativity explosion, not too many spots allow video filming, so we had to figure out a way in order to obtain the permission to film, including but not limited to:
-pretending this is a student project
-pretending as if we are filming documentaries which will be broadcasted in German [why German? No idea, for some reasons, the shop keepers of one of the shops there suggested it before we had a chance to lie, we were meant to say Australia.]
-[yours sincerely] pretending to be a movie director from Hong Kong instructing Beijing students
The experience of outdoor filming is overwhelming, despite the fact it's highly problematic and you will have to face many variants and unpredictable events. I have promised myself that I will never do studio filming again, except the explanations maybe [hmm...on a second thought, this is a rather fragile promise...]
Anyhow, outdoor filming is extremely vivid and 100 times funnier than in the studio, what's more, facilities wise, this time we have used some highly professional ones, in a relative sense, of course.
So, let's talk about the content of this two DVDs set, it's divided into two vols., not sure about the effect of the following review on the sales of it, but heck, I am an honest person:
First of all, the running time of both volumes are not very long, without the bonus materials and some other additional materials, the first vol. runs slightly more than 45 mins, and the second vol runs approximately 55 mins.
The content, however, is top notch, sorry for the sales pitch, but I think they are really good:
Vol.1 deals with Transformation, more than 15 colour changes were performed and explained, along with some visual quickies and two longer routines. Out of all the colour changes, 8 of them are original with yours sincerely, among others, Crazy Erdnase and Zen Change Blendo along [explained in 3 Times 3 (Fourth time)] worth the price of the DVD.
Crazy Erdnase is one of my my signature items, I have been offered for the price of a DVD just to explain this move, a lot of magicians were fooled and amazed by it, in fact, to say it's one of the highlights in my lectures is not an understatment, and I have many original items in my lecture! =P
Zen Blendo is probably one of the hardest colour changes ever, but it's absolutely unique, it requires 3 or 4 cards to facilitate the change....hehee....so much for now
The Second Vols deals with (visual)Revelations:
This volume has richer content than the other one, you have my promise that you will learn many visual revelations for one, two, three, four and five cards!
Among others, I was told Full Metal ReZet and Poker in My Eyes in my youtube channel are quite sought after, now you will be see the complete and full version, a.k.a. the real work of them, with more visual revelations!
Special thanks goes to:
Gary Jones, for showing me the presentation that I used in World Record Aces, it's a fantastic presentation for four at once revelation.
Chris Kenner, for sharing his Intensity and Poker for the Eyes with us, in which they've inspired two routines in this DVD: One Two Punch and Poker in My Eyes.
Peter Duffie, for creating Room for Maneuvers [Card Compulsions], an absolutely unique piece of card magic, it's like something you have never seen before. Use your favourite revelations to produce the necessary cards [One Ace, Two Deuces, Three Threes and Four Fours] to perform the routine and you will get a fantastic show piece!
Okie, that's so much advertisement and name dropping for now...
Will be sharing more of my thoughts on Beijing in the next post.
