MAGIC INVENTORS! DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

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Well after a few months of hard work on my new magic effect "OUT of the BOX" that was supposed to come out July 3rd 2013 has come to a hard screeching stop.  I sent in a video demo of the effect to a magic distributor and they loved it. They thought that this was going to be a hit. I was in the process of researching and couldn't find anything like it. A few days ago I had a skype meeting to go over some of the logistics of the effect. I was very excited that I would have another effect on the market.

I asked the expert  that  approves and oversses all the magic that they sell if he had seen anything like it and his reply at the time was no. He is a walking "Tarbell" encyclopedia. He is the go-to guy. The guy that decides if a effect will sell or not. After going through numerous demonstrations of the effect and talking about marketing, packaging....I asked him again. "Are you sure there is nothing like this on the magic market" there has to be someone I can credit. He said "hold on! I do remember one thing. Let me check" He went to youtube to check out a video. He sent me a link over the skype and said "This isn't good" I panicked! and as I watched the first few seconds of the video I felt like I was watching another magician performing my effect.

I knew right away that I had a problem. I knew that this was the end of my effect "OUT of the BOX" Not only am I "OUT of the BOX," but I'm "OUT of IDEAS!"

Despite the situation I found it kind of humerus. It's amazing how this seems to happen to magicians more often then you think. A magician comes up with a idea for a effect, puts it on the market and then the next thing you know a magician is calling you up yelling at you and accusing you of steeling his/her effect. Meanwhile your oblivious to what they are even talking about. Even when you do your homework you could still miss something.

I remember a few months ago I contacted a magician about a idea about having a book that opens up a butterflies fly out. He said "Mark! I sell this" and then thew in "You have to do your homework!"
 I felt so little. I felt like I wanted to grab my self by the hair and kick my ass by slamming my self into the wall. Except I'm bald so I'm okay for today. It kind of reminds me of the movie with "Jim Carry-Liar Liar"

 



I really shouldn't be so hard on myself because in actuality I was doing my HOMEWORK by contacting the magician and asking him. If I didn't approach him I wouldn't of know that he had created the effect I would of probably tried to market it and problems could of surfaced.

One thing that I know is that things don't happen just by chance. I believe that people are brought together  by coincidence chance for a reason. When this happen you have to pay close attention because there can be some underlined message or fate. I believe that when things like this happen you have to listen. You could just ignore it and push it off as "Well! that was strange" and move on not putting the pieces together.

The art of magic is somewhat limited. There is only so much we can do, therefore we are left with taking the same methods and construction of props and changing the structure, shape, adding taking away..... just to get a different way/method to present it. If you think about it I'm quite impressed that we can do what we do with material to make magic. Think about all the wonderful things we have. A coffee machine, washer dryer, car or rocket ship. They are really cool but they don't have the same magical impact that magic has. Now take a "Zig Zag" and WOW! now that's something! You can't drive it, it doesn't go to space, yet it seems more magical then our inventions that are reality. At the same time much thinking and effort went into the creation of those wonderful inventions such as  the car, airplane and oh yes! the Mac, but in comparison which of those seem to have the most magic compared to magic itself? Think about it! You can have a really cool modern car and then show a really cool illusion next to that car. Which one seems more magical?

After discovering the news about that somebody already came out with this effect I started think to myself "Maybe I should contact the inventor. Maybe the effect didn't sell good and I could get their blessing to go forward with the effect." I decided to contact him and asked him how his effect was coming along. He told me that it was going great and that he is planning on making another dvd and even writing a book on it. I told him about my effect that I thought was original, but found out that you have already thought about it a few years earlier. I decided to offer him a look at my video in case I might of come up with something different or improvements which it turns out I did. I was kind of saddened, but at the same time I felt good that I did the right thing.

A few hours later a gentlemen that has been helping the inventor of the trick contacted me and said that he would love to see what I have came up with and told me that he will be happy to credit me in his book. I thought wow! this is almost better then coming up with the actual effect itself. I was never in a magic book. Wow! this is great! I told him I would have no problem helping him.

When I was talking to the man on the phone he was complementing as well as impressed that i contacted the inventor. He told me how the younger generation of magic doesn't seem to carry on the old school "Ethics of Magic" where you research, contact and credit people. I hope that
thorough this blog post article it may inspire magicians to do the right thing and do the research for any magic idea/invention they have. We have to embrace and support one another.

We are a small community, but we can be BIG and grow through establishing a strong foundation of Ethics, support, generosity and IMAGINATION!

-Imaginator-