Fallen Cards is the title of an amazing magic-related film project on Kickstarter worthy of your consideration and funding.

Unlike most films with putative ties to our art, the folks behind the project are either magicians or magic enthusiasts. The plot is great, the actors are all accomplished and some big names from the world of magic are promoting the project.

We have some familiarity with the way movies are made. The movie Michael starring John Travolta went from completed script by Inside Magic Favorites Jim Quinlan and Pete Dexter to its theater debut pretty quickly by Hollywood standards – about 12 years. Film production is apparently a costly, time-consuming and complex process – who knew?

The magic on screen requires the combined talents of writers, directors, actors, set designers, special effects experts, high-priced lawyers, best boys, grips, riggers, wranglers and caterers.

(We do not know what best boys or grips do but they always appear in credits so it must be important and apparently only the really good ones make it to the top of their profession. We worry about their self-esteem issues, however).

While Fallen Cards is a smaller production than Michael, it faces its own costs and logistical hurdles. That’s where you come in. By being a producer of the film, you share in the process and will hopefully bask in the glory.

The team behind Fallen Cards want the magic to be performed rather than generated by computers and special effects folks. That was the key for us.

The film sprung from a comment made during a card session. “What if we created a superhero, but he was a martial arts magician!” That was four years ago. After drafting, revisions, auditions, site scouting and planning, Fallen Cards is ready to go from concept to concrete expression.

While there is more to the movie than a magician performing tricks – apparently non-magicians insist on some sort of plot or structure in their magic movies – the magic will be authentic.

Rich Manley, the project’s creator said he wanted to showcase all types of magic. “There have been many films about magic with actors portraying magicians, but poorly performing the art. We wanted to change that and make sure that our actors were also professional magicians.”

Mr. Manley is joined by his producing partners: the beautiful Kristina Ellery and richly-talented Zachary Kamen. The trio have enlisted the talents of magicians Dan and Dave Buck and Rob Zabrecky to keep the magic real – if that makes sense. We understand Ms. Ellery will also appear in the film as the lovely and beguiling Minx.

The plot is a grabber. Here’s the meta description:A magician must confront the overwhelming discovery that he possess real powers over his mastery of illusion and sleight of hand while searching for the whereabouts of his missing father and avoiding the forces of two evil factions who wish to obtain the source of his ability.

So far, so good.

The story is set in the year 2200. Things are not going so well for our planet. Mr. Manley describes the gritty backdrop as “a post-apocalyptic world resurrected by greed, and the foul desire to create a new world order under tyranny and false pretenses.”

We should note that while we are big fans of “false pretenses” we are decidedly against tyranny, greed and most “foul desires.” But without “false pretenses” we would still be wearing water-proof clown make-up, insulting fair patrons and hoping they could not throw accurately enough to trigger the dunk mechanism. We liked the corn dogs, though.

Back to the story. The earth is in lousy shape. There has been a nuclear war and civilization is on the ropes. The globe is occasionally populated with settlements and cities that dot the arid landscape representing “man’s last attempt at rebuilding civilization, some more advanced than others.”

The Outlands feature dune-shaped huts and small villages. The Outlands is the home of Osiris – a mystical ghost town resurrected by a leader known as the People’s Guru.

Harbor City was once called Los Angeles but is now best described as “the mecca for humanity, but also the capitol for mankind’s greed.” Picture Las Vegas that runs not on booze and the inability of a gaming public to understand statistics but steam energy and “gears and cogs.”

[This last sentence has been edited to correct the spelling of “cogs” from “clogs.” The spell-checker did not highlight the mistake and we should have wondered if a town could really be built on wooden shoes. We regret the error.]

The hero is Tommy Blades. He is “a young, aspiring magician” heading to Harbor City following his mother’s murder and his father’s disappearance.

He has chops – literally. He performs magic and demonstrates amazing dexterity with swords. Armed with these skills, he quickly gains fame and notoriety in the town’s casino showrooms. But Tommy is more than Robert Houdin’s description of a magician, “an actor playing the part of a magician.” He possesses real magical powers.

The team intends Fallen Cards to take the form of a television series. The Kickstarter funds will let them make a 20 minute film they can use to shop to networks as a pilot.

You can read a breakdown of the costs and logistical challenges they face on their Kickstarter page. Their goal is $45,000. They have just about $2,000 thus far and 23 days to make up the difference. Kickstarter will only fund the project if they reach their $45,000 goal. If they come up a dollar short, the project is not funded. It is all or nothing.

Check out their page, watch the very entertaining trailer, meet the cast and team, and then pledge something to help this project. We are impressed with their vision and the work they have done thus far. Let’s help them make it a reality.

Visit their Kickstarter page here.

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The International Magicians Society honored Arab performer Dr. Montaser Al Mansouri a second Merlin Award for Magic. The award makes the Emirati magician the first Arab to receive two Merlin Awards. A fellow Emirati performer told reporters he turned down the award last year when he learned he would have “to pay” to receive it.

Dr. Al Mansouri told the English-Language news site The National, “The Merlin is like the Oscars of magic,” he said. “I’m happy to get the Merlin Award and it’s big for a magician, the UAE and for Arabs.”

Dr. Al Mansouri gained notoriety and the International Magicians Society’s notice after giving 70,000 performances over 25 years. (Our math may be off, but that averages 2,800 performances a year or more than 7-1/2 shows a day every day for each of the 25 years – that is a ton of shows).

But it is not mere quantity, the International Magicians Society also looks for the qualitative attributes award worthy magicians possess. The Society’s Chairman Tony Hassini told reporters, “We look for showmanship, skills and talent and so it’s an award that the magician has to work hard for. The idea is to be persistent and stay with it and get it.”

The Emirates Zoo flew Mr. Hassini to Abu Dhabi to present the award. The zoo, you say. Why would Dr. Al Mansouri be honored in a zoo?

Mr. Hassini explains, “some of the greatest magicians who received this award worked in adventure parks. This is where the audiences are. They do five to six shows a day to mass audiences like Disneyland.”

Ah, that explains the incredible volume of shows.

Whilst Dr. Al Mansouri makes snakes and tigers vanish as part of his act at the zoo, he looks forward to bigger objects upon which to practice his magic. “I could make an airplane disappear in Dubai Airport and make it appear at Abu Dhabi airport,” he said.

The award was not without controversy, however. The National reported Emirati magician, Moein Al Bastaki – known for making the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa (pictured) disappear last year – claimed he was offered the award in 2012. “I was told I had to book the tickets and the venue. If I had to pay to get the award I was not interested in getting it,” he said. “I believe in people seeing the magic and getting it and letting them judge you.”

Mr Hassini countered Mr. Al Bastaki’s suggestion that the award was for sale. “One way is to receive it is at the banquet dinner in Las Vegas and there is another in Saigon. Those who want an award will have to travel there,” he said.

The Society hopes to encourage the expansion of magic in the region.

“It’s almost forbidden here,” Mr. Hassini said. “They look at it as black magic but we’re trying to introduce it the best we can. When we nominated an Arab magician, we hoped to educate the Arab public.

“It’s possible in the future to bring in some magicians here. Not David Copperfield. He’s too expensive but someone of the same calibre and do a tour of major cities and do it as an art and not as a black magic.”

Read the full article at The National here.

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Magician and movie consultant David Kwong founded The Misdirectors’ Guild as “an elite group of magicians who specialize in illusion and deception for film and television.” He and his colleagues have been busy of late with Hollywood films like The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Now You See Me and Red Lights starring Robert De Niro as a mind-reader and mentalist. (It apparently had a limited release in the United States but we heard the first thirty minutes featured the debunking of spiritualism tricks).

The Misdirectors Guild site lists several other Mr. Kwong and his group helped. It is a pretty impressive list.

“Magic is all storytelling,” says Mr. Kwong told FastCoCreate.com. “It has an arc that’s introduced, then played out for the big reveal. There’s a foreshadowing along the way. I like the idea of putting clues out there is plain sight–introducing the simplest of magic tricks, then making their concept play out in a big way.”

He would know. Mr. Kwong is not only a real-life magician, but he has also worked with some of the true big names in our business; like Ricky Jay and David Copperfield. For Now You See Me, Mr. Kwong worked with the director and screenwriters to “make the illusions in the film as plausible as possible, while furthering the plot.” That is a tough job. There has to be a temptation to save the time and money necessary to teach actors sleight of hand with a few well-placed computer-generated imagery (“CGI”).

Mr. Kwong was on the Now You See Me set for about eight months teaching card sleights to the cast. He claims the film tried to keep the magic real. “All the illusions in the film are based on real practical effects,” Mr. Kwong told FastCoCreate.com. “Even a 3-D projection done on the side of a building is now used as a marketing tool. The actors employed a fair amount of real sleight of hand.”

Mr. Kwong conceded he could not make master magicians out of the actors – not in less than a year, at least – and perhaps you should not even try.

“You don’t master sleight-of-hand in eight months, but you can learn isolated flourishes for the camera,” Mr. Kwong said. “Jesse learned how to change one card to another, but he didn’t learn the whole trick in which it’s done. It’s more of a need-to-know basis. You don’t want to give away too many secrets to laymen.”

We like the way he thinks.

Check out The Misdirectors Guild website and David Kwong’s personal site for great magic and cool web-based tricks.

The post David Kwong’s Misdirectors Guild Makes Movie Magic appeared first on Inside Magic.

Las Vegas magician Jan Rouven charged fellow Las Vegas magician Criss Angel swiped his “Bed of Death” illusion for Mr. Angel’s new Spike television series, BeLIEve. Mike Weatherford detailed Mr. Rouven’s claims in May 17th Las Vegas Review Journal column.

Mr. Angel claimed the inspiration for the stunt was Clive Barker’s film “Lord of Illusions.”

Mr. Rouven said Mr. Angel’s version of the escape differs from the film and more closely resembles Mr. Rouven’s version. In the film, a magician needs to escape falling swords. The version Mr. Rouven performs in his show at the Riviera has an audience member choose the order of the falling swords.

Mr. Angel denied the accusation flatly. “They’re in a glass house,” he said.

Mr. Weatherford reported that Mr. Angel alleged Mr. Rouven performs illusions without the inventor’s permission. The Rouven camp denied those charges.

“I go out of my way to get people’s permission,” Mr. Weatherford quoted Mr. Angel as saying. “I deal with this on a much larger level than any of these people. … Do you think I would really need to do something like that?”

Fast forward to Robin Leach’s Strip Scribbles column one week later.

The peripatetic columnist for The Las Vegas Sun reported that California’s Malloy Modern Magic claims Mr. Rouven is performing two of their “exclusive illusions” in his Riviera show. Mr. Leach said Malloy Modern Magic sent an email (to whom, he does not say) in which they promise to take action. ”We will be pursuing all our legal rights in connection with the use of our Subspiker and Prediction chest illusions that he does without our permission or approval of our rights. We had an exclusive fabricator deal to create these, and he has failed to obtain our permission.”

The intellectual property lawyer part of us (the part that pays the bills) wonders what cause of action Malloy Modern Magic could bring against Mr. Rouven — assuming their claims are accurate. It is unfortunate that the theft of magic secrets by itself is generally not a tort. On the other hand, the false claim of theft may be considered slanderous or libelous.

It may be distasteful and not nice, but unless there is a patent or a specific contract restricting the alleged thief’s behavior, there is nothing for a court to do. Of course, we do not know the facts or even the accuracy of the claims so we are not providing an opinion whether a cause of action exists or should exist. How is that for a lawyer’s disclaimer?

It is clear that the claim of theft is a very serious charge in our business. It is interesting that the non-magic media apparently thinks so as well.

The post Magicians Criss Angel, Jan Rouven & Malloy Magic Point Fingers appeared first on Inside Magic.

Inside Magic Favorite Magician Dan Garrett’s newest effect Heartz is a winner.

We have spent incredible amounts of money for effects we have never used or even opened. Most of the items were brought home and immediately condemned to permanent storage in our old steamer trunk or magic junk drawer.

Those effects probably grabbed our interest initially but lost their luster by the time we returned to our estate. We are neither wasteful nor wealthy so we have tried to break this habit.

We now only buy magic tricks that we will actually perform. It does not have to be a trick we would include in our professional act. If we are sure we will perform it somewhere for someone, it is worthy of further consideration.

Few tricks may the cut.

Mr. Garrett’s Heartz is one of those very few tricks worthy of our attention and funds.

Here is what the audience sees. We know this to be true because we sat in the audience during Mr. Garrett’s lecture last week when he performed.

The magician’s hands are empty. He or she brings them together to form a heart shape. The hands are still empty. Slowly, the hands are rotated and a bright red sponge heart magically appears.

Let us review.

Hands are empty.

Hands are brought together to form the shape of a heart and can still be seen to be empty.

The hands turn slightly and a red heart appears between the fingers.

We were fooled and we watched Mr. Garrett carefully – we were getting wise to his tricky ways by that point in the lecture – and were amazed when the red heart appeared.

He held a red pen behind the sponge heart to resemble Cupid’s arrow. In one fluid movement, the heart was split into two separate hearts; setting up a nice sponge ball routine with love as its theme.

Mr. Garrett has the sponge hearts made by the experts at Goshman. They are super soft but resilient so they are easily manipulated and handled. The method for production is straight-forward and within the reach of even novice magicians so your focus can be on the presentation.

As always, Mr. Garrett’s instructions are top-notch and include additional suggestions for your routine. We loved the trick and its natural flow from empty hands to two hearts appearing in your spectator’s hand. It will be a piece your audience will remember. Heartz is a commercial effect with real magic and a great story. It will not end up in your junk drawer. Rather, we predict it will receive a special place in your routine.

Read more about Heartz and see the full-page advertisement (PDF) here.

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