Maryland Magicians – Multiplying Bottles Effect

David, I’m going to start off by saying that this effect was entertaining, and that’s really what it’s all about, right? Also, I should thank you for sending me your video and bringing me out of retirement!

You have a lot of energy when you perform this, but it’s kinda scary, like “my-high-school-football-coach-kind-of-energy”.  This make you unique, and I think you would be far better served maintaining the energy, but slowing down…slowing down…SLOW DOWN!!! There is enough going on in this effect already to make it confusing to people, and it’s almost as if you’re worried that they are going to figure out how you did it if you go too slowly. But that’s not true. Really. They won’t figure it out. So make absolutely certain that they see all of your magic moments. As it stands, you are steamrolling over almost every single magic moment.

You make a lot of exaggerated movements, which works well with your character, BUT the audience focus is more on your movements than the magic itself. You have to change this and point out the magic. I could sense times in the video where the audience wanted to applaud, but you wouldn’t let them. You either talked over them, or just kept plowing forward with your hyperspeed bottle conjuring.

One big mistake that I saw in your logic is this: You needed the audience participation in saying “change” to hypothetically make the bottle and cup switch places, but you didn’t need them to say it again, to make them change back? I know this is kind of a “mock trick” for humor, but still, make them say “change” every time. In fact, I think your routine would be funnier if you took this advice. After they say the word “change”, make them all say “CHANGE BACK!” – That’s funny stuff. You can use it!

Changing the bottle and cup back and forth (and I feel like I’m being redundant here but it needs to be said,)  needs to be done slowly. Yup. You heard me. Slowly. Keep your energy, David, but relax, and let the magic happen.

One more time, the faster you go, the less amazing and more confusing the effect becomes. And we all know what Dai Vernon said, right?

This may be a personal thing, but I have never been a big fan of the “slow that down” cliche. It’s old, it’s offensive, and it’s boring.

There’s a lot of potential here, just remember that high-energy doesn’t have to be fast. Your personality and character are high energy enough.

Thanks for submitting your video.

Rating: THREE YIELD SIGNS – Yield to the Magical Moments, Yield to Audience Applause, and Yield to your desire to do everything so fast.

(Ratings are completely arbitrary. How the heck could I use yield signs for a rating system if they weren’t arbitrary?)

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