EMC live preview right now

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mrgoat
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EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 26th, 2012, 4:17 pm

I'm sat in the backstage area at EMC 2012 and the live preview is going on right now. Get some behind the scenes action at www.essentialmagicconference.com

I'm sat here with Max Maven on one side and Steve Cohen on the other side.

Amazing.

Come and check it out now.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby Magic Newswire » July 26th, 2012, 4:24 pm

And register now!! http://bit.ly/Qf4hIb

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 6:18 am

I'm sat in the greenroom waiting for the conference to start. The atmosphere here is electric. I'll be posting updates throughout the day.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 7:32 am

Tom Stone is punching me, LIVE at EMC2012

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 7:41 am

Little bit of iPhone video of Daniel Madison showing Marvin Berglas some gamblers' cop work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCY5v3r_xtQ

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 8:25 am


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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 9:13 am

Graham Jolley backstage at EMC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhaky-Ktogw

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 9:44 am


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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 10:11 am

*Another* surprise speaker?

Hell yes.

Mr David Blaine is live in the house.

David motherf**king Blaine.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 11:35 am

Eric Mead opens EMC2012 joking it is the Eric Mead Conference. Talking about advice for young magicians starting, studying the classics. Don't learn from one source. Find as many sources as you can on the trick you are interested in.

READ. Read as much as you can. The only way you can get some of the knowledge is from books. Reading forces you to use your imagination.

Be original. Not inventing new tricks, but finding something to say that is unique to yourself. Great example of this is Mac King.

Failure is your friend. Failing is part of the process of learning magic.

Most import way to learn magic is to perform magic. Not annoying friends and family by constantly doing magic, but to seek out opportunities where you can perform. Fund raisers, volunteering, etc.

Armando Lucero is the first performer, who demonstrated some typically elegant card magic set to music.

Denis Behr is next up with a talk on stacked decks, starting with a demonstration with the amusing help of David Williamson as a spectator. A great card revelation followed by a bridge demonstration. Williamson picked with of the 4 hands should get hearts. He selects the 3rd seat. Surely enough during the deal, that seat gets all the hearts. Would you believe it? The other seats all get all 13 cards of the suits Williamson chose for them.

He goes on to explain to effects. And has no gimmicks to sell afterwards! #refreshingchange

Session Four

Michel Clavello is next up demonstrating some effects with The Invisible Hand. Ever wondered about hold outs? This man is an expert. He starts with a story about how he went to magic shop as a kid and wanted to learn a trick about vanishing a silk. Next he gets a spectator out of the audience and plays a 'game' with her that is a lovely cut and restored rope. First reference is Houdin in 1881. He goes into the history of the gimmick. Then explains The Invisible Hand set up and hook up in immense detail. He explains the add on gimmicks you get for vanishing a ball, producing fire, a silk pull, just wonderful

Session Five

Guy Hollingworth shows us a wonderful card trick he explains how he is cursed to predict the future and no one believes him. He tells us what card Marco Tempest will pick and then follows the fairest possible selection procedure, with cards being elimated based on Mr Tempest's choices, and lordy lordy, his prediction was correct. Lovely stuff.

Session six

Bill Malone is lecturing about comedy and magic. About lessons that HE learned "along the way". He shows us his first slide. It is a picture of a slide. :)

He is explaining about his start in magic aged 17 at a magic restaurant. No patter, no idea about presentation or character. And how a fellow magician working the restaurant got all the attention and he didn't. He realised that it was about being a likeable person. Relaxed, smiling, making them feel they were part of the show. He learned the importance of making magic entertaining. How chops and skills don't really matter, but being likeable is.

Session Seven

Q&A with questions from the conference attendees.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby Ted M » July 27th, 2012, 12:46 pm

Goat, thanks! This is great stuff.

Could you maybe start a new thread for it called EMC 2012 Day One or similar, so your writeups are more easily found later?

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 1:31 pm

Ted M wrote:Goat, thanks! This is great stuff.

Could you maybe start a new thread for it called EMC 2012 Day One or similar, so your writeups are more easily found later?


I'm really pleased you appreciate it. It's much harder work than I thought it would be. I have new found respect for people that blog conferences now!

I'll ask Mr K to maybe edit the thread title.

Tomorrow I will start a new thread.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 2:10 pm

Session Eight

Topas introduces the next session. Graham Jolley. He starts with a card prediction, follows with the coloured snooker ball routine where Guy Hollingworth was the volunteer. He follows this with a prediction of a holiday destination, companion and amount of spending money needed. Then a ridiculously good newspaper test. He ends with something that was so good it scared me slightly. A word, a 3 digit number and a bunch of playing cards and finishes with the medallion

Session Nine

Steve Cohen talking about his hero Malini and visiting his house, and a previously unknown story. Amazing tale about Malini visiting someone for dinner, walking in and taking out a hand drill. He drills a hole in the wall, wood shavings falling onto the floor, he takes out a hook and screws it in, takes off his coat and hangs it on the wall. Dinner happens. At the end of the evening, Mailini takes the coat, and hook and leaves. And leaves no hole in the wall, no mark, no damage at all.

Session Ten

Marco Tempest talking about his process in creating moments of astonishment. How you can make magic without doing 'tricks'. We get an insight into how he works, and getting amazing videos from his latest TED show.

Session Eleven

Performance From Hiro Sakai. 3 fly with different colour poker chips, a wonderful transposition effect with rings in a coin purse and a key and invents a perpetual motion machine using a cat and some buttered toast. No, really.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 2:57 pm

Session Twelve

Woody Aragon

Does a talk on interactive magic, he starts by demonstrating possibly the best interactive trick I've seen, where the audience take 4 cards, shuffle, rip them in half, select one half a card and place it on the table, they then swop cards with people next to them, and go through all manner of shenanigans eliminating cards one at a time and incredibly at the end the last card you are left with matches the half you picked at the beginning. NO BLOODY IDEA how it worked and it's made me want to buy his book. He then talks about why interaction is a good idea, how it creates the moment of astonishment with the audience performing the magic themselves.

Session Thirteen

Denis Behr performs a card trick with a spectator and a rubber band. To be honest, I really needed a pee, so I didn't see the trick. Bet it was awesome though. :)

Session Fourteen

A panel discussion about secrets and exposure. Very interesting.

Session Fifteen

Tom Stone performs his famous benson bowl on steroids routine. I sat next to him preparing the loads and still didn't notice when he copped them! Lovely vanishes.

Session Sixteen

This section is rounded off with another Q&A from the members of the conference.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 5:32 pm

Session Seventeen

Tom Stone talking about his magic. Starting with a quite abstract explanation about knowledge and how the more you know means the more ways you can think. He is funny and enlightening. Great insight into the way his mind works.

He then goes on to totally tip the vanishes he uses in his Benson Bowl routine, and they are not only very very sneaky, but they are astounding. Really, I am both annoyed at not even thinking he could do it like that, and delighted that he could do it like that.

Session Eighteen

The lovely Debbie talked about the importance of a magician's assistant. Telling us tricks and insights she's learned in the last 33 years of being married to the UK's sexiest magician, Mr Paul Daniels. Very informative and interesting material.

Session Nineteen

Dani Da Ortiz does a performance of his Lucky Number routine. Three speccies pick a card, and replaced at will. He then (oddly) gets the cards in the most ridiculously fair manner.

Session Twenty

Max Maven educates us about handling spectators on stage. An interesting aspect of stagecraft that is oft overlooked. The importance of different cultures and where it is acceptable to touch a spectator physically in order to manoeuvre them to where you need or want them to be.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby BrendanK » July 27th, 2012, 6:00 pm

Grrr! subscribed but unable to access any live sessions so far... wanting to see David Williamson

I am currently able to view video of Session 1... ( which is certainly better than the endless parade of National Teams currently marching into Olympic Stadium)

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby BrendanK » July 27th, 2012, 6:07 pm

..and 5 minutes later I can now access Yigal Mesika LIVE!...??

Better luck tomorrow I hope...

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 6:09 pm

BrendanK wrote:Grrr! subscribed but unable to access any live sessions so far... wanting to see David Williamson


Sorry about that Brendan.

You're not using IE are you?

If not, what error are you getting.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 6:12 pm

Session Eighteen

The lovely Debbie talked about the importance of a magician's assistant. Telling us tricks and insights she's learned in the last 33 years of being married to the UK's sexiest magician, Mr Paul Daniels. Very informative and interesting material.

Session Nineteen

Dani Da Ortiz does a performance of his Lucky Number routine. Three speccies pick a card, and replaced at will. He then (oddly) gets the cards in the most ridiculously fair manner.

Session Twenty

Max Maven educates us about handling spectators on stage. An interesting aspect of stagecraft that is oft overlooked. The importance of different cultures and where it is acceptable to touch a spectator physically in order to manoeuvre them to where you need or want them to be.

Session Twenty One

David Berglas, International Man of Mystery not only tells a wonderful story of an amazing transportation miracle he performed live on BBC tv in the 50s where cigarettes, a 10 shilling note travelled from Manchester to London. And then he explains how he did it.

Session Twenty Two

David Williamson walked on with a plate of food. And did a card trick. Where 4 10s change into kings, which change into aces, which change into queens. All motivated with the crumbs from the food. Clever, and totally fitting with his personality. Quick, but awesome.

Session Twenty Three

Yigal Mesika shares his thinking about thread. He shows some of his bill and loop work, and teaches it brilliantly by using a rubber band to show where the loops are and what is going on. Levitating bill, an effect that looks like a muscle pass, but done with a borrowed note that jumps up into his upper hand. A telekinesis effect where spec holds a pen at his finger tips that is made to fall out of his hand. He finishes with the borrowed ring that spins and falls onto the spectator's ring finger. Lovely subtleties, amazing technique and all shared in full.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 6:32 pm

Wow. I'm knackered. What a great day. More tomorrow.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby erdnasephile » July 27th, 2012, 6:46 pm

Terrific first day!

Personal highlights for me:

1. Malone's talk: just great practical advice learned in the heat of battle. So much gold here.

2. Tom Stone: breaking down part of his BB routine. So many walk around thinking they can't create anything because they don't have the "gift". Tom demonstrates that if you want to create, you gotta put in the work to make it possible.

3. Berglas' comment in the Q and A session: Nothing is too much trouble.

4. Max Maven: a tip I'm going to start using right away.

5. Dani Da Ortiz: Blowing my mind is one thing. Watching him smoke 3 pros (and their honest reactions): priceless.

6. Steve Cohen: His labor of love lecture. Plus, his Q & A response when asked "When is it ready?"

7. Graham Jolley: I hadn't known of him due to my ignorance. What a revelation--such a pro.

8. Crowd reactions. Sounds like the people there are really having fun!

The only downsides to me remain technical: lots of lags, but toward the end the tech guys got it sorted (at least for me--nice job!).

Also, I was a little disappointed (but not surprised, I suppose) by a few of the Internet comments/questions. While humor is always welcome--IMHO, some of the questions/comments seemed just mean-spirited. (Making fun of people's weight/appearance? Accusing a speaker of being drunk? Really?). I wish we could show just a little more thought and respect, especially since the targets of such flames can actually read them real time.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby John Bowden » July 27th, 2012, 7:17 pm

We seem to be up to "Session Twenty Three" of a conference with NINE Sessions

This is probably very confusing for those of you who are expecting that there are only NINE sessions.

These nine sessions include a number of speakers, performances, chats and Q & A.
Our reporter, who seems to be carried away with sessions, has managed to mix everything up or maybe didn't read up on the schedule
There were THREE sessions today, THREE more tomorrow (Sat) and THREE more on Sunday.
A full and accurate access can be had by going direct to the EMC website
http://essentialmagicconference.com/schedule

I understand that Mr Goat is out in Portugal at the EMC, in an official capacity so am surprised that he is so confusing in his reporting.

However, his report on the various speakers, performers, chats and the Q & A are indeed very comprehensive and he is to be complimented on this.

Why I mention this is because some of the registrants may be expecting a DVD for each session and be disappointed that they don't receive twenty three DVDs for each day

Hope this clarifies the situation regarding these "extra" sessions that magically appeared out of nowhere.

If anyone out there has any doubts about joining the EMC even at this late stage have no fear..............just join and you will receive full access to all NINE sessions with approx 38 speakers during the next two days of the EMC, access for a full year to downloads (of the Sessions)on the internet and of course there will be DVDs (approx 8)of the full event sent out to you, anywhere in the world, all included in the very reasonable price.

This is my third year as a member and I have found that each year the value seems to increase with the numbers and quality of the speakers. It is the best value in a convention that you can find and hopefully it will continue.

Cheers from the Emerald Isle,
John Bowden

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 8:07 pm

John Bowden wrote:
Our reporter, who seems to be carried away with sessions, has managed to mix everything up or maybe didn't read up on the schedule


Yes, dreadfully sorry, it must have been awfully confusing. No idea how anyone kept up.

What would you like me to call the individual components of each session tomorrow?

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby Tom Stone » July 27th, 2012, 8:32 pm

Session 4:1
Session 4:2 ?

Session 4,
Part 1:
Part 2:

I don't know, but you have to stop messing up like this, Damian, or I will have to pummel you again!

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby mrgoat » July 27th, 2012, 8:59 pm

I'm gonna get my Mum onto you.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby Tom Stone » July 27th, 2012, 9:04 pm

You are doing her website too?

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby John Bowden » July 27th, 2012, 9:20 pm

I have no preference as to how you should refer to each individual speaker but just found to-days method very confusing.

Perhaps Session 4: Speaker Name Talk/Performance

I'm sure in your professional capacity you will seek clarification from those who are organizing the EMC as to how each module within a session can be referred to.

Be careful out there (Tom Stone appears very tough, you could get pummeled again)

Enjoy the Conference.

Cheers from the Emerald Isle,
John Bowden.

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Re: EMC live preview right now

Postby Richard Kaufman » July 27th, 2012, 10:46 pm

It all sounds damn exciting and it's really too bad I've got so much work to do and can't watch any of it now.
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