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FISM 2018 - Day Four

Posted: July 12th, 2018, 9:58 am
by CraigMitchell
FISM 2018 - Day Four

FISM 2018 is definitely the FISM of closeup. We start the report with the day’s closeup review and what a day it’s been with ovation after ovation!

*Pere Rafart - Card - Spain
Amazing visual magic with pips swirling on the cards, pips falling off, ‘vacuumed’ off the table and returned to the cards. Beautiful. Standing ovation from a very appreciative audience. Definite prize material.

*Omar Ferret - Micro - USA
Production of saucer and cup with vanishing sugar cubes, appearing cigars and ending with appearing milk and sugar set.

*Ryan Hayashi - Micro - England
Hayashi recounts how he stopped magic to open his dojo and is asked by one of his students to show him his matrix routine. An impressive display with visual vanishes and appearances leading to a standing ovation. There was an under current of laughter throughout which I clearly missed.

*Bastie - Cards - France
A tale of his deceased grandfather and the vanishing and reappearance of the grandfathers autographed card (?) Note to the wise - singing is not a good idea at FISM. Unfortunately difficult to see the cards on the table so magic - if any - was lost.

*Lawrens Godon - Micro - France
Do performers not know that wearing sunglasses blocks your connection with an audience? A confusing act with coins, purses and an hourglass. Clarity of plot please.

*Vincent - Micro - Australia
Eye candy for magicians with some of the most amazing visual “solving” of a cube I’ve seen - with one particular appearance of the cube in the hands that looks like a Hollywood special effect. Unfortunately there is a law of diminishing returns and only so many ways you can solve a cube ( no matter how visually impossible ) before it gets repetitive. But magicians don’t care and the finale sees the dismantled cube pieces reassemble before our eyes. Standing ovation.

*Javi Bentez - Cards - Spain
A “requiem to Ascanio” with visual card printing ... and a plot thereafter which I failed to follow.

*DK - Micro - Korea
An amazingly creative act manipulating shadows with objects appearing and vanishing behind a small screen illuminated by a simple torch. Some ingenuous ideas with the entire act punctuated by audible gasps of astonishment from the audience. I have a front row seat with a fairly exposed view and still being this close could not see how some of the effects were accomplished. Prize material especially for creativity.

*Miguel Ajo - Cards - Spain
An obligatory Rubik’s cube ( poor timing in light of Vincent’s act ) along with vanishing queens, cards matching poker chips and ending with a rainbow back deck reveal and appearing rainbow tie. “Dream in color” we are told.

*Alfonso Rituerto - Micro - Germany
Coin from sugar, cup from sugar and coins across in sugar with signed coin arriving in the coffee maker.

*Lodewijk de Widt - Cards - Netherlands
A blank deck printed - card by card and then unengaging card magic in between followed by a mismatched torn and restored card. You got to work to keep my attention. This is FISM.

*Luis Olmedo - Micro - Spain
Magicians love a good coin matrix. Standing ovation.

*Jorge Linett - Micro - Argentina
Painful pirate themed act complete with eye patch, hook and a find the coin monte. Picking up a ships wheel from behind the table is sadly not magic.

*Nojima - Cards - Japan
Madcap character printing deck of cards with the four aces switching places with the 4 kings in visual eye candy fashion.

*Eric Chien - Micro - Taiwan
We have a Grand Prix contender. Table is separated in two by a ribbon down the center. Red cards on the left blue on the right. The cards literally change color midair as they cross the color line. The effect is so visual. The sequence is repeated with the cards this time morphing into coins as they pass the line. Eye candy of note!

*Bill Cheung - Cards - China
Another unbelievable act. A named card visually appears in N isolated glass on the table. Any card called for rises from the deck untouched by the magician. A phenomenal deck vanish ending with four signed cards appearing in a sealed deck topped off with the deck morphing into blanks before our eyes. If your magic doesn’t look like a special effect - you have very little prospect at this years FISM!

What a day for closeup magic!

Stage contest to follow.

Re: FISM 2018 - Day Four

Posted: July 12th, 2018, 10:45 am
by CraigMitchell
THURS Stage Contest

*The magic man - Germany - illusions
This is definitely not an Eberhard Reise act. A terrible floating table, magician having an affair with the delivery lady, inane overacting, and if you are going to do a run around into the audience please close the door from which you have entered the auditorium behind you.

*Yukihiro - Japan - Manipulation
School of dramatic poses with cards and visual color changing cards whilst isolated in a glass.

*Nikola - France - Mentalism
A confusing act with balloons and ribbons that made no sense at all followed by an illogical smash and stab routine. In an apparent display of commitment - the magician opens up the selected bag to show that it does indeed contain the nail ... but fear not, the magician shall still impale himself for our entertainment pleasure. He pushes his hand down and promptly says “ooh, the nail has disappeared” I have no clue. To end us off, the spectator is given a box with buttons. The selected blue button causes a cascade of confetti to come fluttering down. The other three buttons see the light fittings tumble from the roof. The spectator has been saved from certain death.

*Jochen Stelter - Germany - Comedy
Random numbers spray painted on balloons match a lotto ticket in a bizarre act.

*Francoise - Manipulation - Argentina
Flamenco dancer doing card and billiard ball manipulation. Painfully slow at times.

*Yuki - Japan - Manipulation
Manipulator school of dramatic poses with some stunning visual eye candy including in hand vanish of 8 billiard balls. 4K screens are sadly not kind to thumb tips,

*Yann Brieuc and Mr Houps - Comedy - France
How many times can we make our shoe vanish and reappear? Did a memo go out to all competitors prior to this years contest :-) A confusing mess ending with a tutu quick change. I fail to see the Comedy.

*Wang ping - General - China
Standing atop our wagon we float our traditional Asian guitar (cue insertion of accurate name here) Life is better whilst our Chinese maiden tends to her garden of feather flowers. Guitar to Lilly, water bowls, more feather flowers, a popup Asian guitar and the production of two sheep. Yes, two sheep ... which were met with cries of “China, China, China” from the appreciative audience.

*Elfia - France - General
A moon atop a cloud set piece - soon to become our gymnastics pole. Devil mask turned to angel whilst cavorting around the pole.

*Stuart Macdonald - USA
Set in a haunted house complete with spooky mirror and old magic book. Everything seen in the mirror is duplicated - multiplying silks, hats and money bags,

*Chris Castellini - mental - Italy
Very slow performance with random seats selected by spectators matching their colors and their names found to be written on the chairs themselves.

*Suzuki taiga - Manipulation - Japan
Lanterns on the floor, twig from lantern, popup lantern, twigs from dress and parasol from dress.

*Ran Gafner - Israel - mentalism
Rubik’s cube jukebox with each color on the cube representing a different note A xylophone prediction plays out the theme of Star Wars ending in the appearance of Darth Vader himself.

*Han Manho - General - Korea
Items are plucked from the pages of a magazine including the visual appearance of trouser suspenders that literally climbed down the performers shirt. Beautiful color changing pants.

*Florian Sainvet - Manipulation - France
Terminator does card manipulation with LED lights down the sleeves ending with a highly effective suspension / levitation. Fresh and novel.

*Cayetano Lledo - Spain - Comedy
Finally a comedy act that is humorous. A self help tape on quitting smoking sees a never ending cascade of cigarettes at the magicians hands along with a vanishing metronome that had everyone doing a double take. Fun and playful.

*Anca and Luca - Mentalism - Romania
A second sight act that bizarrely included a levitation at the end. The power of second sight is that the audience perceive it to be real. Mixing genres reduces it to “mere magic” and diminishes its strength.

*Geonho - Korea - Manipulation
Thimbles in 2018 with FISM flash and floating LEDs.

Side note - the lighting for the stage contests has been exceptional. I remain in awe of what the tech teams have accomplished with each of the acts knowing the limited time made available to them.

In fact, everything has been working like clockwork for all the contests. Amazing job to all concerned!

Gala show to follow.

Re: FISM 2018 - Day Four

Posted: July 12th, 2018, 12:34 pm
by Michael Close
Gay Ljungberg and his crew are the true wizards of FISM. Extraordinary professionalism.

Re: FISM 2018 - Day Four

Posted: July 12th, 2018, 11:18 pm
by CraigMitchell
STAGE GALA SHOW - Mixing Mysteries

After Norbert Ferre’s excellent gala show - Max Maven had an impossible task with his “Mixing Mysteries” show ... which should more accurately have been named “Mixed Bag”

Axel Adler was repeated throughout the show - and whilst very creative his pieces are single snippets - not yet fully formed and sometimes no more than visual puzzles ( his Rudy Coby style multiple legs routine for instance. ) He does not yet appear to have a complete act or was requested to split up his segments for some strange reason. Either way it makes for an unsatisfying experience.

Gaetan Bloom featured a torn card in salad in orange in kiwi ( which is more suited to the Parlour environment ) - whilst bordering on perceived inappropriate touching of a female volunteer on stage. Big burly French men should not be touching a female spectators blouse.

Mon Dre took us back to the 80s with a terribly dated dove act, bulging pants that look like wallpaper and the worlds worst mirror glass complete with dlite. The doves were not happy, the eyebrow smirk why laypeople don’t enjoy magicians and the production of a cat at the end completely bizarre.

Continuing our throwback to the past - Flip presented his act from 40 years ago. Nostalgia is one thing but the act is tired and the soundtrack sounds like it is played from the original cassette tape complete with hiss and pops.

Onto the positive ... Yo Kato presented his crowd favorite FISM manipulation act, Mark Kalin and Jinger killed with an astonishing appearance in a fully surrounded ‘dressing room cage’ that had magicians scratching their heads followed by Jinger’s beautiful floating ball sequence. Jeff and Tessa Evason presented their award winning second sight act that is undoubtedly the best in the business but sadly the impact of their performance was somewhat diminished by the poor booking choice of Thommy and Amelie having appeared in the prior gala show. Keeping the best for last was juggler extraordinaire, Fred Cie Poc.

Final score :

Norbert 1
Max 0

Re: FISM 2018 - Day Four

Posted: July 13th, 2018, 6:08 am
by Max Maven
Craig, you misunderstand the idea of gala shows. It wasn’t a contest.

Now go f*ck yourself.

Max

Re: FISM 2018 - Day Four

Posted: July 13th, 2018, 7:33 am
by CraigMitchell
Max - that comment was completely uncalled for.

My remark regarding score was tongue placed firmly in cheek.

Re: FISM 2018 - Day Four

Posted: July 13th, 2018, 8:48 am
by Max Maven
Completely called for.

You, and every other audience member, are welcome to criticize that or any show. In fact, I could provide a much more detailed critique of Thursday’s gala.

But ending with a “score” as if this were a FIFA match was genuinely insulting — and would have been even if the “scores” were reversed.

My comment stands.

Re: FISM 2018 - Day Four

Posted: July 13th, 2018, 9:28 am
by CraigMitchell
Max Maven wrote:But ending with a “score” as if this were a FIFA match was genuinely insulting — and would have been even if the “scores” were reversed.


Max, clearly the humour failed to land. I am truly sorry you are so offended - that was never the intention. But you have read *way* too much into this and taken it far too personally based on your language.

Re: FISM 2018 - Day Four

Posted: July 13th, 2018, 11:04 am
by Max Maven
Craig, as I said in our e-mail exchange, I did not take it “far too personally.” Rather, I was insulted on behalf of the twelve performers in the gala, and for that matter on behalf of the performer’s in the Magic Circus gala and beyond.

If you had simply posted your opinions, good or bad, I would have refrained from public comment.

However, I do accept your apology, and I think the matter is now closed.

Re: FISM 2018 - Day Four

Posted: July 13th, 2018, 10:35 pm
by CraigMitchell
Daily highlights videos are available on the FISM Korea FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/fism2018korea/ ... 979422486/