Richard Hatch's Cups and Balls

[erdnasephile]

Just came across this video. Great routine by Richard Hatch--fooled me in several places. Nice!

[MagicbyAlfred]

it is very nice. Entertaining and cleanly executed. i particularly liked the production of the wand from the purse, and some unique vanishes i had never seen before. The jazzy swing music sets the tone and propels the pacing. Still think nothing tops four different fruits as final loads, though (well, except maybe Johnny Ace Palmer's live chicks).

[Leonard Hevia]

Thank you for posting that Erdnasephile! A nice well thought out routine.

[Richard Hatch]

Thanks for the nice comments. That video was made by Scott Cervine in his hotel room at the Beverly Garland Hotel during a break at the 2009 LA Conference on Magic History where he also filmed John Carney doing a nice coin sequence:

Both these videos ran continuously on loops during the Houston Museum of Natural Science exhibit on the "Science of Magic" that Scott expertly curated which ran for about six months in 2010 and which featured live performances as well as numerous magic artifacts. Here a links to some of the other videos Scott produced for or about the exhibit:




A couple of comments on the cups and balls video: Scott added the music after the fact. Considering that, it worked pretty well. When I perform it silently to live music (violin and piano) we use a Scott Joplin piece and I perform it on a Bob White table (see video link below), but I mostly perform it without music on a special board made for me by Joe Anderson and held by two spectators (inspired by the Ross Bertram design, but modified). Here's a video of my very first performance using Joe's board six years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_txoK8WPZeA
And here's a performance from 4 years ago at our current home venue, the 1878 Thatcher-Young Mansion in Logan, Utah with the live music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b2872sC_rU

PS: The HMNS video is a little embarrassing to me as it has a very bad flash of a palmed ball at one point (I won't say where!). No one mentioned it during the entire run of the exhibit, so I assume the misdirection at that point covered the flash, but if you know where to look, it is quite obvious!

[Steve Bryant]

The last two links are the same. Could we see the one with the music, please?

[Richard Hatch]

The last two links are the same. Could we see the one with the music, please?

Sorry, thanks. I've edited it to correct, but here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b2872sC_rU

[Steve Bryant]

Bravo. Thanks.

[Pete McCabe]

I particularly like the vanish at 1:22 (and other places). I believe Richard credited it to Neil See (sp?) when I saw him do it at the Castle some years back.

[Richard Hatch]

I particularly like the vanish at 1:22 (and other places). I believe Richard credited it to Neil See (sp?) when I saw him do it at the Castle some years back.

Yeah, that's the "Neil See Ball Vanish" described in The Close up Magic of Frank Garcia, Part II. Neil taught me the move and did it beautifully, but was a bit embarrassed that Garcia published it under his name, since he considered it basically the Roy Benson sponge ball vanish from the latter's bowl routine, except that Neil used a regular ball and did it in his cups and balls routine. It is one of the easiest retention vanishes and very effective. Looks even better live than on video.