Silent Running

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Richard Kaufman » March 20th, 2010, 9:09 am

I've done some cleaning up here. Mr. Muir crossed the line in my opinion.
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Tom Frame
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Tom Frame » March 20th, 2010, 11:55 am

I've finished reading Silent Running. I'll begin field testing the effects to validate my initial impressions. My review will appear some time next week.

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Re: Silent Running

Postby Silly Walter » March 20th, 2010, 12:53 pm

Ben Harris wrote:Mrgoat,

This is not a one trick pdf. OK?

It is a compendium of ideas based around a concept (developed with Peter Duffie) that creates a "tool box" for practical, prop free mentalism.

The book contains:

Foreword by Looch.
History of the effect.
How Silent Running Works
How to Perform Silent Running
Routine One - The Dissolving Card
Routine Two - Direct Mind Reading
Routine Three - Spirited Card Stab

Appendix with additional material to assist in the above

Bonus Section

Bob Cassidy - two ideas
Paolo Cavalli - one idea
Devin Knight - two FULL ROUTINES
Jason Messina - one full routine
Steve Shufton - one FULL ROUTINE, several ideas.

A few NEW endoresements:

"Awesome, if you could really read thoughts you wouldn't need anyone to say anything. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!" --Marc Spelmann

"A great and WORKABLE effect" - JC Wagner (see JC in this month's Genii)

This is so much more than just an effect. It is a powerful subtlety that is a MUST HAVE for your mentalism tool box!"-- Banachek

And from the Foreword by Looch:

"That evening I had been booked to perform at a private diner party in Nottinghamshire countryside. It was on this night that I would see if this would work in the real world. Nearly a dozen direct hits over the course of the night with a 100% success rate. I can hand-on-heart say this works, and it works wonderfully. Your audiences will genuinely believe you are right there with them inside their head."

I will send preview copies to Tom Frame and Richard Kaufman this weekend. If you trust their opinions, you will, I'm sure, see that your concerns about Silent Running are unfounded.

El Mystico, you WILL forgive me for "Inverted Thought" once Silent Running is released. Even PEA founding member Bob Cassidy is adding the "Card Stab" version of Silent Running to his repertoire. He's forgiven me.

Cheers

Benny





This sounds like a wonderful effect Mr. Harris. I love effects that play well to large audiences. When my local magic shop gets one in I will get one. Don't let some of these people get to you. Some of the magicians write the dumbest things they can think of just to attack someone on this board. Congrats on another superb product.

SW

PS - Foreword by Looch? Is the Looch a character in one of Dr. Seuss' books?
Silly Walter The Polar Bear

JHostler
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Re: Silent Running

Postby JHostler » March 20th, 2010, 1:15 pm

Let's put price in historical perspective...

Remember all those new hardcovers (e.g., the "Cervon File") selling for $35 in the late '80s? That's the equivalent of approx. $63 in 2010 dollars. (The fact that Richard & company are still letting substantial books go for $35-$40 is something of a minor miracle... or sheer lunacy.)

Stephens' magic videos were going for $67.50 in 1987... the rough equivalent of $127 today.

The "lucky" recipients of Vernon's $20 manuscript (1932) paid approx. $311 in 2010 dollars.

In the grand scheme of things, Ben's list price is not exceedingly unusual... so let's wait for the reviews.

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Steve Bryant
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Steve Bryant » March 20th, 2010, 3:03 pm

Ben's price is not unusual, as virtually every single-concept idea (mostly on DVD) sells in this range. But that doesn't make any such offering a good price compared to "real" books. (By "real" I'm referring to traditional content, not hard copy vs. pdf.) Look at page 17 of the J.C. Wagner issue of Genii. You'll see dozens of books from Kaufman and Company in this price range (in 2010 dollars), each with dozens of tricks, by a who's who of authors. The best card book of last year was Caleb Wiles' High Spots. Twenty bucks! And Caleb can actually DO the material on youtube -- and fool you. So yes, let's see the reviews. I assume something is interesting afoot, because of previous good ideas from Ben and especially from Peter Duffie, but it worries me that so far no one is willing to describe what the effect is (that is, exactly what happens).

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Ben Harris
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Ben Harris » March 20th, 2010, 3:30 pm

Hi Silly Walter

Looch is a UK Mentalist of repute. Young, clever and making waves.

www.looch.co.uk

Steve:

Any spectator is asked to THINK of any number from 1-10, and then asked to THINK of a suit (either Clubs, Hearts, Spades or Diamonds). She does ALL OF THIS IN HER HEADTELLING YOU NOTHING. In her MIND she combines the chosen number and suit to create the visual image of a playing card. Again, SHE SAYS NOTHING! Once its confirmed that she is thinking of a card that NO ONE CAN POSSIBLY KNOW, you proceed to reveal it in any number of ways, including:

DIRECT MIND READ
You ask the spectator to concentrate. You then reveal her thought-of card with 100% accuracy. It's that simple. Once you know the method you'll be able to do this at ANY TIME, ANYWHERE! In fact, you'll be doing this for the rest of your life. It is that strong, practical and simple!

THE DISSOLVING CARD
The spectator is handed a deck of cards BEFORE YOU BEGIN. She is asked to think of a card WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING. When she has confirmed that she has a card in her mind, you ask her to imagine it "slowly fading way. Upon confirming that her mental image is gone, she is asked to take the deck and to remove her thought-of card. She attempts to do this, and counts the cards. However, there are ONLY 51 cards and her thought-of card IS NOT PRESENTIT HAS REALLY FADED INTO NOTHING! You NEVER touch the deckin fact you never need to know her thought of card at all! Thanks to a clever Bob Cassidy idea, you can even do this with TWO spectators, having TWO cards DISSOLVE one after the other!

SPIRITED CARD STAB
A deck is shuffled by a spectator, spread upon the table, and covered with a sheet of newspaper. A knife is introduced and the spectator is asked to THINK OF A CARD. Once she has done this, she is asked to imagine the spirit of HER IMAGINED CARD flowing down her arms, through her wrists, into her hands and finally into the knife. AT NO TIME DOES SHE REVEAL HER THOUGHT OF CARD. The performer now takes the knife and lunges it through the newspaperwhere it stands proud for all to see. Now, for the FIRST TIME, the spectator announces her thought-of card to the audience. The knife is ripped from the newspaper and is seen to be IMPALING THE VERY SAME CARD. There are no switchesthe thought-of card is genuinely impaled on the knife blade!

They are just three examples. When someone chooses a card via a peek, for example, you can reveal the card ANY NUMBER of ways. It's limited ONLY by your imagination. This is the same, however it's a SILENT choice of card in the spectator's own head, not a physical thing with deck in hand.

The result is a subtle but powerful shift in effect. Imagine the difference between these two scenes:

1. Spectator is asked to think of a card and then reveal this "freely chosen" card to the audience. She says 8C. Performer stabs a knife through a sheet of newspaper and impales the 8C. Big Applause.

2. Spectator is asked to think of a card and to remain silent. Performer stabs a knife through a sheet of paper and impales a card. NOW the spectator reveals her card and it's a match. Bigger Applause. LOL

It's a subtle shift, but it's one that can be played up big by performers!

Tom Frame will post a review within a few days.

Hope this helps.

Benny
Creator of the famous "Floating Match On Card" illusion.
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Steve Bryant
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Steve Bryant » March 20th, 2010, 3:35 pm

So, is that the exact patter? "Think of a number 1-10. Think of a suit." Or is there more rigamarole, such as (I hope not) "Think of a number 1-10. Multiply it by 5. If your product ends in a 2, think of a club. If it ..."

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Ben Harris
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Ben Harris » March 20th, 2010, 3:52 pm

Hi Steve,

Yes, that's it. You ask them to think of a number. Then you ask them to think of a suit. Then you ask them to combine BOTH to make the image of a card in their mind.

There are no contortions or rigamarole. Of course, there is a method, there is no "real magic" as the newbies like to remind us. Lol.

Here's an excerpt from Looch's foreword:

"That evening I had been booked to perform at a private diner party in Nottinghamshire countryside. It was on this night that I would see if this would work in the real world. Nearly a dozen direct hits over the course of the night with a 100% success rate. I can hand-on-heart say this works, and it works wonderfully. Your audiences will genuinely believe you are right there with them inside their head."
--LOOCH

Benny
Creator of the famous "Floating Match On Card" illusion.

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Steve Bryant
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Steve Bryant » March 20th, 2010, 4:00 pm

OK, intriguing. By the way, you are getting more crap from me than usual because I've been laid up with a fever for a few days and am staring at the forum more than I normally do, and also because I thought a few of the critics were being unfairly treated.

The only other thing I can think of is that you should have done it on DVD for non-readers, used a distressed font, and marketed as Street Mentalism. You could have charged more.

Best of luck with this.

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Ben Harris
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Ben Harris » March 20th, 2010, 4:06 pm

Lol.

Hope you feel better soon.

Benny
Creator of the famous "Floating Match On Card" illusion.

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Tom Frame
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Tom Frame » March 20th, 2010, 4:08 pm

Steve,

That's a silly question. Of course that's not the "exact patter". How could it be? How could Ben possibly write your performance script? That's the fever delirium talking, boy!

There is no math or equivoque or "rigamarole." Hype-wise, Ben's description of the effects is more accurate than most of vague, histrionic promo that we're forced to wade through in our quest for the latest, coolest thing.

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Re: Silent Running

Postby Bill Mullins » March 21st, 2010, 4:00 pm

Steve Bryant wrote: But that doesn't make any such offering a good price compared to "real" books. (By "real" I'm referring to traditional content, not hard copy vs. pdf


Hard copy vs PDF is a fair comparison to make, though. Anyone who buys a hard copy has some residual value he can recover from the book by selling it if he doesn't find it of use. Not the case with PDFs or other ebooks.

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Timothy Hyde
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Timothy Hyde » March 21st, 2010, 4:43 pm

As someone who has most of Bens stuff - (bought Needled at my first Convention way back then,) has performed quite a bit of it ( even Inverted Thought, am I the only one? ), fascinated by his approach to marketing and design (proud to say we helped with one of them - remember the ZigZag Card) ... I'm really looking forward to this release.
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Ben Harris
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Ben Harris » March 22nd, 2010, 1:51 am

Hi Timothy.

How are you? You are making me feel old."Needled" and "The Zg Zag Greeting Card" go way back. I'm looking forward to your thoughts about Silent Running. I'm 100% certain you'll put it to immediate use.

We must catch up one day. When is the next Australian Magic Convention?

Benny
Creator of the famous "Floating Match On Card" illusion.

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Re: Silent Running

Postby Pete McCabe » March 22nd, 2010, 2:40 pm

Regarding the "current" trend of one-trick DVD/manuscripts: I was reading Stewart James In Print last week, and one of the items used the top-of-pocket dodgewhere you stick something in the upper part of your pocket so you can pull out the pocket, making it look empty, while the object remains hidden. This secretthe top of pocket dodgewas sold as a standalone manuscript sometime in the 40s (30s?).

The top of pocket dodge sold as a one-trick manuscript.

I don't know how much it sold for, or what people thought it was worth, but I'll bet that at least a few purchasers complained loudly at what they received. I'll also bet then they xeroxed it and passed it around to their magic buddies, which (one last bet) they justified by saying that it was overpriced.

So I don't know if its accurate to describe one-trick DVDs/Downloads/manuscripts as new. It seems to me that they've been a part of magic for many decades.

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: Silent Running

Postby Richard Kaufman » March 22nd, 2010, 7:49 pm

The idea of selling a single item is not new of course. All tricks were sold as single items before books were common.

Think about the Stars of Magic--a series of rather (at the time) expensive pamphlets teaching a single trick.

That's the difference between today and 60 years ago. When The Stars of Magic were all collected into a book, everyone bought the book because the logic of having it all collected in one place is inescapable and the value is fantastic. Today, on the other hand, people don't want the book. They have returned to wanting the single item.
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Re: Silent Running

Postby David Alexander » March 23rd, 2010, 1:19 am

Annemann wrote good advertising copy and sold single effects for $1 in the 1930s. If someone complained about only getting a single sheet of paper I'm told he would reply that "a $1,000 bill was printed on a single piece of paper."

His Diablo Pellet Reading sold then for $2.

Joe Ovette advertised "What Is It?" in the September, 1931 edition of The Sphinx.

For the price of $1 the purchaser received 2 pages detailing The Center Tear in its first commercial release. Al Mann estimated that he sold fewer than 40 copies.

Had they been subscribers to Thayer's "Trick of the Month Club" that promised 12 tricks over the course of a year they would have received instructions for the Center Tear in August of 1932 for just under 42 cents.


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