Latest / The Magic Guys / FISM Finalist Dennis Kim Returns to The Magic Guys! #224

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FISM Finalist Dennis Kim Returns to The Magic Guys! #224 · The Magic Guys

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  They're guys. They do magic. They are the magic guys.
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  Oh yeah, just starting off the episode with a sip of energy.
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  We should be sponsored by One Day, One Day by them, but alas,
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  today joined with me is my fellow shaved head brother in arms.
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  Hello friends, I'm Nick Kay And as always, we have the effervescent Josh Nibido
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  Say hi Josh What is up guys?
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  This is the Magic Guys podcast Where we introduce you to wonderful guests That
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  was a weird way to start Let me bring that back He's been struggling since before
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  the show He hasn't been able to find his words at all We gotta do some like
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  red leather, yellow leather Red leather,
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  yellow leather I think I'm just fangirling over our guests That's what it is
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  I can't hold it together And I'm trying my best, but I'm excited.
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  And thank you for joining us live in this episode.
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  I think Doug is in the chat as well. He's had a long week, which I'm excited
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  to hear about his, what he's been up to next week to do with trick supply and things like that.
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  So he is enjoying some lovely time with his wife.
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  What a flex. He's a magician and has a wife. I mean, the man has it all, right?
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  But Nick, how have you been? Good.
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  In this last week, my friend. It's been a great week, friends.
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  I spent the weekend up on your side of the planet and Josh Nobito and I got
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  to hang out in person, which is a rarity for us.
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  We got to chat magic and share ideas as we were performing on two opposite ends
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  of the Theatre of Magic, which went really, really well. I was in Toowoomba.
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  You were in Brisbane. So we're a couple of hours away whilst performing, but a great time.
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  The Theatre of Magic is absolutely wonderful. If you are on that side of the
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  planet, please go scope out some shows and see the amazing Josh Nobito as well
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  as other amazing talents perform.
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  Who were you performing alongside that weekend? Were you with Sean Mergaard?
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  I was a bit spoiled. I got to perform next to Mike Tyler and then in the second
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  show, Sean Mergaard. Just amazing.
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  Brilliant. Some great stuff.
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  Yeah. And what's really fun is seeing the performers come back again and then
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  like they've worked on their routines.
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  And so we get to watch like little iterations improve in our sets.
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  And last week was a great example of that.
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  Yeah. So much fun. Yeah. And more importantly, we'll probably touch upon that
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  next week. But we also want to thank you guys who are here in the chat live.
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  So of course, if you are listening live, you have the ability to send your questions through.
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  Drop us a line because you can ask Dennis Kim any questions you might have.
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  So big thank you for joining us. We said Thomas Conger. We have May Marino.
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  We have my good friend, Gary Davis. Hope you're in good health,
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  friend. Good to see you here.
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  Drago Tear, Scotty Link, Tim Askin, up them questions.
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  And Alex Lam. Good to see you, buddy. Oh, got Buster Mike, who we had an awesome
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  jam session on our Discord last week.
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  Alex Lamb is asking me, are you coming up for Eric's lecture?
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  Alex, I will not reason being is that Eric Leclerc is actually going to be down
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  here in Melbourne as part of the Melbourne Magic Festival, which starts on Saturday.
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  So he and I will be going to muck. I'm not even sure if I can see his lecture
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  due to performances that I'll be doing over the weekend.
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  So we will see how that goes. And of course, we have Herbert.
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  Thank you for joining us, friends, to be part of what's going to be a very interesting interview.
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  We've already had an amazing chat backstage before it begins but
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  before we begin josh i i just want to
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  say eric leclerc alex alex is in brisbane so
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  he's going to be the lecturer i can't believe this as well eric
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  is coming to brisbane and on the one thursday of that month that he's lecturing
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  i'm doing a theater show with showman i can't where's my where's my where's
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  my i i can't believe it it is absolute.
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  Is what it is.
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  And so I'm going to miss his lecture, but luckily through the podcast, Eric and I are friends.
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  He's been on the podcast twice. So we got chatting and we're like,
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  you know what? Why don't we just catch up the next day and let's do a show.
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  So Eric, for one night, two shows on one night on the 18th of July,
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  if you're in Brisbane, he's going to be doing his show at the theater of magic.
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  So I'll be opening. he'll be doing his main show it's gonna be so goddamn good.
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  But like potentially it's more valuable than the lecture because you're seeing
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  the real world stuff and how he handles an actual audience, you know,
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  I say that to make myself feel better.
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  I obviously go to the lecture because he can learn and buy stuff from him.
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  But yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be heaps of fun.
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  Well, yeah. Speaking of, look, our person we're about to introduce folks,
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  he has some things he's going to share from his lecture today,
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  as well as his journey going through FISM.
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  For those of you that don't know, he is currently in the running to win FISM's
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  online performance, which I was chatting to him, totally fanboying as we do,
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  saying that I think it's one of the best pieces of social media magic I have ever, ever seen.
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  Let's just get him on the show. We're all dying to ask him questions.
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  We're all dying to meet this handsome, handsome creature.
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  Friends, please join us in welcoming the amazing Mr. Dennis Kim.
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  Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Dennis, Kim in the house. How are you doing,
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  Dennis? I'm good. How are you? Good to see you guys.
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  We're so happy to have you back on the podcast since two years ago.
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  Can't believe it's already been two years. Yeah. Let's be back, though.
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  It's great to have you here man and obviously we all know who
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  you are but if you were to like synopsisize dennis kim give
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  us the give us give the five people who've never heard of you before the lowdown
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  sure well my name is dennis i i'm out in new york i do magic full-time i do
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  performances i consult as well i work with theory 11 on dan white's magic shows and productions.
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  As well as my own private events i consult other people in new york i guess
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  and all around wherever it's needed and whoever just calls me for help.
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  That's about it yeah that's amazing and that's
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  enough to keep you bloody busy from what we see yeah
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  sometimes it's too busy for my liking but that's work
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  right it's work now and somehow amongst
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  all of that you had time to enter the fizz and
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  content category this year video content
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  creator category before we get.
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  Into your actual video like what were your thoughts on
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  it when you saw it announced sure uh
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  i was actually pretty surprised i was wondering
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  like is this gonna be a really cool evil fools joke
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  like deadline was originally you know like a month
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  prior from what actually was and i thought you know
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  for schism to come up with like this new category
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  for like online magic where i don't have to go in person
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  this year it's in italy to go in person and compete with like
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  the top magicians of the whole world this just seems like why
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  wouldn't you want to submit something you know and i think
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  i was really happy with it because during covid during the whole
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  pandemic all we could do is virtual magic and
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  i think everybody came up with so many incredible ideas
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  for literally this kind of format whereas before
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  that it was just like social media which was a completely different beast
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  from what it is today and i developed so
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  much magic and concepts for specifically
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  virtual magic stuff that you cannot do in person i
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  just wouldn't make sense to and it kind of felt like it
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  went to waste once like the world kind of opened up again and it was just kind
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  of this awkward transition back to the reality but seeing this was another opportunity.
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  For me to kind of showcase what i had worked on in previous years i'm like oh
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  here's you know i can actually use this thing again and put something out there you know so.
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  Yeah well that's one of the things i'm most in awe of when i say i generally
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  mean it that i think it's one of the best pieces of social media magic i've
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  ever seen because you're using these amazing forced perspectives that aren't
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  really touched upon in many forms of magic books and whatever else.
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  So the moment I saw that and just went, damn, that's brilliant.
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  The first thing I thought to myself is like, where do you even learn that?
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  Where do you even like, what material could you even go?
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  Oh, okay. What I mean is that you're not looking at your routine going like,
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  oh, it's just, that's in Tarbell chapter six.
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  Like, it's not like that. So my question to you,
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  friend is that like where did this knowledge come from like
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  how did you go about even figuring this out like
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  it's so original and so unique right right i
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  distinctly remember when i first came up with this whole concept and for those
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  of you who haven't seen it it's okay if i mention this kind of detail but like
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  stuff with like mirrors with the perspective of like the camera being framed
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  in a specific way i remember distinctly i was we're at the height of the pandemic the world just shut.
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  All the shows have canceled everywhere and we're all
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  just stuck at home and i was helping i was helping
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  dan with some things like there's an upcoming kind of
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  a spot he was doing for for jimmy fallon and it was like a it was a virtual
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  one like everyone was scrabbling to try to figure out what to do while we're
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  all stuck at home and so everything went virtual and we're jamming in like so
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  many ideas i mean this whole time crunch and so it was just like all day every day i was
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  trying to come up with like answering the question of how do
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  you take advantage of this thing
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  that's otherwise perceived as a limitation right because
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  everyone's thinking oh like virtual magic is just not as good as
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  live and for the most part that's true you'd rather see
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  it in person but with that in mind how do you
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  now create something brand new that can
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  only be watched and enjoyed because you're watching it on a video or on zoom
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  or whatever virtual format that you're on that you're stuck with and so i had
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  kind of answered that question through having nothing else to do but being stuck
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  at home and like playing around with camera and like trying to think of like.
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  Video tricks and illusions that can only really be done here and i don't know
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  it just came to me like what if i just put like a mirror in front of the camera
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  that's kind of trippy you don't see the mirror and figure out like how to angle
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  things and whatnot and we ended up not using that for
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  the spot but i kind of took that and ran with it and
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  i think we're all stuck at home for like the better part of that year back
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  in 2020 and that was probably the only thing
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  that kept me sane was working on this
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  thing with a mirror is scratching my head over like the camera
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  angle relative to the mirror and lighting and what can you do to take advantage
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  of the fact that you're in front of this mirror and yeah it just took months
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  and months of just trial and error and like calling people on like facetime
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  and trying out different tricks that take advantage of it and And fast forward
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  to this physics submission where I was like, oh, let's use this thing again and figure it out.
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  So you weren't like looking up special effects in, in, in movie terms or anything like that.
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  There wasn't any material that you were like, oh no, I found this book called,
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  you know, how to make a horror movie, for example, or anything like that.
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  You just straight up just went in there and started playing.
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  Yeah, no, it's, there was, there was a couple of inspirations.
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  There was Quirkology on YouTube.
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  He's got very old videos of all these like perception kind of things and it's
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  like, these are really enjoyable to watch.
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  But if you do it in person, it's like that you're not doing anything because I'm watching a video.
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  And also there's that guy, his name's at the tip of my tongue,
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  but he does all these really trippy videos, albeit they're very edited.
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  I'm sure you guys know who I'm talking about. Like his videos are all like very trippy illusions.
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  Like a Zach King type of guy? Yes, Zach King. All of his videos are just so trippy.
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  And I know that they're all edited, but it's fantastic. And it's using,
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  again, the same concept of like, I can only do this on video and it's very enjoyable.
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  So it's like, how can we take that and dial it down where I don't have to edit
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  all these things and try to do something practical, you know?
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  And in fact, I actually ended up writing an e-book about the whole concept and
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  i never put it out because by the time i was kind of like 99 there,
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  live gigs were coming back up again we're working on like a live show and things just got busy so,
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  yeah wow that's insane i just
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  even you know what i appreciate even the little details like
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  down to the clock in the background it's just so
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  nice like you really you can really watch
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  it and appreciate the art of it because like everything has a reason to be done
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  or moved or positioned which is just so nice yeah absolutely it was actually
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  really fun like i was debating about you know first of all i think you know
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  this this is like the first year of having this fism online.
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  Category and i'm sure they'll have it in future years but their
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  rules were very vague for those of you who are not
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  in the know they only had two rules which is one the video cannot
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  exceed more than 90 seconds and two your
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  video cannot be edited in post now there
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  were a lot of submissions that technically were edited
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  in like adding captions and things and evidently that's
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  fine but me working on this thing
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  i want to really make sure that i follow all the rules and
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  for something like this where i'm just married the whole time you
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  could simply just flip the video and now everything looks okay if
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  that makes sense everything's reversed and then let's just flip video thereafter.
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  But i thought that would be against the rules so we really went
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  above and beyond with like like the countdown on the tv like
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  that's reversed uh we even printed out labels i don't have
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  the milk bottle but i do have the windex bottle like we literally printed
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  out like a reverse image holy crap
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  that on the actual one in the
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  take that i submitted i didn't even show this so i'm like all that worked the
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  t-shirt was reversed just all these little details to kind
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  of point at like yeah it's not a mirror i
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  mean first of all i don't think that but just the little extra percentage
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  point so when i do reveal it's like where's the camera you
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  know so wow so from concept to
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  kind of first iteration of the routine i'm
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  going to assume that that routine was like it's probably like let's
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  say like seven or eight generations old you know like it started as this and
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  then sort of evolved like what what happens first the concept or the the idea
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  or you're like oh you know the milk like why why the milk you know like absolutely
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  yeah for sure and i I think this is,
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  this is probably gonna be pretty interesting for everybody watching for like
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  your own routines and like structuring.
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  Things in general for magic. I was jamming with my roommates.
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  I live with also a magician. We've been living together for like the past five years.
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  It was magic too. So like it's already a great position to be in,
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  like to be able to jam at any moment.
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  And we just kind of sat around for hours. And I'm talking like late through
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  the night, it's like three, four in the morning.
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  We're just trying to like put out any and every idea.
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  But it first started with like, this is what I want for the video,
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  these are the elements that I want for it, which wasn't much in the beginning.
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  All I know is no one else is going to also be doing this thing with a mirror
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  because it's like, I'm the only one doing that. So that has to go in.
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  And here are all the tricks I've done because I have this mirror thing going on.
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  And there are a number of them I've done in the Zoom show and when I'm FaceTime
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  calling a bunch of people. There's a lot of applications to it.
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  So it's like, what are things I can do that don't need the interaction with the spectator?
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  Okay, so you start narrowing it down to just a couple of
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  applications and then it's like okay
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  these are the things i want here's the big question mark
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  of like got up to 90 seconds what's the
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  point why am i doing this what's the effect
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  or effects what's the whole routine what's the story right
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  and so it's just trapping a whole bunch of different things
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  and then it just becomes way too late at night where now
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  the wacky ideas are starting to come out where i remember
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  distinctly like we're just talking about like really funny
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  ways to just start the video okay give us
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  an example yeah and it's like uh i remember matt's my
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  roommate he was like uh we're like talking about milk and
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  cereal for some reason and it's like you know it'd be really funny if like you
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  poured yourself a bowl of cereal with like a gallon jug no words right so it's
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  like intriguing what's he doing right and then you just take a swig off the
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  entire gallon and then put it down It's like, that would be just so,
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  like, who does that, you know?
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  It would be kind of funny. So we started trying to go down, like, the comedy route of it.
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  And then that evolved to like, okay, we got to do something with milk and cereal
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  now because we're like bouncing ideas off of like trying to do like card tricks
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  that like heavily gimmicked stuff, maybe some coin stuff.
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  I'm not the most well-averse with coin magics. It's like, ah,
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  here are a number of things I can do.
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  But cards felt like, okay, like almost everyone can do cards.
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  Like how do we do something different? So milk and cereal, what can you do with that?
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  Pour yourself a glass of milk, have cereal, make cereal appear,
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  disappear, make the spoon vanish.
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  We're trying to figure out how to make the spoon appear and vanish.
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  That didn't work out and next thing you know we have like
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  a video that's going to be four minutes long because
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  we have so many ideas like oh we could do that we could do this and that and
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  here are the methods and it's like okay now we got to pick and choose so you
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  end up jamming so much that you have a video that's going to be way too long
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  and now you got to go through this heartbreaking moment of like these are great
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  ideas but it doesn't cut it because there are some ideas where it's like we
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  have to have that in and one of those things being the table not being the table anymore.
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  Where you got the screen from far, far away.
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  And actually, if I could show some behind the scenes photos, if I may.
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  We would love to. Yeah. I put some together here. I don't know if you can see
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  this very clearly, but that's what it looks like behind the scenes.
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  These are just a couple of videos, photos, where on the right side you see,
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  that's the table with like a bag.
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  And then on the floor on the left photo, that's like we took fabric,
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  like duvetyne fabric, and we cut it to size.
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  We were like measuring everything.
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  And it turns out everything was like one to one with just like relative,
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  relatively with the table when we're lining everything up with the camera frame.
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  And yeah, that's my roommate, Matt, they're just working all the measurements
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  and everything because we were looking at the screen far away.
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  I think it's in here. We had this like little iPad screen off to the side.
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  It's very small in the photo on the left, but on the left of the mirror,
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  we're looking at it from the couches while we're like just completely magicked out.
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  And I looked at the framing of the table, which is like all this black art stuff
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  and i'm like dude you know what that looks like from far away that looks kind of like a rug.
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  So then we looked at each other and we were like, no, we can't do it.
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  It's like, no, no, no, let's think about this. Now, that would be an amazing
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  finish because the mirror used to be the ending where it's like,
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  ha ha, I'm in front of a mirror.
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  Holy shit. Like, how are you going to expect that, right?
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  But how do we take it a step further? Because at that point,
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  there were a lot of magicians that knew I'd do this mirror thing virtually.
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  And so I was like, I got it. The moment I reveal the mirror,
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  I'm in front of the table, just wiping the mirror.
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  You pull the table and it's replaced with what's behind me which is this corporate,
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  thing and everything looks one-to-one why would you expect that to be anything
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  else and then just walk backwards and uh we thought that just fit the bill of like you can't do that.
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  That's virtual so it'll be a great ending so bro like
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  the moment i saw the tape like i did i had to watch it a
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  second time just to be like hang on i didn't watch that properly did that
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  just what just happened and you watch it again and
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  you're like oh my god i mean you still don't understand like because
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  i think also what plays so well in this
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  is that no one expects you to print out a
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  reversible windex sticker you know or make
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  a freaking rug table in the
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  perspective like that's that's a real superpower
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  that that you'll go to such lengths to
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  make what ends up being you know a less than
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  90 second video wow when
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  you made it like the first time you guys like watched
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  it back because first of all if there's no
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  editing so you're able to film it and then and literally like
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  watch it back instantly i imagine yes yes
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  that's correct so i guess first of all like did
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  you have to do like how many iterations did you have to do filming it to like
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  be happy with it because obviously you might change the routine around a bit
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  and fully yeah we dedicated one specific day i remember i was so glad that they
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  had extended the submission deadline by a month,
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  because it was, we set a date for like two days before the deadline.
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  I think it was like the beginning of April was like a deadline and I'm like,
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  dude, it's like March 28th.
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  We got a film that's like today. I don't care how long it takes.
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  We stay up all night, whatever.
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  But we also had shows on that weekend. She also worked on the show with Dan.
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  So we worked together on the weekends.
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  And so it's like, we literally have just one day to do this thing.
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  And then they extended the deadline. So we're like, thank God,
• 20:53
  because it was apparent we were not ready. There are so many more question marks.
• 20:57
  We're trying to make the spoon appear and everything with the cereal.
• 21:01
  And then we delayed it by a week. We thought, you know what?
• 21:04
  If we have an extra month might as well not
• 21:07
  feel like we're pressed for time and just film what
• 21:10
  we had in mind like a few days later let's actually
• 21:13
  sit on this idea for another week or two
• 21:16
  weeks because we have time and let's figure out
• 21:19
  like let's figure out the the methods of refining all
• 21:22
  the moments let's re-script like what you're going to be saying
• 21:25
  and uh then we dedicate this one day
• 21:28
  like a week later to film we took like hours and
• 21:31
  hours we're on like obs like he's looking at it.
• 21:34
  So making sure that i'm not flashing or anything and i'm.
• 21:37
  Like filming stuff like takes and he would stop me like.
• 21:40
  In the middle of a take that i flashed and i
• 21:42
  think it was like 50 60 70 takes i'm starting to get frustrated because
• 21:46
  everything just needs to look perfect right that's what makes magic difficult for
• 21:49
  video like you can't flash and eventually we
• 21:52
  got a take we're like that might be it that
• 21:55
  might be the it and so i shared it with
• 21:58
  a few people got my thoughts about it and it
• 22:01
  was like this feeling of like you know what like we we can
• 22:04
  do better or we're gonna get dedicated another day and we have time
• 22:07
  for it but i was already tired of like i want to get this
• 22:10
  thing over with it worked on it since the beginning like mid-february maybe
• 22:13
  through to march and everything and then we just dedicated
• 22:16
  another day where it took another almost 100 takes it
• 22:19
  was probably like 3 30 in the morning by that
• 22:22
  point and we finally looked over
• 22:25
  this take and we're like is that it there's no flashing you
• 22:29
  know because there were some takes where we're like that looks good and we look
• 22:32
  at it again like yeah you flashed in this one thing we missed that we
• 22:35
  have to redo it but we finally got this take it's like no we
• 22:37
  watched it like 20 times in a row we put it on different devices
• 22:41
  like ipads on the computer on your phone to see
• 22:43
  if there's anything you might see that we missed from just seeing it from one
• 22:47
  screen i don't know and we got this tape finally and it probably was like 150
• 22:52
  takes in i think wow that must have been the cleanest mirror in new york by
• 22:57
  the end well a lot of windex i mean this this bottle was full man i mean.
• 23:07
  But yeah it that's what makes it difficult though right about magic on video
• 23:11
  if you flash even in one frame versus in-person magic.
• 23:15
  You see in-person magic once even if you flash, people might not catch it but
• 23:19
  people can watch the video over and over and over until they finally see a thing
• 23:23
  and they comment, oh, it's so obvious.
• 23:25
  It's like a blessing and a curse. You have the ability to re-record it as many
• 23:30
  times as you want, but then that also means you might get stuck in the it's
• 23:33
  never perfect and forever filming or not putting stuff out. It is.
• 23:39
  And sometimes, you know, with, because I try and put out stuff every day or
• 23:44
  just every day, every time I have a video that I'm like happy,
• 23:48
  like I'm like, oh, I like this. I'm going to put it out there.
• 23:51
  I have learned, I learned this from my buddy Jason Ma that sometimes you just
• 23:55
  have to let that feeling go a little bit where you're not trying to hit 100% clean.
• 24:02
  Like 99.9% is okay for online as well.
• 24:09
  Obviously, when it comes to fizzing, it's got to be you want 100%,
• 24:13
  but you don't want to get too stuck in that fear perception of like,
• 24:20
  oh, it's never good enough to put out online.
• 24:21
  Like if magicians listening to this or like, I want to share a piece from my
• 24:25
  show or something, don't feel
• 24:27
  like, you know, because it's a little bit imperfect, you can't put it out.
• 24:32
  Sometimes that will actually be more endearing, you know, to learn about the performer.
• 24:38
  And it's tough too, because as you continue to film this thing and work on this
• 24:41
  idea, you become so jaded by it that it's not amazing to you anymore.
• 24:45
  You're so familiar with it.
• 24:47
  You work on it for so long that it's like, dude, is this even good?
• 24:51
  You start to trip yourself up whereas like
• 24:53
  people watching it they've never seen this before you know so
• 24:56
  that's a good thing to keep in mind you know it's so
• 24:59
  true and the weird thing is is that like it needs to get to
• 25:02
  a point where it doesn't evoke any sort of
• 25:05
  like adrenaline like in the adrenaline rush that
• 25:08
  you get from like stealing a watch for example you know what i mean like you don't
• 25:11
  want that energy anymore you don't want that nervous energy and that
• 25:13
  relief of achieving something anymore like when
• 25:16
  you have something that's as intricate as a
• 25:19
  fism act you want to be able to do it with like next to like
• 25:22
  what do you feel nothing i'm dead inside which sounds sad
• 25:25
  but it's also so essential to be able
• 25:28
  to execute it so that the people watching can enjoy it to the to its fullest
• 25:32
  isn't that the weirdest dichotomy yeah it's it could be very draining but that's
• 25:37
  performance right that's probably applies to any performance right not just
• 25:41
  mergers yeah look we look forward to seeing you win FISM for that category.
• 25:46
  I just, I mean, the top 20 are all fantastic videos. It's just that I can't
• 25:52
  stop watching Dennis's.
• 25:53
  So I've got to think that that is a good sign.
• 25:56
  And I'm glad we got the pre-interview before that all happens.
• 26:00
  And you're unavailable. Three weeks from now will be when FISM starts,
• 26:04
  about two weeks or so, and then the results will come out in a few weeks.
• 26:07
  So we shall. Yeah, I mean, we're in there with you. Like, you know, fingers crossed.
• 26:11
  We're only against four other people, but our podcast is amongst the honorable
• 26:15
  mentions of like Magic Podcast in that category.
• 26:19
  But we're all sort of eagerly waiting to see the results. And then like,
• 26:24
  what does that, what do the results mean?
• 26:26
  You know, in the real world, but yeah.
• 26:30
  So I could talk about this all hour, but was there any other notes you wanted
• 26:35
  to add about your Fizzin video?
• 26:39
  No, I think that's about it. Unless anyone in the chat has questions.
• 26:43
  Otherwise, yeah, we can totally move on and talk about it.
• 26:45
  Well, I have a question just with regards to creating a routine of this elk.
• 26:50
  Like whenever someone writes a show, you know, like they write,
• 26:54
  they say, I'm writing a show.
• 26:55
  It's going to be called, uh, I don't know.
• 26:59
  It's going to be called like green. And then you do this whole show called green
• 27:02
  and then you finish your tour, you finish your run and then you're like,
• 27:04
  oh, I'm already writing the next show in my head.
• 27:08
  It, is it the same sort of process or do you, do you have the same mindset or
• 27:12
  drive to do it again with a FISM act?
• 27:15
  Or are you kind of like, glad this is done. I need a break.
• 27:20
  I'm sure the answer to that question will be different, varying between people,
• 27:27
  individual and individual.
• 27:28
  But for me personally, I think with the kind of work that I do,
• 27:32
  there's a lot of different projects that I'm called for month to month,
• 27:36
  whether it's private gigs here and there to somebody wants help on their show
• 27:41
  or something they're doing for like media or TV or something. It's just so different.
• 27:46
  For me personally, I'm kind of just glad. I'm just kind of relieved.
• 27:50
  And it is this feeling of like, okay, like, you know, once in a while I should
• 27:53
  be working on something a little bit different from like the usual.
• 27:57
  And for that period of time, it was this fism thing. Like, I've never done that
• 28:00
  before. This has never been a thing before.
• 28:02
  And so to be able to finish it in the first place, I remember telling myself,
• 28:06
  like, I'll just be happy if I made the top 20.
• 28:09
  Like, this is, I think, the best work that I could have put out.
• 28:12
  I couldn't do any better than that.
• 28:13
  And I'm proud of myself for that. And let's just move on to the next thing.
• 28:16
  And even if it's not something that's about me, then if I'm working on somebody
• 28:20
  else's thing, whatever, that's what it means to be a consultant and let's see
• 28:24
  what the next project is, you know? So that's, that's me personally.
• 28:27
  You know, when you create for so many other people, I'm curious what happens
• 28:31
  to that intellectual piece of property that you produce.
• 28:34
  Are you permitted to keep it for yourself or does it become the property of
• 28:39
  the person you're creating for?
• 28:41
  That's a fantastic question. And I think that's something that a lot of people
• 28:44
  don't consider for being a consultant.
• 28:47
  You know, I've worked with Dan White for a number of years. I've worked with him the longest.
• 28:51
  It's been about already six years and changed now, which is so long.
• 28:56
  And he put it really well one day when he said, you know, it's like you're consulting
• 29:00
  somebody and really understand like their brain and magic and where they want
• 29:03
  to go and like the do's and don'ts that they want to see, like attributes in their magic.
• 29:07
  And you start to work on someone else's thing where you have an answer in your
• 29:12
  head because you've worked on a very similar problem for this other person,
• 29:16
  but now you're working on this thing with someone else.
• 29:19
  It's like to share that exact same answer, like, yes, that would probably solve
• 29:24
  it, but it's almost like you're kind of cheating.
• 29:26
  It's like you're cheating on a relationship a little bit.
• 29:29
  Like, oh, that's interesting. And this was, he told me this like early on, like in the pandemic,
• 29:33
  like I was at his place, we're doing so many Zoom shows and we're working
• 29:36
  out together and chatting so much but as like the
• 29:39
  world opened up again and now like i'm involved in like
• 29:42
  projects with other people and even if it's like
• 29:44
  informally it's not like formal work just like magic friends who have questions
• 29:48
  immediately in my head like i have answers to most of their questions but it's
• 29:52
  like if i disclose this then that is like cheating because this is stuff that's
• 29:57
  supposed to be well guarded with the work i've done with like say dan you know
• 30:01
  and it's like it wouldn't be right for me to disclose this.
• 30:05
  And so it starts to get a little muddy as it's like a second or third or even
• 30:09
  fourth person who asks a very similar questions.
• 30:12
  And now it's like I have to compartmentalize like these are the answers that
• 30:15
  would solve your problem. But I cannot disclose these things because that's just how it goes.
• 30:19
  I'm going to protect the secrets that I've worked on with person A and I cannot
• 30:23
  disclose to person B or C or D and same with person B to C and so on and so forth.
• 30:30
  So it gets a little tough. I don't know if that answers your question,
• 30:32
  but yeah, it kind of does. What I'm curious about is that I love that between
• 30:37
  each part is ABC, that you won't bleed the information between them.
• 30:41
  But when you're doing your own performances, are you permitted to take your
• 30:44
  ideas that you've cultivated between all of the letters of the alphabet?
• 30:49
  Are you permitted to do it for yourself?
• 30:51
  Right. Yeah, that's been a tough journey for me because there are some effects
• 30:56
  I've worked on for these people, right? And I think the correct answer would
• 31:00
  be that the stuff that you work on for somebody else who's performing,
• 31:04
  it's kind of their material.
• 31:06
  But I think it gets a little bit more into in like a gray area where like,
• 31:10
  let's say I feel really guilty about doing a certain routine or,
• 31:14
  you know, my own brain for my own material is directly influenced by the work
• 31:18
  I've done for somebody else.
• 31:19
  It's like, am I just going to scratch that for like a private event I'm doing, you know?
• 31:24
  And so for me, I realized that doing certain routines that I am capable of doing
• 31:30
  that I've also worked on for somebody else, if I do it for like a private event
• 31:34
  or something, I don't see where the harm is in that.
• 31:38
  If anything, it gives me firsthand experience to now give notes.
• 31:42
  Because every time that I'm sure you guys too, when you perform and you think
• 31:46
  about the gig you just did, like you have plenty of notes to improve the routines you've done.
• 31:49
  And so if I have firsthand experience in the routine that I've been helping
• 31:53
  someone else with, then I have notes of my own that I can then share with that person.
• 31:59
  I think the area falls where it's like, this is a private event with like,
• 32:03
  it's like a birthday party or a wedding or something. And it's all these lay people.
• 32:06
  If it's something that's like television, where it's like, oh,
• 32:10
  like Dennis is coming on to this like big spot that's like publicized.
• 32:14
  That's where it gets a little hairy, you know?
• 32:17
  And I think that's a line that I would rather not cross because it just doesn't
• 32:20
  feel right. But it's just something that's private.
• 32:22
  It's like, well, who's stopping me? And how is this going to,
• 32:25
  you know, just crossing over that boundary, you know? Yeah.
• 32:30
  What I'm also curious about is that speaking from experience,
• 32:33
  I help a lot of my friends and it's because we're friends and I know them and I know their style.
• 32:38
  And I think to myself, if you're going to do it like this, you're going to do it this way.
• 32:42
  A lot of times when I'm jamming out of the people, and this happened even most
• 32:45
  recently, I was doing an effect like a coin through table.
• 32:47
  And a friend of mine who I adore was just kept saying repeatedly,
• 32:50
  I wouldn't do that routine. I wouldn't do a coin through table.
• 32:53
  I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. And I was like, you said that.
• 32:55
  You said that. but I've come to you to help me improve it.
• 32:59
  And all you're saying in return is I wouldn't do that. And so it's very interesting
• 33:03
  because this is what I receive most common when I do have people who want to help me.
• 33:09
  They want me to do it the way they did. They want me to do what they would do.
• 33:13
  And I think that's one of the most unhealthy things to do if you are going to
• 33:16
  be a consultant in any capacity.
• 33:18
  So my question with regards to that is how do
• 33:22
  you get to know the performer and
• 33:25
  understand them so that you know that the
• 33:28
  advice you're giving them is appropriate for what like what and how they're
• 33:33
  supposed to be performing that's a great question you're you're asking great
• 33:37
  questions nick there's a process especially working with someone new that i
• 33:42
  have yet to work with you know what let's let's frame it let's work with work with work with me.
• 33:48
  Okay like what would the process look like well i
• 33:52
  want to do my research on you i want to watch all
• 33:55
  your content i want to watch all your performances i want to see the things
• 33:58
  that you tend to do i want to see the lines that you kind of say in the offbeat
• 34:03
  moments that make you you and it's your performance and i want to see the thousand
• 34:07
  timers the routines that you're really honed in on and then the new material
• 34:11
  that you've been working on we have this conversation,
• 34:14
  and i would just want to watch a lot of your material and then just
• 34:17
  like just jam with you on like where your
• 34:20
  head is at for a certain problem and i would
• 34:22
  never give it's never the answer to be like i wouldn't do that because first
• 34:27
  of all that's like the worst thing whoever whoever has said that to you like
• 34:30
  i don't know that's because i'm not you and you're not me and we'll never be
• 34:35
  each other it's weird right i need to get into your brain i need to see what you excel at.
• 34:40
  And I need to see the things that are also shortcomings for you.
• 34:44
  It's not personal business, but it's not personal, right?
• 34:48
  We all have strong suits. And so taking that into account, then we make accommodations.
• 34:53
  Maybe there are limitations to the methods because your sleight of hand is not
• 34:57
  good enough with the certain props that we're working with. So now we got to
• 35:00
  go down to gimmick solutions.
• 35:02
  You see what I'm saying, right? 100%. I will always work with you and what you
• 35:07
  can do, what you excel at, what your limitations are, and figure out methods.
• 35:11
  Because having done this for a long time, there's always a way.
• 35:14
  There are always workarounds.
• 35:16
  And if you really do find yourself at a hard stop, a dead end.
• 35:20
  We can always reroute and restructure the routine.
• 35:23
  And maybe we have to change the plot a little bit, but it's never going to be
• 35:27
  the answer of, like, I wouldn't do that.
• 35:29
  It just doesn't seem to make sense so that
• 35:32
  so i'll boil down to i need to do a lot of research on you
• 35:35
  and where your brain is and how you perform your style
• 35:39
  and over time because it's it's a relationship you're
• 35:42
  building it's really hard to just be like doing a one-off thing
• 35:44
  with somebody and it's like all right i'll talk to you next
• 35:47
  time you want me to work with you right it's this relationship that
• 35:50
  you have with these people in the industry where over time you
• 35:53
  see the things that they put out and you really see
• 35:56
  what their eye is like for magic what they like to
• 35:59
  see for themselves and what the ideal
• 36:02
  version of magic is for them because i think that's a very subjective answer
• 36:06
  that we can all give differences for so yeah i
• 36:09
  i would almost think that helping someone with
• 36:12
  an act that you wouldn't do is better because then there's
• 36:15
  no fear of crossing paths of similar techniques
• 36:18
  like if someone's working on a dove act that i
• 36:21
  would never do because i don't do dove work that's almost isn't that
• 36:24
  better dennis because then it's like you can get in their head and
• 36:27
  help them do their act and there's going to
• 36:30
  be no crossover absolutely yeah if
• 36:33
  anything i'm learning too right just because your consultant doesn't
• 36:36
  mean yeah yeah knows everything i think there's i
• 36:40
  was in a jam session with some with some friends
• 36:43
  online and they were trying to work on sponge balls
• 36:46
  i don't do sponge balls but i just happened that
• 36:50
  weekend to find one on the floor that was.
• 36:53
  From a magician who works for me in this particular
• 36:56
  venue i was like oh look at that it's like it's a sponge ball this must be jordan's
• 36:59
  right so i threw it in my bag and the guys are like i'm trying to work on like
• 37:02
  different vanishes and stuff but i don't really know much about sponge balls
• 37:05
  i'm like you know what let me go to my bag and grab one and i used all of my
• 37:08
  coin techniques and coin ideas and i'm like holding sponge balls and jw grip
• 37:13
  and back clipping and doing this type of thing and i was just like are you sure you don't do.
• 37:18
  Sponge and i was like i'm very sure but
• 37:21
  that this help and they're like that's that's insane i
• 37:24
  would have never thought that and it's like so you're totally right josh by
• 37:27
  in saying that because you're coming from a different angle it's
• 37:31
  i wonder if you can i wonder
• 37:34
  if you can get a dove in jw grip that'd be
• 37:37
  a great reveal yeah you know
• 37:41
  but speaking of teaching and giving advice
• 37:44
  you just recently did a lecture right at the
• 37:47
  society of american magicians yeah that's
• 37:50
  correct that was actually it was online and it was back
• 37:53
  in december it was really nice that they wanted to have me on for an episode
• 37:56
  so yeah i taught a number of things on there so that's awesome any any takeaways
• 38:00
  that you feel like you want to share with the magic guys well while everyone's
• 38:05
  watching i could i could teach one thing do we have time for that we would love
• 38:09
  it if you're if you're listening to this,
• 38:11
  you're going to hear a wonderful performance of objects moving around.
• 38:15
  But I do recommend watching it on YouTube for this portion.
• 38:18
  Yeah. Whilst you're preparing this, buddy, just we have a question here from
• 38:22
  Tim Askin, just asking whether or not you need to sign NDAs for the folks you work for.
• 38:28
  100%. 100%. It goes both ways too. At least for me, I've been starting to send
• 38:33
  people NDAs and I do sign NDAs.
• 38:36
  I think that's a really, really important thing because it's like.
• 38:40
  Anyone can be like, I have my word, but let's get it in writing.
• 38:45
  Yeah. So what it means is we can't ask Dennis what magic secrets he's created
• 38:52
  for people, but we can ask him, how much do they pay you? No, I'm kidding.
• 38:57
  You know, just off the back of that, before we get into this teaching portion,
• 39:01
  what I'm curious about is that it seems like you work with more than one person.
• 39:05
  Let's say I win the lottery on Saturday. I win the Powerball,
• 39:09
  whatever it is, and I go, finally, some disposable income.
• 39:13
  I'm definitely going to hire Dennis Kim to help me with this routine that I've
• 39:16
  been working on for a while.
• 39:18
  What's your capacity to work with people?
• 39:22
  The capacity is, well, it's 24 hours a day.
• 39:26
  There's seven days in a week, just like anybody else. And honestly,
• 39:29
  if anyone's watching who also is in the entertainment industry full-time,
• 39:35
  you would know that when it rains, it pours, right?
• 39:38
  But it's not going to be raining every single day of your entire life.
• 39:43
  I'll be honest, there are a lot of weeks where the workload is very light.
• 39:47
  And then there are some weeks where it's like, geez, man, I'm not getting enough
• 39:51
  sleep and this is all I can think about. I'm locked in.
• 39:53
  There's no breathing room. And that will always happen. but I'm sure you guys
• 39:57
  will relate to like, there's self or gigs than usual. Like I can't be in three places at the same time.
• 40:02
  And it's the same feeling with like working on stuff for people.
• 40:06
  Thankfully, I only work with one person where, where it's like a recurring regular
• 40:10
  thing all year round, of course. Right.
• 40:13
  And then everybody else, there's just projects that are like as needed.
• 40:17
  You know, if you think about it, like being like a temp worker,
• 40:19
  so to speak, if that's an equivalent where I'm not on call every single day,
• 40:24
  every single second, you know, I might be on call where they're texting me throughout,
• 40:27
  you know, random days and it's like, oh, I got to tend to this.
• 40:31
  But yeah, if I, if I was working with like multiple people on a regular basis, I think.
• 40:36
  I'd have to, I'd have to say no to some, you know, but no, that capacity,
• 40:40
  there are certain moments where I do feel I'm over capacity.
• 40:43
  And then some moments where it's like, I have more breathing room.
• 40:46
  So that's just how it goes.
• 40:48
  Well, I have more questions off the back of that, but I think that whilst we
• 40:51
  have some time, we are dying to learn a little something.
• 40:54
  Thank you kindly for sharing. The floor is yours, Dennis.
• 40:57
  Oh, sure. Okay. So recently I was
• 41:01
  in LA and I was jamming with a couple of magician friends
• 41:04
  and we're at one of his places and someone filmed something
• 41:07
  very candidly like a little transposition i did and he
• 41:10
  was like oh this is this this is great that i asked
• 41:13
  him to send me the clip i'm like dude this clip is hilarious your reactions
• 41:16
  are funny in the back and it's a very short clip and i
• 41:19
  decided to post it on my instagram and it got
• 41:22
  more views than i i would like to see i'm not
• 41:25
  a content creator by any means i but there are
• 41:27
  a lot of questions like will you ever like teach this thing
• 41:30
  or like who came up with it and it's like light it and so
• 41:33
  i want to take this opportunity well i guess i'll do it for
• 41:36
  you and then i'll teach you guys because i also get tagged in a lot of videos
• 41:39
  of people doing this transposition because if you're a magician it's very easy
• 41:42
  to figure out how it's done but there are certain subtleties that i think everybody
• 41:47
  misses so without further ado i'm going to switch over the camera if can can
• 41:52
  everyone see this yes Oh,
• 41:53
  look how fancy Dennis is.
• 41:56
  Take note, guests of the future. This is amazing. OBS action.
• 42:00
  Dennis, is this the sandwich effect that I was frothing over in your...
• 42:04
  Is that what you're doing right now? No, it's a transposition.
• 42:07
  It's a transposition using three. It could really be any. I just wanted to pull
• 42:10
  out cards that are indifferent.
• 42:12
  Doesn't matter what it is, right?
• 42:13
  But we have two jokers. They're the same as well as a queen of clubs.
• 42:17
  Three cards. This is completely impromptu. We'll start by separating the different
• 42:21
  card away from the two jokers If I'm in a frame and the idea is to get the two
• 42:26
  jokers to switch places with the Queen So it's two cards here and one there.
• 42:31
  I just give it away like this and.
• 42:35
  There's the queen. The queen's here, and the two jokers are there.
• 42:41
  I look at the camera while doing it. Jesus.
• 42:44
  It is the routine that I absolutely love. I remember posting on this being like,
• 42:48
  damn, Dennis, I love this. And then you just replied, me too.
• 42:54
  Yeah, a lot of people have seen this and asked this question all the time.
• 42:56
  Like, are you going to teach this, right?
• 42:58
  So if you're a magician watching, I'm sure you'd surmise how I did this.
• 43:01
  I'll do a very, very brief overview of all the moves and then go a little more in depth.
• 43:05
  So you get three cards. If you're doing this in person, just use a pair.
• 43:10
  You know, if you keep jokers in the deck, that's your problem.
• 43:13
  But like the two red kings or whatever, right? But for video,
• 43:17
  which was my mistake, it should be duplicates, right?
• 43:19
  Because people watch it a million times and go, oh, that's obvious.
• 43:22
  So that's two jokers and an indifferent card.
• 43:25
  Queen of Club in this case. You get three cards. You'll have the indifferent card at the bottom.
• 43:29
  Then you're going to push off and get a double from the bottom.
• 43:33
  Oh, jeez. I'm trying to look here like this. So that's two cards in reality.
• 43:38
  Turn the double back over, place what they think is the indifferent card on
• 43:41
  the table. I would say about, not halfway, it might fall over.
• 43:46
  So like three quarters of the way in and about a third maybe or a quarter off of the table.
• 43:52
  And it should be a flat surface. It's like rounded. It makes it difficult.
• 43:56
  And then you'll do a frustration count with the two card left to show seemingly two jokers.
• 44:02
  And so once you turn this double over, you're going to see
• 44:05
  that it's the queen so i keep it off to the side so
• 44:08
  if i'm in middle grip the top card is going in
• 44:11
  towards where your your hand is the top card and so what you're doing while
• 44:16
  shaking like this which is doing this plus your wrist should be a little loose
• 44:20
  to kind of cover a little more is use your pinky i get this right so you push
• 44:25
  in as your middle finger and your thumb are also kind of sliding down,
• 44:31
  in unison, which will naturally push your pinky in, which will keep it square.
• 44:38
  So like this, it's square. Now do a Stuart Gordon double lift.
• 44:42
  Show it, and you're going to re-grip where now your hand comes in.
• 44:46
  It's holding it. It's pinching it like this, where most of my thumb is on the
• 44:50
  face, as just the tip of my index finger is at the bottom of the double,
• 44:55
  and the other hand is on the other corner because if you hold a double like
• 44:58
  this, you can see it kind of separates a little bit sometimes, right?
• 45:02
  But you just kind of hold it there just enough to now you can come over this way.
• 45:06
  And the reason we hold it like this is because now your index finger can flick,
• 45:11
  separating that joker from underneath.
• 45:14
  And you're doing that at the same time as you're turning this over.
• 45:19
  Okay? Kind of broken into two separate actions. You want to do it at the same time.
• 45:24
  And it's hard to do it slow, but I'll guide it with my hand like this.
• 45:27
  Going to be like, so in real time it
• 45:30
  will be that ideally they kind
• 45:33
  of stay together and glide off but that's that's
• 45:36
  fine as well some real time that's amazing that's
• 45:40
  so cool you know what like yes you can
• 45:42
  try to follow along but it's that last move
• 45:46
  that i think fools even like the
• 45:48
  magicians that think they're following along yes absolutely it's
• 45:51
  like oh well i've done this for magicians like a lot i was
• 45:54
  really excited to see how you're going to clean up from this position and
• 45:58
  that was yeah that was the right way to go right so a couple
• 46:01
  of things one of the most common mistakes i've seen people do
• 46:04
  when they like tag me and like oh i can do your trick too is they go there's
• 46:08
  three cards so we'll take the queen i can't do him and do it right but they
• 46:13
  they strip one off and then show this as if it's one card if i strip a card
• 46:18
  off like this i should have two left here so yeah in the drive.
• 46:23
  Attempt to feel that this is one is like a huge oversight and that is, like I see that in like.
• 46:30
  10 out of 10 videos that I'm tagged in of people doing this.
• 46:33
  I don't know why this seems to be okay, but it's not, which is why I'll push
• 46:37
  off the top card to get a break.
• 46:39
  You could do a pinky count, but it gets a little weird with three cards.
• 46:42
  It's not necessary. You just do this while you're just brushing the table, whatever.
• 46:45
  Get a break, and then just flip the bottom two over.
• 46:49
  Then everything seems fine, right? So I think the key thing about,
• 46:52
  if you were to actually do this, if magic was real, you actually had powers,
• 46:56
  what would it actually look like?
• 46:57
  If I'm taking the bottom card from this three, this
• 47:00
  is not possible this just tips the method so that's the big thing chill here
• 47:05
  and then just put it down and this frustration count you can do it like this
• 47:10
  what i like to do though is do the frustration show the first one strip off
• 47:15
  that top and then do like a stewart gordney kind of thing.
• 47:19
  So that it's a little less linear i'm sure it doesn't make that
• 47:21
  big of a difference but to just do this i don't
• 47:24
  know i've never been a fan of i wish i could do something a little more convincing but
• 47:28
  i can't really think of any alternative that's better than this and yeah
• 47:31
  before i do this move i kind of just build them down so that they're kind
• 47:34
  of together if they're a little separate from each other like height wise
• 47:37
  it might get a little weird you just want to make sure that once they line up they're
• 47:41
  really going to line up here and even if it's like a little off i wouldn't panic
• 47:46
  that happens sometimes just keep going you know hopefully by the time you score
• 47:51
  you do the steward gordon it kind of squares up a little bit and then just go
• 47:55
  into the move i I would go slow at this because this is kind of a scary moment.
• 47:59
  But I would try to go a little slow with it. But practice that move a whole bunch. That's for sure.
• 48:06
  And yeah, that's about it. That's a very simple transposition I'll have to share
• 48:08
  with you guys on a couple of the do's and don'ts.
• 48:11
  But this has been such a fun trick to do.
• 48:14
  It's not part of my repertoire when I'm doing walk-around gigs and stuff.
• 48:17
  But it's always nice to be able to know this for particular groups that just
• 48:20
  want to see more and more and more.
• 48:23
  It can lead into sandwich effects and whatever because you've got three cards,
• 48:26
  three card money, whatever you want to do.
• 48:28
  So, yeah, that's about it, guys. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that, my friend. Yeah.
• 48:35
  Yeah. That is lit. They are absolutely loving it.
• 48:39
  Thank you for sharing that, man. It's, again, yeah, like, in the comments you
• 48:43
  saw, like, we just, everyone's loving it. I love it, too.
• 48:46
  I feel like there's other applications for that end flip that I'm sure you've
• 48:51
  thought about, but, like, I could imagine, you know, I'm going to predict two
• 48:54
  cards and sit them on the table,
• 48:56
  but it's actually one and you can do a one
• 48:59
  ahead or one behind kind of thing even i don't know i could see that yeah absolutely
• 49:03
  it was actually inspired from danny garcia a long time ago he came out with
• 49:08
  this project called five i think with marcus eddie maybe it was on this one
• 49:12
  maybe it's for oh yeah right there was a trick called point 44 which is a four
• 49:17
  four four transposition,
• 49:18
  and the last phase he does like a paintbrush change
• 49:21
  and then that segues to showing that a card than a table
• 49:24
  or a completely different form of a kind but he flips them over like that and
• 49:28
  I like that move it was a very particular move so I was like what if you also
• 49:32
  can load a card in that action and that's where I had to come up with this transposition
• 49:37
  so yeah I love that I love you know I miss the old Vegas Strip Street Magic Vans.
• 49:43
  Videos like performances in 20 times yeah
• 49:46
  yeah that would yeah that's awesome
• 49:49
  so daniel if we could circle back
• 49:52
  to your consulting realm i have a question with regards
• 49:55
  to that and it is when you're working with
• 49:58
  certain magicians performers i assume that there
• 50:01
  is like a couple of entities you got to consider and what
• 50:04
  i'm most interested in is like you have consulting and
• 50:07
  helping with shows and also consulting and helping with routines
• 50:10
  and i know that they might sound like they're part and parcel but
• 50:13
  when what are the major differences between
• 50:17
  someone going i have this one routine help me with this one effect which is
• 50:19
  effectively you going here's method but when it
• 50:22
  comes to show is that how much more difficult
• 50:25
  is that i think it's a lot more involved for so for the past like year and a
• 50:30
  half right i've been working on this show for somebody who's trying to come
• 50:35
  up with like a new immersive theater show it's not a magic show but she wanted
• 50:41
  magic elements in it, which makes sense.
• 50:43
  I think magic can be very diverse in being applied to other things like Harry
• 50:47
  Potter. There's magic consultants on that for Broadway.
• 50:50
  So I thought that was really interesting, but I've been working with it for the last year and a half.
• 50:55
  Month after month after month, we're developing magic. I'm teaching her how
• 50:58
  to do these things because some slight of hand is involved and it gets very
• 51:02
  involved and takes a long time.
• 51:04
  I wouldn't say it's necessarily more difficult, but there's more work to do
• 51:08
  versus for a certain routine or something.
• 51:11
  From my experience, it's been pretty easy in the sense that not every magician
• 51:18
  is coming to me with help for routines.
• 51:21
  It's been only a handful of people and they are people who need consultants
• 51:27
  where they already have a great show or they're already great performers.
• 51:31
  They know a lot of material.
• 51:33
  They just want to get thoughts or help or whatever, whether it's formal or informal.
• 51:39
  And so to be able to fix up certain things with like, oh, what do you think about this?
• 51:43
  And it's like, well, I think this or that, like they understand what I'm talking about, I guess.
• 51:49
  At least from my experience, I haven't never like worked formally with someone
• 51:52
  who's like not that experienced where it's like, what should I do?
• 51:56
  I don't know so much, you know, it's always people who like have already been
• 52:01
  doing this and whether they have their own show in the city or they've been doing this full time.
• 52:06
  I think at that point, that's where you get a consultant. Otherwise,
• 52:09
  like if you're a beginner to intermediate or a hobbyist, like you can answer
• 52:13
  all your questions by looking online, you know, but very, it's very like specific
• 52:16
  help that you need from somebody else. Like they're already going to know a lot.
• 52:20
  Okay. And as far as this specific mind, like skill sets that a consultant would
• 52:25
  have, what would you say your specific skill set is?
• 52:29
  Boy, user. That's a tough question. What'd I do, bud?
• 52:33
  But they're great questions. And I think it's tough because it's like,
• 52:36
  I hate always like saying from what my strong suits are.
• 52:41
  It's like, I don't know. What if I'm mistaken? What if I suck at this thing? And I think I'm great.
• 52:46
  But well, for one, I think card tricks are definitely a strong suit of mine.
• 52:50
  If we need to figure out like a method for something, I got it.
• 52:53
  I'm going to figure it out for you.
• 52:55
  Otherwise, I think just like structurally for a routine, sometimes certain routines
• 53:01
  can get a little more complex with a lot of moving pieces and go much more in detail about that.
• 53:09
  But structuring things, whether it's like scripting or procedure with the audience
• 53:15
  and the perception of a layperson,
• 53:18
  I think that's a big strong suit of mine of like taking into account what an
• 53:23
  audience member is going to be thinking at every second.
• 53:25
  And what's false methods might come
• 53:27
  to mind that they're mistaken in is that a good thing or a bad
• 53:30
  thing do we want to lead them down this path or does
• 53:33
  it hit too close to home of what the actual method is because
• 53:37
  i and i think that's a strong suit of mind because when
• 53:40
  magicians show me magic tricks i'm probably
• 53:44
  one of the best magic spectators that
• 53:47
  there probably could be like i'll be fooled by so
• 53:50
  many tricks like if you see me at like a convention like i'm blown
• 53:53
  away by like all the things even though maybe i shouldn't
• 53:56
  have been fooled and it's because i think what's the what's more
• 54:00
  conducive is to not like watch like
• 54:02
  like a magician like like you can't fool me it's like
• 54:05
  what's the point of that yeah watch like some person
• 54:09
  i have no idea what a magic trick is i've never seen it.
• 54:12
  Before and just watch like without being so
• 54:15
  critical about every moment and making sure that i don't like
• 54:18
  i don't have any oversights like i just want to watch and
• 54:22
  i'll end up being fooled and i think that's more conducive because it's like well that
• 54:25
  you're going to be performing this for lay people how are they going
• 54:28
  to react to it i kind of want to emulate that you know
• 54:31
  so i do get fooled by like almost everything because i'm not watching critically
• 54:35
  you know and i think that's really important because then now i can take into
• 54:39
  account lay people who are not so well versed and sometimes i'm in like jams
• 54:43
  where they get so deep that it's like we start to question like what is that even deceptive.
• 54:49
  Wouldn't an audience member even would this even fool people?
• 54:54
  And sometimes you get really deep into magic or you start questioning the things.
• 54:58
  Again, like I've said before, you get jaded when you're working on certain things
• 55:02
  for so long that they start to become these givens and you start assuming everybody thinks that way.
• 55:07
  And it's good to have me around to remind you like, hey man,
• 55:11
  people don't know what a double list is.
• 55:14
  You know, for example.
• 55:17
  So I hope that answers your question. yeah and what
• 55:20
  advice do you have for folks who are working on things for so many years i
• 55:23
  have routines that i've been dusting off purely because
• 55:26
  i haven't had the forum to perform them there isn't a lot of opportunities to
• 55:29
  do parlor style things and so thankfully due to the birth of the theater of
• 55:35
  magic i've been able to dust those routines off and polish them up again which
• 55:39
  is a really really wonderful thing i was working on routines and so forth like
• 55:43
  in that realm now I guess with regards to the question and time,
• 55:47
  when you are feeling stuck or when you have been working on something for so
• 55:51
  long and you don't quite have it yet,
• 55:54
  what advice do you have? Do you shelve it?
• 55:56
  Do you seek help immediately or all the above?
• 56:01
  I think neither of those are the wrong answer. I personally would say,
• 56:05
  yeah, put it down for a sec or for a while and work on something else or don't work on something else.
• 56:11
  You know sometimes we're just always trying to find ways
• 56:14
  to stay busy and continue developing our own magic and we
• 56:17
  get all magicked out you know but we tend
• 56:21
  to forget like over time
• 56:24
  how much we do just naturally learn versus like
• 56:27
  six months ago or x amount of time ago and so
• 56:30
  when you pick that thing up again you might all of a
• 56:32
  sudden have new ideas for it where it's like this is how i used to do it like
• 56:36
  here's an easy fix like this is so obvious oftentimes like that's how i feel
• 56:41
  about a lot of my routines and i'm not performing like every single week like
• 56:45
  on a regular basis so sometimes things do get tabled and then i pick them back up again it's like huh,
• 56:51
  that part kind of sucks i can't believe i've been doing it like that here's
• 56:54
  and sometimes but you know rarely once in a while like you might not have that
• 57:01
  light bulb kind of go off for those routines and i think that's okay too i think
• 57:04
  that's an indication that like well you know you You don't have a big problem
• 57:08
  here with this routine that's been working,
• 57:09
  and that's okay as well. You don't have to constantly be working on every piece.
• 57:14
  You'll never find that perfection where it's like, okay, this is done, period.
• 57:18
  So keeping that in mind is important too but yeah i
• 57:21
  mean people ask me for help you know
• 57:24
  sometimes you ask for a consultant to get you know another
• 57:27
  brain in the mix and they might come up with ideas that
• 57:30
  you would have never considered and that's why you want to have consultants
• 57:33
  yeah so neither percent and and
• 57:37
  as we i like i mean i we said this beforehand before
• 57:41
  we went live and our dentist was worried like
• 57:44
  what what should we talk about i'm like this is
• 57:47
  going to go so fast and it has because you have so much knowledge within
• 57:50
  you if people do want to reach out they do have
• 57:53
  that specific project that that could use the
• 57:56
  dentist touch how do they get in touch with you for that
• 57:58
  kind of a thing you can find me on instagram i
• 58:02
  think i have all of my contact methods on my page itself whether it's like going
• 58:07
  to my website or like i think my email is probably on there or maybe not i might
• 58:11
  get too much spam might have removed it but yeah shoot me a message on Instagram
• 58:16
  and let's just chat you know I think that's that's where you'll definitely find me,
• 58:20
  amazing and that is Dennis's Instagram and website are in the link in the description
• 58:25
  of where you're watching or listening to this on Instagram the close-up artist.
• 58:31
  Dennis thank you oh and in the chat excellent we'll put it on the screen here
• 58:34
  so dude thank you so much for coming on the show we end we end every episode
• 58:39
  with giving our guest the final word,
• 58:42
  it's been two years since we last got the final word from you,
• 58:45
  and we didn't talk about this backstage, but do you have some final words of
• 58:51
  wisdom if we set up this that you could drop for our fellow viewers?
• 58:55
  For sure, absolutely. Okay, let me run our stinger.
• 58:59
  And we want to thank everyone for jumping on and for Dennis's time working on
• 59:04
  so many projects and we're cheering on for the FISM announcement.
• 59:08
  And that gives me enough time to watch Dennis's video
• 59:11
  another maybe 20 times and we're going
• 59:14
  to leave you guys with the final word but nick and i will see
• 59:17
  you guys next week this is
• 59:21
  it all right i'm sure most of you watching are magicians whether you're hobbyists
• 59:27
  or aspiring professional or already doing this full-time i think magic is just
• 59:31
  such a beautiful thing there's always going to be solutions to all the problems
• 59:35
  and sometimes we get so deep and caught up in the magic that we forget, you know,
• 59:40
  that magic can perform magic for other people and sharing it is such a gift
• 59:43
  that the reason why we do this in the first place is to make other people happy
• 59:47
  and wow them, you know, with something that we've practiced in private.
• 59:50
  Now we get to showcase it in public. It's a beautiful thing.
• 59:53
  And if you want to consult as well, it's also, there's many joys in that as
• 59:57
  well, because you get to work on something that ends up being in a production,
• 1:00:02
  whether it's through a media or in person or virtually or whatever,
• 1:00:05
  Just never forget that magic is a gift that you have in your hands.
• 1:00:10
  Compartmentalize it. It shouldn't bleed so much into your life,
• 1:00:13
  of course, but otherwise when you're performing, just commit to the bit, you.
• 1:00:18
  Yeah, like, like really commit to it. I don't know. I know I don't have any
• 1:00:22
  magic to perform for you guys in this episode besides this little transposition,
• 1:00:26
  but commitment is really important because, well, I've been doing this entire
• 1:00:30
  podcast kind of from a mirror.
• 1:00:33
  Oh, come on. You know, maybe I'll show you what it looks like from behind the scenes. Oh, come on.
• 1:00:41
  I didn't have to say we've got such stuff just to be on brand.
• 1:00:46
  We can't end the episode like that oh my god what that means is that the Windex
• 1:00:53
  bottle is a proper one god damn it,
• 1:00:59
  are you kidding me oh my word it's fun guys thanks for having me I appreciate it.
• 1:01:08
  Music.