Hey Derren,

Nice to have you here. We met and spoke in Stevenage and London about Luke Jermay, spoon bending and dual reality effects. I was wondering…

1) I noticed in the Séance credits that Max Maven was the ‘Interactive Consultant’. Do share what this meant and what input he had on the show.

2) What effects do you personally do impromptu (if you do!), if someone insists on ‘seeing something’? I assume you don’t pull out a deck of cards or a pad which you ‘happened to have in your pocket’. I believe you even made a point about how pretentious this looks in Absolute Magic. I’ve heard you do things like PK touches and Coin in the Hand on the radio – as a rule are you always ‘set up invisibly’ for certain pieces?

3) When designing an effect (I'm mainly thinking of TV work), how do you weight what impact is felt by whom?
By this I mean... a dual-reality effect may seem a lot less impressive to the one person involved than to the entire watching audience, so do you still try to make it seem as amazing as possible to that one person, to get a good filmed reaction? Or would a COMPLETELY stunned audience make up for the fact that the involved person doesn't react well?

4) Who suggested the idea of exposing a possible method early on so you can use it later without suspicion? Has it worked well?

5) Do you prefer the new 60's style or Mind Control for the TV show?

6) How often do you have to do re-takes for the TV show? Would you do a re-take of the revelation of the final effect? If so, do you think that the person is still not a stooge because they got it right or whatever the original time but it didn't look right on film? What are your thoughts on this? (I'm primarily thinking of the How Many Fingers? effect on that girl, episode 1, Trick of the Mind)

7) Do you count TV editing in your list of 'invisible compromises'?

8) Would you ever risk performing something like the telepathic number transferance or Lift without hypnosis? In Jonathan Royle's rip-off version of Lift, he says it's not a problem because anyone with their eyes closed is disorientated enough to not realise what's going on.

Sorry for all the questions, but I'd love to hear your opinions. Either that or I take up loads of time at the stage door at the end of your next show I see.

I loved Out Of This World on the undertaker. Great easter egg for the magicians. You must have had some great misdirection considering the size of those photos.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Scott.

PS - Thanks for bending my spoon.

Click here to view attached image.