Hey everyone,

I want to produce a full bouquet of real roses at the end of one of my acts, they need to be real cause I am giving them away. I will be using a silk, and I could step off stage to grab a mic to talk before the production if necessary. I want to simply wave a silk over my open hand and produce the bouquet, stems and all. Any lecture notes/ videos/ books/ or dvds with something like this or any bouquet production or real flowers you all know about?

Thanks guys and girls,

DJ

In the DVD "The Magic of Jeff McBride", he produces a bouquet of flowers after some byplay with the McBride candle.

Thank you sam,


I will for sure look into this production, is a silk used?

DJ

Why do you need to use a silk?

There are some very classic ways to do this. Check out Tarbell and Rice.

This is going to be tough to do out of a silk. You are going to need a holder to hold the flowers in the silk that doesn't crush the blooms.

Why not use a tip over florist box or something like that?

Richard

I want to wave the silk over my waiting hand and have the full bouquet of roses in the hand. It could be something else of a different size that is waed over the hand for the production but I need the roses produced in a waiting hand, or if there was a method to produce them with no cover at all in a waiting hand even better...

DJ

Nice dream. Let us know how it goes.

I will second the production on Jeff McBride's video. I have the set and I am interested in selling it. Let me know if you are interested.

Derek Merdinyan

Black art. Only way with "No Cover." But many silks and a steal is a beautiful thing.

Jeff McBride, and yes he dose use a silk.

Lukas

I would second the black art option, its a lovely idea but very difficult to do using traditional 'in the hands' production methods.

Unless you think along the lines of balloon to winebottle (splash bottle) / dove productions, but it wouldnt be too 'comfortable'

Gary

The other factor to consider when producing a bouquet is the possibility of petals falling to the floor prior to the production. The holder not only has to be secure and compact, but pretty much "petal proof" as well. If it were me, I would forget the silk and produce the bouquet from a large square circle.

Kent

A Square Circle? How far from sleight of hand can you get? My advice is to ignore the advice for the moment and buy a plastic rose bouquet as close the the size and shape of the one that you want to produce as possible. Work in front of a full length mirror and just "pretend" you are producing the bouquet magically. That will help you work out what you want the audience to see as the end result. Now, working backwards, figure out what you have to do to get to the ending without the audience seeing the bouquet or where it comes from. It's not as difficult as it seems once you actually start to work on the problem. Maybe you'll need a silk for cover... but maybe not! I get good results with a huge pocket built into the lining along the back of my suit jacket that has an opening in a side seam under my right arm, for example. If you can see that working for you, you might just have to pay a visit to your tailor and the florist for your effect.

Also consider the possibility of producing the plastic bouquet, and then switching it for a real one as you head down towards the audience ( assuming you can get a plastic bouquet that realistic!).

Has it occured to you that 'a full bouquet of real roses' may rip and damage your silk? There are thorns and rough edges around the stem and these may just catch on your silk and as you move the silk away, it may be badly damaged. The petals may fall off and you may also badly crush the blooms.

I would suggest the use of a tube holder to place the bouquet inside and using a few silks to cover the holder - and producing the roses from the bunch of silks.

Of course it is better to appear the silks first and from them the bouquet.

Appearing the bouquet with a single silk would not be practical if the size of the bouquet is big.

I guess it depends on whether you are trying to focus on the effect or the method. Remember, even successful manipulators like McBride continue to recognize the usefulness of stage props such as this. At the end of the day though, it comes down to a matter of personal choice.

Kent

You can use dove production techniques but not for a big bunch of flowers, more like a single rose.

Otherwise I would suggest a short silk production routine, something simple like snap-silks, and a table steal as a single silk is produced, then that can be waved over the other silks and the bunch produced. You'll need to be using big silks, 24" starting with 36". I've had success with this, not flowers, but a big steal.
Paul

Due to the difficulty of handling real roses and petals breaking, etc., you could possibly produce an artificial bouquet and then find some way to switch them for the real thing as you hand them out.

Best,
Torkova

agreed... its a nice thought...but a bouquet of flowers is not an easy thing to conceal, nor handle, nor produce.. Your best bet is to steal it from a table or off stage as you get your mic...one silk wont do it though, you'll need alot.. good luck DJ