Stephan Schutzer's Self-folding Floating Bill.

I second that !

Glad that you liked it mate.

I dunno - these 'youngsters' are killing magic on YouTube!

I second John LeClair. I also like Kevin James Floating Rose video. He includes animation techniques for floating a dollar as well.

I'm gonna assume that last bit is a joke and laugh.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, seriously though loop work is expencive until you learn to tie your own, I went through two cards of them and decided loop work wasn't for me, then I decided to give tying my own a shot, wasted a spool of Mesika Thread because of his dispenser and my general lack of know how, then got Legacy thread a little later and I've been using loops constantly since, they go from like 2 bux a loop to like 7 cents a loop when you tie your own.

We are ready to spend a lot from our pocket for an expensive gimmick but we are not ready to practice till perfection with what we already have!

If you ask me, even the most inexpensive method will do great. The Le Claire's animator (Jon Le Clair's, "Who is afraid of invisible thread?" DVD), you can do so many effects with that setup. But the question is, will you practice with what you bought? or will it lie in the drawer?

Good luck.

Be advised, typing "floating dollar bill" into Google IMMEDIATELY leads people to actual solutions and exposure.

For that reason, I believer it's important to frame the effect as something OTHER than a floating dollar bill

Ammar's work on this is critical - in his classic handling, he only floats the bill for an instant, so people aren't even sure WHAT they saw, just that they saw something incredible. I add to this a LOT of patter regarding static electricity and magnetism, because those search terms don't lead to the same exposure sites

And speaking from some 30 years' personal experience, the SHORT floatation leaves a MUCH greater impression than any lengthy levitation, including and perhaps especially Fearson's floating cigarette handling.

BTW, I used to carry around, in my wallet, a length of regular IT wrapped around a cardboard spool in my wallet, with two wax ends. It takes a bit of doing to set up, but it allowed me to do the floating bill without expensive gimmickry whenever and wherever I happened to be. I now alternate between James George's ITRs and SPP, but I sometimes wonder whether my old inexpensive and disposable method was better.

LOL that's how I found this topic. After seeing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhesBNOrbZE

I hate not knowing


DD

I was the first person to point-out the Leslie Observation "for lack of better code nomenclature". That was almost two years ago.

People will be leaning back, typing the name of the effect into Google - while you are performing !!!... Never call tricks by their actual names. Make something up along the lines like "This next experiment is closely related to the Tesla Coil Principle". At some point ask if the person closest to you can feel the electricity in the air Obviously a different approach would be used for a different style effect.

It's now become necessary for us to misdirect the audience, as to the Modus Operandi AND their fingertip research. Otherwise we all spent a lot of time for nothing.

Just so I'm clear about this, I'm not remotely suggesting that the solution is simply not to announce your trick by name.

I'm saying that people will naturally use "floating dollar bill" as their search terms. They don't need to be told the name of the effect to come up with those search terms.

I do, in fact, know a guy who finishes Anniversary Waltz by saying, after the final revelation, "The Anniversary Waltz by Doc Eason." Not that the effect actually inspires Googling - it's a great trick but doesn't inspire the sort of hysteria that the floating bill does. Point being, if anyone wanted to Google it, he's just given them everything they need to find it.

That's why it's helpful to use patter filled with references to static electricity and magnetism to "muddy the water" somewhat. Just the same, the longer the levitation lasts, the more likely the spectators are to recall the effect as a "floating dollar bill."

I recall, too, when the first ITRs came out, Hollywood Magic demo guys would show off by dropping the bill onto the floor, then levitating it up into the air. BAD IDEA - like mtpascoe said above, people naturally look for the anchor points. And the longer the levitation, the more likely they are to guess where the thread probably is. A bill will bob at right angles to the thread, after all, and a bobbing bill (with two anchor points) looks very different from a hanging object with one anchor point. Hence my recommendation once again to keep the actual flotation SHORT SHORT SHORT.

Steve Fearson MLS...