I have started this thread to have a place to address things common to all.

This first post is to clarify some things about the clips I put on my web site.

The first four were placed on the web to demonstrate the vanish moves. They are not intended to be performances. The edge is used simply to provide completeness to the move. I have not protected them with a password and so I assume laymen will bump into them. I wanted to have a complete something so that it is not readily apparent where the coin went.

In the first (Schneider Vanish) the purpose was to show that the Intention of Reality creates something you can see go from hand to hand. I shot this over and over to get the right lighting and right angle to observe the action. Once the right angle and lighting were set, I racked off about 10 tries. The next problem is that I do the move to quickly. I needed to wait some time before doing the move and wait some time after the move. I finally got it right after two days of shooting.

The second (Schneider Classic Vanish) was done just to show that the fingers behave different than Dr. Rubinstein has explained in his works. This is to also show that the coin is actually tossed into the hand. Once I had the lights and angle set up I did three of these vanishes and picked one.

The third (Snap Back Tunnel Vanish) was added to show that I am capable of a Visual Retention Vanish. I worked on several forms of this. There are about 5. Hand palm up, down, flat, curled and so on. I chose this because it is nice to see the coin between the fingers as the hand closes around it. I was afraid readers would think I don’t like the Retention Vanish because I can’t do one. Well, this looks pretty good.

The fourth (Snap Back Drop Vanish) was added because when I show it to magicians they really think it’s cool. I was talking to a magician from Canada at some convention when I first came up with it. I showed it to him and he said it felt as if his heart skipped a beat it looked so good. So, I decided to include it here. I shot about 25 of these. It is not a move I regularly use and it is not developed. They did not turn our real good on the camera. It can look better. I picked this because it looked the best. At this point I was tired of making clips.

About using the lap technique
I do not normally use lapping. This is apparent from the clips. You might notice that while watching the clips there can be a flutter of my hand when it rises from the table. This is because I have not developed the Intention of Reality in the lap motion. The flutter appears because you are seeing my intention to drop the coin. Had I practiced the motion appropriately you would not see this flutter and your eye would not be drawn to the hand. I repeated the technique for about a week before shooting, but it was not enough to establish an appropriate Intention of Reality. Unfortunately, I had a time constraint. I have done the Schneider Vanish many, many times however and the Intention of Reality is very strong there. All I did was do the move and it always worked fine.

The remaining six items were included to offer examples of what is in the Ideas 2005 Lecture Notes. These are not items I regularly do. The result is that I do not do them well. Bear in mind that the concept in Ideas 2005 was to present a bunch of material that were ideas rather than completed items. Volume and cute was the goal.

The vanishing dime is cute, however, I do not like the handling here. It is a little obvious how it works. I am not sure how to fix it. I shot this last and was very tired of shooting so I just took something that was OK. It is a cute trick. I have not audience tested it so I do not know what kind of effect it has on the layman. It can be easily carried in the pocket and is excellent for those times you want to, “Just do a trick”.

There is a possibility that TT Manipulation is the star of the show. I threw it in because it was easy and looks good. Once I had the lighting and angle set up for the above moves, I just turned on the camera and tried it once or twice. I rewound the tape and checked it and the practice run looked good enough to keep.

The Vanishing Chain was included because it represented the diversity of material of the Ideas 2005 Lecture Notes. I had a lot of trouble shooting this. Since I purchased the shirt I was wearing I have put on some weight and thus made the move difficult to do. Most of the techniques using this technology utilized coins. Since I had many coin things already, I went with the chain. During the shooting of this sequence, I have come to like it a lot. I am considering working with this some more to see where it will go. The whole concept began when I began to work on some street magic stuff.

TriThru was to be the leader of the pack. I like the sequence. Whenever I presented it at the lectures it went over quite well. However, as I put it on tape, it looked very bad. As I said the things in the lecture are ideas, not finished products. Well, this was not finished. I shot clips for about a week to get what you see. It is not complete. The fingers holding the palmed coin flutter when they shouldn’t. The little finger of the other hand opens at exactly the wrong time revealing what is transpiring. The first drop, however appears perfect. The other two have revealing flaws. If I dedicated three months to this routine I could get it down to a real nice showpiece. That is not my goal here however. The goal is to offer you material you might enjoy working with. The clip shows enough to demonstrate the feasibility of the effect.

Ring-n-Hank was also added to show diversity of material in the lecture. This clip was pulled right from the lecture CD. The performance of the routine is fairly good. The camera action, however, suffers a bit. I like this routine a lot. I intend to use this for special occasions. My idea is to carry a white silk handkerchief. Then I will make the bag (need to get better at that) and have a lady drop her wedding band into the bag. She feels her ring in the bottom of the bag and pow, the ring is on my finger. I have not tried this on laymen. That will be the test. But it should go good.

The business card trick was also just taken from the lecture notes CD. A lot of effort has been put into this routine. It is an old routine with me that was never developed. The version shown is the third routine developed for the trick.

Hmmmmm. Got carried away here I guess. I wanted you to know the details of what is going on with the clips. Primarily I wanted you to know that I do not consider simply doing a vanish and the ditch is appropriate magic. It is the wrong way.

I will use this thread in the following days to introduce ideas common to all thread here.
Al Schneider

Hi Mr. Schneider,

Would you mind sending me the link to your web site? Thanks.

It is in his profile, http://www.worldmagiccenter.com .

Thanks Sean for the link.

Have watched the clips as was amazed...

I personally like SCHNEIDER VANISH most since it looks very amazing to me, I've watched it 3-4 times and each time I was misdirected to see the "incorrect" place. I think the most important point of a vanish is the misdirection part, which is done nicely in your clips, this gives time and space to get rid of the impression or thought of where the coin is really is.

I guess some vanishes there are best done with some dialogs, since they are too quick and people may suspect there are some "moves" there.

Having said that, I totally agree that a single vanish and ditch is not really a magic (perhaps it will grap some "wows"). Like I always believe:
A simple vanish + A simple production = An amazing transposition

It is the combination of techniques and ideas that make the routine magical. A single vanish is just a technique or tool.

The TRITHRU ROUTINE is very visual and nice. Mr. Schneider, ever thought of putting a coin back in your left hand after taking 2 out? This may create some variety =)

The BIZ HOLE ROUTINE is also cool. Nice~~

Mr. Schneider,
I have long been a fan, and have appreciated your voice in magic. As I read your comments regarding the clips on your website, all I can say is, you wouldn't *believe* what they look like to us! Your 'so - so' is our, 'you gotta be kidding me,' and your 'it is quite nice' is our miracle. Thank you for yet more wonderful magic, and welcome. I thank you for the time you will put into this guest spot and look forward to your comments.


Mark

Markjens

It is words from people like you that keep me going.
Thanks
Al

Mr. Schneider, Thank you for participating in a thought provoking series of threads. I hope other magicians will take note of your attention to detail and ability to be self-critical in a positive way. Unfortunately, I have viewed too many demos and videos where the creator seems to pay no attention to lighting, distracting background, or even camera angles. They frequently may contain an interesting idea or product, but their lack of attention to detail significantly detracts from the "magic." Thanks again for an approach that conveys caring about what you do more than simply rusing to get something out the door.

Lekin

Thank you for your comments.
I have a desire to improve upon what you have seen.
If you have any ideas I will listen.
Al Schneider







People listen to people that listen.

All the clips look very good. The Snap Back Drop Vanish was new to me.

I have to say that the dime vanish is less than impressive, but that's probably because I've done the cigarette vanish Mike Skinner taught me which uses a similar method.

The movable hole may be the best method I've seen for the trick. It always amazes me what you can do with simple methods properly arranged. Congratulations on that one! Is it in print somewhere? I'd like to do it, but not without paying for the routine.

Thanks for sharing the clips,
bill

Wsduncan

As indicated elsewhere, the Biz Hole is one of the tricks from the Ideas 2005 lecture notes. If you can get the handling from the clip, you have my permission to perform it.

The Vanishing Dime is one of those tricks that proves that all my stuff is not great. There is a chance with correct handling it might be a winner. Also there is a chance that just being on a film clip might display just another dumb trick. However, I have not tested it on real people. It might be absolutely amazing.

Consider vanishing a sponge ball using a tip and a handkerchief. All of us know this one. But it absolutely kills laymen. For some reason it gets a better reaction than just causing a ball to vanish using a tip.

Thanks for your candid words that are both critical and supportive.
Al Schneider

"In the first (Schneider Vanish) the purpose was to show that the Intention of Reality creates something you can see go from hand to hand. I shot this over and over to get the right lighting and right angle to observe the action. Once the right angle and lighting were set, I racked off about 10 tries. The next problem is that I do the move to quickly. I needed to wait some time before doing the move and wait some time after the move. I finally got it right after two days of shooting."

I went from a feeling of amazement seeing you do this sleight, to a feeling of despair when reading that it took the master so many tries to get it right. What chance do mere mortals have of being able to use this in real-life ? We can't expect the audience to hang around for two days until we get it right

Malcolm,

if you get the DVD's you'll see that not in all of them the vanish is so astonishing as in the recent clips in Mr Schneider website. Partly because of the different angles. Not all the audience will see the vanish as it is shown on the clip. Nevertheless, this vanish is so convinsing that even if you don't get the intention of reality effect it really doesn't matter.

Saying that, if you follow Mr Schneider's advice and exercises in his ebooks, you'll be able to accomplish the same effect within a few hours of practice. His teaching is so good!!

To be a little more accuracte.

I think the audience will get the effect of Intention of Reality with the Schneider Vanish. We as magicians are looking for that exact point. The laymen do not. They see the coin travel for they do not think a move is being executed. There mind then fills in more than it does for us.

To explain what I mean, consider my Zombie moves. I can do the routine surrounded. A requirement to do this is that the ball remain covered most of the time. Most magicians, while building a Zombie routine, attempt to keep the ball visible and attemtp to create the illusion the ball is floating. I took another path. I attempt to keep the ball under cover most of the time but use body language and suggestion to create the illusion of the ball floating. This is where the concept of "When you move the ball doesn't and when the ball moves, you don't." You can exercise this with the ball totally covered. The sequence when the ball zooms around my body shows this suggestiong of floating while covered really well. The ball, relative to my body, is not moving. The ball touches the side of my body. Then I rotate my body. In doing so the ball is apparently zooming right around me. In fact it is not moving at all.

So, what does this have with the Intention of Reality. If the coin vanish is done with Intention of Reality, the audience will see the coin go into the hand from all angles of view. Even if they are positioned so all they see is the back of my hand. It is the overall motion that the audience is using to build the pictures they are observing in their head. Just as with Zombie, something else is going on. But the lay audience builds a totally different image of what a magician will see.

Bear in mind that most of the vanishes on my web site are Retention of Vision vanishes. The angle of view is a problem with these vanishes. They require the audience to be at a precise position for them to work.

The point I am making with the clip is that even we as magicians will see something go if Intention of Reality is used. The picture was taken at the right angle to see this. During performance the layman percieves the Schneider Vanish as absolutely real. Done correctly there is no flair, flash or dazzle to it. To the lay audience it is real.

And Yiannis is correct. Particularly about the move being fairly easy to accomplish. I mention elsewhere a 15 year old girl came to my class and mastered it in about 3 hours.

In by pdf book, Schneider Vanish, I beat you over the head with a lot more than she got. She did master the Schneider Vanish but she did not master some of the basics of Finger P or other issues with the vanish. She was kind of a shaker mover type anyway. After one of my classes she started teaching her own school. Oh well.
Al Schneider

I must add one more thing.

To the spectator standing behind the performer, the Schneicer Vanish looks very, very good.

Al Schneider

Al ~

In one of Ross Bertram's books he does the same vanish of a dime. In his routine there is a dime and a penny in play. The use of the penny makes the dime moves flow reasonably natural. I've used his routine impromptu for many years. Just needs a dime and a penny.

If you haven't read Ross' books I think you would enjoy them very much.

~ Dan

Boy, miss one little thread and I’m out of the loop!
Thank you so much for your generosity! I had one part wrong, which I found out when I tried it out with the cards in hand. That error led to an interesting variant that I’ll tell you about in a PM. Perhaps you’ll like it.


It’s not a bad trick, it’s just a “small” trick. Skinner used the same method to vanish an unlit cigarette and reproduce it. That was impressive because it was clearly gone, and too big to be hidden (apparently). When it came back magicians were puzzled because they assumed he’d gone south with it in the first place. The problem (I think) is that the dime is so darn small that an “incomplete” vanish isn’t all that impressive. I bet if you used the same method to transform a dime into two nickels it would play pretty strongly, because the emphasis would be on the production (transformation) of the dime.


I think is related to what we were talking about with Matrix. To us the hank would seem to be a place to hide the sponge ball, but to laymen it’s isolates the ball, just as the cards do the coins, in Matrix. I have no empirical evidence of this, but it seems a likely reason.


Thank you for being here and putting yourself and your work on line and “on the line”.


bill

Wsduncan

Thanks for the further comments.

mookboy

This is an item presented in the Ideas 2005 Lecture Notes.
Go to http://www.worldmagiccenter.com for more information.
The idea in Ideas 2005 was to present a voume of concepts. They were not to be necessarily developed. TriThru was just an idea for the lecture. I liked it so much a made the video. Thus, more development has been put into it since the notes were made. The notes do outline the basic handling so you can get started. I have already written up the trick as a new pdf to sell on my web site.
Thanks for asking.
Al Schneider

Do not despair Malcom. It is well within the grasp of mere mortals. Remember doing something live and in person is far different than getting that same look on film, or video. The camera is far different that the human eye and brain combination.

We can see in lighting conditions perfectly well something that is simply all muddy in a photo or movie. Having taught photography and done a lot of it, I can attest that you may have to shoot something many times to get it to look natural.

I'll give you an example. In the clip where Al makes the ring disappear from the handkerchief and reappear on his finger. There is two of us in a cramped second bedroom with lights, a digital camera, several computers, a fan to keep things cool and a television monitor. You shoot it the first time and it looks great to the eye. Watch the playback and there is an ugly shadow across the action. Next take, whoops forgot to shut off the fan very noisy not a problem since there is no sound? not so, the fan causes a strobe effect on the ring. Shoot again and the ring drops out of the bag. Again and we get the giggles, that can take several takes! Anyway you get the idea. Except for the one time the ring fell out, any one of the performances would be acceptable were you to have been there simply looking at it.

The camera is not as adaptable as the human eye and so great care must be made to duplicate on film what you would see if you were there. Shooting still pictures to be tranformed into line drawings for an article and making a short movie clip is a completely different skill set than performing magic.

Years ago PBS did an hour special in Minneapolis at the old Orpheum Theater of Harry Blackstone Jr. Looking at it it appears the same as any of his live performnces looked, being there was quite another situation. It took over three hours to shoot, many illusions were reshot because of technical glitches which meant we as the studio audience had to be coached on applause and cheering so the shots would match.

It's not just point and shoot folks. It's never just point and shoot. Sorry to ramble on Al's time but this is an area I have some sensitivity for.

Frank Tougas

TT Manipulation fried me. Goshman would be amazed himself, I'm sure.

Al, thank you very much for sharing.

I liked all of it!

The vanishing dime is a terrific little quickie for those impromptu(?) moments and when in short sleeves.

While the first couple of vanishes remind me of some of Slydini's work, your Intention of Reality really enhances them greatly.

Especially liked TT Manip. and the reappearance of the coin.
TriThru is beautiful. Your exceptional use of the sleights makes the routine flow very nice.

Again, I enjoyed all of it and thanks for sharing.