I assume you meant FIANCE but since so many magicians have to rely on their partners to bring in the real bucks that was kinda humorous.
With digital recorders I do think that mirrors has become obsolete since you can not look at the mirror if you are looking at your hands or at a prop and many magicians tend to do that and often it gives it all away. With a camera you see every move.

I'm afraid that is exactly what a camera does. It blinks and blinks and blinks. In an indoor romm light situation, a video camera's shutter speed will be so low that a lot of images will simply not be there or they will be a convenient blurr. Also the camera "reuses" part of the image that doesn't change. Try watching something you have recoreded frame by frame and you will see what I'm talking about.

In order to get a more critical you could use a camera with Progressive Scan and some sort of studio lightling which lets the camera shoot with all the pixels in the image changed from frame to frame, and a framerate which is more closely resembling the human eye.

Video cameras as a way to see how good you are is wishful thinking. It simply doesn't pick up the flashes that the eye will do. It's all false security and to many, self indulgence. I'm sorry but it is. I've said this before and nobody wants to hear it. Too long shutter speeds. This is why so many teenager's passes are invisible on YouTube. In real life you would be able to see them miles away.

As for mirrors, I'm going to build myself a nice big antique looking theatre changing room makeup mirror with glow light bulbs around the edges and beautiful maple wood. Not as fair as a three way mirror, but very pretty since it needs to take up a good deal of space in my living room.

Video cameras don't supplant mirrors. You can easily watch yourself as you practice with a mirror, and, with a three-pane mirror, you can easily see yourself from different angles.

Video cameras aren't perfect. But if a performance doesn't look good in the camera, it's not going to look good in real life.

///ark

Now THAT is quite true.

I use the mirrors for the fine details of the sleights I'll be using.

A great many great magicians used mirrors before video came along.
I think they did just fine.

As for the video camera, you have to keep something in mind.
It's unforgiving.
You can't misdirect it.
Many magicians who view videos are bothered when a hand goes out of frame but that's what what we do when performing. We direct interest from one frame to another.
Also, your a magician, watching yourself and know what to look for.

Videos and mirrors are good tools but not completely trusworthy.
Only by performing for real people will the truth be revealed.

Hopefully that will be the only thing revealed...lol

I know where the audience stands you find it hard to conceal your gimicks I was watching a performer at a picknick last week ,and where I stood I could see the gimick he had for his silk changing ,I was seeing what most don't look for ,what made it easy is that he was having trouble getting it to work right ,I do feel kinda embarased when that happens to me LOL .The professionals can`t stress it enough to practice it well so you can do the trick as easy as eating dinner,or walking.

When I pratice,I just use only one mirror that's a few feet away from my table in my magic prop room. It really has helped me out a lot when I pratice,but just like Jaz said,only when preforming for real people will the truth be revealed

Jaz made a great point. We need to watch the tape with the eye of a spectator. Some very bold moves will look bad on the tape but will work greatly on the spot.

One of my favorite acts is the selected card under the spectators glass. On tape, it just looks stupid.

Hi,

As JamesTong said, you must locate your mirrors thrre way to see all of your angles. There is a great portable one in the http://www.magicwarehouse.com.

http://themagicwarehouse.com/cgi-bin/findit.pl?x_item=FL1146

Its also not expensive. You can use it in your practice parts.


magicially yours,

Nedim Guzel

This may sound stupid but here goes. I practiced my sponge ball false transfer in front of a mirror.I had a great false transfer. When I did the transfer without the mirror it was lame. I had become dependent ( rather quickly I might add) on seeing the move from the mirrors reflection. I can see why videotaping oneself would be so much better.

I agree on the video taping ,especally if you put the camera to one side as if you had a spread in your audence .That way you can see what they see at that angle.you can see where your falts are in your holds.plus you can learn to do some misdirection to take their attention away from your hand your moving the object to the new position in.from seeing my videos & others perform seeing the object between the fingers is the most common flash,however fast hand movement tends to blur the flash,and many don't notice it.I slowed down the section in the movie "A night at the museum" where Ben Stiller did the french drop vanish . I seen the flash of the coin then ,but at normal speed you don't see it .I have noticed that doing a coin move in the downs palm you have to be really careful of not flashing from the top,and bottom as well.The back palming I learned has worked well for me,and is easier than the deep back clip I tryed 3 months ago.Very effective when producing a coin from the air or behind someone after doing the french drop vanish.