Thanks for the feedback guys. Someone mentioned I use only BEE cards. Why use those over a Bicycle deck? Is it price or are they made differently that will help me better?

Because Bee's do not have the white border around the back of the cards as Bike's do. Once you start to learn the handling you will understand why.

You also asked about other resources for card manipulation. Look up Jeff Sheridan,
and Romaine. They both have DVD's out on what you are looking for.

I use the red backed Bee's, and I couldn't see myself using anything else. =) I have a deck of manip. cards that I use for some moves, but for the most part, the Bee's are great.

Also, for instruction, check out Tony Clarks Award winning card Routine DVD. It has all the basics of the moves that you see her doing in the video. Spilt fans, single productions (three different ones actually), fan productions, etc. It is great for the beginner card manipulator. The Jeff McBride videos are also highly recommended.


Day 7

Most of the manipulation cards that are offered are smaller then bridge cards, they are a lot thinner, but the size makes them harder for me to use, and cost around $10.00 a deck and some of them do not even have a case (box) to store them in. Owln

I just got my McBride vol 1 dvd about 2 days ago. WOW! I love his personality. So easy to relate to. Interesting. When I saw DC do Grandpa's Aces, I watched it over and over trying to figure out how he did those color changes. I developed my own theory about how he did it and practiced in front of a mirror for a long time. Turns out, I thought wrong, as I'm 100 percent sure he was doing what McBride refers to as a window change. Cool though, now I know 2 different ways of producing the same effect, however I think, with practice, the window change is the MUCH easier of the two. I love this DVD, but its missing one thing. In standard card manipulation sequencing, the magician produces fans and single card productions, and drops them, only to produce more. How does the magician "refresh" or "recharge" his hand? Is this explained in McBride's vol 2 or 3, or if not, where can I learn more?

On my first post in this thread, I mentioned I can produce up to 6 cards using either hands. I now know that how I was producing is called the "Back Palm Production". Although I have it down so I can pull a single card from the rest and therfore can produce multiple times, which was a big pain to learn. Its unfortunate though, that doesn't explain this and only lectures on 1 card and not multiple.

Oh, and I laughed when, during the second portion of the video that begins to deal with card manipulations, that he switched from a Bicycle to a Bee deck. Although he never mentions why he did that, its now clear to me why that style of deck is better for what he was doing.

WOW!She is Gorgeous,both in her perfomance and as a Woman!!!
Thanks,
Hansel!

As mentioned lots of Practice!!!!!!!!

That Angela Funovits. She was on "Phenomenon" last fall, and I thought she was pretty good. She is deffinitely very tallented!

Louis Jutras

The best cards are red backed borderless cards. Bee will work, but the cards Jeff started with were steamboats, they had just the right feel and they take "softening" very well.
The deck that Anegla is using is a pattern deck for doing color changing backs kind of like the Shimada deck. The nice thing about those cards is that with the black on one corner, against the black backdrop gives you some black art advantages.
McBride videos will teach you everything she does except her make-up.

But where do I learn how to recharge my cards when they run out like everyone else?

I'm so proud of her!

I don't have the McBride Card Manipulation series yet but on his Manipulations Without Tears DVD he goes over some simple yet effective ways to reload cards without having to steal them from your body.

THe best cards are sold by Norm Neilsen magic at www.nnmagic. com I recommend the cheaper un-powdered cards as they are thinner and more of a plastic type paper. You will of course have to powder them yourself.

The you lady practiced a lot to make it look so easy. McBride have videos out that cover most of what she was doing. The card shooting was Juliana Chen's version from her DVD.

There may have been one move by Jeff Sheridan also when she vanished the card that looked like it went into a Tenkai Palm for the vanish.

There is a lot of information outn there in regards to working off the deck. I do this a lot when I am at certain show3s or performances where I do not have a luxury of having my "proper jacket" and set up. working off the pack gives you some flexibility.

Kyle

About the black print. the deck, pardon me if I'm wrong. Juliana Chen Deck?

Chen's deck does have a partial black on the back. The design actually is a graphic of her face if I recall and the top section is black for the hair. However, the entire back of the card is not solid black. Hope this helps.

Kyle

@ rdbateman..'m quite in a hury now and didn't read all the post but I'd like to add (if someone didn't already)..

Angela funovits (as other said)a great manipulator and mentalist...What you see on the cards are just theyr design , she is on a japaneze style.The card are Juliana chen cards and they have the back of them white with a face of a girl in black (that what you saw)..and they are thinner
From what I know Shimada uses the same technique , when the card are in backpalm the black part of the card in in view and the white one behind the hand , but with a black background you can't see the black part of the cards so it's better then clasic manipulation cards

Also the fans are so good because..1.it requiers skill and 2..are with wax...

I hope I helped you with this information ,,,(If someone said this before me ,,,I'm sorry)

If you want to do this, you need several things.
1) ALL the DVD's on the subject
2) ALL the books on the subject
3) Hours of practice.
4) More hours of practice.

Then you need a plan to make your act look original. I do not like to see card manipulators come out and litter a stage. There was way too much of that at the combined convention. There were more card manipulators than there were illusions for Pete's sake!

Fantasio is an excellent manipulator. He doesn't litter the stage.

I went to see the magic show at the Wintergarten in Berlin last summer. They had a comic, a mentalist (Jan Becker! excellent!), Otto Wessely (very funny act!) and Julianna Chen. I was very disappointed with Julianna's act. She came out of a crouch and just threw cards everywhere. There was no magic. There was no real manipulation.

So see if you can learn to do something DIFFERENT with card manipulation. Others have.

Or maybe you should manipulate something else.

Remember this: unless you are the closer on the bill, the next act is going to have to wait until your mess gets cleaned up before they go on. Dancers really don't like card manipulators.

Or water acts, for that matter!

Ahhh! why has no one answered the original poster's question about how to "refresh" cards?

dude- two methods are discussed in the series. watch those DVDs over and over again, there is a section called "clip stealing" that will refresh hands, and "split fan productions" teaches you how to drop many cards whilst still retaining many others in various palm positions.

And sadly, too YOUNG for me!!!!