The standard presentation at the end of the Billiard Ball routine is to continually produce the last ball from the shell in hopes of eliminating it once and for all...

You could produce the final ball and ditch the shell as you drop the diamond cut silk thus, change the shell into a red silk etc....

Can anyone share thier presentation ideas for a billiard ball scene....as in the last ball representing a cherry for use in a routine...or as the first ball to use in a cups and balls routine..etc...

Would you please share your ideas here..which involve producing Red Billiard balls for a particular reason instead of just for the sake of producing them i.e. placing them within the context of a storyline....I see too many "Cardini Clones" when it comes to these...

I don't wish to be another..Please help me spare the world another....?

Many thanks...I look forward to hearing from all of you on this topic.....~!rr

A great post and I hope to share in some of my thoughts on this topic. I always strive to not do any manipulation act simply as a show of skill. I find that bores the audience too much.

If I can come up with using the balls in a context of a storyline, then it becomes more entertaining to the audience and they can better relate to the object that vanishes.

Some ideas for how to use a ball might be:

-Doing a musical based act and you pick up a peice of sheet music. You open the inside of it and it has music scores and lines reversed out of black so the audience can see it better. In the center is one LARGE musical note. This paper can then be rolled up and a magic gesture made. A white ball is produced and when the paper is unrolled, the ball of the music note has vanished. This also can then tie well into music for the act. Every time a new ball is produced, the music can change.

- Billard balls as gum drops - although I believe Ashley Springer does this.

- Billard ball as a lollipop. Simply place a stick on one end and you have a lollipop, The wrapper can be flash paper. You unwrap it and by accident pull off the stick handle. You light the paper and another one appears. This can open you up to many different ideas. Maybe the billard ball keeps ending up on the stick as a running gag during the routine.

These are just a few of the many ideas I have kept in a notebook on giving a reason for doing what you are doing. Trying to think creatively to give the audience something more then just a pure show of skill.

I can list some more ideas if anyone finds any of these helpful.

Awesome and inspirational idea..especially the flash paper wrapper from lollipop...I really knew you would bite first on this based upon your avatar....

Thanks again and please do share some more but, Let us await some more first...!~rr

Thanks dude....say, "HI" to Kelly for moi..please..?

Folks let me say, that at the SAM Convention both Kyle and Kelly were the most giving of their time and efforts in a voluntary way...when it came to helping out.

I cannot think of any couple who stood out among the rest with the possible exception of Bruce and Arlene Kalver....

I truly admire and respect them for that....Kyle is a Real person and he doesn't just spout out theory....he has been in the trenches....You da' man Kyle!~rr

Rey rey;
Thanks again for all the kind words. My wife and I like to give back to magic what we have gotten from it. We are very active and involved in the youth SYM program and love to help out the kids at the conventions.

I am glad you liked my billiard ball ideas. I always keep a notebook with act and routine ideas. My feeling is that I always like to present an effect in a different manner then most. To me it is so much better to present a manipulation sequence by linking it more to something the audience can relate better to. This not only makes for better story telling, but makes for a more enjoyable presentation.

I will certainly tell Kelly you said hello.

No one else?
Wow...stingy...stingy...sharing is caring!

Rey Rey:
This is a great questiuon and I only hope others may start to reply to it. It is too common that most people just do not want to think creatively and just end up mimicking what has already been done. Hope all is well with you.

Yup- Cardini and McBride Clones

It really is a shame that people just plain give up. They do not want to put forth the effort to really make a routine their own. Something that can be considered their own art piece.

To do good magic requires time, patience and the ability to think outside of the norm. I only hope more people will come to realize this.

I have a theme to my billiard ball routine, but I'm not sure if this will work for everyone. I appear on stage wearing a pinstrip suit and hat. My background music is the theme from the Godfather. I have a gangster theme going on. It is a slower routine, not as fast paced as others, but I find it to be more beautiful than others too. There are no conventional steals or shell moves, and I close with a very clean vanish of the last ball, to the music. It gives it closure. All in all, it is a very strange routine. However, I like it, it gets great applause, and I'm going to stick with it. It's also a great contrast to the rest of my Asian themed show. Not sure if this helped give you any ideas, but I just wanted to show that I am working hard on creating a unique routine.

Zombie:
With that said, I have a few questions and comments for you. My first statement is that I think your going down the right path in being creative with your manip. act and routine.

You seem to have established a nice character on stage and the costume and music to match it works well also. My only question is that it appears that the act still lacks the themed approach as your dress and music does.

What I mean is that if your a gangster and your dressed that way, then why would a gangster be vanishing and appearing balls out of thin air? With a well developed theme, your act now must make sense and fit with what your establishing.

I have a thought for you that may help to explain how an act idea of your type might be able to be done so that what you are doing makes more sense to the audience.

The problems lies in the fact that the ball needs to tie in to your gangster theme. With this in mind perhaps this is an idea that may work:

Curtains are closed and you hear people talking or eating at a restaurant. Maybe you hear a gangster talking and saying soemthing about .. hey there he is... lets get him boys... Curtains open and your on stage. You turn around and move one way to escape but can't cause they have you covered. You try the other way and no such luck. Instead you decide to hide and drop a cloth to the floor. A tommy gun is heard to go off and you see bullet holes go through the cloth. This could be perhaps white holes on a black cloth. You drop the cloth and you are ok.

You then could look at oone of the white bullet holes. Reach into the hole and pull out one of the bullets. In this way the white billard ball has been changed into a bullet and now makes 100% perfect sense to the storyline.

This is not totally thought out, but I wanted to give you an idea of how your theme can be carried out further to make better sense with your character and theme you have already set up.

Hope this helps you.

To take this one step further if he uses red billiard balls he could remove one of the blood stains from the bullet wounds and use it as his first produced ball to start the sequence and later find more blood wounds...etc....

Nice starter ideas Kyle, Zombie...let's keep this one going..~rr

Thanks guys. Kyle, where do all these ideas come from?

I end my Billiard balls with balls from mouth and then some thow streamers.
I start with rose to silk, which leads into silk to ball. I produce the next ball from under the leg, the next from mid air. The fourth ball comes from behind the arm and a fifth ball from the mouth. This leads into the balls from mouth and ends up with a throw streamer.
I do this routine as a white faced clown dressed in white tie and tails.

Jonas Karlsson
Vibono Magic
Sweden

The are enough deaths happening in this country because of the misuse of guns. I would use a positive theme so the parents would feel as comfortable as the kids.

Zombie:
I have always been an artist and so I guess I just always think creatively. I try to think away from the norm and get myself to see creative things in even the most uncommon of objects. It takes practice to learn to open your eyes in this manner, but once you do, ideas just seem to spring forth. I hope you liked my ideas and feel free to use them if you like.

I do understand Mike's concern, and it should be taken into concideration for sure. But, I also think that if you do it as a theater piece and as a magical play, it could still play well without being gruesome or sending the wrong message. I guess it would really be in the matter from which it is performed and also your intended audience.

The main idea posted was not to start a discussion on guns or to get anyone upset. It was mainly a free flowing creative idea to simply show how one can think creatively and do an act in a totally different fashion.

It is meant to show people that any act can be made unique and new and fresh if one puts forth the effort to think away from what other magicians are already doing.

Rather then watch other magic tapes, watch plays and movies. Read novels and see how a novel and storyline is developed. Take this information and use it for your magic. Use it to make it so much more.

You will gain much if you do this and your audiences will thank you for sure.

Magic4u02. I love your flair and passion for creativity! This is what magic needs! Everybody should be doing this. Thanks for your posts!

Maylor:
Many thanks my friend. I just refuse to do a magic trick just as a trick with no thought put into it. To me, the creative part of magic is the wonderment of it all. I like to try to give my audiences something more. More like a magical theater. Take them on a journey and make them see magic in a new light. Most of all, I am there to make them smile. To me that is the real magic.

I do not see enough magicians really trying to push themselves in new directions. It is far too easy to just buy a trick, learn it and present it like someone else does that they have seen before.

This is only fine in that you're at least learning an effect. However, it does nothing but produce more clones.

People often say that there is nothing out there that has not been done before. I like to think they are often wrong in that regards. There is PLENTY out there that has not been tried. You just have to open your eyes and minds to think differently then what we are all used to. Look at the world around you and feed off of that. Take all the information and put it back into your magic.

Do not allow yourself to perform a routine until you can truely make it your own. You will thank yourself for it and your audiences will thank you in return.