Also, for a final load of the large silver ball variety, I found that when the x-mas season falls upon us once more I'll be able to go to a craft store or something and get me a nice plastic silver ball for hanging on the x-mas tree. I've had a couple of these before 'cuz I was gonna make a zombie ball and astrosphere, however I've seemed to have misplaced them...

johnny

Hi Johnnymystic,

I've developed some techniques for positive control of the ball bearings to eliminate the sound whenever the cups aren't clacking together to cover it.

Here's a good technique for loading the ball under a cup. Hold the ball beneath the cup's rim firmly in the crook of your pinky. Set the ball down on your performing surface as you touch the forward tip of the cup to the surface. Release the ball and drag the cup over it as you set down the back rim. If you do it right, your pinky slides out from beneath the rim and the ball stays put.

Like I say, I've been doing it for years.

Also, Paul Gertner has a great technique in his book for loading three balls atop the bottom cup and showing how "the heavy steel ball passes through not one cup at a time, but two."

:)ed

Cajuninms:

No, final loads for the Cups & Balls routine are not necessary but how are you going to end the routine? What are you going to do for the climax at the end? Some type of change would be great but what would you do without a final load?

The last thing you find under the cups is, by definition, the final load. So why not make it a big one?

Wish I could recall where I heard it and who said it but. There is something to the effect of perfection is where nothing can be taken away or added and I think that is what Carls routine is. I have the dvd and is is a gem.

Posted: May 11, 2011 12:54pm
Maybe use smaller cups. Making up for smaller loads if you still use them.

Seeing how this post started in 2004, the original poster is about 21 now! Let's just hope his hands got bigger and he can do a mean final load after 7 years of practice
-Lee

Yes. Final loads make the trick.

Football sized or maybe a tree? Why turn a trick with cups into a production (and a pointless one at that) ? Is this just a lazyman's version of a dove routine for closeup?

How about starting by making the trick where a ball that appears under a cup interesting and building from there?

BTW, I used to try using the mylar coils to turn the cups into a production - seemed a fuss - when the biggest reaction I got doing that trick was to have a napkin signed and have that appear under a cup. The rest- repeats etc where excess to the magic as far as the audiences I observed were concerned.

Lazy man's version? To do indetectible final loads requires a lot more practice than you may think. It also requires a lot more critical thinking to come up with something that is a bit different from the stuff the run of the mill performer produces.

of a dove or production act. A lazy version of the routine where you plant a seed and the plant grows into a tree. A lazy version of where a scarf is shown and all sorts of things from flaming plates to a goldfish bowl are produced.

So I guess the three ball transposition using a scarf could just as well be taken as the setup to that scarf production routine.

Or we could find ways to make the work with the little balls interesting and let any productions come from the theme of the routine rather than just "let me see if I can just one more load under the cup."

I have done what Pete said way back in 2004 on the first page of this thread: a flashed non-load final load. It really floors lay audiences and just kills those magicians that know it all.

I have also used an idea from Fl!p that he does at the end of his sponge ball routine: Peanuts. This is a small load, yes, but it has nothing to do with the rest of the props, it is still a surprise and gets a laugh, especially when delivered with a line about how magicians work for peanuts.... It also does not detract from the routine, but even with producing fruit in my other routines, I have never heard people talking about just that after the show. If the routine is well thought out, well played and properly performed and presented, all final loads should only enhance the whole package, not detract from it.

Dr_J_Ayala, folks,

It's exactly that "well thought out, well played and properly performed and presented" that, IMHO, should be the focus of the discussion - not so much the matter of loads as we have other tricks like the mango tree for that focus.

Jon

That sounds really cool, wish I could have seen it!

Do we have any knowledge of who was the first to do C and B with a final load?

Not exactly. The concept of final loads is well illustrated in 19th century French political cartoons. Ozanam mentions producing an apple from under the cups -- ca. 1723. There is also the mention of producing frogs, which appears in a book of natural science from the 17th century in Germany.

It is implied in a section of Hocus Pocus, Jr (to passe a large balle threw a table.)

Frogs! Brilliant. I'm seeing for JT a ten plagues on the Egyptians premise.
Maybe substitute a dozen of those Edmund scientific bimetal discs? Timing!

Here's a rough outline of a cups routine in the works with just the theme and a few passes described. The method(s) are not relevant - just the basic effect.

A red ball and a yellow ball.
They tend to stay together.
If I put the red ball in my pocket, the yellow ball will vanish if you blink (put in other hand -show gone) and appear there too.
(Remove both from pocket)
Let's use a cup. All is well if the red ball is under the cup and the yellow ball up top.
But if I put the yellow ball into my pocket...(lift cup - to show nothing underneath) the red ball is now there too.
Let's use another cup. The red ball is under the cup and the yellow on top. Now I move the yellow ball to the top of this cup and ...
(repeat pocket sequence - display then replace IN POCKET)
You you tell me which cup to put the yellow ball on top of.
That one - okay
And now the red ball is ... under that cup.
(introduce third cup)
Offer to explain
do an open multiplication of the yellow balls at your fingertips
and put a yellow ball on top of each cup.
Lift each gently to show a red ball under each cup.

Final loads, no cliches - and a nod to the many worlds sci-fi idea.

Nice, Jon. It's the 10% visible of the iceberg underneath. Any chance we'll get to see a clip?

L*, if you mean leaving the motivating principle in action that the performer is demonstrating a mystery - agreed.

As to methods - I read a mentalist item where which of a few markers the audience member takes off the lid of a box sets the prediction to be found inside the box in an envelope - and it dawned on me that applying that to a chop cup - putting the "wrong" monopole kind of ball on top might permit another such ball to get dropped into place. Recalling the tip/load sequence - it occurred that such a ball would want to stay in place up there and one might be able to get that same action to serve as a vanish method - provided one is okay being left holding the cup (mouth toward the audience) or mouth down if doing a pour out action.

The only phases I did not describe were the transpositions as I'm not sure they belong. Ball on top of cup/ball under cup type of thing.

Still playing with a few neodymium magnets here to see how easy it is to play with monopoles.

But that's hardly the point of this discussion. The question was raised about the typical large ball/fruit loads being necessary and I still feel they are just one option among many.

In as far as live loads are concerned, I am surprised that there has been no mention of Heba Haba Al and his three cup routine with live baby chicks. That was a beautiful example of proper routining and misdirection because by the end of the routine, it was almost as if the chicks were appearing as fast as he could handle it.