I know that this is not about books but I was wondering what was the first magic video? A magic video with explainations, not just performance.

Would the "Kaps on Coins" and "Kaps on Cards" films be that old? I also know that Slydini filmed himself doing some of his routines, was done silently.

A good addition to the question might be "commercially available". I have seen explanation footage that went back to the 20's.

Rick

How about the Melies films? He was a magician, and some of his short films are very close to stage shows albeit using some in-camera and stop/motion work.

He also had his films hand tinted.

Not counting the "Movie Magic" early films, a candidate for the oldest Magic Instructional films would be U.F. Grant's 8mm lecture that was circulated to various Magic groups complete with lecture notes in (I think) the 1940's -1950's.

The lecture notes still pop-up from time to time.
Does anyone know where to get a (vhs/dvd)copy of the original film?

Abliar36: Do you mean video as in video tape or any kind of moving picture with sound? Sorry, but I'm not too savvy on these things. Clay

While the Melies movies were, by default, the first moving picture magic, they really don't qualify as instructional videos, which, I believe, was the intent of the question as originally posed.

Regarding the original U.F. Grant films, I think the best places to start would be with MAK Magic and/or the SAM or IBM video archives.

While the usbject is here...I once saw a some footage of a fantastic misdirection routine. I would guess 1930s-40s. This is a rough guess. Hopefully someone here will know it.

The routine involved a 'magician' and a spectator with a hat. The hat was taken by the magician, and moved from his head to his hands to the spec's head pushed off, caught, under his legs thrown from there to the hand above the head etc. During this routine the spectator kept reaching for his hat in the last place it was..and getting confused. The misdirection was some of the best I've seen and more importantly 'pure'. There was no trick here as I remember it...just misdirection.

I think that would be valuable footage to show young magicians why misdirection is an aspect of our art not to be ignored or glossed over.

Any guesses?

M