Saturday, May 9, 2015

WMF Steve Gaudet

Go to 15:25 to see Keith Barry's version of the spike trick.



Alright, now that you've see the trick, watch this:



A copycat! His name: The Amazing Raven, a performer who's real name is Stephen Robert John Gaudet. He's a tour manager of a hypnotist called Reveen. So you would think that he knows about not taking other people's material. If you look at some other acts of his, you'll notice that nothing really is his own. You will see a lot of The (not so) Amazing Kreskin bleed through as well as some other well known mentalists.

Watch him fuck up the Magic Square by clicking here. In case you don't know what was supposed to happen. Within 60 seconds he was supposed to fill in the numbers in a grid. I do a Magic Square in my show. 23 seconds. So 60 seconds is more than enough not have an error. But he had an error. He was not able to subtract 20 from the target number. So naturally he fucks up. And needs another 60 seconds to get himself back on track. The only redeeming thing about that performance is his assistant Whitly holding the board that he's writing on. Man, she is a piece of eye candy,,,, Kudos! If you clicked the above link you can see the entire show. And I dare you to watch this in one go. You cannot.

These things happen if you don't practise and rehearse. Which is what I accuse Steve of!

His production quality is good. Too good actually as all the screen, the music and the light makes it appear that Steve Gaudet is a professional. He clearly is not... or should not be. He maybe a wonderful human being, he maybe a great tour manager, but an even decent mentalist he is not,

Here is another video. Him doing hypnosis. The guy is clearly a stooge.This is clear to even the most brain dead spectator. Steve Gaudet make is look like he is able to hypnotise a random guy into becoming a juggler. Which he does. Then the stooge juggles, way too good to be believable. With knives!

Is there any need to be that "false"? He does some routines that I cannot place. But I have a hard time believing that he came up with any presentation by himself. Except maybe that atrocity of a hybrid monster that is Svengali and Tossed Out Deck. Stealing material, sucking at basic performance skills and failing to understand mentalism, as the limits of believability were clearly broken, make me announce the following. Steve Gaudet, you are this weeks magic failure.

But in order to be more on the constructive side of things, here are some pointers.

Put your spin on the classic routines! Do not take other people's work and sell it as your own! There are a few simple steps to take in order to create you own presentation. Start with a premise on why you are able to do what you can do! If you solved that the rest should get worked out.

Rehearse your material! This means (among other things) going through the motions so often, that you can do it effortlessly.

If you wanna be a mentalist, make sure you are believable. If you cannot figure out what feels real and what clearly is not, then you should get the help of those who can differentiate. Those usually are other mentalists,but they wont help you as you are stealing their material. But a good producer can do the same. Get help!

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Has the Shwood lost his focus?

Short answer: It seems so!

Long answer: Brian Brushwood has long been of a thorn in magic. His heart may be in the right place, but his actions are not helping to get that message across. I'm talking about his long running YouTube series Scam School. The premise of that show is to "scam" other people into buying you a drink. Naturally he covers magic on that show. And exposes it. Most of it is harmless. But once in a while he fucks up. The exposure of the Invisible Deck comes to mind.



But now he's "teaching" a retention vanish of a coin. It absolutely is exposure and NOT a scam to get a beer. In fact that little premise of the show is completely omitted this time. It would have led to a scam if a duplicate coin was loaded under the spectators drink. And the bet would be that "if I can get the coin under your drink without you and me touching the drink, I get that drink that you are having."

Then doing the NOT a vanish but a switch for a transparent plastic disc which is then dropped into the spectators drink. He looks inside, it looks like the coin is in the beer. But a little magic and everything is as it should be. That would be a scam.

It looks like Brian has lost the focus on what to do.

Brian! Get help! Get a research team! A creative team!