Laura London Card in a Bottle Release (ellusionist)

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

E posted this picture and people began speculating on how to do the effect. One person said it was impossible since so much of the card is exposed.

I commented that - this could only be the final picture that the spectator sees and "perhaps" the lower portion of the bottle is covered with either your hand or "tape" as in this effect....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBvR8mkV50s

and what did "E" do?

The removed my post (but kept all of the rest)

Coincidence? We shall see.

[Don Boyer]

E posted this picture and people began speculating on how to do the effect. One person said it was impossible since so much of the card is exposed.

I commented that - this could only be the final picture that the spectator sees and "perhaps" the lower portion of the bottle is covered with either your hand or "tape" as in this effect....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBvR8mkV50s

and what did "E" do?

The removed my post (but kept all of the rest)

Coincidence? We shall see.

Of course they would do that - no magician wants their trick revealed online like that.

I will give one observation. You do realize that's a fake Coke Zero bottle, right?  It doesn't even say "Coke Zero"; it says "[something]-odie" and above that in fine print is some text mocked up to look like the Coca-Cola logo, but it isn't.

The trick you linked to online used a standard bottle.  (If forced to guess, I'd even speculate that it was the cap that was gimmicked, not the bottle - but I won't go into the possible process here.)  This one from E apparently doesn't - it's gimmicked in some way.

[Curt]

Hmm, was your post the only one talking about methods? Because if so, they might just remove it to discourage that from going on. If not, I guess you got something right about the trick. It's cool to see the name Laura London though, brought back memories of watching the Penn and Teller "Fool Us" tv show.

[Don Boyer]

Hmm, was your post the only one talking about methods? Because if so, they might just remove it to discourage that from going on. If not, I guess you got something right about the trick. It's cool to see the name Laura London though, brought back memories of watching the Penn and Teller "Fool Us" tv show.

Damn you Canadians and your cool British TV series that never come to America... 

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

I saw Fool Us in America last year. I think it was a Summer show.

All I was trying to say was the "teaser pic" doesn't have to be a true visual of the effect. It is possible to do a card to bottle trick where the bottom half of the bottle is exposed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUEEAo_6rzc

There are two effects here where both your hand -or the card itself - hide the card

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

Ellusionist posted this statement about the effect on FB

Gimmick. But Laura gives ways to perform it with no gimmick in the training. Still, we recommend using the gimmick for the cleanest presentation and we'll be selling them cheaply in packets of 50. It will be nothing compared to what you get out of the effect..... it's made Laura's reputation.

So you get 50 gimmicks?

Interesting. Remember the video I posted, here is their product page:

http://www.seomagic-usa.com/catalog/product_info.php/manufacturers_id/13/products_id/79

What does IT come with? 30 gimmicks.

Here is the added discussion about said item on Magic Cafe

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=242988&forum=218

Available for $38 at Penguin Magic

http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/S9673

[Nurul]

I will give one observation. You do realize that's a fake Coke Zero bottle, right?  It doesn't even say "Coke Zero"; it says "[something]-odie" and above that in fine print is some text mocked up to look like the Coca-Cola logo, but it isn't.

I don't think it's a fake coke zero bottle. In the UK, the coca cola company have replaced their name with peoples names as part of the "share a coke with friends" campaign. They have over 250 names on the 500ml bottles and 330ml cans for coke, diet coke and coke zero.
The name on the bottle is most likely "jodie".

Details can be found here www.coca-cola.co.uk/faq/products/share-a-coke.html

EDIT: Looks like this is being done in some parts of Europe. Looks like a french bottle to me, mainly because it says "avec" next to the coca cola writing.

[Don Boyer]

I will give one observation. You do realize that's a fake Coke Zero bottle, right?  It doesn't even say "Coke Zero"; it says "[something]-odie" and above that in fine print is some text mocked up to look like the Coca-Cola logo, but it isn't.

I don't think it's a fake coke zero bottle. In the UK, the coca cola company have replaced their name with peoples names as part of the "share a coke with friends campaign". They have over 250 names on the 500ml bottles and 330ml cans for coke, diet coke and coke zero.
The name on the bottle is most likely "jodie".

Details can be found here www.coca-cola.co.uk/faq/products/share-a-coke.html

EDIT: Looks like this is being done in some parts of Europe. Looks like a french bottle to me, mainly because it says "avec" next to the coca cola writing.

I have to agree with you on that one.  But on a side note, why do you remove all the name and timestamp information when you quote someone in a post?  It's automatically generated when you click "quote" - you have to expend effort to remove it, or perhaps you are writing hand-typed BBCode and using copy-n-paste to make quotes?  It just seems like a lot of extra effort for something less.

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

I posted in the thread "Is Laura London the inventor of this effect?" and of course, my question was ignored in all of the responses.

[Nurul]

I will give one observation. You do realize that's a fake Coke Zero bottle, right?  It doesn't even say "Coke Zero"; it says "[something]-odie" and above that in fine print is some text mocked up to look like the Coca-Cola logo, but it isn't.

I don't think it's a fake coke zero bottle. In the UK, the coca cola company have replaced their name with peoples names as part of the "share a coke with friends campaign". They have over 250 names on the 500ml bottles and 330ml cans for coke, diet coke and coke zero.
The name on the bottle is most likely "jodie".

Details can be found here www.coca-cola.co.uk/faq/products/share-a-coke.html

EDIT: Looks like this is being done in some parts of Europe. Looks like a french bottle to me, mainly because it says "avec" next to the coca cola writing.

I have to agree with you on that one.  But on a side note, why do you remove all the name and timestamp information when you quote someone in a post?  It's automatically generated when you click "quote" - you have to expend effort to remove it, or perhaps you are writing hand-typed BBCode and using copy-n-paste to make quotes?  It just seems like a lot of extra effort for something less.

.
I don't realy know, I was just highlighting that one bit. There's no real theory behind it.

[Don Boyer]

I posted in the thread "Is Laura London the inventor of this effect?" and of course, my question was ignored in all of the responses.

Now why would you ask a question like that? 

This is one of her signature effects.  I'd wager that the trick was developed using some original ideas combined with the work of prior magicians.  When you get right down to it, there's probably extremely few genuinely original tricks out there today, tricks that weren't built on the shoulders of other magicians.  If she didn't develop it herself, she would certainly have bought the rights to it from the person who did.

There's a lot of magic that people develop at least in part for other magicians; I met a couple of David Blaine's consultants the night he had me visit his office, about a year-and-a-half before "Electrified".  Dai Vernon himself I like to refer to as "the greatest magician you've never heard of" when talking to non-magicians about him, because while he may have been one of the greatest magicians and card men alive, he did practically no public performances, sharing his magic with peers and students/apprentices.  He gets major props in the community and is practically worshiped by the people who met him and knew his work, but even in his day fewer than one in a thousand people were likely to know his name.

(Hell, I still run into a surprisingly large number of people who've never heard of David Blaine, either...)

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

well the effect was released today - surprisingly the performance video is of the un gimmicked "obvious how she does it" version - and it's a $14 video download, but then "E" says...

Laura teaches two versions - gimmicked and non-gimmicked, as well as multiple presentation ideas. The gimmicked version makes practicing much easier and leaves the spectator with a clean, better looking, impossible souvenir. Card in Bottle gimmicks available here.

So the gimmicked version is better? But that's not the trick they show you? odd.... how much are the gimmicks?

another $15

http://www.ellusionist.com/card-in-bottle-gimmicks.html

So together - it's $30

[Don Boyer]

well the effect was released today - surprisingly the performance video is of the un gimmicked "obvious how she does it" version - and it's a $14 video download, but then "E" says...

Laura teaches two versions - gimmicked and non-gimmicked, as well as multiple presentation ideas. The gimmicked version makes practicing much easier and leaves the spectator with a clean, better looking, impossible souvenir. Card in Bottle gimmicks available here.

So the gimmicked version is better? But that's not the trick they show you? odd.... how much are the gimmicks?

another $15

http://www.ellusionist.com/card-in-bottle-gimmicks.html

So together - it's $30

I think you didn't read it carefully.  She teaches BOTH versions on the download.  You can perform it without a gimmick, but they say that you can make it easier and more convincing with one - and you give the bottle away.  So, sure, you can just buy the $15 video.

I have an idea about how it works - pretty clever, really.

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

oh I totally read it, and that is my point. She teaches both versions, but the "better gimmicked version" is not the version in the video - and if you wand to do it, it's an extra fee. My money is - they couldn't film the gimmicked version, because it's not theirs

[Don Boyer]

oh I totally read it, and that is my point. She teaches both versions, but the "better gimmicked version" is not the version in the video - and if you wand to do it, it's an extra fee. My money is - they couldn't film the gimmicked version, because it's not theirs

I'm not sure I follow you - she teaches both versions, but one ISN'T in the video?

[kdklown]

Pretty sure his post should read, both versions are not shown in the trailer/promo video.  I don't want to put words in Magic O's mouth but it's painful watching you two on totally different pages.   

[Don Boyer]

Pretty sure his post should read, both versions are not shown in the trailer/promo video.  I don't want to put words in Magic O's mouth but it's painful watching you two on totally different pages.   

Imagine how painful it is for me?! 

[kdklown]

Too funny!  So I'm really considering getting this.  If anybody took the leap I would love to hear a quick review.  Just want to see if it's worth the price.  Thanks. 

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

this was posted to "E's" facebook page

We suppose that sometimes producers can be so exciting about their
effects' possibilities that they could let themselves go entirely and
don't really think about whether what they say is technically correct or
not, or whether the teaching is actually all fine and living up to
people their expectations. We think this is what happened in case of
Ellusionst's "Signed Card in Bottle" by Laura London. Well, apart from
the slightly misleading beginning of the trailer. Let's start off with
that.

Ellusionist has recently made themselves a reputation of
filthy trailer editing as exposed earlier, so this should not come as a
total surprise. Although the trailer ends with a full live performance
which has been completely uncut and unedited, it actually starts off
with a spectator taking a card in the fairest possible way. Even so
fair... that it is incompatible with what you will be taught in this
product. Uh-oh...

"The card is signed by the spectator and gets
genuinely lost in the deck, no controls are used, the spectator can
shuffle the deck by themselves, the spectator verifies that their card
is still in the deck, the card appears instantly and visually inside of
the bottle and the spectator is left with an impossible souvenir." An
amazing list, no one to disagree with that (unless you don't find an
uncapped bottle with a card inside all that impossible, but that is a
different story).

Now how could a signed card get lost and
shuffled into the deck, and without any controls taking place still
possibly end up inside of the bottle as only card?! That is where we
come in. Yes, the card is genuinely signed, lost in the deck, and can
somewhat be still seen in the middle of the deck when its spread. But..
no controls?! Really now?! It must be true because it states this in the
trailer as well. Unfortunately though, it simply is not true.


Also, on the product page it says that this trick is for beginners and
up (Difficulty: Beginners). We would however argue anytime that this
trick is NOT something beginner magicians would actually do and perform,
not until they have reached at least an intermediate and probably even
advanced level due to whatever comes into play. Apart from a thorough
overview of what is done when, you do not learn how exactly to achieve
and handle everything, so beginners will be doomed guaranteed.


On top of that, nowhere during the tutorial does Laura talk about how to
make the effect actually bulletproof. In fact, when just doing what you
are told to do, during one in about 50 performances the effect will
completely automatically expose itself at the moment the spectator is
verifying that their card is still in the deck. This could have easily
been avoided, especially if Laura performed this effect so many times
because she should have come across this issue then. However, it has
been unmentioned completely, and it may very well take the failure for
plenty of magicians to realize the issue.

Last but not least,
we have had a complaint from someone who purchased the download together
with the gimmicks which are being sold separately in bags of 50. After
he watched the tutorial, he figured that absolutely nowhere on the
product page it states that the gimmicks are meant for standard
red-backed Bicycle decks of cards, meaning that there is no way to use
another kind of deck or a different colored deck.

If you
wouldn't know the secret, you wouldn't know what kind of gimmicks to
expect, so the very least Ellusionist should have done is mentioning
this. For all you would know, it could use a gimmick which secretly
opens and closes the side of the bottle somehow each performance (and
God knows why Ellusionist didn't mention there not being any slits in
the bottle, which is actually true, unlike the "no controls" and
"beginner" statements).

[Don Boyer]

this was posted to "E's" facebook page

I can't find it - was it removed?  Who made the post?

[agera94]

Don, these guys made the post: https://www.facebook.com/ConvincingControl?ref=br_tf
They generally target misleading advertising and product pages from different websites.

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

ya sorry, guess it only showed up in the "E" feed cause they got tagged in it. I'm a terrible communicator, OMG my wife is right!

And I stand corrected, apparently the version in the trailer is the gimmicked version -

[Edward]

Look at the left hand position ! In the trailor !  HHHmmmmm!!!!

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

Discussion on Magic Cafe turned up this little gem

Posted by fay Presto (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmQ-Zgu4Zj4 )

For the sake of completeness let me make this very clear.

A long time ago in a restaurant far far away a magician was forbidden to stick cards on the ceiling. She, for it was a 'she', decided to perform a signed card to outside of window, and very effective it was too.( At a point later in her career she had Paul McCartney and his band bowing and saying they were unworthy of the performance.)

The waiters were not always available as confederates and so the effect was not performable 'on demand'. Our Magician decided that a pack of cards fired at a bottle would be better, but the screwed up card inside was not convincing. On a diving trip to Egypt, for she was a PADI advanced open water diver, she found the solution to the problem, and henceforward a signed pristine bridge sized card could be magicked into a bottle that had been used by the dining masses.

Time moved forward and ere long she was inserting Poker sized cards and then ordinary Red or Blue Bikes. The effect was simplicity to perform, required a knack and a little misdirection but little else. Soon happy diners were leaving restaurants, weddings and birthday parties clutching signed cards in signed bottles.

Time moved on and one of her acolytes asked if she could publish the trick. If she got a credit and thinking this was a packet trick being sold by Davenports and international over the counter she agreed.

Our heroine was rather taken aback by the highly polished and it must be said beautifully performed trick that emerged onto an international web site, and was more than a little jealous of the fact that she hadn't been asked to be such a center of attention and credited with an act of such genius long ago when she actually had a career.

The effect as now performed by Laura London and marketed by Ellusionst is very different from the simple effect our heroine came up with. Miss Presto, for that who it was has not been 'ripped off' or in any way betrayed by Laura London, and indeed were she not so beset by some rather difficult circumstances in her career at this time would no doubt be bursting with pride, rather than crouching in the corner of a dark room wishing the world would go away.

I Hope that this does make things clear, and I WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGIZE UNRESERVEDLY if any uninformed and ill timed remarks by me have led people to believe anything else.

[Edward]

It is simple !!!!

[Curt]

It is simple !!!!

You have been told numerous times Edward. Please increase the quality of your posts, make them something that others here enjoy reading and something you put effort into.

[Don Boyer]

It is simple !!!!

You have been told numerous times Edward. Please increase the quality of your posts, make them something that others here enjoy reading and something you put effort into.

Agreed.  And on a totally unrelated note, Curt, you have reached your "Bicycle" landmark, having made your 808th post!  [golf clap]  Congratulations, good sir!  [/golf clap]   

Edward, you really need to elaborate further on your posts and really add something to the conversation.  If not, we'll just dump them in the Lolaq.  What you wrote is barely better than an outburst of Tourette's syndrome.  (No offense to Tourette's sufferers everywhere - my stepsister being one of them.)