Look out. We have a GAME CHANGER!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla......9iASYSnQ


Peter Loughran's site:

http://www.masterofillusions.ca/stealth-table.html

Anyone who knows me really well will tell you I am always excited about new ideas, technology, and progressing things (even old things). So with that said, I really like the technology and have a ton of appreciation for the hard work that must have gone into this. My magic friends however, will tell you I am increasingly obsessed with the psychology of magic, in the sense of what makes magic "magic" to a spectator. So I am really torn with this table.

I think my problem is that it is a very well conceived idea... that is a good thing for technology, but can be a bad thing for the audience. Simply because well conceived ideas are "logical" and magic methods are NEVER logical. Anyone who has ever performed the C&B's more than a few times (and if EVER for a drunk person or child) has heard someone say "there must be a trap door!".

Why do they say that? Because it is the most logical way of putting something under the cup for people who have a "lay" perspective. So yea, there lies my problem. That is not to say there isn't a very great use for this and I would assume there is a market. But for C&B, it may work against the magician in the end of the performance when someone says "trap door!" (and they absolutely will, even without one) and regardless... they would be correct every time. I have a very good relationship with new technology and peoples perspective and reaction to it. New technology and magic have almost the same effect on the modern spectator, I fear that this would be more "magical" to the viewer with clear cups.

-LK

Djkuttdecks
I believe your observations and comments are very astute.
Also, in watching the video, the body language is very revealing.
Casual handling until the cups are actually placed onto the table.
Why so careful suddenly?
And with all that expense, why are the balls so small?
And why are the cups placed on the back of the table?
Perhaps with correct routining, things can be improved. But then we have the problem djkuttdecks points out. Its done with trap doors.
Clearly the creator is a sophisticated engineer. The device needs some more magical deception. I have thought of this for some time. If you used a deceptive table top, the table top could appear thiner than the balls. That would be a significant improvement. Then there is the possibility of using mirrors under the table so the top appers suspended above another surface and the upper surface would appear a half inch think. Also, what is the environment this is designed to be used in? It does not appear to be a close-up device. If stage, the sales pitch seems awkward.

The device appears very stable and mechanically sound. This will sell well to those that like high priced sophisticated gadgets. However, to sell it to a pro, I think that part of the design team should be someone with some performing experience.

Perhaps the back edge could just be the load area. During a serius performance, the cups are slid forward to reveal the balls.

In the right hands, it could be a miricle maker.

Just my opinion.

Al Schneider

When I was a kid, trapdoors were a possible method for making something appear on a table top. The molding on the table top, combined with the skirt, just scream "hiding place". I have to agree about how carefully the cups were place on the table. The audience will notice.

Interesting, but not practical for a real worker. It is so easy to do the real c&b why bother with restricted use.

There is another, much older version of this table. I believe it has been mentioned before in another thread. I think perhaps by Mr. Palmer.

A simpler expedient might just be a black-art table, but it would not be suitable for productions.

My own table is designed with several types of servantes, when I reassemble it, I will post pictures in secret sessions.

:applause:

If it did not have the bottom curtain, you would really have something.

I think as magicians we would like to think this... because it would fool "US". But I may have to disagree... the normal audience member isn't thinking about the curtain (to them it's a table cloth), with or without it the audience automatically think there are trap doors.

If not in the table, then in the cups! Even as silly and ridiculous as that sounds, trap doors or hidden openings are the first (and often last) explanation someone gives for the trick. This actually works to the benefit of the performer, because in time (within a minute of the first phase) the magician usually does something that negates that explanation and this is where the audience finally experience "magic" as opposed to a puzzle. This is only further solidified with the reveal of the final loads. To which these loads MUST seem larger than the capacity of the cup itself. To merely load slightly larger balls, or even liquid loads just continue the "puzzle" factor and not a "production" effect.

My first profession is as an engineer and artistic inventor, this is exactly how I would solve the problem to the cups and balls without considering it as "magic". Engineers are notorious for loving puzzels and logical explanations. This is an excellent example of this type of thinking (that's not a bad thing) we NEED people who think like this in the world and to some extent most magicians are just closet engineers This is why you often find the magic section of the local book store in the "puzzle and games" section. But I digress, if the method is logical, and the effect is a puzzle... then maybe it's actually not a magic trick at all?

Just a thought,

-LK

The table screams trickery. Not very practical either.

A perfect example of the "Too Perfect Theory" in action. People will often come up to my table after my cups and balls routine looking for the trap doors that aren't there. Something that ism't possible with this table.

Djkuttdecks and other are hitting on all pistons.
When I do Spellbound, people accuse me of painting one side of the coin and turning the coin over.
They ae basicly describing a gimmick.
Then I point out that one coin is solid silver and the other is an oriental coin with a hole in it.
Painting one side wouldn't accomplish what they observe.
They look at me and say, "Oh!" Of course by that time all is lost.
When people have a solution, the logic of it does not matter. To them they have a solution.
Our task as magicians goes far beyond pulling a thread or putting a ball over a trap door.
Anyway, to you guys I am speaking the obvious.
All the best.
Al Schneider

Ya can't spell Oblivious without Obvious

Is it possible that our reaction is due to the fact that the selling video is very poorly (in magical terms) presented.
Let's for a few seconds look at it positively and imagine a different marketing: someone performs a routine of theatrical magic (kind of magic obviously based on the magician's skill), and at the end, using this type of table produces a hamster, a baby chick and a girble...
Would have our comment been the same?

Now as Pete says, professionals will most probably not be potential customers but some sleight of hand "artist" may get tempted to fool other magicians, using first a routine obviously based on skill as misdirection.

Not being a Theatrical magic fan, this idea will remain a baby of my imagination. Now when I think the amount of work this man had to do to get to this table, I would feel bad in killing his achievement with a quickly formed judgment. Let's remember that, after Comte, magicians fooled crowds by using servantes (preventing any audience to inspect their table) and it went on for almost a century until Malini made Pop Krieger, the King of Cups and Balls, outdated.

For some reason this video has no option to play for me - tried it both at home and at work. I'd love to see this thing in action.

Lawrence, I hope nothing I wrote goes against the hard work the creator put into this project. Hopefully I conveyed that well enough. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the thought and hard work that went into this table from a technical standpoint. However, I also don't think my opinion is based on the video at all, it's simply based on my personal belief that the weakest way to create magic is the easiest and most logical method a lay person can jump to. If the "natural guess" as to how a trick is done is actually the method, then it's just my opinion that it sets itself up for problems... no matter how well performed.

I consider it like this... you could perform "Spell Bound" with a copper/silver coin (and I am sure many do this) but imagine if you couldn't switch out the coin... that could be a really dangerous effect, easily resolved with just a little practice with normal coins. Again, this is just my opinion with the absolute highest respect for the engineering feat accomplished here.

-LK

Peter Loughran is a very clever creator of illusions. However, I think this table is an example of what happens when an illusionist or a mechanic approaches the cups and balls.

This is basically half of the work that was present on the old Delaporte table, which is shown in Michael Ammar's book on the cups and balls. The Delaporte table not only had the gimmicks this table has, but others as well which allowed some of the work to take place at the front of the table.

I can't mention the things that are wrong with the video, simply because it would give too much away on an open forum.

Don't quite understand why you should use this (Am I missing somthing here ) because the great Mark Wilson course ( Amazing Book ) says you can do the final segment
of the Cups and balls trick out of a jacket pocket, which makes a lot od sence if you think about it .

Can a table like that ever malfunction (Just curious )

For me this is along the lines of benson burner where someone wants more elaborate equipment for an impossible finish.

compared to all the servantes and tailoring etc. this looks like an interesting line of thought about how to take this type of performance to the next level.

Thank you, Mr. Palmer, I was trying to remember the Delaporte table. I'm thinking that an apparatus such as this might be useful, but it would have to be used judiciously and artistically. To try to substitute it for the rest of the work would be a mistake.