Description
Bill Abbott’s Professional Artist Series – With over 30 years of experience performing and producing thousands of magic shows, international magician Merlin is divulging the professional secrets that have put him at the top of his field. Merlin has shared the stage with a wide range of performers including Jim Carey, Elvis Costello and Alanis Morrissette as well as acting as a magic consultant for TV shows like My Secret Identity and Hollywood movies like The Believers.
Merlin’s stage act is action-packed with highly visual magic consisting of classic material performed silently to a hot jazz soundtrack. Merlin’s upbeat style, original presentations and ultra-practical methods honed over 30 years of performance are all revealed on this 2 volume set. Live nightclub performances, studio performances, bonus renaissance performances, in-depth interviews with Bill Abbott and all of the detailed explanations are here.
Volume One:
The Spot Card Surrounded – What’s Next, Dizzy Domino & Dinamo have all but been ignored in recent years. Merlin has taken this standard and made it a modern classic with what Michael Close referred to as, “A genuine solution to this effect!”
Color Changing Handkerchief – New life is breathed into this gem with a logical “dying” motivation and wonderful technique.
Jumping & Crawling Flower – Imagine a flower suddenly appears on your lapel, jumps from one lapel to the other and then slowly and eerily crawls back to the other side!
The Hydrostatic Glass – Water in a glass tumbler remains suspended upside down with no visible means of support and at the audience’s command it falls into a champagne bucket.
Volume Two:
The Silk Fountain – The beautiful overflowing ‘fountain’ of silks from the performer’s bare hands is a stage classic. Now you can get the in-depth work on table-loads vs. body loads, a permanent set-up vs. the loose silks set-up and an ingenious use of magnets for the best of both worlds.
The Professor’s Nightmare Complete – Finally, here is a real routine that goes beyond the tired old technique most magicians know all too well.
The Salt Pour – Merlin uses this effect as a closer and it’s easy to see why. Brilliant technique combined with a spectacular finish makes this routine an unforgettable audience favorite.
The Butterflies – There is almost no real work on the classic butterfly trick in print or on video. Now all of the work is revealed from various thread handling techniques, rehearsing with and without a thread and various steals for the final ‘snowstorm’ of butterflies is described.
Running Time Approximately 240 min