Magic Tricks

This gets a three star rating because three is the average between one and five.
The effect itself and R. Paul Wilson’s tutorial are five stars.
P3’s production of this effect gets one star from me.
P3 has gotten lazy in the production of this effect.
How so, you ask?
They do not include any live performances by Mr. Wilson himself.
In the tutorial Mr. Wilson talks about all the moments of magic in this routine and how to enjoy the by-play with the spectator and also the audience management he recommends.
This same effect is marketed on this site with a DVD and the gimmicked card needed. I found a 14 year old YouTube video wherein Mr.Wilson says he has been performing this effect for “over twenty years”. That means Mr. Wilson has been performing this effect for at least 34 years.
Yet, P3 did not feel that a live performance by Mr. Wilson, after honing this effect for decades, was warranted.
Instead we get one live performance by Erik Tait who loses his place in the routine but manages to stumble his way through it.
Did P3 scrap that performance video and included a clean performance of the effect? No, that singular, mediocre performance with Eriks’ interpretation and bumbling patter made the final cut.

At the end of the tutorial Mr. Wilson asks the viewer if you have performed C.C.M.!
I turn the question back on him and ask if he performed it, and if so, why were those performances not included in the production of this effect?

Don’t get me wrong, Erik is a fantastic magician and his live performance included in this production proves that even professionals make mistakes.

The big mistake here is that we do not get to see how Mr. Wilson performs the effect for a live audience, especially after decades of perfecting it.

I am very disappointed in P3s’ production of this great effect!