Time to be Awesome

Time to be Awesome is a new internet TV show from David Corsaro the latest episode is an interview with award winning magician Marc DeSouza and a discussion about magic competitions and what it takes to succeed. Marc was also gracious enough to show them around his collection of magic posters and perform an effect. Upcoming shows include a behind-the-scenes of “Monday Night Magic”, an
interview with NY Coin Magic Seminar producers Michael Rubinstein and David Roth and a discussion with Francis Menotti about theater in magic.

New Video Website Helps Entertainers Shine

Recently launched Talentainer.com allows entertainers to post videos of their latest and greatest acts in hopes of landing new gigs. Since the site debuted, it has attracted award-winning comedians, magicians and other “event enhancers”.

Talentainer.com is a new video-centric website offering live entertainers an opportunity to showcase a bit of their magic, placing it before legions of event planners who are searching for world-class entertainers to populate corporate events and gatherings, to entertain stadiums filled with fans during half-time shows, to fill cruise ships with masterful entertainment, and to fulfill other venues.

Talentainer.com allows entertainers to post videos of their latest and greatest acts in hopes of landing new gigs. Since its debut on July 2008, the site has attracted award-winning comedians, mimes, circus entertainers, disc jockeys, masters of ceremonies and other “event enhancers” interested in giving the world a sneak peak at their performances, rates and geographic parameters. In fact, within weeks of the launch, a number of famous acts have signed on who have appeared before the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace and on “America’s Got Talent” and “Late Show with David Letterman.”

Overall, the entertainers posting profiles and videos on Talentainer.com are hoping to increase bookings and bring a smile to the world. Landing gigs has never been easier. What’s all the buzz about? Visit www.talentainer.com and find out!

“Psychic” Uri Geller loses YouTube battle

From boingboing gadgets professional psychic Uri Geller and his company Explorologist Ltd., filed a DCMA takedown notice against the creators of a 13 minute YouTube video debunking Geller’s supernatural powers… a video which happened to contain a ten second copyrighted clip of one of his performances. Fair use, in other words.

The EFF representing Brian Sapient made Geller withdraw, and settled their legal battle and also they made him license the clip in question as non-commercial Creative Commons so as to freely aid the efforts of other skeptics.

More details on the EFF site.

Jack Parker Video Marathon


Tomorrow marks a year ago on the 30th June 2007 that Jack Parker passed away. To celebrate his magic Andi Gladwin is running a week long Jack Parker Video Marathon. Every day he will share a video of Jack’s magic including videos of tricks that Jack only shared with two or three magicians.

Andi’s blog post tells you more and the video’s can be found here, with a great one to start the series:

Jack Parker Video Marathon.

I’ve seen some of these when Jack initially posted them to TSD but am still really looking forward to re-watching them, I remember at The Session Andi played a couple that I hadn’t seen in a while, and all over again I got that feeling of being totally fried and fooled with Jack’s magic, you too can have that feeling of being a layman again, by heading over to the Jack Parker Video Marathon for the next week!

Magic Channel Launches


Foreign BBC correspondent and magician Geoff Harrison has launched what is claimed to be the world’s first magic channel, tvmagicians.com.

The site, part of Global Digital Broadcast’s IPTV network Play TV UK, will feature magicians’ showreels, effects demonstrations, industry secrets and related material.

The site will host sub channels on jazz, independent films, nightclubs and other entertainment. Content will come from Harrison’s company TV World Productions and magic specialists Party PR, Club Chiva and Penguin Magic.

Friendfeed for Magicians

Anyone else here on Friendfeed?

In case you don’t know, Friendfeed is a new social site made by ex-google employees, you can see an introduction and explanation on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendfeed

Recently they have implemented a Rooms function:

http://blog.friendfeed.com/2008/05/get-room.html

I have setup a magicians room here:

http://friendfeed.com/rooms/magicians

If you are into any of the Web2.0 sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, Google Reader, del.icio.us or any of the other 30+ sites that Friendfeed picks up, sign up for a Friendfeed account, add those services and then you can re-share that information or post it directly using the friendfeed bookmark into the magicians room, and share the magic based content you come across on a daily basis with all the other participants who can then comment and discuss the content in the room, I think its almost like having a huge collaborative blog that anyone with a friendfeed account can post too, pulling in content from these services or starting there own discussions, so you get the best of Youtube (you can watch the clips directly on the site), the best blog posts via google reader or tumblr or del.icio.us or people’s twitter comments or Flickr photos or Yahoo Upcoming events etc.

If anyone wants to add me on Friendfeed I am here:

http://friendfeed.com/rmorrell

And any questions on how this might work let me know.

Smoke and Mirrors

Christiaan Lopez-Miro has a new gallery of photos on his site called Smoke and Mirrors, click on the Images link and then Smoke and Mirrors. In his words: These photographs are suppose to be about the moments between the performance. The moments when the magician is simply alone contemplating his/her own craft. They are meant to be very intimate photographs that confront the viewer.

MagicTricks.tv

Another Youtube index has recently emerged at MagicTricks.tv. It is owned and run in direct conjunction with the Magic Tricks Store, www.magictricks.co.uk

It is aimed at anyone with an interest in magic and has been designed to put many magic videos in one place. They have designed the site so the videos are listed in specific categories, to help you find the video you are after even quicker! The majority of videos on MagicTricks.tv are hosted by YouTube.com

MagicTricks.tv also has a community facility, where individuals can sign up to be members of the site and this allows you to upload your favourite magic videos to display to the rest of the magic community. The videos available on this site are able to be linked to other social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.

One of the top advantages of using www.MagicTricks.tv is that the search facility has been specifically designed so it only finds magic related videos, instead of the YouTube search facility which displays all videos with relevance to the key words. Example of this would be, a MagicTricks.tv member types in De Kolta Chair – MagicTricks.tv only brings up videos where a person vanishes from the chair where as YouTube.com can bring up anything to do with chairs.

If you have a favourite magic related video, join the site and upload it today, they will be rewarding members for uploading their videos and number of views per month. Keep watching for more details on these special rewards.