Illusionary Departures

JC Sum has done something no other big time illusionist has done before. He has openly described his most cherished secrets in great detail and with building information. What makes this so special is that he is still using the material from these books! Many magicians retire and then publish there work, but JC Sum has published his working material. His only personal request is that it not be distributed in his country (Singapore) and therefore he will not sell or ship any of these books within Singapore. To ensure that these books stay out of Singapore, JC has chosen to be the only distributor of his books.


Illusionary Departures is a collection of ideas and illusions by JC Sum. Some are very original while others are oddly familiar with slight variations. But all of them are suited to the professional illusionist. As you can imagine, Mr. Sum's style and your own may very well clash but the illusions can be dressed however you like.

This book is not just a pile of illusions, there is particular emphasis on a variety of things, base design, black art concepts, stage tricks, presentations for old effects, etc. JC makes it very clear that this book was his first attempt at an illusion book. This book isn't written for the beginning illusionist, or seasoned pro, part time stage performer, etc. This book lacks focus which might prove to be it's downfall. With a price tag of 100 USD you'd expect a lot. Consider the great illusions in so many of Jim Steinmeyer's books!

I'm a fan of the material in this book. For the illusionist with a desire to be the best, this book will provide you with cutting edge ideas and applications. If you are looking for a new illusion to add to the show then read on and hear about the books contents. I'd recommend this book for the right performer. There are tricks for everyone in this book but if they don't ring true with you then it might not be worth the investment.

The book is 126 pages 8.5 by 11. The first illusion presented is called A Walk Through The Winery, and to me this is a brilliant piece of magic. Many magicians try to remain very classical and it is often difficult to find illusions that fit the theme and style of a classic performer. A Walk Through The Winery is a penetration effect in essence. An open front and back wine cabinet is shown, bottles standing upright and light shining through. A bottle of wine chosen by a spectator is removed from the cabinet and a glass poured for the illusionist. The bottle is replaced and the wine consumed (who doesn't need a drink on stage right?). a wooden frame with paper is placed over the front of the cabinet. The magician goes behind the cabinet and dramatically plunges through the front, breaking the paper and slowly emerging entirely. The front cover is taken away and the bottles and shelves are seen to be in perfect condition!

I'm a huge fan of this illusion, it's a classy penetration effect. It's exactly the type of illusion I think many magicians with a classic style would like in their show. I'm personally working on having this one built myself. This is a very practical effect, and one that I think could be dressed up or down however you like. Mr Sum is very proud of this illusion and I would be too!

The next illusion is Visual Displacement, another penetration effect. This time 4 steel bars are placed by spectators running top to bottom in a holder. The illusionist enters behind the 4 bars and holds a curtain around both sides of the bars. The curtain goes up and comes down, the illusionist is now seen to be standing in front of the 4 bars. This is a very practical illusion, other than the length of the poles. Very easy to break down, and construct, I'd say this is possibly the most practical illusion in the book. This illusion is far from original though, JC Sum mentions that it is based on Andrew Mayne's "A-Frame" from his book Solo-X. The benefit to Mr Sum's version is that the performer is visible for all but the penetration. This is certainly a cost effective illusion and one that I think would be a very good first illusion. The downside is the length of time this illusion takes to perform. With a good presentation you could pull a few minutes out of this and in a typical 20-30 minute show this would be great.

The Time Machine is not so much an illusion as it is a stage piece. In short, a clock is taken out of a chest and shown, it is then placed in a futuristic looking box. the doors are closed and when reopened the time has changed on the clock. The doors are closed once more and upon reopening the clock has vanished. The illusionist explains it hasn't gone far back in time and upon opening the original chest the clock is found. The work involved in producing this effect is not nearly worth the effect. Of course this is personal opinion and if you do like this type of effect then it might be worth exploring further. If you are a fan of this type of magic Alan Wakeling wrote a number of wonderful articles in Genii Magazine in the 1950s. Fortunately for all of us without those originals Jim Steinmeyer annotated them and had them republished in a somewhat recent issue of Genii magazine (September 2007). You would do well to buy this back issue of Genii for great stand up routines.

Curtain Call is two original presentation ideas for the Sub Trunk. One being similar to The Assistants Revenge and the other as an escape. The escape isn't so new as it is old. The trick was originally an escape not a transposition. Harry Houdini made it a transposition. This section is good but like The Time Machine, not a good reason to purchase this book. If you are very interested in the Sub Trunk and the other material isn't quite enough to make you buy it then this section should push you that extra inch.

Creation of Life, a very bold title for a stage piece. This trick is pretty much Kevin James' floating rose routine with a flower petal to egg to canary. Fine routining but not much originality here.

Black Art Table Slide, I am not going to go into too much detail as this is one of those secrets that big illusionist likely depend on but this utility illusion idea allows you to have black art while still placing lighting in front of the black art area. Very cool if you have a large enough show to make it work.

Deceptive Base Work, there are not a whole lot of books on the subject of building deceptive bases for illusions. Each builder has a particular preference for certain designs and building methods. JC Sum presents you with his theory and techniques for building bases. Rand Woobdbury has wonderful work on bases in his Base Book, Volume 1 of his Illusionworks videos and Illusionworks Volume 1 book. JC Sum has added some personal choices in illusion base design. If you were ever curious as to how to build a base or you wanted to expand your horizons for base building ideas this section is great. JC addresses a wonderful problem which is reducing thickness of the doors which often saps as much as 3/4" of valuable space! There is also a retractable 1/2" or so that JC utilizes effectively.

Crystal Striptease is our first real "box trick" in this book. It's a bit of a mix of effects. The box is horizontal like a crystal casket, but the strip tease nature isn't quite true, it's more of an undressing. The magician reaches in and pulls out clothing. She vanishes then an outfit is thrown in and she appears with the new outfit on. Wakeling's Costume Trunk and Calvert's Striptease are both referenced by Mr Sum. Personally I'm more a fan of the Calvert illusion. There is something very "caged animal" about this effect. The assistant's inability to stand up straight kills the potential seductive nature of this effect.

New Age Spirit Cabinet is an interesting application for a slightly modified crystal casket. Turning a crystal casket into a spirit cabinet complete with partial appearance of a ghost. I'd suggest you look into Karl Germain's One Man Spirit Cabinet in Germain The Wizard. While JC's spirit cabinet is interesting, it lacks elegance in method. It's exactly what you might expect. That being said Mr Sum does dress it up nicely.

Sweepstakes is a stage trick combining a torn and restored paper with a vanishing radio. While the effects are combined to produce a semi-logical effect I personally can't quite visualize the effectiveness of this routine. A radio is on stage and the lottery numbers are given, the magicians numbers are incorrect and he tears up the ticket. The announcer on the radio then corrects himself stating those were last weeks numbers and that the winning numbers this week are... the magician's numbers! The magician vanishes the radio and restores his now winning ticket!

Back Door Appearance allows you to produce a person/Special Guest, etc. The downside to this is the set up and cost associated with producing this one effect is rather significant. If you have a big company ready to shell out a lot of cash to produce their CEO then you should consider this illusion. The effect is this, a top a skeletal platform with floodlights shining through a square canopy is raised and lowered to reveal the appearance of the special guest. This illusion has it's place, but for us commoners it is most likely not in our shows.

Graffiti Girl. This effect is quite nice. Through this book it's clear that JC Sum like the idea of using doors, as frames for production, means of vanishing people, etc. I suppose the inherent coming and going theme of a door and open/closed implications lend themselves well. Graffiti Girl has a spectator come on stage and with a black can of spray paint, roughly paint his dream girl! Next a paint colour is chosen and her dress is painted in with the chosen colour. The door is closed and immediately opened to reveal the rough painting now resembles a much more detailed painting in full colour! The door is closed once again and upon reopening it there stands a beautiful woman complete with coloured dress! This illusion is strong. I was once told by a very prominent illusion builder that there are 3 types of illusions, Appearances, Vanishes, and To Dos. Something appears, disappears or the box is used To Do something. This illusion is essentially a very involved appearance but with a lot to do. For all practical purposes this could be a fantastic way to introduce your assistant and in a fun way. There is no base involved, which is great. The cost to build this would be very low as well. The only thing that might be a burden is constantly replacing the original canvas that gets painted. JC provides notes at the end of each illusion/trick but unfortunately there is no solution given for replacing the painted canvas.

Motion Delayed Vanish/Appearance presents a handling of a spirit cloth that would allow you to vanish a person or make a person appear instantly! I really enjoyed this idea. It's practical, performable and very easy to produce a potential miracle, lightning fast vanishes/appearances, despite the misleading title.

Modern Flight Case Table, is the detailed plans for any worker. If you do lots of shows and need a great table this design is fantastic! In JC's words, "This is an original suitcase-style table design that is easy to set-up, lightweight and highly configurable to suit your needs. It is a medium suitcase-size ATA flight case that transforms into a central main table with receptacle bin and shelves as well as a side table." A very practical design! The drawing is a bit difficult to work out the details of the table but when you do it's very nice!

Branded is the appearance of a company logo on a previously blank placard in a flash of fire. It's good. Not much to explain. If you require this for a performance or corporate show this will fit the bill!

The Ghost Cabinet and 12 Person Production cabinet are for LARGE shows, very large shows with casts. Anyone who does have this type of large number of people at their disposal should buy this book immediately. It will help the show tremendously in conception and construction.

Illusionary Departures is a wonderful book. It shows a clear evolution of JC Sum and his illusions and magic. The illusions vary from fantastic to okay. The size of the them varies from huge to stand up. Is this book right for you? Yes, I'm very confident you will find a perfect piece of magic for your stage show. There are illusions in here for any stage of illusionist. Starting out to headlining grand illusionist. The biggest downfall to this book is the price tag. It is not a cheap book, but the price is worth it especially if you use anything from it! You can buy this book directly from JC Sum for $100 plus shipping.

Beyond The Stage

After taking a quick peek at JC Sum's website http://www.illusionbooks.com/ you will quickly realize that most of these books are for the serious magician/illusionist and they have a price tag to reflect that. Fortunately, JC has written a set of lecture notes that is packed with great information and with a relatively low price tag.

These notes are 37 pages long and the broken up as follows:

Forward by John Teo, IBM Ring 115 President.

Introduction

About JC Sum

Magic's Greatest Secret Revealed

Building a Professional Stage Show

Performing Magic for Money

Producing Magic for TV

Annex: Applause Devices

Our forward is a single page with glowing praise, as is expected in any forward. I look forward to the day when a forward is not complimentary, perhaps if it were written by Simon Lovell? Any who, often the forward allows you to see just how high up one's friends are. The president of Singapore's IBM Ring doesn't seem very significant but that is a North American perspective.

Our introduction is also a single page detailing Mr. Sum's intentions. To allow magicians to produce higher quality magic and shows, an admirable goal.

About JC Sum is like reading the dust jacket of a hardbound book, I understand why it is here, but in a short set of notes, unnecessary.

JC now presents magic's greatest secret, which isn't quite correct. It should say magic's greatest secrets, because there is no single secret, rather many many tips to improving your performance. The main point/secret is communication, and Mr. Sum spends the next 10 pages listing and explaining verbal and non verbal ways to improve your communication with your audience. Broken down into three distinct segments, Creating the Magic Experience, Controlling the Audience, and Captivating (Entertaining) The Audience. A great deal of this information presented follows the lines of good theatre. You could learn much from learning about playwriting and screen writing. The only part of this section that seems out of place is the example. Mr. Sum's example is a close up trick (The Ambitious Card) which seems wrong given he is Singapore's foremost illusionist.

Mr. Sum briefly mentions the need for perfection in execution of technique, and I couldn't agree more. It is imperative that your technique on stage be flawless, otherwise the illusion is destroyed for the audience. Unfortunately, again, Mr. Sum presents close up examples, while they are common and familiar to any magician, they are coming from a world famous illusionist, not Guy Hollingworth.

Other points in this section include the importance of scripting and how to improve with scripts. Distance from the audience and connecting, enthusiasm, sincerity, etc. A lot of great stuff!

The next section of these notes covers Building a Professional Stage Show. This section is short considering the topic and the depth is not what you might hope for. That being said, the information presented is very practical. JC immediately recommends a set of lecture notes by Denny Haney of Denny and Lee's. You can see a review of those notes here.

JC highlights 3 steps in building a stage show:

1. Construction

2. Development

3. Evolution

A variety of tips are given on choosing material, and considerations that need to be kept in mind. This is information only a seasoned pro can really give you. We also get other factors that make a trick better or worse for a stage show than another. Your favorite trick is not always a good trick for your show.

The classics are referenced and a short but strong list of classics is given and as JC mentions, a full show of classics can be put together for under $500 bucks, they can all be done surrounded, and they pack small and play big!

Formatting the Show

This is where these notes shine! JC present his way of stringing his tricks together to create the strongest performance possible. This includes which tricks to choose first, which tricks have to take a back seat, where to put what tricks, etc. All of this information justified the price of the notes. It's rare to find truly career enhancing information and I think this might be just that information. If you believe your show formatting is the best it can be then ignore this.

JC has very specific goals for each segment of the show. Opener, closer, personality piece, etc. Following JC's explanations are an example stage show program. You get to see the work in action.

Development

The second stage of the show building process is development, once you have a show it is far from over. Although the initital show is the most demanding process, the show is like a living thing, it continues to grow or shrink and becomes something different. I grows with you as a performer. Development is when you polish up your material, record bits of businss and get really tight on the scripting. The focus shifts from the physical tricks to the specific presentations. This is also when you being to discard your weaker material for stronger material. Some of your original choices will not work out. That's as it should be. JC continues to help you refine your work and make it professional grade material.

Evolution

This is when you can start taking input from other people, performers, magicians, etc. This process never ends. The chapter ends with a timeline of how long these 3 stages should take.

Performing Magic for Money

I'm a bit disappointed with this section. Specifically because it has been dilluted over a number of areas instead of concentrating on a handful of effective sources. While JC addresses a number of common magic problems he doesn't target any one market well enough for an aspiring full time magician to really get his feet wet. A lot of emphasis is given on how to sell a service, an intangible product, like magic!

JC gives some basic promotional tools that every performer should have. Nothing revolutionary, Business cards, website, promo video, and show information (Brochure, flyer, etc.). Some great information is given on how to write up your show for marketing materials.

This section ends with some ways to get started marketing yourself. The first one being Referrals. It's a bit difficult to get work through referrals if you are just starting out, afterall who is going to refer you? Charity work is great for getting those referrals and meeting good people to hire you. JC does give advice on harnessing your social circles for referrals.

Direct Marketing, cold calls, targeted mailings, etc. This requires a very specific market/list of people to approach and market to. This can get very costly as well. If you have the money to back a marketing strategy like this it could prove to be the best money you spend!

The last source is agencies. A google search will uncover many reasons you should and should not work with agents. But the most important one in my mind is that this is work that you otherwise would not get.

The last sections of the notes is Producing Magic for TV. I understand that this is good information but in a book that plans to move you from amateur to professional it seems a little out of place. That being said let's take a look at the worthwhile nature of this chapter. JC has clearly been on TV A LOT. All of that experience is clearly demonstrated in this chapter. How to prepare for a television appearance, what sort of material is good and bad for TV, having your creative voice heard even! All very important information that would be hard to learn elsewhere. Fortunately there is another set of lecture notes available from the Camirand Academy that was written by the late Gary Ouellet on this exact topic! You can take a look at those here. If anyone is interested in those notes and would like to see a review, please email me and I will post one.

Following this chapter is Annex: Applause Devices

Once again this is very theatrical information. More emphasis on theatrical training than magic here but nonetheless some great information. JC presents his techniques for garnering applause and his personal opinions on applause cues. First we are presented with the 3 mistakes magicians make with regards to applause. Next we are given verbal and visual cues to prompt applause. Last, we are given a run down of the different types of applause, from polite applause all the way to standing ovation.

This set of notes is a bit pricey at 30 bucks. I would expect a 20 dollars price tag on something like this. That being said the information presented is very good for the performer very new to performing professionally. If you read the above review and feel these notes are the proper stepping stone in your career, buy them! If you are curious about the demands of performing professionally, buy these notes. If you are looking for information that is very specific, such as magic on TV, perhaps you would do better with the notes from The Camirand Academy of Magic.

These notes are certainly helpful to a me as a professional and I think that any professional magician wouldn't hesitate to throw 30 bucks at the possibility of a tip, trick, or bit of advice that could lead to even just one more booking.

I recommend these notes available from JC directly at Illusionbooks.com for 30 dollars, shipping included.

Update: JC Sum Week

I apologize for the delay. Many of you have asked for more books so I am working hard to review all the books JC Sum has available on his site Illusionbooks.com. As you can imagine, books take a while to read and review. Once some of these books are done we will be having our first TMR Contest! One luck winner is getting a free copy of JC Sum's book The Event Illusionist!

Details will be posted at The Magic Review Facebook group page.

New contests will follow!

Update: JC SUM WEEK

JC Sum is one hell of a guy! He's also a brilliant mind and fantastic illusionist. When I mentioned to him that people voting on the site said they'd like to see more books reviewed he immediately sent over a copy of every book on his site all the way from Singapore and he sent his Perfect Coin Pail. I just received the package this weekend and I am very excited.

I was planning a JC Sum week but with this much stuff it is going to be longer than a week! Right now I think it is going to take a minimum of two weeks, and likely longer to review all this stuff!

JC and I have also agreed to a holding a little contest! More details will follow soon, the prize will be a copy of his book The Event Illusionist valued at 85 dollars!

Here is a list of all the books to be reviewed:

Illusionary Departures
The Event Illusionist
Urban Illusions
Beyond the Stage
Equilateral