2 More Days to 6-Show Run in Kuwait

We are flying off early this morning to Kuwait City to be part of an illusion show production featuring magicians from the US, Europe and Asia… we represent Asia!

Our props were shipped ahead of us and should be at the arena waiting for us when we get there! We are so looking forward to meeting our fans in Kuwait!

Check back for behind the scenes updates, photos and maybe even videos!

J C Sum & ‘Magic Babe’ Ning Sign On as Fly Entertainment Artistes

Yesterday, Ning & I headed to the Fly Entertainment office and officially signed on as artistes with the agency. Fly is the top professional artiste management agency in the country and provide talent for television, film, events and special projects in the region.

Fly Entertainment will now handle certain aspects of our work exclusively including TV, film, endorsements and publicity. We will still be working directly with our existing network of clients, event companies and show producers for live show bookings.

Ning & I are excited to add to the diversity and branding of Fly’s talent roster and are part of a small handful of the top Singapore creative artists in their respective fields.

As you probably know, we have worked closely with Fly for a number of projects including “M for Magic” Season 1 & 2. So, it was a natural decision to consider having Fly manage aspects of our work. We discussed it over several meetings over several months and finally inked the deal!

We will be working together on our first project together as official Fly Entertainment Artistes on 11 Mar 2012. This will be an exciting project for magic in Singapore & South East Asia and more details will be announced in the next week!

Nominate Us for Magic.About.com Readers’ Choice Awards

Each year, About.com hosts the Readers’ Choice Awards where readers submit nominations for the best of the best. This is the first year that Magic.About.com is participating in this effort. The winners in each category will be announced and listed on a separate “winners” award page at About.com.

Magic.About.com has been really supportive of us over the years and here is a chance to let  them know that you support them supporting us! (Does that make sense???)

Over the last few years, Ning & I have striven to push the envelope with our mega illusions and our stage illusions. From teleporting cars, people and ourselves to setting 2 world magic records and bring magic from Singapore around the world on TV and live shows.

If you support our work and think we deserve it, please spend 1 min and nominate us in the “Best Stage Magician” category. All you have to do is follow THIS LINK and log in through Facebook or as an About.com member (See top red arrow).

Next, type in our names in “Nomination #1″. (See bottom red arrow)

Scroll down and hit the blue “Submit” button.

That’s it! Thanks in advance!

J C Sum & ‘Magic Babe’ Ning LIVE in Kuwait City

At the end of the month, Ning & I will be performing in a magic production show in Kuwait City. We will be sharing the stage with a number of international magicians including America’s Got Talent Finalist, Michael Grasso, Belgium’s Comedy Magician, Rafael and the Living Cartoon, Sylvester the Jester as well as British quick change artists, Keelan and Charlotte.

Ning & I will be representing Asia and have shipped up a number of illusions that we will be presenting for 1500 strong audience. Produced by David Lai, out of Kuala Lumpur, a number of shows will be staged over a 3 day period. We have worked with David to put up the best possible act to complement the overall show. Check out a photo of the stage set-up taking place right now!

View all photos from the official blog here.

The last time we were in the Middle East was in Oman and this is our first time to Kuwait. However, I’m the audiences will be fantastic as they have always been very warm to us and our style of magic.

Shipping has been the trickiest we have handled in any part of the world due to the stringent requirements set by the Kuwait customs. Luckily, we have a great freight forwarder who has helped us with the extensive documentation. As usual, the biggest case we are shipping is our “360 Sawing” illusion that was in France last month for the famed TV show “Le Plus Grand Cabaret Du Monde”.

If you are from Kuwait, please come for the show. Drop a message at our Facebook page and we’ll look out for you during the meet & greet after the show

We are so looking forward this and bring Singapore magic for the first time on new soil!

 

3 Tips to Stand Out as a Commercial Creative Artist

This is my first post of 2012 written for the Commercial Creative Artist (CCA). Sharing experiences and helpful information was one of the goals of this blog when I started it in 2008.

Whether you are a magician, visual artist, fashion designer, writer, photographer, stage performer, musician or actor, all CCAs need to find ways to distiniguish themselves and brand themselves to stand out in their field… just like any professional business, product, service or organization.

Here are 3 “simple” (simple in concept, incredibly difficult to execute but nevertheless possible!) ways to stand out as a CCA, regardless of your art or craft.

Develop truly UNIQUE content that sets you apart from anyone else in the world

To be successful at a high level, you need to differentiate yourself from others in your field. When you first start out, you have to be different from other similar CCAs in your locality or region, then expand to your country, neighbouring region and eventually the rest of the world.

In my TEDxNTU talk, I spoke about the Value of Being Different. I’ve also written about the different ways to be original here as well as detailed practical approaches to originality here.

For magic specifically, I cringe everything I see young performers performing a “copycat” acts or “strongly inspired” acts that look like known performers’ act or types of acts that everyone is doing. The cane, silks, parasols, doves, kabuki/ snowstorm template act ran its course a few years ago, but magicians are still doing the same old things. Imagine, if all that time, effort and money was put into developing an original act!

Hopefully, this cold hard fact will motivate non-original performers to try something different. You will not achieve mainstream commercial success at a high level with a non-original act. Changing the colours of the birds or silks makes no difference.

If you have a hard time being original with your content, here is some good news! You can still differentiate yourself without necessarily being original (in the traditional sense). What I’m saying is that you can be unique even if your content is not original but your presentation, packaging or medium of your content is.

For example, if you are photographer, the most obvious example of being unique is to take photographs that are different or with a special technique that produces unique photographs. But a photographer who takes quality “standard” photos can be unique if he/ she finds an original way to showcase his/ her photos.

Imagine that if instead of showcasing his/ her photos in a traditional art gallery that tends to be visited by a niche crowd, the photographer’s works are exhibited in the toilet stalls of a popular fast food chain. This unique showcase venue will help the photographer get noticed by more people and have greater impact than if he/ her were to go the traditional route.

Of course, your ultimate goal should be to develop original content but an approach like this will help buy you some time and build a brand of being creative or embracing a culture of innovation.

Ning & I have strived to be different in multiple facets. While we do not have the sheer creativity to develop a complete show of 100% original acts & illusions like Franz Harary or Peter Marvey, we do our best to have a number of signature pieces that are unique or seldom seen. In addition, our delivery, presentation and style as an equal male-female duo applied to the illusions make the overall content unique. That was recognized by the producers of Le Plus Grand Cabaret Du Monde!

You must have a commercial and marketable image/ style that the mainstream public/ media will accept

This seems like common sense but many CCAs forget this. As a CCA, you have to appeal to not just the core audience that sees/ experiences your work but a majority of people that might not even have any direct contact with you and even people who have not even seen your work but whose opinions matter.

While “artists” may only want to make themselves happy and expect audiences to appreciate what they the “artists” want to do, the CCA has to ensure they can reconcile their own artistic aspirations anf integrity with what the mass public/ media likes. The first step, of course, is knowing who you have to appeal to as a CCA. I explored this important topic here.

You can’t please everyone and should not try. But, as a CCA, you must appeal to a large percentage of the masses or to the small but powerful group of people who influence buying, media and public perception. Show producers and talent bookers literally make decisions within a minute of seeing a CCA and determining if they have the “X Factor” that they are looking for. The space between bland and too extreme is grey and you have to figure out what may be considered to “vanilla” to be different and too extreme that is not palatable by the masses or powers to be.

Constantly Develop your Knowledge

A couple of weeks ago, Ning & I worked with 12 magicians for the filming of “M for Magic” season 2. The ones who we think have the most potential are the ones who have a wide knowledge of magical techniques, magicians, magic history and products in the marketplace. If you are a specific type of magician like an illusionist, you must be in the top bracket of your illusion craft in terms of illusion knowledge, techniques, design, staging and wide knowledge on all other illusions/ illusionists in the world.

Regardless of your art or craft, extensive domain knowledge is vital. I have yet to see any top CCA of any field who is not knowledgeable in their field. As a CCA, you have to constantly develop and expand your knowledge; in your own field and all related fields. It is a lifelong learning process you have to be up to date with the latest techniques, approaches and trends in your field, in order to stay relevant and current.

It does surprise me sometimes how uninformed or narrowly-informed some CCAs are. The irony is that many know they should be better educated but don’t and at the same time do not understand why they are not as successful as they think they should be.

What to expect for “3 Sides of Magic” in Penang

In about 3 weeks, Ning & I will be heading up to Penang for the very first stop of our world lecture tour. “3 Sides of Magic” will see us perform and explain a collection of professional routines that we use in our live & television performances.

The material we will be presenting is completely different from our first workshop event that we did in Jan 2011 in Penang. It covers a wide range of routines that will appeal to magicians of all levels and interest. In addition, we will have a specific discussion on performing for South East Asian audiences and international audiences.

Because Penang is the very first city we are lecturing in, we have a few treats for all participants:

Free Exclusive “The Mind Heist” souvenir poster! We have printed up an additional run of the poster that was only available to the 100 participants at our recent world record setting mega illusion. This will be limited to the 1st 40 participants who book their seats.

Lucky Draw Winner for Exclusive “3 Sides of Magic in Penang” poster. One lucky participant will have a chance to win this one of kind poster as shown above.

Lucky Draw Winner for our Limited Edition “Pentad Deck”. One lucky participant will have a chance to win this deck of cards that is sold out worldwide.

Early Birds will  be entitled to a 16.5 % discount off Lecture Package that will include full lecture notes, props and gimmicks. The discounted price is RM$100, original RM$120.

In addition, we will arrange with the organizer to have an informal dinner get together after the lecture so participants can spend a few more hours with us if they like.

Program

1.30pm Registration
2.00pm “3 Sides of Magic” Performance/ Lecture Part 1
3.00pm Tea Break
3.15pm “3 Sides of Magic” Performance/ Lecture Part 2
4.00pm Q & A with J C & Ning
4.30pm Dealers Booth/ Free & Easy
5.00pm End

Early Bird Prices before 1 Feb 2012

Lecture Fee: RM$80.00
Lecture Package: RM$100.00

Prices from 1 Feb 2012

Lecture Fee: RM$120.00
Lecture Package: RM$120.00

Book Your Seat at:

Barry Khoo
Barrini Magical Productions
Email: barrini.magic@gmail.com
Mobile: +6 012-4833-420

Jacky Lee
Top Magic Fun Centre
Lot. 33-3-02 Prangin Mall
Jalan Dr. Lim Chwee Leong
10100 Penang
Mobile: +6 012-453 3064

Illusionary Departures 2012 – My BIGGEST Illusion Book to Date!

In between our shows, TV tapings and “The Mind Heist”, I found time to rewrite and reformat my latest illusion book to be mass released to the magic community – “Illusionary Departures 2012”!

This is the latest edition of the book that was first released in 2004. Over the last 8 years, the book has been revised, updated, expanded and is now my BIGGEST illusion book to date!

It contains over 30 illusions & stage routines with carefully thought out designs, methodologies and presentation plots that take into consideration motivation, logic and credibility in the performance of illusion.

Illusions detailed inside the book cover multiple genres including penetrations, appearances, vanishes, transpositions and escapes. Also shared are a variety of original stage routines such as a logical time travel act, motivated torn & restored effect and a silent theatrical piece with plot and progressive structure.

In one of the most valuable chapters in the book, I share my original approach to designing and building a modern illusion base. My base is highly deceptive and sturdy but is very lightweight compared to traditionally built bases. I utilize this cutting edge base design in several of my illusions that Ning & I feature in our live shows and on TV across the world.

All the illusions were created for the working performer (from new workers to seasoned professionals) and have been prototyped, built and audience-tested in professional shows staged over the years since 1998. All props are designed to pack down effectively for transport and most of the illusions can be performed surrounded or with audiences on three sides.

Look out for it very soon!

The Hunt for the Next Celebrity Magician is On!

I highlighted that a close-up magic competition was in the works over the last few weeks. The event has been finalized!

Ning & I along with Fly Entertainment and Sinema TV are looking for South East Asia’s next celebrity magician!

Aptly named “Celebrity Magician”, the live competition will take place on 11 Mar 2012, Sun, 4pm – 6pm after a shortlisting of 8 finalists via video submissions.

On the day of the competition, the 8 finalists will present their acts to a live audience and a panel of four judges that will be seeing their acts for the first time.

To make the event interesting and informative for the audience, I (as the host) as well as the judges will offer comments and feedback immediately after each act. After all the finalists have presented their acts, the judges will determine the winners of the competition.

The actual competition on 11 Mar 2012 will be streamed live over the Internet.

Prizes for “Celebrity Magician”:

• 1^st Place – SG$1000 + Trophy, “Celebrity” Media Coverage, Professional Photo Shoot, Web TV Show
• 2^nd Place – SG$400 + Trophy
• 3^rd Place – SG$100 + Trophy

“Celebrity Magician” is open to all magicians of any age from South East Asia. Download the competition criteria and specifications HERE to join!