How was today? :rolleyes:

It was so fun at IF lol :D You all if can make it to the show tomorrow at kallang thearter lol :D

The competitors for the Close Up comp were all really something. Jeremy Pei had a very good performance. And Nique Tan was just unbelievable. And the Karl guy (the street busker we were talking about some time ago) is going to go home with something I think.

To be fair, today Kevin and Huron performed below standard. They are usually MUCH better. I felt i really have to say this: If you guys didn't win something this time round, it's NOT because you guys are no good alright? It's just this time. -_- But it's ok! It's experience! It's something your cannot mail order from Pengiun! ^_^
And next time you will come back, show them what you are really made of and SLAY them. B) So keep going boys! :!!:

They were not the only ones that had problem. Enrico had major shakes. And i heard the HK magician didn't perform up to par either, his routine during SAM's meeting was apparently much better. Even Nique Tan had some minor stuff go wrong which he had to recovered from. The 2 japanese magicians were quite interesting and they had Ning almost falling off her chair with laughter. But I suspect some part of their routine went wrong too, the Newton's Nightmare felt.....incomplete.

But what a trill it is to watch them all....
Can't wait for tmrw..... :)

Everyone had problems!? OMG... The place is cursed... Cursed I tell you, cursed! Who won?

Yes yes who won who won??

I'm dying to know man...

Results will be announced today. The camera man screwed up the angles. One would see the "hows".

Those going for the lectures later, anybody wanna meet for lunch?
Gimme a call if you wanna have lunch together.

IF Magic...

Would you all excuse me for the pun when I say I'm now "disillusioned"? :P

-Kev

Results are in.
Close-up
1st = Jeremy Pei
2nd = Carl (Sweden)
3rd = Nique Tan

Stage competition were all won by the Japanese.

Will try and spend some money in the dealers room tomorrow. Die die also must buy something.

well i have to admit tat 17yr old jap girl was good.. heh ^_^

yeah the jap girl , firstly , she is hot , secondly she is cute .. :off:

lol , her performance was GREAT!
manipulations great , clothes changing , alice in wonder land , soft toy ,
just excellent .

and she helped the other umbrella guy , haha doing all the stuff for him , cool .

she deserves it , ^_^

Anyone has a close up pic of her?

lol any1 got her name? can google for it

I agree that that gal was good.. So cool man..

neo23 so despo? :D :off:

lol if you dun tink shes hot or cute.. ure gay :P :off:

hmm her name was.. starts with M den oishawa or sumthin? bleah

Ok those who wan to know the gals name she is the first perfromer and her name was fujisawa Mayuko.. wan to meet her if you lucky she will be at york hotel if not too bad lor...hahhahahahha :P

me having a 3rd tier ticket couldnt see anything that was going on for nuts. therefore, i cannot comment on how hot/cute/tiny the jap girl was. besides, JOEY should've won. okay, maybe his doves were like real fussy or something. but his act was so unique, as compared to manipulation after manipulation after manipulation (i must admit that 40+ jap was quite powerful with cards).

anyway, why hasn't anyone commented on the LECTURES? oh. maybe its coz the few of us who go out for supper after IF are too darn tired to post. yesterday (25/2) we had Tommy Wonder and Jonathan Pendragon and the ever-charismatic Duane Laflin. Tommy and Jonathan both lectured more on style, presentation, showmanship and all. having a MOTIVE for your magic, rather than just routined effects. Tommy taught several card effects (diminishing, manipulation, TnR etc) and Jonathan basically went on and on about how we should USE what we are born with (in his case his uber-huge muscles -- and his very athletic wife) to enhance our effect, ala THE FASTEST METAMORPHISIS IN THE WORLD. although i personally felt that Jonathan wasn't very effective in communicating his overall message across (as compared to Tommy, who's comedic and really surprising), both lectures were quite well received.
as for Duane Laflin's late-nite lecture (lasted till about 12.30am) on gospel magic. umm.. well there was this whole thing about how to get the message across with every trick (christian-related messages), a little showmanship here and there, and some moves related to sponges. Duane Laflin was also the MC for the Pro Asia magic challenge thingy. very smooth talker, enigmatic, whatever. tired.

then of course we crashed Macs. :ph43r:

Hey guys, I'm SO SORRY for letting you down. The 24th really wasn't my night. Neither was it Kevin's. Having that said, it was a great experience, albeit the disappointment. Now I know what to expect. IF 2007, I won't let you down.

Joe Yu should have won the Stage Competition! He didn't even get third. Most of the acts could be considered as Closeup routines. I guess they just wanted more cash. Hah.

Huron

No aplogies need Huron, we are proud of you guys. :) Very proud :)

DAMN Tired. So much wanna share about IF Magic. So wanna talked about what I've learnt. And so wanna ask someone to upload the pics we have been taking these few days (we took SMC group photos with all the stars!). But so so tired.
So it all will have to wait. :g:

IF Magic goers, lunch tmrw at 12 pm at BK at Far East Plaza. Then we go to dealer's room. PLAN YOUR BUDGET CAREFULLY. ;) It's NOT possible to buy EVERYTHING. -_-

Rest of you, don't feel left out alright? And not to worry, we will be sharing the stories and all the insights that we get from all the masters with you all when it's all over. I really feel I'm learning so much more listening to the real Pros and their philosophy and their mentality than the actual effects that was taught. Really invaluable :)

In the meantime, while play nice and be sweet to each other :) The remaining moderators, I am leaving SMC in your hands for the next few days, take care of it B)


Cheers

i agree, Joe Yu shud have gotten 1st for stage competition... i personally dont think the competition was intense enough to justify having 2nd and 3rd placings...

jeremy shud have competed in the stage competition (as he did 2 yrs ago). then will derserve a 2nd.

the problem with most stage routines is over-emphasis on card manipulation. it is hard to establish oneself as being unique, and it just bores ppl out. (and encourages ppl to watch out for the moves as well..)

tommy wonder is just wonderful! got his DVDs (all autographed), yay! :) so sad he didnt bring in his books... (i have a fetish for magic books) if not can get him to autograph, if i buy elsewhere, no autograph... :(

i thought Nique shud have gotten 1st for closeup... perhaps there was increased emphasis on presentation/impact/entertainment value in the judging criteria... anyway, all 3 were well deserving.

Joe Yu got 3rd place in IF 2003, it was the same act as last night. As for the rest of the competitors, couldn't really see much as I was on the cheapo seats.

The umbrella act looks nice, very very similar to Fukai's, I wonder if Fukai was that guy's mentor.

In the first place sadly, I can't enter york hotel cause I'm not a convention member so sad... Can't see her in person. Ha. Just wondering is it possible for one of you guys to help me get a card signed by her or something. :P :wub: :P You can do an ACR first with the card or something for her. :)

Hmm somehow even I'm interested in having a look at this jap chick hahaha... Somebody start a thread in the Misc. Section about hot girls!!

UPLOAD DAMN PICTURES! (sorry ZL :P Can't help myself)

Let's try to take a photo with her today shall we? :g:

I thought Joe Yu was very good too. Man, that guy really invested a lot on pyrotechnics and special effects. B)

I really liked the finale umbrella act. I think the assistant (who is the 1st place girl) was doing a lot of the work in that act too B)

Tonight's the Magic of Love. Looking forward to it. Anybody going just for the show tonight give us a call? We meet you all at Kallang Indoor.

And I better go now, later guys!


Cheers

Yah I find this quite interesting. I imagine most of us expected that Joe Yu would have at least taken a prize as his act made quite a bit hit with the audience judging from the reactions. I'm really curious to know what made the judges prefer the prize's winners' acts over Joe Yu's somewhat more flashy performace. Any ideas?

HEY all the talking about the hot jap chick.. it is off topic!!!!! :off:
But.... I like it....
EErmmmm can someone upload the pic for me to see??? :lol: :P
PLEASEEEEEE hahahah
u guy make me eager to see........

MUST take pictures!!! Must must must!

After last night's show, I'm her FAN!

Mabas you can drop by york hotel but you can go into the lecture and stuff only.. you still can come to york hotel lol :D

Ok...some different opinions from me.

I wasn't a big fan of Joe Yu's performance. I thought it was too flashy and overdone. But that's my opinion.

I thought the last act (Umbrella kids) would get first prize. To me, their act felt more balanced than the others.

During most of the manipulation sequences, I felt like I was watching the Art of Card Manipulation videos starring everyone EXCEPT for Jeff McBride. :P While they were very proficient, Pendragon's/Wonder's lecture made me think more on the "Why" of the effect, so random productions wasn't very entertaining suddenly.

Also, isn't the Swede CHARLIE? There are two of them, him and another guy Robert. Nice guys both of them.

I really liked Tommy Wonder's lecture. Very smart man - he's very sharp and knows what he's talking about.

I was on the cheap seats during the show as well.....while the air was thinner and we were closer to the jets passing overhead, we were sitting with some kids from Compassvale Sec who had gotten FREE TICKETS from their teacher.

That's a really cool teacher.

Anyway we were doing some effects for them before the show and during intermission, so that was pretty fun. But we weren't the only ones....there were small pockets of people all crowded around the magicians in their area. Seems like everyone was competing for the limelight.

One guy did linking rings next to us during the intermission, just before Jeremy Pei's act, which also had Linking Rings. The kids were pretty happy about that.

So far it's been pretty fun...I should be leaving soon for the lectures. And to pay Magicdow the money I owe him :ph43r:

- Raoul

A Warning to those who had gone to the IF convention...

Never ever post the photo of any jap girls etc.... Else you'll be in trouble... :ph43r:

Darn... we paid big bucks for the convention...... How can anyhow post photo... :lol:

Erm... but if those who really want the photo taken... $25/photo...

Pseudo. Why?

Ermmm... Pseudo... some phtoto... worth 25buck some not... ermmm :blink: hahahaha..... especially if there is something less.... :ph43r: :lol:

Been through 6 7-11 store still couldn't get the sunday ticket.... :angry:

Anyway... just curious... are all the seat full on Sat??? If less full maybe I try go Kallang theatre to get...

well.. i cant get tickets either..

and so i shall resign myself to the fact that i cant go. :(

There were actually quite a number of empty seats on Sat. Maybe Sunday different cause got really famous magicians. Somemore, radio stations have been giving out tickets. That could be the reason why there's a shortage.

couldnt get it too..... :( checked a couple of 7-11s today.. they din even know about it man...

As many magicians say. Less is more.

manipulation cards? ;)

Eh anyone going for Sunday 27 Feb's IF can meet not? I actually got 2 front row tix yeah got me fren Jeremy to go... Anyone who wanna meet can contact me @ 91892108 Morphine not sure if u got tix but i'll sure like to meet up.

ok, today was great!

Best Lecture: Tommy Wonder!! (i wished he didnt teach so much, since they are on his DVD which i bought...)

2nd Best Lecture: John Tomsoni! (lots of great effects, and personal advice!)

magic of love was really particularly THAT good, but it meets expectations.