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“I don’t feel comfortable in front of a camera at all. This is due to the fact that I’m so used to being the guy behind the camera no one ever sees or cares about. At least that’s how I like it. I don’t like attention, but I got a whole bunch of requests to do this interview, so I’m doing it for the ‘fans’.. ”

- Allan Hagen on doing the interview

EDIT: Comments are now open!

Hi guys,

I guess most of you have noticed the Interviews tab on the top navbar of the blog, or at least have seen a couple of them either here or at my youtube channel.

I started this initiative because I thought our art lacked personality, i mean, we knew each other for our avatar and signatures in the forums and our perfect manicure (which i didn’t ever have) from the videos.

First I thought of trying to interview the big names only so that we could demistify themselves and put them closer to us poor average card guys, but then, after a while i thought it would be interesting to interview anyone that was in the “spotlight” or had anything interesting to say about our art.

The easier method i though of was sending them some questions in a text file that they should answer whenever they had some spare time.

This way i got a few interesting ones but then i got to ask my friend Jordan Lapping and he came up with the idea of doing the interview in front of his webcam, thus making it even more personal and impromptu.

I loved it and then I started asking many people to do that for the community.

The responses were priceless, and this was what made this blog be what it is now, so I feel like I have to thank you for building up this whole thing with your videos, articles, card gossip and constructive comments.

There are some great interviews for you to watch if you didn’t already and some other scheduled for the future, here is the list of the names that we’ve got so far so select one, sit back and enjoy and after that mind leaving a comment or asking them a question.

TheCuso interviews Kent
TheCuso interviews Chris Hestnes
TheCuso interviews Kate
TheCuso interviews Vincent Dark
TheCuso interviews Jaspas
TheCuso interviews Ineski (taken down temporary)
TheCuso interviews Mattgic and MaXim
TheCuso Interviews Adam
TheCuso interviews Pierre Tran
TheCuso interviews David Blanch
TheCuso interviews Bone Ho
TheCuso interviews Jordan Lapping
TheCuso interviews Daren Yeow
TheCuso interviews Jonas Haglund

There are some great interviews coming up like Kevin Ho’s,that he might film this weekend, Cardshark88’s (co-founder of The3C and youtube top subscribed card guru), Justflourish staff (Sebastian, Tical…), Luka, Brendan Conner, Justin Kelly, Scenacle french guys, Scott and Sean, Allan Hagen, Ling and many more.

So i would like to hear from you about what do you think about this whole initiative and how could it be improved, who would you like to be interviewed in the future or what other ideas do you have to bring the artist closer.

Leave a comment and chose your favourite interview.

- Alejandro Portela

What’s your name?
My name is Yoonjae Park
and my nick name is Ellusionist Kent.

Where do you live?
I live in Korea

What do you do for living?
I am currently unemployed

How long have you been doing magic? and flourishes?
I’ve been doing for 3 years

How much do you practice a day?
I practice for 8 to 14 hours on the average

What are your plans for the future?
I will keep practice for card tricks and flourishes
I am also plannig to apply for magic course as there are several universities teaching magic in Korea.

Who is the flourisher you get the most inspiration? and magician?
I am inspired by many magicians and flourishers over the world.
Especially, Daryl and Micheal Ammar for magicain and Dan & Dave Buck, De’vo, and Brian Todur
for flourisher give me lots of inspiration,

What are your top 5 flourishes of your own? and the top 5 tricks you perform?
I would say Dragon 1,2, Korea, Moon Walk and RMD is my top 5 flourishers.
For the tricks, I like performing Driyl’s card trick called Ambitious.
Also I can do several simple card tricks and changes.

Which cards do you like most?
I mainly use Black Tiger, Viper, Shadow Master / Deck and also my favourites.

What type of music do you use to practice? can you give us a little list of albums?
I enjoy most of popular musics however I generally use modern rocks.
Below is the list:

This Is How You Remind Me - Nicleback
Puddle Of Mudd - Blurry
Last Resort -Papa Roach
Save Me - Remy Zero
Wherever You Will Go - The Calling
There Are No Answers - Aeon Spoke
Breathing - Lifehouse
Chariot -Gavin Degraw
I Knew I Love You - Savage Garden

What do you think about the current flourishing communities in the internet? (t11, dnd ,DN, etc..)
Recently I have got new friends and informaition posting my video clips to foreign sites like Youtube
but I didn’t know whether there were flourishing communities in the internet since then.
Eventhough I don’t know much about their activities, I believe flourish can be close to people and helpful for the technique and diversity by the communities.

What would you change?
This is hard question to answer. I try to think many times and still don’t know the answer.
I just would like to work hard and enjoy it in my field.

Who do you think is the most talented amateur and why?
The question is getting harder :)
I don’t know which amateur is talented and how much effort he or she is puting on.
However, when I see De’vo or Dan & Dave, I can feel how much they have been working hard whether gifted or not. So I respect their originality and passion.

What do you think about my blog?
As you know, I’ve been visiting your blog in short period of time and my English skill is not enough to understand all the contents in your blog. However I am sure that your blog and what you are doing has a positive meaning.

Who would you like to be interviewed next?
I would recommend Dimitri won the CCC 2008.
I have been known him lately. He is very kind with great skills.

Anything else you want to add?
I wanna thank to all the magicians and flourishers with all my heart.

Time to interview Chris Hestnes. This must be the most professional interview so far thanks to our very own Allan Hagen. Great video but… hey Chris you missed some Q’s like what do you think about the blog and the interview initiative. Well I hope to see you in the comments section answering these and whatever the readers want to ask you.

Thanks Allan and Chris. You guys are awesome.

Alejandro

This time i’m interviewing Kate aka BabycatXD a lovely flourisher from Canada that has improved massively in the last months. She is know for her collaboration videos with Jay, another great friend of mine that will also be interviewed soon.
Check out the video and feel free to leave a comment with any question you would like to ask her.

After initial hesitation, Kevin Ho from The Virts has finally agreed to do an interview for the blog.

In addition to answering the questions I’ve given him, he will also be answering select questions asked by readers.

So if you have a question that you’d like to ask him, please leave it in the comments section of this post.

We will choose the ones we consider most relevant and interesting, so please don’t ask things like whats his favourite lingerie (it’s Pampered Passions.)

In addition, you’ll get your name credited in the video interview if your question is chosen so think twice before you select them.

Please ask only one question per reader.

Good Luck,

Alejandro

Time to interview a 3c big fish. Vincent has been fiddling with cards for quite a long time now and he has written very interesting posts at the forums. Here is a chance for you to know him more.
You can ask him questions in the comments and he’ll be glad to answer them individually….

Here’s a nice Dan and Dave Buck’s interview done by an icelander Tv.

They perform flourishes and tricks from the trilogy and some cool variations along the speak. Nothing very original but very smooth as expected.

You’ve probably already seen this at the forums  thanks to Valdemar or the media section of t11 thanks to RichardZ but here it is at youtube for you guys.

Please leave comments and if there is any problem with this being at youtube just tell me and i’ll take it down.

Here comes another great interview, im glad you people are loving them as much as I am but i would really like that you participate more by asking them questions. Im sure you can find some good ones, just drop a comment and they’ll reply back.
Ladies and gentlemen… JASPAS DECK!

These guys got featured at youtube.fr main page with their video “Echec et mat” (Mattgic couldnt do it but he is part of the team) because they PWN US ALL! good job frenchies!
http://youtube.com/user/matandmax go subscribe to their channel!