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Tools, Inventions and Applications for the Modern Card Magician.

Introducing the card magic and flourishes of Kevin Ho, Smooth Operations is a 60 page book explaining an array of new material for both the curious student and seasoned pro. Over a hundred photo illustrations in full color provides an enjoyable learning experience.

Kevin is a rising young Singapore-based magician with some serious talent. As a flourisher, he’s already earned a reputation as one of the best. His style is fresh, ultra smooth, and extremely visual. And his magic is no different. Learn 5 effects, 4 sleights, 3 productions and 2 flourishes in 1 kick ass manual on card magic.

Step into a world of visual madness and experience the unexpected.

CONTENTS:

PUNK’D:
This version of Re-Set is simple, instant, and leaves you completely clean. Imagine two four-of-a-kinds, like the four Aces and four Jacks, instantly changing places with each other, and then back again moments later.

STATIC 4:
A quick and easy four Ace production that’s perfect for getting into any of your four card routines. It’s also one of Kevin’s favorites.

INVERSE IMPULSE:
A very magical looking one-handed color change that can be continuously repeated.

LONG DIVISION:
This clever routine is fun to do and gets killer reactions.

A card is produced, equaling the value of two spectatorsí chosen cards. This single card is then visually ìstretchedî into a long card, which the spectators help split into their respective selections.

PEGASUS:
An insane production of any four-of-a-kind that will blow your audience away. (Includes an alternate version.)

FLORIDA COUNT + PCP:
I guess you could say it’s a rhythm count…on acid. Very flashy, very visual, very cool.

This is definitely one of our favorite effects. It’s fast, visual, direct, and allows you to showcase beautiful sleight of hand.

PCP:
Four Jacks are counted between your hands as they seem to visually change into the four Aces. (Note: If you’re tired of the remark, “Do that again”, this is not the trick to do.)

CHASER:
The magician offers to demonstrate different aspects of sleight of hand. What follows is a fast-paced sequence of cards appearing, teleporting, changing, and transposing with each other in a casual, yet highly visual manner.

RACCOON:
Imagine a card spinning atop the deck 540 degrees to infinity. This cool little flourish is so neat and original, it has to be seen.

COLLECTORS: REDUX:
In the process of finding three spectators’ selections, the four Queens (or any four-of-a-kind) are found in an insanely chaotic and visual way that only Kevin would think of.

VISA SWITCH:
This very cool switch is open for many, many applications, of which Kevin supplies two. However, I’m sure after a little experimenting, youíll have applied it to numerous ideas of your own. All around, itís a fun little move to play with.

FULLY LOADED:
In this effect, Kevin explains how a deck of cards can be a deadly weapon with not only the ability to shoot single cards out of the deck, but also to produce a four-of-a-kind (Okay, it’s a really cool ace production with some fun patter.).

CONSPIRACY OF FOUR:
An extremely visual and fun handling of a classic plot.

The magician offers to find a four-of-a-kind other than the four Aces. All goes well until the fourth and final production - it’s an Ace. However, within the blink of an eye, the other three cards instantly turn into the other three Aces, forming a complete four-of-a-kind after all.

BOB CHANGE:
With a light shake, a card held in the magician’s hand instantly turns into another card.

A very clever and in-your-face take on the well-known Shapeshifter change.

REPAINTED:
A blank fan of cards is seen. With a quick wave, the faces of the cards visually appear. The method is so obvious itís hard to believe no one has ever thought of this before. An instant classic in my book.

Get it now at dananddave.com

Created By Lee Asher. Performed by Daren.

Music By Coldplay.

-Enjoy.

If you want to learn this amazing ace production or read my review of the pdf you can go to this post Lee Asher’s Thunderbird PDF Review.

This is one of the effects that is going to be taught in Kevin Ho’s new set of notes coming soon which will include 14 sweet items:

5 magic effects
4 utility moves
3 ace productions
2 flourishes

Punk’d, Collectors: redux, Pegasus, and Raccoon will all be explained in the notes in beautiful detail, alongside many of his other magic-related pet items.

Filmed in late 2004 2005 this video shows the baby steps of singaporean flourishing team The Virts. You can see an excerpt of this video in the Virtuoso video.

Directed, filmed and edited by Huron Low and featuring the old virts Huron Low, Kevin Ho, Sylvester, Elijah Cai and Daryl Ho.

These guys have been rocking the flourishing scene for a long time now. Who will ever defeat them?

Early 2007

Here’s another amazing tutorial by Kev. You saw this in portable playground and the first fase in the Virtuoso video.

Now it’s your chance to learn this classy and stylish move. Big thanks to Kevin, i hope you do the same in the comments section.

Here is KevHonline’s signature move Damn Straight tutorial for you guys. Most of you already seen it but this is for the ones that dont.

Thanks Kevin for all the things you contributed to this art and for what’s to come.

Adam, Kevin Ho and Fiddling Steve met up last week at Danbury, Connecticut and shot this amazing flourishing video. A must favorite for all you guys.

Who do we perform for?

The people on the other side of some random computer screen, or people in real life?

When you’re doing flourishes for people out in the real world, what’s usually the case is that everything you’re doing is brand new to your spectators. As a result, you want to be doing the most eye-popping, variety-rich material so as to effectively display your masterful prowess in this little-known art. So what usually happens is that you’ll turn to the tried-and-true, published material of the masters to include in your arsenal of 52. And that’s perfectly fine.

However -

When you’re performing for the online card community, it’s a whole different case.

Is your intention to impress us? If so, the bars have been set - there are countless amazing videos out there, so if you want to make any impact at all you’re going to have to raise the stakes a little. If I’m going to sit down and spend a minute or so of my time watching a video, why should it be yours? Usually this involves the introduction of original moves, original takes on classic moves, or an original approach altogether. One of the most awesome videos of all time, Daryl Ho’s Reloaded, only had a few original moves, but the way in which he approached the presentation of the video had never been done before, and it remains iconic for that reason.

On the other hand, perhaps you’re posting a tutorial of a move, which is admirable - one can be a little… hesitant to share material nowadays, for reasons I’m sure we’ll all aware of. But like it’s been said before, keep in mind that merely adding a packet to a cut or changing the direction of a swivel is not enough to be able to call something your own. In my opinion, it has to do with intentions - are you merely publishing a tutorial so as to present the illusion that you have original material, or do you genuinely have something worthwhile to share? Usually it’s the second case that brings more inspiring material in terms of originality.

Part of the reason the online card-related video community was started up over half a decade ago was so that people who did what we did could give honest and constructive feedback on each other’s progress so as to help each other get better, advancing the future of the art in the big picture. But what happened along the way is that it turned into a competition of which metaphorical lab rat could get to the metaphorical cheese the fastest, and all those who were generous enough to share their own material started to withhold in disillusionment. The solution is simple - for commenters to have higher standards and let people know when their roses really smell like poo-poo-ooo, and for those with an abundance of original material to come out of their cages and start providing hotspots of inspiration again.

All in all, though, keep in mind that this art is still in its beginning stages - the foundations are still being laid out, so consider yourself lucky to be one of the early practitioners of the sport. And while you’re at it, why not add a building block of your own?

-Kev, The Virts

as read in dananddave.com/forum