With all the crazy things happening over at WLD ‘09, Bone, Kev, Daren and I have barely been getting any sleep… but regardless, here’s a little information about WLD ‘09 for you and the rest of the Insiders if you haven’t checked it out yet. =)

It’s an online event jointly organized by us, The Virts, as well as Bone, the crazy awesome “Legendary” Vietnamese card flourisher who is a great friend of ours.

WLD’09 features one of the craziest card flourishes ever:

A Little Bit of History

Supported by some of the largest names in the magic and card flourishing industry, what was initially a small project turned into an entire event, and a pretty big one at that.

Each of these guys have huge newsletter lists and artists in their community, and one of our partners is inviting over 195,000 magicians and card flourishers over to WLD ‘09.

So in total, there are about 338,000 magicians and card flourishers that will be sent an invitation over to WLD ‘09 soon. (Of course, we invited you guys first.)

We really didn’t think anyone would believe that there would be 338,000 people invited though, so we gave it a rough 78,000 instead to kinda play things down a little. =)

Anyway, there’s gonna be lots going on over at WLD ‘09 over the next two weeks, and we’ve prepared lots of solid free content over there while the event builds, all which have been getting some really great feedback from the people attending.

I think everyone’s favorite so far is the “bloody” potentially-controversial handbook we’re giving away called “Death to the Noobs.” So do check it out in the WLD2009 members section, because I think you’ll like it. It’s gold if you can keep an open mind. =D

The Big Question

I guess the big questions that everyone is asking is:

“Will you guys finally be releasing the new updated technique of the Anaconda?”

The answer to the question is… Yup, we will, but we won’t be releasing it to every single person over at WLD ‘09.

We’ve created a pretty sick DVD that’s cost us quite a lot to produce… but we personally think it was worth every penny and bit of effort required.

I know that a lot of people think that $72,000 is an insane amount to put into a DVD production… but I guess we’re just weird perfectionists like that. ;)

So call us crazy or whatever… but we wanna make sure that when you get the DVD, it’s gonna be an insane viewing and learning experience. (One of the coolest bits about the updated technique is that it allows the Anaconda to be way longer than before, and much easier to execute at the same time. Sweet!)

Roland, our music guy, even composed an original score for the entire DVD, so every piece of music sounds ridiculously amazing and is perfectly timed to every movement, cut, transition and fade.

I’ve even put the Anaconda Soundtrack on my iPod because the music’s so good it keeps playing in my head all day. =D (You can hear some of the music in the Event Introduction video at WLD ‘09, and in the YouTube event teaser that we posted up.)

The teaser’s right here if you’d like to hear some of the music from the Anaconda Soundtrack:

The track in the teaser is called “Mannequin”, named off one of Bone’s signature card flourishes that’s going to be included as one of the bonuses in the Anaconda DVD as well.

Anyway, I think this post is practically rambling now… so why don’t you check out the event yourself to see what all the buzz is about.

We’ll keep you guys updated. Don’t worry! ;)

See you soon.

Huron Low, The Virts

P.S. I think this DVD will completely transform things for the people who have tried learning the old technique for the Anaconda, especially since most people have tried to learn it off a weird, unofficial .pdf file with cute accompanying text, or Bone’s old 60 cm dribble video. Fail. ;)

If you’ve seen the teaser video you’ll know what I mean. The new Anaconda is absolutely massive… and makes the old “60 cm Dribble” seriously look like a tiny tree snake. =D

Hey guys, Huron here. =)
I’d like to teach you one of my signature card flourishes.

It’s a one card twirl called “Flicker”.

When Flicker and Firefly was released in our 2007 video “Style“, it started a whole trend of one and two card flourishes and variations of what was in that video.
That trend has since developed into an entire genre of its own, and now more than ever, we are receiving countless emails from people requesting to learn our original work on the subject.

After much discussion, we decided to head to the studio to create a tutorial detailing both the technical aspect of the flourish, as well as the stylistic and dynamic aspect of performing the flourish.

Flicker is definitely one of my most treasured and favorite card flourishes because of how beautiful it looks and how versatile it is in its application… so learn it well, play with it, and continue developing your own ideas for this little baby of mine.

Enjoy. =)

Huron Low, The Virts

Notice: Insiders-Only Tutorial. The passwords to these tutorial will be sent via email to all Insiders upon release.

Oftentimes, we watch flourishes performed at blazing speeds, never really stopping to appreciate the beauty of a classic flourish displayed purely and simply in its timeless perfection.
With that, here’s two wallpapers of the classic Thumb Fan in three different colors that we’ve made just for you.

Feel free to choose between the mac or pc version of the wallpaper to suit your desktop style.
Enjoy. =)

The Virts

For Mac
(click here to download)

Black & White

Red Pips

Blue Pips

For PC
(click here to download)

Black & White

Red Pips

Blue Pips

Credits

• Thumb Fan performed by Daren Yeow
• Photography by Huron Low
• Designed by Daren Yeow

INFO

Hey! Here’s a card flourish tutorial that details one of the most powerful card flourishes ever created; the Spring.

This Virtuoso card flourish tutorial outlines every detail needed to perform the Spring; the exact grip, the pressure required to spring the cards, the grip needed to receive the cards, the sound to listen out for, the method to make it crazy long whilst keeping it clean, and even how to ‘drag’ a spring to ’slow-mo’ it in realtime.

So, whether or not you’ve learnt the “spring” card flourish before, take a look at our take on this one, cause you just might pick up something new. ;)

CREDITS

• Performed and Taught by Huron Low
• Filmed and Edited by Daren Yeow
• Music:
  • “Lex” by Ratatat
  • “Light Pattern” & ”Days to Come” by Bonobo
  • “Laundry” by edIT

INFO

We’ve all watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine… where Gambit makes a cameo of sorts. Whilst Taylor Kitsch was awesome as gambit, his role wasn’t quite the kickass card dude in the cartoons and comics. I mean he barely used his signature playing cards!

With that…here’s our little take on Gambit after watching the movie… well… if he did card flourishes.

CREDITS

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

• Footage from www.xmenorigins.com
• Directed by Gavin Hood
• Gambit portrayed by Taylor Kitsch

Virtuoso: Gambit

• Directed by Huron Low
• Edited by Daren Yeow and Huron Low
• Filming and Cinematography by Huron Low and Daren Yeow
• Card Flourishes created by Huron Low, Daren Yeow, Bone Ho, Dan and Dave Buck, S.W. Erdnase
• Card Flourishes performed by Huron Low and Daren Yeow

Title Track “Gambit”

• Composed, recorded, scored and mixed by Roland Lim

Special Thanks to Zarinah Bahtiar, Kevin Ho, and Bone Ho

]]> http://thevirts.com/insiders/gambit/feed/ 76 http://thevirts.com/insiders/save-gambit/ http://thevirts.com/insiders/save-gambit/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:00:44 +0000 Huron http://thevirts.com/insiders/?p=80

To start things off, we are going to post Gambit back up. It’ll be up on Vimeo in a few hours, but before we do that, here’s what you need to know.

For as long as we remember, we’ve been thinking of a way to spread and share the art with the rest of the world in a way that anybody can instantly relate to and appreciate.

For us, Gambit is the answer.

To us, the video represents everything we’ve ever tried to convey as card flourishers… which is character, style, technique, and presentation… plus it really sucks to see that something that we put so much effort into just get taken down in a matter of three hours.

It feels like one of the best ideas we ever had for the art just got shot down from the sky the second it took flight.

We really want to spread the art and share it with the rest of the world… but we can’t do that alone. We need your help.

This is the plan.

In a few hours we’ll be posting the video on Vimeo, then we’ll be making a post on it at Digg.com.

For those of you who don’t know what Digg is… it’s a kickass site which has posts of the latest awesome things happening around the world.

The craziest part?

Digg gets an average of 27.9 million visitors globally per month.

That’s 930,000 visitors a day.

You can probably see what we’re getting at.

Posts get on the front page if they get enough votes. These votes are called “diggs’.

Our goal, is to get Gambit a few hundred diggs really quickly so the world will take notice of our art…at least before Marvel takes our video back down.

Here’s how to be a part of this.

1. Get an account on digg. It only takes you about a minute, plus you’ll love the site.
2. Refresh this page and click the orange ‘digg’ sign at the top of the post when the countdown timer hits zero.

And that’s it!

Stuff comes and goes on digg very very quickly, and that’s why we need to get our diggs in within a very short period of time if we want the world to know about our art… fast. ;)

Here’s a worldclock converter so you know what time that is in your part of the globe if you’d like to be a part of this project.

The time to Digg the video is Tuesday, 23rd June, 11am PST (Click here for World Clock Converter), or of course, you can always refer to the countdown at the top.

Once again… we’re really excited that you’re in on this with us. Thanks for reading, and let’s spread our art and get this video out there, together.

I’ll see you soon.

Huron Low, The Virts

P.S. We’ll send you an email with the Vimeo link the second the video’s up!

1. Ideal number of cards for the spinning packet

The number of cards used in the packet you’re spinning is crucial to having a nice good looking spin. I find 4-6 cards to be an ideal packet size. If the packet is too thick, it’ll be very hard for the packet to spin on the corners, too thin and there might not be enough weight for the packet to rely on it’s own momentum to spin (more on this at tip #4).

2. Grip

Grip is extremely important to the tornado cut. How much pressure you apply to clip the packet between your palm and pinky can make a huge difference to the way your tornado cut looks. It’s a very hard to explain the amount of pressure one should apply to the packet, so the best advice I can give you regarding grip is one from the card college series,

“Hold it like a baby bird, tight enough so that it won’t fly away, but loose enough so that you don’t kill it.”

I think this not only works well for the tornado cut, but also card handling and card flourishes in general.

3. Pivot Point

The pivot point I’ve seen many people use (in real life and in videos) is usually at the crevice of the palm near the wrist (refer to video at 00:30). Whilst this may seem like the most logical point to pivot from, it’s actually very bad technique. Pivoting from this point, not only requires additional ‘little’ moves to get there (like breaking off a small packet and then positioning it) but also, when pivoting from that point, it obstructs the packet whilst it is rotating due to the two fleshy parts surrounding it.

The right technique is to pivot on the fleshy part of your palm which is closer to the thumb (refer to video at 00:40). One of the advantages is that you do not need to break a small packet off first, and then position it at the pivot point (which you need to if you were to use the crevice of your palm as the pivot point), but you can go directly into the cut. This makes for a much smoother transition between the opener of the cut into actually executing the spins.

4. Weight and Momentum

Many people rely on the strength of their ring finger and wrist to spin the tornado packet. This is very bad technique, that results in an awkward looking tornado cut. The key to making it look effortless is by allowing the packet do most of the spinning through the packet’s weight.

Practice tip: Practice getting the packet to spin one full round using only one flick of the ring finger (refer to video at 01:17). Once you can do that, applying the same technique to a half round should result in the packet bouncing off the ring finger whilst trying to complete a full round (refer to video at 01:36). Repeat the same movements for the next half round, and the next and the next… This gives the illusion that the packet is spinning faster.

5. Co-ordinating your wrist movements with your ring finger

I’ve noticed that many people execute the tornado cut by relying entirely on the wrist and ring finger. Whilst this makes sense when first attempting the cut, the secret is instead to co-ordinate your LEFT WRIST movements with the RIGHT RING finger or vice versa if you’re left handed.

Each time your right ring finger pulls inwards, your left wrist should make a downward arch (refer to video at 02:01).

So there you have it, the 5 tips I have for the tornado cut. Hopefully, you guys have gained something from this article and video. If you have any questions at all, leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.

P.S: One last tip… PRACTICE! Without practice, no matter how many tutorials you watch, or how many articles you read – It would be pointless. ;)

-Daren, The Virts

Credits

• Tornado Cut created by Ashford Kneitel, based on Float Pass by Guy Hollingworth
• Tornado Cut performed by Daren Yeow
• Filmed by Huron Low
• Edited by Daren Yeow
• Music : “Stress Rap” by Cannibal Ox

INFO

How to pull a a speeding card out of a rushing spring.

CREDITS

Virt TV #1: The Ninja Spring Grab

• Written and Directed by Huron Low
• Filmed by Huron Low and Daren Yeow
• Edited by Daren Yeow
• “Ninja Spring Grab” card flourish created by Virtuoso / The Virts

Music

• “Seventeen Years” by  Ratatat
• “Walk In The Sky (Instrumental)” by Bonobo
• “Ashtray” by edIT
• “Gettysburg” by Ratatat

INFO

“Ink” is a message of potential for our art. It can be a splattered stain, or a pigment that paints a perfect picture. To us, the “Ink” is in our cards, and that’s what we’ve been painting our story with… A story we’re painting… just for you. (And hopefully “with you” real soon) ;)

CREDITS

Flourishes

• Card Flourishes performed by Huron Low, Kevin Ho, and Daren Yeow
• Card Flourishes created by Virtuoso/The Virts: (Huron Low, Kevin Ho, Daren Yeow), Bone Ho, Daryl Chang, Paul LePaul, Dan and Dave Buck

Production

• Direction and cinematography by Huron Low
• Filmed and edited by Daren Yeow and Huron Low
• “Mysterious Voices”- Kevin Ho and Huron Low

Title Track “Our Time is Now”

• Composed, performed, mixed and recorded by Roland Lim