Perform Master Prediction Box for $5.

I’ve been writing these weekly newsletter posts for six months. I’m as surprised as you are and incredibly thankful you’re subscribed. It turns out that the most popular newsletter post is the first one I ever shared. I’m not sure what that means for the rest of the posts, but I do know it means I should to write something similar to the first again. So here we go.

Today, I present for your reading pleasure… how to perform Master Prediction Box for $5. A collection of method ideas that will help demonstrate how the rules are different in the TV magic playground.

Master Prediction Box is the best versatile stage prop ever built. Closely followed by the AmazeBox. Everything I know about the master prediction effect I learned from Harry De Cruz, who knows more about the illusion than anyone. He has a ton of small tweaks and subtleties that make everything stronger.

What is master prediction? In simple terms, it’s a box hanging freely on the stage, and inside it is a pasta tube* containing a scroll** that is unravelled to reveal any prediction the magician wishes***.

* Just call it a tube, why do magicians call it a pasta tube? How many people in the audience know what a pasta tube is?

** It’s a scroll if your accomplice is a boss or it’s a folded up piece of paper if they are not a boss.

*** It’s amazing that when magicians are given an illusion that allows them to predict literally anything from a box hanging above the stage, a majority of them will just do Derren’s “I predicted the whole show” routine.

Some tricks shouldn’t be performed on telly…

The point of the colour match post was that magic consultants should always prepare backup methods. Even simple shoots can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and it can all be ruined if the magic fails and the blame lies on you.

Sometimes it’s not as simple are painting the prop to fit a new location. Sometimes better methods are available to you. So the thinking I’ll do today will genuinely take place in consulting rooms when we consider if we should use a commercially available prop or design our own.

I’ll focus on super cheap ways of achieving a similar prediction effect.

Here goes nothing…

Off Camera Switch

TV magicians are afforded a lot when it comes to the people around them. The first and easiest method is for the “runner” or “sound engineer” to switch the prediction on behalf of the magician.

As I’ve said in previous posts, you should not get carried away. Stick to good magic principles because you still need to fool the contributor.

There are two one-person switching methods I have used and advocate for.

1. Under the clipboard. It’s relatively easy to switch most small objects/envelopes below a clipboard which is also common to be held on sets.

2. Behind a table/door/chair. I’ve placed the secondary object on the back of a chair and switched the object while pulling it forwards. I’ve also placed an object behind a door, such that when I open it to step inside with the spectator, I can then switch the object behind the now open door.

There are two two-person switching methods I have used and advocate for.

1. Behind the contributors back. While a contributor is signing something, which justifies you both holding the object and misdirecting them, you switch the object with person two behind the contributors back.

2. Behind the second person’s back. When putting a mic onto a contributor, I have pretended to be a second sound engineer, donning some headphones a boom mic. I’ll place the second object on the back of the sound engineer and essentially do the chair method, placing my hand momentarily on their back to switch the object.

I now realise I should write an entire post about TV switching methods. There are some super smart ways to keep the prediction signed and sealed too. I’d also recommend switching the object after it is opened and the first half of the prediction, which relates to a force, is read out — far less heat at that point.

Latex Bottle

Latex bottles are a lot cheaper than master prediction boxes ($3,000 cheaper), and the image of a message in a bottle is considerably more relatable than a message in a pasta tube.

I’m going to suggest that loading a latex bottle with a message inside into most everyday boxes would be relatively easy, but perhaps you’d want to do the opposite.

Hear me out, while I also hear myself out. I guess you could show a bottle with a message inside it on stage and then place it inside a paper bag. Then later, you could use a commercially available bottle production method to load a real bottle with a real message inside it as you remove the bottle from the bag and then scrunch up the “empty” bag.

There’s something in this, but let’s move along.

Multiple Outs

I love multiple outs. I suppose to perform a version of the master prediction with multiple outs; you’d need to develop one hell of a justification for why the box is not on display the whole time.

Buried treasure, maybe? So, you’d have maybe twenty or thirty treasure boxes secretly buried under you at a beach. The consultant knows exactly where each is because they’re looking through a locked off plastic sheet with a grid sharpied onto it. Depending on the outcome, they’ll direct the magician via an earpiece who casually walks along the beach as they speak to the contributor.

The magician hands them a spade; they start digging and reveal a treasure box containing a perfect prediction.

Would we use this method? Probably not. Would we have a laugh discussing it in the writer’s room? Absolutely. (note that buried treasure is definitely an idea that only came to mind because we just explored a message in a bottle idea that feels similar in theme).

Stoooooogggeeeee

When I was a young boy, I was enlisted as a stooge for a magic trick my Grandad showed a group of us at the pub. He took a coin and held it under his handkerchief. Then, he asked each of us to reach under and check the coin was still there. I was the final person to check the coin was still there, and when I did so, I also secretly snuck it away. One magical gesture later, my Grandad made the coin vanish to everyone’s delight.

Decades later, I’ve witnessed this exact method used by some of the greatest magicians in the world. Convention magicians always think stooge when they don’t know how a trick is done, but I don’t think audiences do.

In this scenario, I would take the pasta tube and get a row of audience members in the studio to check it out or a group of contributors to “try to open it to prove the lock is real.” The final person can be in on the trick and switch the prediction out for us.

Use the Microphone

Willing to bet big bucks that a whole bunch of magicians have “created” the idea of building the scroll pen concept into a stage microphone…

Instead of unrolling the scroll, you’d be unrolling the switched version from inside of the microphone you hold in your other hand alongside it.

Reverse Pull

This method reminds me of some Tenyo illusions. I’ve just paused from writing this to build a shoddy prototype for you… (GIF might take a while to load).

Oh boy, I am happy with that for a five-minute prototype. The method definitely works. Imagine if the pen I’m holding looked like the scroll; you’d be utterly convinced the prediction was being unravelled from the scroll and not being pulled in from the left side of the screen.

Looks alright for zoom shows going off the screen, but in real life, I’d maybe combine this with an assistant holding the other end, which would be easy enough. It’s basically just a real scroll hidden at one end and a fake one openly displayed at the other.

Essentially the prediction you are switching in is literally being pulled in during and powered by you unrolling the scroll across the screen/stage.

The method works because the scroll is actually being pulled in from off the left side of the screen; it then goes around the pen (which would be the fake scroll). You might hide the loading prediction within a “clip” that seemingly holds the end of the scroll in place as you unravel it away from the clip on a stand, etc.

Yeh, I’m happy with that.