Speed Up a Watch With Your Mind: a Method

Last week, we discussed the limited expectations of an audience. This week, we’re going to blow those expectations out of the water with a new magic trick. The following works with a borrowed watch, and it looks as good as it reads.

The magician borrows a spectator’s watch.

They place it down fairly on the restaurant table.

The spectator names a random number.

The magician makes a magical gesture.

Suddenly, the hands on the watch begin to spin.

They spin ten times faster than usual.

The hands whirl around the watch face at speed.

Finally, they stop after moving the named number of minutes.

— that’s it, that’s the trick.

Let’s learn the secret.

This tool can speed up any analog watch and can be triggered remotely.

I found it a while back when I was looking into performing a time machine plot with a borrowed watch. That thought process led to this method I previously taught. But not before it led me to this nifty tool that will speed up any analog watch. It looks magical when you see it in action.

It’s not quite fast enough to be used as a method for a time prediction effect, but it’s speedy enough to be used as an animation effect.

It’s called a demagnetiser, and it’s used for, you guessed it, demagnetising analog watches. I bought this one for less than ten pounds, which is less than fifteen bucks.

Some thoughts:

• You can build this tool into a table or a book.

• You can remote trigger it with a plug socket remote and by fixing down the red on/off button.

• It would be best to be quite precise in how you place the watch, so mark the table or book.

One of the first things I realised when I began working in television was how limited my expectations had been as a viewer. In some ways, this was a positive thing for my viewing experience. Though sometimes it had led me to assume some TV magic was accomplished by camera tricks, dismissing a world in which the production company would be willing to spend more money and resources to pull it off with a physical method.

It’s prevalent for TV magicians to replace tables in a restaurant or cafe. I learned pretty quickly that tablecloths are your friend. Thirty identical tablecloths will easily camouflage your specially-built table amongst a restaurant full of regular tables.

Building a watch demagnetiser into a tabletop, hardback book, or watch display case are reasonably imaginable television procedures.