2 x Fool Us Bryan Saint Hangs Out With The Magic Guys! #163

They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys, ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 163 of the magic guys where doug has uh grown some extra digits what a lucky man for sleight of hand that must be this is how you doing fellas it's good to have him back and to my to my left to my left we got mr nick k Hey, welcome to the show, friends. Oh, yeah. And look, the crew is back and for a fun episode. And, you know, Doug, it's good to have you back, my friend. Thank you.

How are you? Good to be back. Yeah, nice. It's been too long. It's been too long. Look. And we got all our friends in the chat as well. Thomas Conger, Zuma. Zuma G Music looks like a new one. Thank you for being here. I feel like our guests might have brought them on. Tim Askin, Randall Harder, Noah the Magician. What's up, everyone? This is just, you know, so much fun. Nick, what's going on with you today? Just another day living the dream, friends. You know, every Tuesday.

That didn't sound believable that time. That was like a Tuesday. Let me phone in this response. Yeah, living the dream, friends. I just got out of my coffin and I'm living the dream, friends. No one believes me that I have this amazing, wonderful life that I get to do magic and smile all day and take care of myself and my family.

Hang out with my bros on my podcast like i'm just surviving and thriving it's a good life, it is a good life that was more believable that was that was believable that's the dream is it not yeah i think yeah we'll just we believe you and we'll move on so it's good.

And so today we are joined by a guest we haven't had a guest for a couple of episodes episodes, and now we have a, we have a banger and I got to say, this guy is a two-time fool us trophy winner, but he just fooled us for a third time backstage. So we need some kind of trophy, I think, to be able to, to give him, that was crazy. And you guys don't get to see it, but we've got some good stuff in store anyway.

So Doug, have you had any run-ins with this gentleman before, like being in the U S I mean, I assume the U S everyone runs into each other in the street. I'm sure I saw Brian roaming around there, but I don't think we had any session time at that convention. And if I'm wrong, you know, I have short term memory loss. So what are you going to do? What? I just took that seriously. I didn't want to make fun of your problems, you know? It's not something you're going to be made fun of.

No, but look, we're going to bring him on. Now this, so like I said, so he's a magician, right? He fools magicians. He performs shows. He does all the stuff that we want to be doing, but he also is a famous, what's the right word? He's a voice actor. He's an, everyone's heard his voice, but you don't know who he is. So he's like a famous and infamous voice actor. And we're going to talk all about that in just a second.

So ladies and gentlemen, please help me in welcoming to the stage. It's Brian Saint. Music. Brian, are you there? Oh, yeah. Sorry, I was staring at my Fool Us trophies. Yeah, I'm here, guys. Everybody and especially doug you know i mean after you know he and i sessioned a lot at tricks oh yeah that was a good time short-term memory son.

Doug i don't think we sessioned i think i think memory's good yeah cool it was you know so much going on at that convention the greatest convention on the planet it's hard to get everything and i guess i know it's it's a great convention so tricks we need some good conventions in australia we're missing out do you go to magic live brian i so been to magic live once and this this past time i i stopped by i told my wife she was with me because you know fool us was taping during

magic live and actually the day that i arrived in vegas was the final day of magic live so i told my wife i said let's let's pop over to the orleans just just for a minute we're not i mean i'm not going to go into sessions because i'm not registered but i said let's we'll see some friends and well i'll see some friends in the lobby uh but she tagged along for it so it was great to to catch a day i got divorced that was that that's the day i got divorced

i was absorbed into the convention never seen for us yeah so we went in and you know and And it was, It was kind of a fun thing because, you know, a lot of magicians had been there, you know, the whole time. And they said, wow, I haven't seen you around. I said, well, I'm actually, I'm not here for magic live, which usually was a follow-up question saying, oh, do you have a project over at the Rio? What a flex. How hard was it not to tell everyone that you just. I don't have that.

No, no problem. Right. You're just so used to secrecy as a magician. Well, I watched that clip earlier today. You fooled the pants off me. I hadn't seen that Rubik's cube routine and what a brilliant piece that was. It's integration with the green screen. Just like that level of thinking for this, you know. It fooled me so bad. I had to make a video reacting to it. And that's kind of how we've started this friendship and now are on the podcast.

And we found out in amongst that, that we have mutual friends like Brendan Dooley from New Zealand and things like that. Yeah. Brendan.

Who we've had on the show. and so yeah man like so let's just dive into that first i suppose that's the obvious thing that people want to hear about is is fool us like going on it twice one question what was your choice, to not have spectators on stage to do the magic too i noticed in both performances it's mainly you presenting a piece but like by yourself is that a choice i don't think there was really a a choice in that?

Like, I don't think there's really a big choice for me to do that, except just it was in the effect that I was doing. There was initially, for the first time I was on. When I did the phone charger, I, my initial thought was to have Alison on stage with me and it would be her phone that ended up being charged. And then I said, no, let's walk to Penn and Teller. Let's, let's get that shot of me standing there with Penn and Teller.

You know, that's fine. And it turned out great because they had the camera directly behind them. So you see Penn, Teller, me, and then you see Alison reacting in the background. So it was a great shot of all four of us. Yeah. And the second one, just, you know, there's really no, there's no time for someone to be up there. You know, there's nothing for them to do in my live show. Someone actually does mix the cube in the, in the final phase.

I have someone mix the cube and then it gets solved behind the folder again.

And then the folders closed and there's nothing there. there so but yeah it wasn't really some big conscious decision let's not have people helping me on stage or anything it was just the time the effects i was doing didn't call for it did you cut that out for time reasons the live solve section yes so my first performance of the trick which was more than a year before fool us i'd never thought of auditioning for fool us by the way okay not not

sure why i just never did never never enter my mind but i did the the first performance of it about a year prior to auditioning it for fool us and there was a moment where a person mixed the cube and the overall routine probably went about six minutes and it just felt sluggish to me but i think part of the reason why it felt sluggish is because the guy took the cube and he was mixing it and then fell to the ground and completely shattered pieces came out, went everywhere.

And I don't know what the recovery is for that, but method-wise, I was able to make it work. But yeah, so really, it was a timing thing to get rid of that. So for anyone who's thinking to go into the Full Us arena and compete like yourself, obviously, you've had tremendous success. What advice would you have for anyone who's looking to either, one, put together a routine or actually perform when it comes to what sort of pre-tips do you have with regards to actually getting on that stage? Sure.

You got to remember that it's TV. TV is very different from a live performance. And I had, personally, I had no clue or very little clue what the difference there was. You know, I worked with Brent Braun. And of course, that's always when people say, I want to go on Fool Us. I said, that's always a good starting point is Brent Braun. You know, he's extremely knowledgeable, not only about Fool Us, but about magic on TV in general.

And, you know, time plays differently. You know, you can have these wonderful pauses in a live theater show, these five second pauses where there's no sound, just the empty sound of a theater, you know, just very, just dead quiet. quiet. You do that on TV and it lasts for right around two hours. You just have to think of it in those terms. In my first performance, they cut out moments. They would flash to the audience to show them applauding simply to cut out me walking three steps.

Never really realized that. But anyway, as far as actually auditioning something for the show, having a great hook is very very important. You know, what you, the premise that you set in the first sentence is very important. You know, this one for the cube trick, I'm going to show all of you a trick that can only be done on TV. That's what you kind of want to see what I'm talking about. Even if it's terrible, you still kind of want to know what I'm talking about.

But I think the biggest thing for me, this go around was trying to be relevant in what I did. There's Penn and Teller. There's it's their show on Nash. It's fool us their show. It's national TV and I'm taping it in Las Vegas. I addressed all four of these things in the routine in some way, shape, or form to make it seem as though it really fit into the show. Here's a random trick that doesn't mean anything. This had something specifically to do with the show.

When I sent the audition, I even told the producers in my email, I said, this is what the routine looks like in general, my live show, but I want to personalize the script script to be, to fit in directly with the show and also with Penn and Teller. And also I have an idea for using the green screen that I would like to share with you. And that idea was to have the green screen change into, you know, different items. So smart.

Love, love, love that. Soon as they heard it, they, yeah, they said that's great. What a great just idea for magic on TV.

V it's like you know oh love it so much yeah one of the best bits of advice i got with regards to the creativity is that you know if you if you play music you should be incorporating that into your magic like josh has a gymnastic background which is why he does backflips in his show and so forth it seems like you're sort of mixing your skill sets as well other than magic what other amazing skill sets do you have amazing i don't gotta give us the line this summer yeah Yeah, this summer.

Oh, come on. You've got to give us more than that. This summer.

Give us a sentence, something about how great Doug looks. Just tell us how good Doug looks today, this summer. That's going to be hard to do. Yeah, I'm just trying to think of something to say. There you go. Yeah, one man. Two nipples. In a strange pose with a strange finger up his nose.

That wasn't meant to rhyme but it worked so yeah my voice my voice is is almost shot today for some strange reason so damn it and you might best so i apologize and now we go to send him a check for 10 grand just for those four lines, So what would I take away from this, Brent, is that he has amazing voiceover skills, but I assume that you have many more talents than just that, Brian.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about the voiceover work as well as anything else that you might have along with video editing skills, et cetera. I've been just one of these people that if I had an interest in something, I always pursued it at extreme levels. Travels, if it was just something I really liked. You'll notice, let's see, you can't really see there. Hot air balloon poster, hot air balloon up there. Those have been on my wall.

Those have been in my room since I was four years old, both of those. I really had an interest in hot air balloons. I became a student pilot before I left high school. So I actually got to fly balloons. Never went and got a full pilot's license or anything. I'm a huge music fan, but I play entirely by ear because I can't read music. So sometimes that'll end up in my show somewhere. If there's a piano on stage, I'll find a way to work that in.

The video editing, I always wanted to do that and kind of be behind the scenes of, of really behind the scenes is something I love because I love creating. I almost love creating as much as I love being in front of the camera, being on stage.

Age but yeah that i did some freelance producing and editing did some for espn worked on some indie films you know smaller smaller parts but magic was just kind of the way for me to bring everything together just the acting and the writing and the producing and directing and and editing and just everything i could kind of combine into magic and yeah the voice acting acting just came out of nowhere. Oh, we've got a finger.

Oh, I was like, do you have a question? And I'm like, I have a question. How in the world? Drago's asking, did you have any control with regards to the editing of your act when it was being presented on Fool Us? As far as if you're referring to after the performance has been shot, I don't know. I would say very little, but I will also say that that team of people, they sincerely, sincerely want to make you look as good as possible.

And if something had happened, you know, if I had said something and I went, ooh, I don't like that line, I probably could have told someone as soon as, because they'll have you there for pickup lines afterwards, you know, pickup shots. I could have probably told someone, listen, I really hate this line. Can I go back and do that part over? And my guess is they would have absolutely done that. But I didn't see my uncut performance and get to say, yes, include this, don't include that.

But like I said, these people pour over this. They pour over your routine, your performance, and they want it to look as good as possible.

That's so great that's really refreshing considering that we've heard nightmare stories with regards to the got talent sort of performances and without sometimes even sabotage your act which a friend of mine had happened to her so yeah yeah yeah yeah and that's you know i'm not i'm not really going to go off on a tangent there because i i haven't you know personally been involved i i I was somewhat involved with an act because if you know Clek Intos on the show,

on America's Got Talent, I was the voice of Clek Intos. I was going to bring that up. You've been on AGT, but as your voice has. Just my voice has. Yeah. So not me. That's crazy. How does that come about? Do they go, we need a voice for this? How does that end up to Brian Saint? I happen to be friends with the people involved in that act. I don't think it's any big secret, but I'm not going to say it here just in case it is.

I don't think it's any big secret who actually is the one in the mask and his consultant. Those guys are just creative people. Like no one else, but you know, they're, they're not from the U S so they needed a different voice for their act. So, but yeah, so that, that's really how it got to me. It wasn't any big, any big find. They're just, just good friends of mine. They reached out to me and I said, heck, I would love to do that.

Yeah. So that's going to be weird watching yourself on ATT, but it's not you like in a sense it's cool it's about as weird as any as anything else you know anytime i hear my voice because it's i mean that's what it is it's voiceover it's just strange to suddenly hear my voice come up as far as voiceovers go is there a sort of a any any sort of career bucket list that you wish you have done like would you like to appear

on an episode of the simpsons or maybe feature in a video game of sorts is there anything like that that you have in your or kind of curry a bucket list? I would like to be Batman at some point. I got to be Superman in a mobile app. I got to be Superman. Didn't you get to be a Power Ranger as well, Zordon? I got to be Zordon. That's pretty up there. There's a toy that you buy, the Legacy Communicator, and you push the button and Zordon talks to you.

And I need to say, I know nothing about Power Rangers. I mean, absolutely not. I never saw the show Power Rangers at all. And I got an audition that was directly sent to me. So it wasn't a, hey, this is going out to all the talent. It was directly sent to me and just a few others. And it said, you know, this is an audition for a Power Rangers toy for the voice of Zordon. And I, I, why did they send this to me? And they, they even said, we think your voice would be great for the voice of

Zordon. And I thought, okay. And they sent a clip or it's a reference clip from the show. And so I clicked on it and it was all, how many Power Rangers are, is it four or five? At least four. At least four. I don't know. It was all the, all the, uh, the people in the, in the colored outfits, all the, all the Teletubbies, I can be talking to this giant head that was floating in the air, like the wizard of Oz. And I'm watching the whole clip and they said, it's a reference.

And I went, which one is Zordon? I really did not. And I very seriously did not know. And so I'm literally Googling, and this is literally what I Googled, which color Power Ranger is Zordon? Didn't get a good response. So then I just typed in Zordon, showed the pictures. Okay, well, then we'll use that one. That's the one it's going to be. So I tried to mimic the voice. I sent it and said, this is hilarious. I mean, you know, this is absolutely hilarious.

I can tell my kids for the rest of my life that I auditioned for the voice of Zordon. And that's just hilarious. And then about three hours later, I got an email and they said they gave me the part. And I thought maybe it's because now maybe it's because of your, your unknowing of like the Power Rangers empire that you did get it. Cause you weren't, there was no stress in your voice. Like, oh, this is a big deal.

Or you know i i had no clue you're just too cool for zordon i did no it's not bad it's just that that's i never watched a lot of sci-fi anything star wars was about my my biggest jump to sci-fi my second biggest would be the krypton scenes from superman outside of that my sci-fi knowledge is doesn't exist so that that's why i didn't know anything about power rangers but i i got to be, superman in an app i would love to be batman and i think also

because i have doubled as his voice for some things i would like to do i would not mind doing an episode of family guy you know oh yeah because i've i've been used as seth's voice on some things including the the official ted Ted movie app that was put out by you. So I got to be the voice of Ted on that. Please don't ask. Well, that's crazy. Okay. I have a question. Yes.

So you do a lot of stuff, but can I ask professionally, what is the ratio of, in terms of you making a living, what is the ratio of things that you do?

Do the most like is it voice is it producing things is it magic oh magic what's like the most of your time magic is it voiceover is great and now i have agents with voiceovers so i don't get sent you know dozens of auditions a day where i have to weed through and go yeah that makes sense for me to do no this doesn't make sense for me to do now just pretty much everything i get sent is because they listened to my demo and went that he he's uh he should uh audition for this so i feel like

there there's really not a lot of wasted energy there you know i can come in here into my office sit down i'm my room is treated you can't see it but i have room treatment here i can do i can record on this mic and and i don't even have to go into a studio i have source connect here so i can connect to studios around the world and they record it on their end i have I have to do no editing. And so a much easier thing to do.

Magic is probably where my passion is because, as I say, Superman is, or sorry, Superman. VoiceOver is kind of my Clark Kent, whereas Magic is my Superman. What's your market, Brian? What do you do in your gigs, like colleges, corporate, enroll, family shows? Pretty much most anything but kid shows. I'll say that the majority would be corporate. Yeah. From there, I'll do some house parties. I don't get to do a whole lot of them.

I'll do a handful of wedding receptions now and then. Are you working in the Charlotte area or you travel? That's a great thing. I could do a lot of traveling, but now I have two kids. You may have heard one crying just a little while ago, but I have two kids now, so I would like to stay pretty much within driving distance. So I guess everything is driving distance except Europe. That's a great area.

Charlotte is really a blossoming metropolis. And then just the surrounding area, there's a lot of stuff going on in that southeast area. It's just a few, you know, I try to stay within a few hour drive. I'll do some events every year where I have to fly. Yeah. But I'm really trying to build a nice strong connection here within a couple of hundred miles just in the southeast. East. It's great. What about Scott's Place, the Magic Canvas? Are you doing shows there ever? I love what he's doing.

Four shows there this weekend, so everyone fly to Charlotte. Yes, it's an intimate space where they do magic and also other art. Yes, they do.

Have a sip and paint there so you can yeah you can do that but on the you know scott being as connected as he is and we're just speaking of scott robinson who has a book with vanishing ink yes pure imagination your imagination man there we go scott every sale that happens from this day going forward i get a commission it's a good book it's a beautiful book man it's a great magic so strong we're old we go way back to like cincinnati in the 80s scott and i you know yeah he had the

mustache back then back when he was i i've only seen pictures that's yeah he was slick man slick scott we got some great questions coming in here too sorry sorry was there an ending there was so much alpha here i love all this alpha i said i love all this alpha so i love the alpha or not no that's a good thing it's a good thing they can smell the testosterone through the episode there was two good questions here one was you

mentioned having an agent for voice acting do Do you have an agent for magic too, or do you take care of that yourself?

I have a couple of agents for magic. I have a college agent, very specific just to the college market. She also does book some corporate stuff as well. And then I have another, another agent agency that does some bookings for me. But this is my, this, I don't know if this will make me sound really old or not. This is my 23rd year. This is my 24th year doing this professionally. and it started when I was 16 and I've. I was terrible for a good solid 10 years, at least. I was really bad.

Then I started picking up a pattern and seeing what I need to be focused on. I at least got adequate. I've managed to build a really great client list. I think once you're on that Fool Us stage, not just fooling them, but performing for Penn & Teller's audience, how great was that? To a degree, that does help. So that, that is one, sorry, that is one of the next questions was from Pasha.

Did Fool Us boost your inquiries and opportunities? Did it raise your perceived value for clients? Sure. I, I think perceived value. I think, yes, that, that there's a great deal of street credit. I think that comes with a national TV appearance. Forget about fooling them. You know, as I tell anybody who wants to get on the show, your job is to get on there and make some great television.

If you can do that, it doesn't matter if you fool them. We can talk about Piff the Magic Dragon from now until eternity. And I mean, he didn't fool them, you know, when he was first on. But that, I mean, just set his career on fire. And so as far as what Fool Us has done for me, I may have increased my fee a little bit. But I tell people all the time, they say, oh, did you double your fee after you went on Fool Us?

And I believe, and I truly believe this, if you can double your fee 10 seconds after you get on Fool Us, then you could have doubled it 10 seconds before you went on Fool Us. I think you were already at the level that you needed to be. But I think Fool Us, more than it gave you the street credit with everyone else, it gave you more confidence to raise your fee. And I think Fool Us helps a lot of people just in that regard.

It helps boost your own perception of your yes what you're saying very much so. There we go how great it was was it to perform on that stage is it as like ingratiating as an experience it is as when you're on the show itself well i tell you pin and teller have have really they've been my favorite magic act for about 20 years i think i started the way most people start art where it was David Copperfield. It like lived in most of my head space. You know that when I thought about magic,

I thought about David Copperfield. That was it. I know how it was. Boy, I would love to do a show like that one day. Eventually reality set in. I realized I probably wasn't going to fly on stage or make, you know, national monuments disappear. So, uh.

When I saw Penn and Teller and I walked out of their theater, and this is something I've told them, what was interesting was it was the first time I had ever really walked out of a theater and immediately thought to myself, man, I need to be more creative. Because I just saw the best creativity that I'd ever seen when I first saw their show live. So to be on their stage was really, there couldn't be much more of an honor

than that to be on there. I'm thinking that's like a career highlight for sure. Very much so. And I'll do a separate one only because we're on that topic. I performed at House of Cards in Nashville, Tennessee, which I will say is an amazing venue. It may be my favorite of the magic venues. I was just schmoozing Joey at the Winter Carnival there. Yeah. He ended that joint for sure. Oh, it's an amazing place. It really is. I've heard nothing but great things. It's like a magic castle

to kind of situation. Yeah. Well, you know, cause Joey came from the magic. Right. It has that feel of the castle, but I mean that, and I take Kellers as well as another one that I love and eerie.

But when I was at house of cards, Joey comes up to me and says, Hey, just letting you know, Lance is going to be here tomorrow night. And I said, I said, Oh, cool. Lance. Cause I, I mean, that I'm not thinking that way. I'm not thinking what he's about to tell me something. Oh, is Lance the owner of this place? Or, or, you know, like, cause he just said it so casually, he didn't include a last name. Is it no Lance Burton? No.

I said, really? And he said, yeah, he's heading to the convention in Atlanta. He's going to swing by here on the way. And he's tried to come here many times, but he's actually made the dinner reservations. He's coming. And the next night, I was backstage and couldn't help but peek through the curtains because I knew who was supposed to be at that particular show. And sure enough, there's Lance Burton sitting in the audience.

And i i did my show and it i was very happy with how the show went got a standing ovation from the audience lance was one of the first to stand up and what was so cool to me was is you know i i had 19 years earlier i i looked at it was 19 years to the month not the date but the month i was in in Lance Burton's theater, giving him a standing ovation. I'm getting goosebumps here. So I really, I really wanted to hang out. I hung out there at his theater, you know, trying to find, is there some way

to meet Lance or whatever? Didn't happen. But after I met everybody who came through the line after my show at a house of cards, Lance was still standing in the theater waiting for me. And we got to have this cool conversation, you know, about five minutes just talking over the show. He was extremely complimentary. And I mean, honestly, that was. That would definitely tie for a very come full circle moment, just like being on the Penn and Teller stage.

So those would be my, probably my big highlights of my career in magic would be Penn and Teller stage and Lance Burton stage.

Damn. That's, I think that's a great segue to a segment we like to do since you've just shared like the best moments of a gig. We have one, we have a segment where we talk about some maybe funny or weird moments that happen. So let's roll into our gig stories. So gig stories is a section of the podcast where we like to talk about stories whether while performing from our day to day or in our corporate shows. And we want to share those stories with you, our awesome audience,

starting this week with our good friend, Josh Nobito. Fire away.

I'm at the Theater of Magic last week doing some shows. I see this guy to my left and I forget the effect I'm doing. I think I'm doing like a divine, a name he's thinking of. of, he has the most luxurious hair I've ever seen on this, this gentleman. And I decided to call him Fabio in the moment. I'm like, all right. So Fabio over there is thinking of a name. You know, everyone turns to look, they laugh because they realize why I call

them that. I say, I'm very jealous and like, right. We do this effect.

I'm not kidding you. The very next effect I do, I walk up to this Spanish guy and I'm like, and what is your name, my friend? And he goes, Fabio.

The room applauds i just take a bow and we move on and that will never freaking happen ever again like why did i decide to call him fabio in a in a particular show where another guy had that name that i would like that's just that to me is magic and it was just the craziest moment in a long time that's my story that's a great story right what do you got a relatable story when brian was telling his story about performing for his idol at the tricks convention i think it was 2013 as i

walked out to do my performance segment sitting right there in the front row three feet from my face is harry anderson watching me do my act and it was this man harry anderson that inspired me to become a professional magician to become a street performer coming to new orleans where i did meet him but i'd never performed close-up magic for him and And I was doing the three card Monty, my routine in that act. And that was certainly a highlight for me performing like here I am living this life.

My childhood idol anyway yeah well great that's going to be cool i wasn't that good i didn't get a standing o for mary anderson i was lucky to survive the ordeal that night but yeah it was uh and nick i mean you got to have teller watching you do close up when he was in town that's let's let's share that story so teller was in town and we took him out to the hot springs for for a weekend so it's a couple hours drive out of town down

by the beach lots of cool hot springs sort sort of watery numbers like spa and sauna.

And Teller was just up for everything. He was the most fun individual I've hung out with in a very, very long time. We're going from like Turkish saunas where you can't even see more than a meter in front of you to jumping to like ice cold baths and doing all that. And we're driving home and our community here is really tight. And I love all my friends. They're all my community. I run an agency in which I employ them all.

They're my bestest people in the whole world. And Teller was just like sort of in awe of this really lovely synergy we had in the cars. We're all complimenting each other and so forth. And in amongst that drive, he turns to me and says, I want to see your magic. And I went, sure. Do you want to hang out and do a thing? He goes, I don't care. Just get it to me. And I'm like, okay, what are you doing this evening?

He's like, I'm going to go see the Harry Potter play, but afterwards I'm going to go to this bar. And I'm like, what's the bar? I'll meet you there. I'll come in my magic regalia. We'll do some magic.

And so we rock up at the bar and bring all the magic friends with, and we just went round for round entertaining all of the crew who were in not only the Harry Potter music play, but also the Hamilton musical. And so all the guys were doing the backstage and the ropes and the lights and so forth, all go to have a couple of drinks at this bar. And just for that evening, we were just rocking out.

Performing. And it was really, really sweet because I heard some stories about Atala as he was visiting other magicians and really gave him an earful as to how they went about doing things. But he was watching me literally over my right shoulder. And I have a video of this on my Instagram if you scope out Nick K Magic. And I'll put another post on there on my story so you guys can scope it out.

But when someone like him is looking over your shoulder, watching your magic and enjoying it to the point he grabs you with both hands and just says, you are so effing good. Holy crap and i thought isn't that sweet of this man to to give be so encouraging and then i found it afterwards it's like no he tore shreds off this guy this guy and this guy and i'm like oh.

Great like it was very very flattering so it's really nice when there's someone who, of that stature looks at your work your the stuff that you've worked on that is yours not something that like you're not out there performing other beautiful pieces of magic that already exist but It's stuff that you've like obsessed over for the past decade to make better and better and better. And they acknowledge that and go, I love your touches on this.

And the one thing that I love the most about that was anyone who has seen my lecture knows that the suit that I wear is highly customized to be able to achieve a lot of different effects. And he politely wanted to know the secrets of the suit. But the way he asked it was, I would like you to tell me just one thing about your suit.

And I was just like, what do you want to know? that and i and so i just told him everything i was like here's the top it's here here's this that here's where the magnet is here's how i load stuff into this here's what i do to the sleeves here's the secret this here's the secret that and he was just really grateful for it and he and in return he showed some stuff that he was basically saying like i've never spoken about

this particular technique at length and well there you go there's a nice photo of teller and myself.

On josh's screen there yeah and if yeah there you go a little further up that's literally him over my right shoulder at a bar and it's just such a wonderful privilege to to be able to spend time with someone you know who's is that amazing like it is it is great and he's extremely kind and it's really funny i got i got really mad at him because he snuck off and paid for lunch and and that was before i knew what his net worth was and i'll kind of forgive him now,

cheeky bugger he drives a tesla too i don't know We had that in common. Yeah. So that's, that's a nice little gig story of a wonderful moment hanging out with someone like Teller, an absolute giant in magic.

Yeah. Hey Brian, what's it, what's it like performing at the magic castle? I think my first time there, I don't know if I could really even, uh.

Remember what it was like because i was just so enthralled with the idea that this is the magic castle you know i it was funny the first time i ever went to the magic castle i saw a show in the parlor and yeah we all saw shows everywhere but when i went into the parlor i looked at that room and i said i would love to perform here yeah and then when i walked in to the parlor to set up my show to perform and that was close to 15 years later that was just a moment of holy cow

you know this is so so to i mean what what could i possibly say that any other magician that's performed at the castle couldn't say i was thinking about the castle today because it's something that's on my bucket list i haven't done it i haven't really tried hard to get there but then i was kind of thinking man that's a lot of work you know what are you doing like several shows a day seven days in a row i'll tell you what i would do that i i learned my i learned big

time my first two times out there really it was the second time that i was out there that i learned the most i did the late parlor and i am on the east coast that's where i live on the east coast and then i go out there to the west coast three hour time difference now 15 years ago no problem let me take a nap and. I'll be all caught up you know that that actually doesn't happen anymore for.

Some strange reason you know we just we did the the one hour time change just a couple of weeks ago and i'm still recovering i feel like of course i could also be the three week old baby we have in the the house. I'm not totally on, but, but yeah, the. I would never do late parlor again. I would never work the late shift. They have an early shift and they have a late shift. I would never work the late shift for a couple of reasons.

One, by the end of, I would say by the end of the fourth or fifth day, I was toast.

And i and the thing is they you can have them video you performing and i have those videos but the performances they videoed were my last two performances on the last day so they gave those to me and you know i watched them and then i threw the the thumb drive in the trash and it was funny because i i had a friend of mine magician friend she told me after watching my performance. I think it was my second performance on the last night that she attended.

She says, I have some notes and she didn't have any good notes. And, and I was a bit puzzled, but the truth is in my state of mind or lack of, I didn't really know any better. I just thought, I mean, it's the same stuff I've been doing all week, you know, and I watched the performance And I honestly, I was embarrassed.

So I will not do late again at the castle because if you do, if you do early, I mean, your last, I think the last show for early ends like in the 10 PM area, which would be about 1 PM over here.

I can handle that, but ending at 1 30 to 2 PM over there. And it, you know, they're really being like five over here.

This is great advice for me you know oh my goodness great yeah and i will also tell you there seems to be a greater blood alcohol level yeah i've heard they can be at the castle big time right well just i'm saying the later hours there seems to be more of that you know you got the people who are i mean they're they're hanging till two for a reason and and the reason is not solely magic yeah so i would do that and that's i met brendan at the magic castle brendan dooley

who's in there he was working he was working early parlor and i was working late so we would we had conversations and you know in the transfer to me doing my show from him ending his to me doing mine and in other things if you perform early you will do all of your shows.

You perform late there's no guarantee that you will do all of your shows because they may not have enough people but we'll tell you that they did have me they were about to cancel a show, there's we just don't have a lot of people and then the girl comes in and she says to me she says okay we're we're gonna try to do this show nicholas cage is downstairs and we're gonna try Try to get him to come up to your show.

And they did. And he sat fourth row. And after the show came down and passing by me, shook my hand and said, great show. You're a wizard. So as you say, I have Nicholas. You're a wizard. So dig this. I sold Nicholas Cage a card trick in 1990 something. And he did it in the movie Zandali. He performed the rising cards. Cool.

Yeah yeah i had him in my promo too doug thanks for the magic, so now i'm my first magic consultant there you go it's funny how like all the actors there's like this whole thing between them and kevin bacon it seems like nicholas cage seems to be like the seven degrees of nicholas cage in the magic realm like it is it was so cool his girlfriend came back the next day and bought more magic for his birthday he was like he really likes that

magic because i was like what's so funny about about him is he i'm not, he's an actor he's a good actor but he plays himself.

Much i mean all of his characters are very much himself so when he came by and talked to me it was just like i was in one of his like from the valley girl, i'm like oh we're in national treasure this is cool you know i mean that's what it felt like to me it was it was as though that's what we were doing because it just sounded like that's who i was interacting with see my comedy brain went stemmer totally different it was like it was amazing

like he went into the men's room came out looking like john travolta then broke into a car and stole the Declaration of Independence. Like, the guy is just himself.

That's funny. Like, yeah, Nicolas Cage and the Ryan Reynolds of the world getting to play yourself, but that's just what the people want. Yeah. But, you know, what's that movie where he is a wizard? That was called Next or something, wasn't it? Where he's like this mentalist who can see X amount of time in the future. That was a cool movie. There's another one where he has an apprentice wizard, but it's real magic, and you have to have certain things for the magic to be able to work,

like thick leather boots. Renfield? Not Renfield, but also magical. Magician. Magician apprentice. Thank you. There you go. How do I know? Oh. Then they said it's a Disney movie. I feel like it turned it into a children's, I don't know. No, it's, it's definitely not a children's movie, but it was great. Like the fact that you got told you're a wizard by him who has played wizards. Um, in movies, that's cool. I will have to watch that movie now. I don't think I've seen that.

You can show your kids when they grow up. See that guy. He told me I'm a wizard. Sorry, my, I'm not going to say her name, but, uh, this device over here, she just decided to talk on her own. Oh, yeah.

Chatty household you got there i don't have an answer i don't know what that means i'll tell you that is what i did though when i was doing virtual shows one of my favorite things to do was to say oh this will be fun and then i would say alexa and i would say it really loud and then i would give a command and then you'd hear all these devices on everybody i would unmute everybody so we could all hear it happen subscribe to brian saint on youtube or something like that if it

were that easy i would have done that yeah write an ai review i remember the hamish and andy podcast it's an australian two australian guys over here they did a test where they used to be on the radio first and they were like back when you would ask your iphone something it wasn't recognized to a specific voice back then so they said it on the air and they said everyone driving if your phone activates from us saying it pull over and then it was

this whole thing where people People were calling up saying like, we can see 20 cars pulled over on the road right now from you having just said that. They did a test on the radio saying, hey, Siri, da, da, da, da, da. And it set off like so many people's phones back then.

Can you, you were telling us a story. So we dabbled quickly back air about how you went doing virtual shows and you were saying like combining your skills into a virtual show is pretty ridiculous. But could you tell everyone the Google story, how like you had, you had the, the Google wizards, Microsoft, sorry, Microsoft second best wondering how the hell, yeah, tell them that. Cause that was, that's pretty damn cool. So I'll say this up front.

I, it was very funny when, when, when everything went locked down for a while, I had a lot of good magician friends reach out to me. Now, I'll make this very clear. Years earlier, I had actually done a few magic shows for groups over Skype. So I had some tricks that I did. So when we went on lockdown... I wasn't really thinking about that, but I'm like, well, I know that's an option for me.

But what I thought was great was all these good friends of mine were calling me up and we'd just be talking in our little hunkered down areas. And they all said the same thing. They're like, can you keep a secret? Yeah. Sure. I've got this great idea. I'm thinking of trying something out.

Really, really, what are you thinking of trying out? out said well i i don't want this to get out because i don't want other magicians copying it but i'm thinking of creating a virtual show and you know and this is like you know the sixth person telling me this i'm like really and i remember i won't tell anybody i remember that i remember the month where we just saw every one of our friends post big announcement i'm now offering virtual shows late march to early april of 2020 so

the thing is i just kind of i kind of held back because i said this this thing you know maybe over in a month so i'm just gonna hang back and whatever but then i started seeing guys do this thing where they were they were jumping on facebook facebook live and they were doing a free virtual show so i was tuning in and i don't have i don't have it here but they were doing spongebob routine so they have two spongebob's had them sitting on the table and they would take the one

say now so we'll we'll pretend this is your hand and this is my hand and now what i'm gonna put one in my hand and one's gonna be in your hand and watch the one one from my hand disappears and it appears in your hand. They had to come out and they were doing that. And I honestly believe they were expecting the same reaction.

And, and, i i just said no no this doesn't work and i started going down the list of tricks that i know and i'm just thinking most of these don't work even pick a card it doesn't seem to be as fair doing it in a zoom setting so i i brought in brent braun to help consult for me because we've worked on fool us he'd also worked on a live show that i did i brought him in and we We, and I'll, I will, I'll tell you something he said.

I spun it into kind of my own words and just kind of added my own stuff to it. But imagine it this way. Let's assume that you are, you could still do live shows. If you have a virtual show and a live show, they're the same price. There's no difference except one is live and one is virtual or one's in person.

One is virtual. virtual why would anyone want to see your virtual show if you can answer that question, then you'll have a good virtual show or you can at least start the process of creating a good virtual show so what i did is i started putting together all these tricks where the majority of them could not be done in person using things to my advantage like for example if i said you've got a Rubik's cube here and check this out. I'm going to solve this cube.

So see, and I solved it in one second and, and making it that, and just saying, now you see, there could be someone right over here that just switched the cubes for me. Thank you. You know, and I bring it back, you know, and then, you know, doing all these things. And that's what I did. I started playing with, you know, with everything I'll even try to do.

Like, you know, you could do, you could do lapping, you see just just by dropping the the cube because i i you know caught it down here of course if i really wanted to vanish it you know then i would do this in a virtual show just squeeze and. Hang on what just happened all right you can watch the replay josh.

Anyone listening to this just go and watch this on video form anyway keep going there you go slow-mo that was ridiculous so anyway i i show you that because i really i i really wanted to have those moments now granted if you saw that live yeah i mean if you were in this room with me that would suck i'm just letting you know it would be terrible but here it's really good so and i and i find it funny when some magicians say no that's cheating, and I'm like if you had a trap door on stage and,

also cheating so dumb when magicians you know you venue that you have to your advantage so what i did is not only was i doing that i was doing pre-recorded videos 40 of my virtual show was pre-recorded it blows my mind but you didn't realize it was pre-recorded because i would be switching between live and i would be switching between multiple cameras can you explain what What one of those segments might've been, was it like a do as I do or something?

I would say, for example, let's, let's switch to the closeup camera and I would hit a button here and it would switch to another camera angle with that camera angle was pre-recorded. Yeah. So they felt they were watching it. And then the cool thing was when it would switch back to me here, that would also be pre-recorded. Whoa. But they would think, oh, you know, they're not, even if they thought this was pre-recorded, they wouldn't think this was pre-recorded.

And then um i had all these all these things in the show where and i would bring people on you know i could do picture in picture so the person would be here and uh you know i learned all the tech for that but then at the end of the show i i had this thing at right after using someone in the show for someone and someone that everyone recognized then it was this really cool thing where i just took a bow i said thank you so much glad you guys enjoyed

the show and then my my My screen froze and went, oh, screen froze and the audio wasn't working anymore. And then suddenly it turned green and I pulled back and it was a green screen and I was sitting on my couch. I said, I enjoyed watching this show with you. And that was the end of the show.

So I did that. This is true. I did that for Microsoft. The first show I'm giving people a lot of ideas here to you. I did this show for Microsoft, and I got a message that said the whole team is now in their own video chat or video call, and they're debating on whether or not any of the show was happening live. And I should point out, because it's very important for you to hear this, there's a segment 10 minutes from the end where I show that everything could have been prerecorded.

So i actually tip the scales i show you for the first time that hey maybe this camera over here has been fake the whole time and then there's even a scene where i say in fact if it was fake not only could you know i could not only could i do this but and then suddenly i'm standing on a beach holding a lightsaber and darth vader standing next to it and it was it was real it was was a hundred percent real is actually, it was really Darth Vader standing there and not,

you know, someone dressed as Darth Vader, but we were really standing on a beach holding, lightsabers and yeah, so we, there were just all those moments and I just look for those moments.

Show if you know the the the thing that you you know the type of mentalism effects that you'd see on on the world's greatest magic specials put your finger here go up and move over and come down would use a screenshot of zoom of a gallery view start on start over here or start on any person whose name begins with this letter or whatever and then move on and and it became this really really cool thing.

And then they would end up on a couch that I made fun of because I said, oh, and there's a, and one person clearly was not in the shot. When we took this picture, they were off somewhere else because the show wasn't interesting enough at the very end. That's what they would all end up on. That would blow up. And then I would stick my head in on that screen. So, so again, all these, I'm, I'm saying a lot, so please stop me.

But that was, that was a lot of what my virtual show was it was just me tackling all these things that you can't do live and giving people a very different experience well all this idea is really phenomenal like is there is there any opportunities that people will be able to see that in the future or is it captured anywhere or is it just straight up like it was a privilege folks paid for and you can get that by hiring yourself it is not

available for anyone to just go see it right now I'm not saying I would never do that. Does the phone ever ring for a virtual show these days? You ever get people? I did. So, so I, my wife and I moved in November and the day before we closed on our house, this is true. The day before we closed, we closed.

Did two virtual shows from my office so i couldn't pack up my office by the way could not so i had to leave my office all set up i did my virtual shows but i'll show you what i did boy my voice cracked i don't know that's good or bad i now have a curtain in my office that is trying to point there we go i now have a curtain in my office that i'm able to have set up because i have uh if you've heard of Jeff Jones and his amazing backdrops that he sells set up in 30 seconds,

I have one of his backdrops, but in the, in the previous office, which was half the size of the one I'm in here, setting that up in that space was a nightmare because it's amazing. It packs down into nothing. And that thing was 15 feet wide by nine feet tall. So it was tough to set that up. I said, I don't want to set it up when I come. I've got this huge wall over here. Let's just make a black curtain. That curtain opens up. There's nothing on the other side of it. So I have free reign.

If I wanted my virtual show, I could open that curtain up and there'd be something back there. You know, I've wanted to open it. Like I thought about why don't I open that up and there'd be a window there that I actually open and interact with the outside world in some way. And then at the very end of the show, peel the window off the wall.

And it's just a wall or you know something i'm just thinking all kinds of possibilities, that seems like its own product that that could live on past this whole thing you know like that sounds like a movie that people are interacting with at the same time yes it it really it really was very interactive i mean i brought on a lot of people to help with that garrett thomas even even gave some ideas and, you know, Garrett's brain,

how clever he is. And. Really just got some great ideas from a lot of people and you know my video editing skills since i did that for a long time that really came into play for the show but i did do this for a magic convention i think it was called the comedy magic convene matt four was the one who who did that and he said i would just like for you to talk about virtual shows could you do maybe 30 minutes and talk afterwards about virtual so i did a lot of what i'm talking about here but uh

who knows there may be an opportunity to do that again in the future wow and before we go what what are you pushing at the moment you i've seen some stuff on instagram of you using a baby to um promote your some live shows coming up which is great any any shows coming up people can find you at that already done i i don't do a lot of ticketed events i do very few in a year so most of my stuff is private corporate events.

But I'm going to be, for anyone that's near the Charlotte area, I'm going to be at the Magic Canvas. That is in Indian Land, South Carolina, which is just, that's a 30-minute drive from Center City, Charlotte. So I'm there. My book, Almost Believable, we have just added the link today to my site. So this is a great time to test if it it works, but it's my website, bryansaint.com slash almost believable.

That's the, that's the, and it's really, I call it a book. It's really my lecture notes, but it's very happy that's out. It got a great response and it's a PDF because we've sold out of the printing much faster than I was anticipate selling. And I haven't really done. Yes, that's it right there. I haven't Very few, but that's something I would like to do more of. Yes, that's me. Oh, that's on a, that's a great page. It is sold out on Brent's page.

I got the wrong page there. Yeah, that's it's sold out there. So everyone can go in and definitely go search for it. Look, Brian's website is in the link below as is his social pipe handle, the Brian Saint. And we're trying again here. There we go. From all the knowledge we've heard from Brian, I don't know why you wouldn't go and get this book.

You know, is that card trick you showed us before the stream in there? No, that's not on in the book. It was a juicy before the show. We got to have our own virtual magic show. He fooled all of us. I'll send you a, I'll send you a full Doug con trophy too. He's he's he's it. Brian is a true in a book down the road. We'll say true, true professional. Look, we were out of time already, but, you know, we're just going to have to have you back sometime. You're a gem, Brian. Thank you for coming on.

And so everyone can go and find you in the social pipes and on your website, but we have to end the episode like any good episode would. And that is with leaving Brian with the final word. So we want to thank you for coming on. And ladies and gentlemen, here is the final word. So I started thinking, what could I possibly say here? And I think this is probably the best best advice I can give.

If you watched my recent Fool Us appearance, you saw a story that I told Brooke was a story about when my case fell behind me when I was performing. And really, every prop that I had in that case just went out into the first several rows of the audience. And this was 10 minutes into the show. And I turned to the person that I was with, and she was like, like what just happened, turned to the audience. And I said, just to let everyone know after this trick, we usually take a brief

intermission. And he got a huge laugh from the audience. And this trick ended with the spectator. She went back to her seat. And then the band that was playing before I was on helped me get all of my props back in my case. I continued the show. Something very interesting happened to me. Suddenly got into a mindset of, well, nothing worse than that can happen. And I started taking more chances than I've ever taken in front of an audience. It was the most relaxed I have ever been.

And so my final word to anyone watching who's doing regular performing, do not get tied up in trying to be perfect. I am very much a perfectionist. And that absolutely slapped me out of being a a perfectionist for at least that performance. And from every performance since then, I have always had that kind of floating around in my mind. Maybe I'm not as relaxed as I was in that performance. But as I said, I took many, many chances. They cut that part out on TV.

But afterwards, I was approached by probably a dozen or so people. I had been referencing the case case falling ever since it happened. I referenced it throughout the show. And after the show, about a dozen people came up and said, Hey, can we get your card? And just a question, do you do the case thing every show, or is that just a special request? And so that alone to me, that could not have been a better lesson. I mean, I, and I know it's on video because the guy showed it to me.

I really need to try to get that video just so I can couldn't see it for myself because I know my face probably turned purple in that moment.

I mean, it was so far past red, but the relaxing, the relaxation that came from that moment immediately after I never had an audience more with me and I had was never more with an audience than I was in that moment. So do not be scared to get out there and not be perfect.

You may find some of your best bits just out of doing that so there you go my final word i'm going to stare at my fool us trophies again thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear now disappear now, but we'll see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.