Nicholas Lawrence Hangs Out With The Magic Guys! #168

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They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys. Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 168 of the Magic Guys, where we discuss the magic life and have amazing guests on like today. But to my left, I have Nick Kay. Welcome to the show, friends. Oh, yeah. Down below, we got Doug Kahn. Word. And this is an exciting episode. This is good stuff. But Nick, how are you doing today, my friend?

Dude, I could not be more excited about our guest today. It's been a great week, and it's going to be a great day. I believe you. I believe you. And everyone in the chat knows what's up as well. We got Tim literally saying, what's up?

We've got Gary, Ed. He's like, come on, guys. guys scotty p scotty p usually is at work so or maybe he's at work and he's just you know he's like this is the kind of episode you miss work for no doubt about it exactly and patrick shawa all all the ogs of the magic guys uh universe are turning up for today and i can i can see why tim's saying that there's that cool shirt again where i'm going to talk oh yeah we'll talk more about that when we can when we can release them but um

hell yeah but look we're here for a good reason and uh nick this is actually a personal uh friend of yours right absolutely i had the pleasure of meeting our guest today at magic live and of all the amazing things that i was privy to hanging out with all these amazing magicians seeing the most wonderful shows at Magic Live in Vegas. Out of all the things, the best thing about Magic Live for me was sitting opposite our guests.

So friends, please join me in welcoming the amazing Mr. Nicholas Lawrence. Music.

Oh, yeah. Hey, what's happening, guys? Wow, what a wonderful intro. Amazing. Good to see you guys. Good to see you, but thanks for being here. We know how busy you are with how many projects you work on. Thank you so much for making the time to be a part of this. Now, for the folks that obviously, I mean, we all know who you are, but please tell us who you are and what do you do, Nicholas Lawrence? Oh, wow. Okay. Well, I'm first and foremost, a magic creator.

That's my absolute passion in life it's just creating magic whether it be visual or you know any type of magic and just being able to share it with other magicians you know and just uh hopefully at the end of the day just inspiring other magicians but you know first and foremost giving magicians tricks to perform that feel new fresh visual that's my obsession that's my thing so yeah i could say a lot more but i think

i think we'll discover more about me throughout the show so no that's That's right, and thank you for doing that, by the way. Thank you for creating such wonderful things. I think everyone here in the chat, you know, has a little bit of Nicholas Lawrence in their magic arsenal, that's for sure. You've been creating for a while, right? Like, you've been putting products in the magic over for how long?

So, you know, it's wild. It's actually in October on Halloween will actually be my 10-year anniversary of putting out my very first trick. But, I mean, I've been creating magic for, you know, 20, 22 years, something like that, because I got into creating very young because, yeah, you know, I went to the library and we get magic books there and stuff like that, or see magic on TV and try to emulate what I've seen.

But I felt like it was like a necessity for me to start creating young because I wanted to do more exciting things that I saw like people like David Blaine doing on TV.

So, yeah, I've been creating for quite some time. Well, of this creativity, Nick, I mean, like there was so much out there. I mean, kids who do start creating at a very magic age tend to just stick to one discipline like doing cards or doing coins. But the stuff that you do is so cleverly organic and you'll do tricks with rings in a way that's never been done before. Things with Sharpies, things with all manner of like day to day carry.

What inspired you to say, I'm going to create things in this way?

What was that motivation? Yeah. I think it's a little bit of two things so i mean if you look at my body work a lot of it is, i would say a higher percentage might be cards but there is sprinkled in these little organic things, and it's because i kind of have to force myself to do more than cards because that's kind of where i came from it's the first thing i had was a deck of cards and learning all the the fundamentals right and then

getting some card gimmicks and you know everything that was like a double backer with a gimmick when you switch out a signed card i love that kind of aspect so i had to slowly get away from it but also i began to get my own kind of taste and thoughts on what i thought magic should be and the best way to present it and i do believe the best kind of magic is things with just ordinary objects your ring your watch uh you know a pen pen but you know there are things like a deck

of cards that are very hard to get away from you know i love i love playing cards but yeah i I think it's just discovering what you love. And for me, I love organic objects. And I don't go beyond anything more traditional than a deck of cards. Like no rings, cups and balls, not really my style, you know. But I do appreciate and love all magic. Imagine if Nicholas was sat down in a room with cups and balls and you were like, okay, make some hypervisual stuff with this.

I bet you could come up with something pretty nuts. Oh, certainly.

Yeah, I've even had come up with different ideas and new methods and things for cups and balls.

But you know, I do think and I do want to touch on this for maybe some young listeners is, it is very important, I feel, to learn things like the cups and balls, when you're when you're younger, so that way you can understand, because there's so much you can learn from it, you know, not only just misdirection, but just, you know, how to palm things properly, how to take how to how to look natural and how to manipulate multiple objects.

So I think it's important to definitely to learn those things. But if we go back, I'm sorry, can you rephrase what you said? Oh, I was just saying that. Yeah, I mean, I said, if you're in a room, you could probably visualize some cups and balls. Yeah, that's all. Yeah, you know, I think in the future, because I kind of go through these weird waves where I get interested in different areas of magic, there might be some day where I do put out my own cups and balls routine, my own set,

you know what I mean? You never know, right? Yeah, yeah. The, the, the cup shifter.

How long does it take it to say, come from idea to fruition? Like, well, I just got this thing. Let's we'll just take a, this is a recent one, right? Bangor egg, which I love. And yeah, this is the visual appearance and or disappearance of the card between a couple of holes. I've used this at least semi-professionally. I made a video with this thing on it. Oh, great. But yeah, like you had the idea for this.

When did like that occur and how long does it take to bring something like this to market? You know, it's really hard to say, but I do always, you know, I feel like I do my due diligence in spending enough time with it and at least performing it for people. But really just obsessing on the mechanics of it, which can take, I mean, no sooner than, I mean... Trying to think of something I put out that I didn't spend at least more than a couple of years working on, you know.

But I mean, like, you know, something we're going to talk about later that I do with a Sharpie. I mean, actually, this kind of blew my mind, by the way. I was talking to Garrett Thomas, which if you guys don't know, we're from the same city. So I was like a young boy and he was already like very established in magic. And I kind of had him as kind of a mentor. But he reminded me that I actually gave him this gimmick, this Sharpie gimmick, 20 years ago.

No way. so i had made it i i had made it very janky and i made out of like a you know some weird vinyl material i had anyway so i made this thing and i gave it to i would just give him my ideas so that he can kind of cam on it work on it and i was just shocked when he said what you know 20 years ago i'm like well wait a second let me do the math on that you know and i'm now just gonna be releasing it in 2024 so it all

it all depends but i would say no sooner than you know one to two years of like steady working on something. But sometimes it could take 20 years, you know, because I do create a lot of stuff. So, I mean, I just, I find stuff in my junk drawer of just a bunch of gimmicks that I've made. And, you know, sometimes I'll pull it out and I'll look at it and I'll try to think of, you know, the final touches and trying to connect the dots or figure out what my use is for it.

It's sometimes, it just, it's not ready. So I put it back and then it goes another year, another couple of years. As it should be. You know, I hypothesize we have too many products rushed to market in this day and age. It's nice to hear a creator talk about, yeah, it takes years, you know. What about when you...

Tempt when you like what's the word when you showcase something you're working on that's not out yet as a product like i remember your your invisible card like where you just sorry that's the that's the right word when you started showing your vanishing card online but it wasn't available yet like how many messages were you getting like what is that when can i get it what the heck's going on and how many times did you have to dem that at magic live?

Because I swear I saw you have to stand in front of people and do it like a hundred times, at least that I saw. Yeah. So not everything I post goes super, I mean, I wouldn't say viral because I'm still kind of a small fish when it comes to social media, but it sent waves to the magic community. They saw that and they were like, wow, that's clearly real. He's using some sort of real technique and it looks good.

But man, I had tons of people reaching out to me saying, hey, when is that going to be available? Because they know I mostly release Magic. That's my main thing. So, man, everybody wanted to see it. They wanted to know when it was going to be available. And, yeah, that was funny when I was at Magic Live because I had just posted that video maybe a couple months prior, a month prior. Almost everybody who saw me, they're like, hey, can you do that vanishing card?

It was almost like it was a mixture between people who are truly interested in seeing it and some people who just wanted to be like, can it actually be done live?

You know well to your point nicola i mean you said that to myself and we had a really big conversation about how that was sort of inspired and we'll sort of saying how will sigh who originally performed this effect for those of you who don't know will sigh was the original performer in which he took a single playing card and by waving his hand over it it vanished, quite literally as if he was holding it and that was originally achieved through

cgi and it it influenced you to do it in a very, very real way.

And we had a very interesting conversation about that. Would you be kindly share your sort of thoughts on that process where CGI versus real magic? Yeah.

Yeah definitely so so you're spot on the first time i've ever seen that and for listeners just to really touch on it it's not just you know vanishing apart it was like how josh mentioned you're you're holding on to the card and it's vanishing from the bottom up so you get to a half vanish position where you're holding nothing and that half a card is just seemingly floating and it goes up and that was the first time i ever seen it was with will sigh which

you know i think i think a lot of us know he does a lot of cgi stuff which whether you're for it or you're not for it. Either way, it did something good, which was inspire me. And I felt like, especially coming from a creator, it's fair grounds to take that as inspiration and create a physical method that you could actually perform live. And it didn't require CGI, video editing, all those different techniques.

I just wanted something I could create and do for real life and be able to put it in as many hands as possible because I knew people loved that visual. People were freaking out over that. So I did everything I could to basically just give people a taste of it.

I mean, whether or not it's perfect or not, it's as perfect as it could be right now until maybe somebody else takes it further. But talking about CGI versus real magic, I'm personally not a big fan of CGI AGI magic, because I feel like you don't need it, right? You really don't need it. You can create anything you see. If you see something in a movie, there's most likely a way. I mean, you could see that. I mean, sure, I understand some people...

Would look at that and go, oh, it's just another visual trick. That's real. But when you're somebody like me, who's been designing magic for 20 plus years, and you've consulted for people, and you've scraped the barrel trying to figure out the best methods for things, when you see something, it's blatantly obvious to us. And it's not anyone's fault who sees something and gets kind of conned into thinking it's a real method. And that's okay. So for me, Maybe just kind of going back to,

you know, the difference is I'm not a big fan of it. I don't think it's great for magic. It does have its okay moments where it can inspire people. But I think we can just get that for movies. I don't think we need, you know, magic creators and performers using CGI. I think it actually isn't a good look. And especially think about it like this. Let's say you perform something with CGI on your social media and then you get hired for an event.

And that was one of the tricks that really stood out and everybody wants to see it and then you do a tenkai vanish well it's not the same thing and it's not going to have the same impact and overall it's not going to please you know it's not going to please your audience they want to see what you did so i think it just kind of holds us back but yeah i mean that's that's literally a physical gimmick that you can hold and that's insane like that just looks so good that looks exactly like

the cgi vanish yeah like i remember seeing seeing nicholas do that at magic live still looked like cgi but i'm looking at it with my own eyes that like that's got to be the goal right yeah and it's one of those things too the more you see it though the more you see it you start seeing little things and you start kind of jumping into my world the more you see a trick the more and that's why magic's so special for an audience

because it's the very first time they're seeing it so they get to see what we felt the first time we saw it on video or the first time you saw it on Magic Live but you know the more we see it it kind of starts to get a little more dull and we start to understand it more and we lose that sense of wonder and astonishment from it, You know what I'm thinking too, is with the vanishing card, since we're on that subject, like what a perfect effect to have when like Nick and I are at our

corporate gigs and someone's like, oh, can I film you for my Insta story?

Like what a great moment to have to be able to go, all right, cool. Instead of like, okay, let me try and do a card trick in 10 seconds.

Like to be able to take this and go bang. bang and and the other thing is you created the effect but how do you feel seeing the world performing your effects like do you sometimes watch some and like you're like oh you clearly bought this and didn't learn how to use it or you're like oh that's really clever or like how does it feel watching nicholas lawrence effects performed by other people yeah the laugh says it little well you know it's it's just a

part of the job it's like you you're not selling magic to, you know not everybody's a professional magician who's buying these things that everybody.

Understands you know or respects magic as much as you do right or maybe they're not all the same skill level so yeah i mean i see a lot of performances and i'm like oh god why did why don't you just re-record it it's just a recording you can just re-record it and do it perfect and then you know but sometimes there's like a little flash that only i would notice and i'm like oh that's fine nobody would ever notice that but yeah sometimes people just butcher it

and you know what i would say maybe a good you know 30 of the time people do a great job and it feels really nice it feels really nice to see people you know taking something that just came from my head that i made physical you know made it into a product and then you know got it out there and And people are actually not only interested, but they're spending time practicing. And then they made a video and it, yeah, you know, it feels great. It feels great. So.

We have a question here from Scotty P, which says, how do gimmicks go from prototype on your shelf to mass production? Do you sell the idea or manage the manufacturer stages? Right. So if you're just getting into creating, let's touch on this real quick.

Quick you would probably just if you believe in it and if you enjoy it and you're able you have a working prototype that you're actually able to get experience with with performing it your next step would be to take it to like you know penguin magic vanishing people like that and they're going to do all the developing right and then you guys are going to go back and forth until you're both happy with a final prototype now if you're doing what i'm doing now it's a lot of fucking work,

sorry no no you can you can give him the truth yeah yeah man it's so much work not only do you have to streamline the gimmick to find the right materials make sure they're thin enough thick enough you know find the right size magnets what if it's like you know maybe it's not magnet to magnet connection it's magnet to shim well you got to find the right thicknesses the right magnetic strength the right plastic materials it's so much work it's actually crazy uh and And especially

when you've got higher standards, you don't want to just settle with something that just works. You want to make sure it has a little finer touches. So that way it really takes it like as far as it can go. So once it gets in someone else's hands, they're not limited by like how close they can perform it. You know, they can perform it anywhere and they can feel confident with it.

But yeah, to answer that question, it's a lot of work, whether it be self-producing or in the hands of a magic company, it just takes time. And that's why when you see things taking, you know, like three years, I mean, there's something I'm putting out with theory 11. That is we're going on three years because they want to make sure it's absolutely perfect.

And, you know, I don't blame them, you know, and, and some things are really easy, by the way, some things are super easy to produce, but some things they just take years and it takes blood, sweat and years. Yeah. Yeah. When we open that box, you have like the instruction card that needs to design the envelope, need to design the box, need to design. That's after the trick is. Yeah. Even in that regard. Right. So it's like for me, I'm doing all that.

I find joy in learning how to do graphic design, editing my trailers. But yeah, it's like, you know, for that, you either need to hire somebody up like Fiverr.com or something like that. Or if you have a buddy, if you have a buddy who can design things, you can kind of just jam back and forth with that. But yeah, once you have a design, you have to now approach a manufacturing company, see what options they offer and, you know, get your packaging set.

Now you need an instructional card, same company, but make sure you've got your graphic, right? Make sure the fonts, the right sizes. So it's so many things you have to do if you want to do it right. But yeah, it's just endless. And if you're wearing all the hats, like I am, it can be super stressful, but I mean, I feel more proud at the end of it that I'm, I'm doing it all myself.

Sure. I know when I'm drowning and I need to reach out and get help from others, but generally speaking, it's, it's just me. And yeah, it's a lot of work. So that, and that's the coolest thing as well, because I remember when we were talking about this, that you were going to do it for yourself and you've had the pleasure of creating alongside, you know, Penguin, Sands Mines, Theory 11, all of them. And now you were producing everything yourself under the brand Nicholas Lawrence Presents.

Was there a motivation to do that because of the experiences you had prior, or is it just that you've been creating so much that you didn't want the pressure of having to produce? Like there was expectations of you when you had to perform or create for other manufacturers or other Murphys folk and things of that nature? So I think it's like this now for me. I've gotten to a point where I understand the industry and I understand the process.

Enough where I can do it myself. First and foremost, I know this might come to a shock for some people, but it is my full-time job. It's how I make money, whether it be consulting or producing products. So in that regard, I have to do it myself because I'm making the most amount of money.

It's an actual business. That's the next step. After you've released Magic with all the other Magic companies, which I feel like I've released something with everybody, it's time to to say, okay, and not to mention, I've started my own magic companies with friends and, you know, that doesn't always work out as well. You know, sometimes it ends amicable and sometimes it ends in the opposite direction, but either way it's experience.

And it's what pushed me towards just doing it myself. You need to do it yourself. That's the main goal. If you're a magic creator and you have the chops to not like create good magic, but you feel like you can produce good magic, produce magic in general. You got to do it yourself. That's the end goal. Are people submitting things to you? Like in these collaborations you have with your friends, are they going, Hey man, this is my trick, but I want to release

it through you. Like you open things like that. I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm open to it quite yet. I mean, you know, you gotta be humble. You gotta be realistic. I'm not at the point where I can, you know, put my magic creations aside and produce something of somebody else's quite yet. Mainly because, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm married. I've got four dogs. I'm buying, I'm having a house built. I'm doing a lot of things where I need as much income as I can.

So right now I'm just, you know, just focusing on my own creations. But, you know, I do have some pretty cool stuff. I mean, just to mention, I got something with Garrett Thomas that I'm going to produce. I've got something with David Regal that I want to produce. Thankfully, they're very patient and they're going to, you know, they're going to wait until I'm ready. But yeah, and I've also had numerous people reaching out to submitting ideas

and saying, hey, what do you think about this? Do you want to produce it? And that's great. I think it's great. I always just let them know, hey, I'm not really ready right now. But, you know, in a few years, reach back. If you have something new or if you still have that idea, I'd love to take a look at it, you know? Yeah, wow. And what about, so you're creating these effects. And, I mean, what a fortunate position to be in.

Like, I've just got so many of my own ideas. I don't have time to produce other people's ideas. Like, that's great. Right. Do you also, are you doing any consulting where you're customizing things individually for other projects? Yeah, totally. Yeah. So I do this very rarely, but, you know, sometimes like a professional performer has an idea that they really like. And I just try to be as realistic with them, you know, right from the get go.

It's like, if I can actually do this, if this is like something that is in my realm. But yeah, I definitely consult for professional performers just to try to bring a trick that they just don't have the time or maybe they don't have the solution for. But also, I've worked on the last two Dynamo shows, which he's popular mostly in the UK, but I think all magicians know who he is, right? Oh, yeah. Even in Australia, he's one of the top guys.

So I've got some experience with TV and working with live shows in Vegas. I've done a few things there with like Pick the Magic Dragon, Shin Lim. So you're in it, you're right in it, yeah. Yeah, definitely. But you know what? I'm in it, but you know what? It's like, I still have so much to learn and everything I do is, there's always these different elements that when you dive in, you don't want, I never dive in like, I'm Nicholas Lawrence.

I've done this. I've released 50 tricks. It's never like that. It's always like, you have to walk in with fresh eyes and like, just really try to feel things out. Because like TV is very different than a Las Vegas live show are very different than somebody's parlor show.

It's all very different. So you always have to walk into these things like I'm bringing my experience, I'm bringing my creativity. But it's like you have to take direction. That's the main thing. It's like you're always taking direction and you have to be open to direction. And also you have to remember it's not a one-man show. If you get hired as a one consultant show, there's always a team. It's always a team effort.

So that was even something for me that I'm learning how to do better is working with other people, you know, and not to say like I'm a person who's like, oh, my idea is better. But it's just more of you're so passionate about an idea where you're like, oh, no, this is the answer.

This is definitely it. it i've had to kind of dumb that down a little you know tone that down and be like well you know what do you think you know and and i clearly have discovered that over the years multiple people you know two heads is better than one always so yeah definitely so it's a collaboration it's really interesting i've never been someone who plays well with others and i've tried to and one of the things i've always had to overcome is whenever

like someone's like oh i'm gonna help direct your show or whatever it might be, it's they never, one of the things that they fail to do is they don't fail to acknowledge the character that as me as a performer, they ultimately like Oh, do it the way I would do it. It's like, well, that's not what a good consultant does. Exactly. Even if you're hiring like a videographer and a director, they need to do the same things that I was just talking about.

They have to walk in with fresh eyes. They have to understand that, you know, it has to be a collaboration because if it's not, they're just going to do, well, these are the best videographer techniques that I've learned along the way. Well, you've never, maybe you've never worked with a magician, you know, or whatever. So you never work with someone character based. So you have to make sure you have in those opening meetings,

right? When you're working with someone, you have to address those things first, right? Well, let me ask you a question about that. I mean, when you're creating for someone like Piff, the magic dragon, who is such a strong character in magic, his character is, you know, first and foremost, versus someone whose character is very scaled back and they allow the magic to speak for themselves, a.k.a.

Good folks like dynamo is there a preference that you have with regards to creating or do you treat it with just as much gusto equally no i would say it's it's as you said just as much gusto equally i go into a very just as you know as positive as i can and give as much energy as i can just for everybody but you know everybody has different needs and like like with my experience with piff i wasn't as much involved with and i only had a

little bit of experience with him And my experience with him was he knew what he wanted. He needed a prop and I knew how to build it. And that was, you know, it's like things like that, where some of the other guys, some of the other guys were more on the creative spectrum were like, you know, I just don't know what to do at this moment in my show. Or so it was just he needed a prop and he needed to work a certain way. And maybe he had tried it different ways and it wasn't working well.

And it just so happened I had the answer. Right. And it was able to make it.

Where, you know, maybe with dynamo.

I have to actually get like more creative and i have to actually really understand who the performer is as a person as a character because i'm not just going to pitch this trick or that trigger this just because they're good tricks no it might be a good method but i need to i need to hand select certain tricks that are going to work for his character right or i can say well you know like say double cross double cross is a great trick it gets great reactions it's a beautiful effect

but you know what you don't perform with sharpies so how could we do this trick that's more suited to you right and you always got to speak up because at the end of the day you're a part of something and you want it to be the best it can be so you don't want to see a performer doing something that just doesn't match his style just because it was an easy suggestion and it was it gets great reactions it's like no you gotta you gotta do all the layers right

well it's curious You mentioned all these layers, but what I'm sort of curious about is that, is there a roadmap to this sort of like thought process? Do you sort of go like, well, the first thing I do is this, this, like, is there a roadmap or some sort of structure you have? Because it seems like you approach everything so organically. It must be ayahuasca. That's the roadmap. Ayahuasca. I'm on board. Ayahuasca. There you go.

And you can get ayahuasca from nicolaflorencepresents.com. Nick moved to the Philippines to get the good stuff. But also. And magic train. As as a creator nicholas how did you feel when you saw double cross come out were you like damn it.

Oh my i'm like i'm still i'm still trying to invent my best creation a time machine so i can go back and i'm just no um no i see these tricks come out sometimes and i kick myself i'm like oh my god how did i not think of that you know yeah but but but that fades quickly and i just go to the appreciation mode like i just appreciate these other great minds who come up with these wonderful things and because it's rare that i perform other people's material but

you know there's a short period of time where i use double cross but i see these things come out and i kick myself at first but then it goes to like okay that's amazing i'm going to use that for a little bit i'm going to get some inspiration from it you know for sure yeah i've got an inquiry when it comes to putting things out and creating magic in general and i'm asking this on behalf of all the young minds that ask me about putting stuff out.

Like, is this a reasonable approach for a developing magician to put their focus on? I get the impression a lot of kids think maybe they can make a lot of money or even make a living doing it. I think it's maybe the rarity. It's definitely rare that you can make a living on just creating magic. Because I think the obvious is most people can't create enough. They can't create enough stuff that's good enough to take to market and good enough to get enough sales to produce.

And if you're not doing it on your own, then you're not getting the full piece of the pie either. Right. So like your early years, you're just what are you doing? Working like by the hour and illusionist is reaping the rewards. I don't know who you work for, but is that what happens? Yeah. Yeah, working for another company, it's a good experience and everything, but you're not making a lot of money.

You know what I mean? It's one of those things. Even if you're putting out five tricks in a year, yeah, you can make good money that year, but what about the next year? Can you talk about that for a little bit? I am just genuinely interested in the process. If you work, say, for another company and you create a trick, is there royalties involved?

Okay, so it all depends on the company. okay so when i worked for penguin i hope this isn't nba i don't know that's what i that's why if it's taboo or weird don't go there but you know honestly i i've had my my tough holes and good times with all the information though it is what it is and it's good information so with them i i was getting a salary but it's because i was doing a lot more than just creating my my main job was actually

i developed i created and developed the magic gimmick building department.

Department right so it was penguin actually saying we're actually not only we're going to build gimmicks in-house and that's what i was hired for so i i slowly built the team so i was doing things like sourcing i was doing things like prototyping but also streamlining making sure so when submissions came in i would kind of get my hands in there and uh so so you know so that was that was a very unique thing working at penguin right

you know and i was getting a salary but i would also get royalties still for my tricks but there was also this thing which you know you know it is what it is where i was very limited they were limiting me they were they didn't want me to put out as much as i could create it was like i think when i worked there for like two three years i think i put out like maybe three things yeah which you know i've got you know a lot of stuff that i could put out um and a lot of stuff that i can develop

with this awesome team which you know penguin's great but i was definitely felt very limited so yes i got royalties yes i got my salary but now if you work for a company like illusionist which i've heard through the grapevine that you get paid a salary but you don't get royalties so if you're a creator working for illusionist you're not going to get royalties from what i know and things might have changed i don't know okay but yeah you just get your salary and you can create put out as much as

you want they're going to make you look like a rock star they're going to promote it great. So it all really depends. You get that street cred. Exactly. You're going to get that street cred. I mean, you look at like Chris Ramsey was launched from that company, basically, right? Yeah. He worked at Illusionist and he worked at Murphy's. And same with Peter McKinnon, even bigger giant. He was the videographer at Illusionist for many years.

Yeah. I do know this is probably 10 years ago now, but the marketing guy for Illusionist back then, his name was Jake.

He lived in my city in brisbane and he would come and show us some stuff sometimes and but he mentioned back then if if someone came not worked with illusions full-time but if they were someone that created something and came to them with it they would give them the option of either an outright fee or like a small percentage per month and i'm gonna i'm gonna say this right now for the young listeners and for anybody really never take a buyout,

never take a buyout, which I've had to do numerous times only because I chose the life of being a full-time magic creator consultant. And there's been a lot of ups and downs where I needed some quick cash, you know, maybe for a, for a down payment on a car or something like that. And I'm like, you know what? I've got a lot of ideas. I can do this, but I'm hurt later. So my advice is never take a buyout unless you You absolutely need to always look forward to those royalties.

Make sure you read over your contracts, make sure you're getting your royalties, make sure everything is, you know, all your ducks are in a row, but yeah, you definitely get those two choices, right? Any company would be happy to give you a buyout so that they can make a lot more money than you are, right? But I advise against it. Yeah. And who owns the intellectual property of that as well? Do you always maintain the intellectual property of it and they just have the rights to release lease it?

Or is it like, we bought it, it's our trick that you created, mine, mine, mine, and I own it for the end of time? Well, I think the magic companies would love to think that. I think they would love to think because of a piece of paper or a digital form that they own it outright 100%. But I never think that way. Sure, you own the artwork and you own those specific routines and how I presented it, but that doesn't stop you from still being able to perform it.

But also that doesn't stop you from making a 2.0 and releasing it because at the end of the day, intellectual property is personal. That's yours. That can never be sold in my opinion, especially in a niche market like magic. It's not like we're going to go to court and you know what I mean?

And then you're going to get sued or something for putting out a 2.0 version of a truck no and i as long as you're not taking a trick that you put out with someone and then taking it to another company or taking it and and reproducing it in your company. You know, that's, it's just ethics, right? It's just respect. You got to be respectful to these companies, but yeah, I feel like you always own it.

It is always yours. That is your intellectual property. So if you want to do another project in the future where you dig deeper and you've got more effects and more routines in it, you know, give them their space, let them have it for a few years, five years, six, whatever.

And then of course you've got all the right in the the world to expand upon your intellectual property and you know and then hell if it's a 2.0 and it's a true 2.0 you could take it to another company but just be honest with that company and say hey listen i released this with penguin six years ago as you can see with this version it can do x y and z and it's a total improvement what do you think and then then it's just up to them it's up to them if they want to or not but yeah i

think that answers your question yeah now look Look, we've talked about a lot of creating and a lot of things you've done in the past. You have an effect you've been tempting the whole magic industry with that's not out yet. Is there anything you can tell the viewers about it or what to expect or when they can get it? Or what can you tell us about this new piece of Nicholas Lawrence magic?

So, you know, with every new trick that I come up with, and I will get to that, but it's always I get this question. What's your favorite trick you've ever released? Well, my favorite trick I've ever released is the one I'm currently working on, right? It's the one I just recently released. So right now it's Bangarang because that was my most recent thing.

I love Bangarang because I put my heart and soul in it, but I put so much current attention into it that, you know, you fall in love with it and you find all these things that you just, you know, appreciate so much. Yeah. And then right now it's fading into sharp shifter, which visual, visual viewers, you guys could see that. Oh, my bad. Yes. And that's, this is going to be coming out here in mid May, mid to late May. This will be fully ready to go.

And this is my current favorite thing. And yeah, so it's called sharp shifter. It's a utility gimmick and it's a true utility gimmick, meaning you can do tons of different routines. So right now I'm at about 15 ideas, 15, 16 ideas, not fully fledged out routines. Not all of them are. Some of them are just quick ideas to get your gears turning and say, Hey, I like that.

You know, like one of them is a weird one. I don't want to talk too much about it, but like, we're like, you can have something written on your tongue. Like you actually write something on your tongue, which is kind of geek magic. But it's like, it's not a fully fledged out routine. Some might consider it is because it's very simple, but I look at it, it's just an idea, But man, there's just so much you can do with this thing.

Without saying too much, it's like, you know how, you know, a thumbtip, it just has so many applications. That's what this is, like with a Sharpie. So not only are you going to learn a bunch of stuff from me and how I've used it over the years, but I can just imagine what other people, especially, you know, performers are going to say, oh, wow, this is going to be perfect for this, or I can do this with that.

Yeah. So yeah, I'm super excited about it. And yeah, if you guys have any questions about that in particular, I can, I can. We got to see a couple of those ideas before you were showing off some of the things you could do with this. We got the sneak peek and I hypothesize, this is going to be a smash hit. I mean, so many magicians use Sharpies and the visuals you were showing us with this gimmick are mind blowing. And then the minimalism things you were explaining. I mean, right.

So that's, that's a big thing is now we can do visual magic, but it can do mentalism. It can also do magic that you don't see, right. It's not just visual magic, not just mentalism, but it's like this whole mashup of, you know, it is a genuine tool format. Right.

So, and it's like, and, and I don't know what I'm allowed to, I'm not, I mean, I'm going to try and say this without saying anything, but like the other crazy, the other crazy thing is like, Like you could walk into an office and then hand you a Sharpie and you could go into all this crazy visual stuff with seemingly their Sharpie and give it back to them. And like, that's what you can do with this gimmick is like, you could do stuff with smell. Yeah. Yeah.

Auditory sensory. Yeah. Yeah. If you guys look at, if you look at my website, I even say things like that. So that's not revealing too much. I want people to know as much as they can before they see the trailer. But yeah, there's things like with scent. There's things where you draw on your tongue. There's, you know, flying caps, like some of my old tricks. Like there's this trick called Distance I released years ago where a cap flies to the air. Love that effect so much.

Now you can do it with a Sharpie marker, which, you know, that's the writing utensil magician's fairy most. Right? So that's nice. It's really kind of endless. I mean, there is an end, obviously, with what you're going to learn on the project, but I feel like it's endless in terms where once you get it in your hands, other people are going to create things. So that's why I'm going to create a Facebook group.

That way people can hop on there and share their ideas and let it go for years and years to come. Yeah. Trust the creator to create something that's only limited by your own creativity. Hey, listen, I'm going to be supplying enough great ideas, but it's one of those things where, you know, you got to flap your wings and just take this thing and see it as a true tool. And it's going to, it's going to feel so nice. I just know it.

I'm predicting the future that people are going to come up with even better ideas than I've come up with with it. So we'll see. Yeah. I intend to get my hands on it and came up with something really awesome as well. Well, we have a question here from David Russell, which says, what is the most casual non-magic magic trick you have made? Hold on. What is the most casual non-magic magic trick you've made? What does that mean exactly? Like an unconventional?

What do you guys think that means? I went right to distance 2.0 because that's a casual. It could be not magic.

But it's magical you know shooting in long distance onto a cap but you know that might actually be the answer so it's interesting if you break down what the effect distance is it's not like hey i'm going to show you a magic trick right how i perform it is as i start with and i'll just use a sharpie for for this instance but you guys know that classic trick where you kind of like this you pinch the cap you say look i'm gonna i'm gonna get some static electricity right and you

can perform that like a trick or you can just teach people like this. This is how I do it. I say, I'm like, yeah, check this out. Pretty cool. Right. I don't talk about static at all. I just say, check it out. And they're like, Whoa, what is that? And I say, yeah, it's really cool. If you just get it close to the pen, It's attracted to it, right? And then I say, no, no, that's not how it works. It's actually just a trick.

Let me show you. You just squeeze the tip like this. And when you squeeze hard enough, it'll shoot back on the pen. That's pretty cool, right? And then I let them try. I give them the pen. And now it's more of a conversation. This is more of a casual thing that I'm just letting them inside my world of interesting things and magic. And now I'm teaching them a trick. And now this is great. Now you introduce the gimmick secretly.

Really and then you say now it becomes a magic trick but it doesn't feel like a magic trick because it feels like it's like the next level of everything they've that's happened in the conversation oh you're just squeezing the tip and i say well yeah but you know what's really cool if you've been doing it as long as i have then you can actually increase the distance and you do it from here and it flies across and recaps and now they're just like whoa wait what now they actually

believe that it's kind of possible but it's still amazing right so it's not this magic trick. It's more of a stunt or a fill, right? It's a skill, it's a stunt, and it's something that they feel like with enough practice, I could do something amazing that isn't technically a magic trick. It's more of just a cool skill, right? So I think that kind of answers this question. I think distance would fall right into that.

It's like when you do a muscle pass and you're like, how does the coin go like that? Well, it's a lot of practice, but then eventually you He can do it super fast where you can't see it. And you do a retention vanish and make it look like it just goes from one hand to the other. You know, I was like those little bits of magic like that where you're kind of like you're giving them something. You're giving them knowledge, but you're really not.

You're just you're just keeping it going and you're making it feel good. And it makes it just take in their mind through a roller coaster. Right. They're like, wait a second. If you really practice that much, you can make it invisible. What is the hand really quicker than the eye? Yeah. It's like that saying of, you know, when people know a little bit of magic, it makes them appreciate it way more.

It's true. As a presentational hook, when you're giving an audience that kind of presentation, it also lowers their... Like their guard? Not that. It definitely limits hecklers, like people who want to know the secret. That's what I'm saying. The desire to learn the secret is lowered. They're not trying to bust you so hard because you're giving them an avenue to believe in. So why would they be trying to figure something out?

It's so true. If you're the type of performer who's experiencing hecklers a lot, you should implement what we've just been talking about. It's kind of give to them. Give to them little things where they feel like they're learning something because you're absolutely right. They will be less inclined to want to catch you out and figure out how it's

done. and they can just sit back and relax and absorb it because they know in a little bit maybe you'll give them another little nugget of information you know and it's something more interesting than just. Just magic, because magic's entertaining. But when you start giving them little things, little nuggets, now it becomes interesting, like any other hobby in the world, watching how a movie's made or watching how this is done. So you're absolutely right, Doug. That's so true.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. My character tends to lean into being more skillful than magical, which I think just when you're performing for lawyers, doctors, high-end folks in the corporate realm, you sort of need to appreciate these are people with doctorates and very well educated people and for you to convince them of this mumbo jumbo uh magical spell business they just they they look down upon you but when you approach yourself as someone

who is highly skillful as are they they do brain surgery you do card tricks we both have mad skills. It's just a different appreciation you don't get the pushback from that just sitting there going this is a lovely skilled person showing their skill i i agree i mean it all comes down to style but you know, you're right. It also comes down to who you're performing for, because I always feel like I do the same thing.

I like to present my magic as skillful things, but not just physically skillful, but just how does the mind work? How does the mind, you know, perceive things? Is the hand quicker than the eye? Because I feel like that's a lot more interesting to an adult, right? To most adults, especially someone like, you know, a neuroscientist or a doctor or a lawyer, You know, they study so hard. So they understand the intricacies of what makes things work.

And that's interesting to a lot of people, even for a magic trick. This is how it you're telling them how it works without telling them how it works.

It's like for us yeah and for the viewers for the viewers as well a really interesting approach when you're performing for an audience especially you know even if they are like that like lawyers doctors if you start with skillful based magic and then at the end you switch to impossible magical stuff it actually fries the crap out of them and they go even more crazier like if you're doing all this crazy 10 card multiple find stuff and then you do one

haunted deck they lose their mind so there's something to be said there as well yeah because i feel like no matter how.

Intelligent you are most people if you execute a perfect double lift right and you put it in the middle of the deck and you put that deck in their hand and you say i just want you to focus on the card coming back up to the top just like before it's gonna fry them they're not gonna know how that works right so the simplest secrets will fool the smartest of people right but i agree with you with that where you can start with kind of that like you're giving them you know

a little bit of information you're making it real interesting but they're just doing something spooky and now they've now they're like more they put their guard down right and now they're just enjoying it like i said before they're relaxed they're just being entertained and when you do something that they just can't explain at all and it feels spooky it allows them to kind of step step back into that childlike sense and it makes them

kind of feel like magic could be real you know in that moment that's really cool absolutely and look we're talking about magic what is your view on the state of magic at the moment i know it's a hot question to ask people but from your point of view looking in what's the nicholas lawrence view on magic right now. So, you know, I can definitely come off as like a very like bitter person sometimes when I talk about magic, but that's because I love it so much, right?

It's because I've been thinking about magic every single day since I've been 11 or 12 years old, right? And I'm 36 and I get it. I'm not the oldest guy. I'm not the youngest guy, but it's like, I'm right there in the middle where it's been my entire life. You're a baby. Let's face it. 30 cents. Yeah, you know, compared to you, Mr. Kahn. No, but again, we're not too far off from each other either,

you know? And it's like, it's, we all have spent our whole life working on this thing. We love magic. So when you see things like people posting videos on social media and they're flashing, it's like, just rerecord the damn video. It's like respected enough. So I think, I think right now there's not enough people who take it serious.

I think there's a more people who are just looking at it like a quick, fun hobby, a quick way to get likes and comments and stuff and listen I'm not dogging people that do social media stuff obviously Doug you're very successful with your social media but you do it right I think you do it right from what I've observed where there's a lot of people who are just not doing it right and they're just exposing magic to expose magic or they're just performing really really poorly well done you know

magic like they're just not performing it well they're flashing or they're just not putting enough into it and it's like I know I just feel there's a lack of respect for magic coming from a huge percentage of magicians which if you guys don't know most people who buy magic tricks are hobbyists it's not professional.

Performance right you guys are like maybe 20 maybe less maybe 10 of the actual you know industry the whole community probably less if you're talking about the pros because pros don't buy new stuff they're just like they're like i got my act i don't need your time yeah and it's even it's even less if it's the ones i like you know like you know but really though i mean it's like the ones that i truly value all of us we truly value and appreciate

it's even lower it's like one percent 2% of the whole community. For the record, I'm licking my chops at every Nick Lawrence release. Nicholas Lawrence release. I'm talking about the Hornet. The Hornet. That's been my to-do list to get for a while for an idea I have, and I'm so going to grab the Hornet. Yeah. You know, it's one of those things where I'm proud of everything I put out, and I try to find things that I really love.

And I do want to jump back. We could talk more about, you know, the magic industry and the community and Brian and that. But like the Hornet, for instance, you know, that's not my most proud thing because it's a black art trick, which I stayed away from my entire career creating magic because I try to do things that are really practical. You know, that's my goal. My goal is not to create magic that looks really good and it can only be done on social media. No, that would be terrible.

I aim to create magic that I can actually perform and make myself look good and also share with people what magic is supposed to look like and give them a sense of, you know, astonishment, something new and unforgettable, right? But yeah, the Hornet is cool. It's just a black art thing. But I feel like how it works and how it's taught. You'll be able to understand it fully and it might inspire some people.

But yeah, that's why I think I even say write me a copy. It can't be performed in most environments. But yeah, kind of going back to my thoughts on magic right now is I think it's good and bad. I think we're constantly growing. We're constantly evolving and learning what's good and what's bad and what to do, what not to do. There's a lot of us who take it seriously, but I think there's a lot of people who are just kind of whoring it out.

Know where that's one of my biggest things around just so aggravated with how many people are revealing magic especially current great secrets i don't think that they should just be revealed i think you know yeah sure you can you can how about this instead of just going like as soon as the video starts you're like it's a flap and then going into the trick it's like why not why not do the trick perform it well and then say and if you really really want to know the secret

stick around you know and you know or maybe go follow my other channel where i where i i'm specifically teaching you magic if you want to learn magic you can find me out not just going like showing how it works this is where i decided the line was on social media short form in particular for public viewing is that if i am giving information online and want to let people know it's out there that i let them know it's out there and not give it to them right

in front of their face if they're not expecting it right so if you like that trick i teach magic at youtube doug khan and i'll see you there you know yeah i love i love that approach where you're not forcing the secret down their throat you're just you're putting it out in the open because listen magic isn't yes it's guarded yes it's protected.

People have the right to learn magic. If you're interested in the videos and most people who just want to know the secret aren't actually going to go to your YouTube channel and go learn it. Only the people who are like, you know, I've always wanted to learn some magic or, you know, my uncle Tom taught me a trick and I think I'm ready for my second one. I've obviously found Doug Khan for a reason.

Let me go. Let me go learn some more magic. Right. So I'm not against, you know, exposing, you know, exposing, you know, there's a difference between exposing and teaching, I think.

But you know yeah i just hate the whole like you're just exposing tricks and it's clearly just for views and comments it's like if you're if you're passionate about teaching you're passionate about magic that's a different story but if you're just and especially when you're taking tricks that just came out in the last you know 5 10 15 years and you're just like or or a week ago like hanson chin's crazy sam's mind you know they had that thing exposed within in a couple weeks and you

know we're just about to say that like that thing was literally sitting in my cart i'm putting together a couple ideas for the magic challenges i'll be doing on my socials and right i could use that for this idea that i've been challenged for and it was sitting in my cart as i'm compiling everything and then like the very next day some guy exposed the entire thing and i was just like and now i don't know at

all because it has been exposed you know and And it's upsetting because there's tricks in themselves. But that's why, as a professional, like we made mention earlier, utilities are where it's at. Because utilities, you're only limited by your own creativity. So you can use someone's utility to create your own magic effect. Right. And even if it was exposed one way, it doesn't ruin it, right? You could still use it another way.

And they're not going to be tipped. They're not going to see what you're doing or how you're doing it. But yeah, yeah, I totally agree. Totally agree. And there's also the notion that even though something can be exposed online, when you perform something well to a layman, they're not thinking of a backlog of stuff they've seen before. They're just seeing what's in front of them. And they're like, that's magic.

Like, for example, I know it's a big deal when a scam school exposed the invisible deck, like magicians were like, what the hell?

Why are you showing this on YouTube? but like i can't tell you one person i've ever done that for that's gone i've seen that on scam i know how that works it still cries right the real world and what i like what i like about that is it didn't actually affect one person in general like it's not the person who invented the invisible deck is still alive it's still you're still getting royalties from it right so it's like you're not like you're

not destroying someone's livelihood and there's just literally legitimately no way that it's actually affecting any like performer like any professional performer doing the invisible deck what are the odds that the like some of you're performing for, has actually seen that exposure video or how that was done it's like zero it's never it's not gonna happen it's not gonna and if it did is it the worst thing in the world move on to the next trick it's okay it's it's not gonna end everything

it's not gonna crush you know the The whole, you know, it's not to crush your persona or like why you're there. You're still an entertainer. You're still doing hopefully more than just one trick, the invisible packer. I think there's just, there's just so many.

Yeah. There's ultimately correctly. If we give them our plausible presentations and suspend their belief properly, they're not even going to be thinking about the method and they're not going to remember they saw unexposed or anything of that nature anyway. So possibly, I think, I think that is true. two, mostly, you know, there's, I always put this, this toss this one in there. Everybody's different.

Everybody's different the entire world musicians are different you know the people you're performing for are different they have different experiences well some you might be performing for an engineer, this guy might be just you know a freaking you know just some pothead or something i don't know who does nothing but paint with their toes i don't know but everybody's different everybody's different everybody's going to see things differently some people aren't going to just.

Get absorbed into the beautiful presentation and not think about the method some people are just gonna obsess about it the whole time there's nothing you can do to think true story because everybody's different um so all we can do is just do our best right and it's like yes magic's being exposed currently a lot but guess what just keep going just keep performing there's nothing you can do about it so just keep doing you just keep performing and yes of course you know in these magic groups

we can always speak our mind and say hey this is really upsetting i wish you would stop and that's okay i think we should keep doing that so that the new people getting into magic are influenced by that we do want to influence the younger generation to know what's right what's wrong and what are these bit of ethics that we have and what we hold you know here you know there's a right and wrong way to do everything and you know you really shouldn't be just exposing secrets for

fun you know but if you want to teach them and you want to get people interested in magic i think that's also cool so yeah wow and so look we're just gonna have to have nicholas back on because that hour has just gone so fast no way has it really been an hour i can't believe that man i can't believe that where where can do you have do you have any appearances coming up this year are you at any conventions or anything like that not at

the moment just just busy in the lab if you guys if you guys want to do a part two i'd be happy to do that because uh i feel like we could we've had a good time and there's so much more to talk about so but yeah yeah i love it Well, that's great. What about Magic Live? Any Magic Live plans for you? So this is my thing. So because I have my own Magic products, my goal is to be a dealer at Magic Live in Blackpool every year. The thing is, if you've never done it, it's kind of hard to get in.

It's kind of hard to get in, right? Because they're fully booked. They've already got all their dealers. So my goal is for 2025, I will hopefully be at Magic Live in Blackpool and be there annually. Every year, you'll see me there. I'll have my booth. I'll have my new tricks. But yeah, so as of yet, no plans, but that's my goal, right? That's awesome. Nick, anything you want to add before we throw to the final word with Nicholas? I love you, Nicholas Lawrence. Thanks for being my friend.

I love you too. No, you guys are all great. You guys have all been great. And I just loved the questions. It just kind of just the vibe you guys got going on. I love it. So it's been a pleasure, really. No, thank you. Well, look, Nicholas Lawrence presents. His link is in the description of wherever you're watching or listening to this. So you can scope out all of his amazing products and things to come. Keep an eye out for Sharpshifter.

We have Magic Guys Discord. We'll post when Sharpshifter is out in there as well. But for now, we just want to thank Nicholas and we're going to throw to the final word. So we give everyone the last say of the episode. And so we're going to do that right now. And here is Nicholas with the final word. The final word. That's it. Word. No, really, you know, nothing, nothing's been planned here, but you know, I think personally, I just want to say, you know, thank you guys for having me on.

I hope the viewers really enjoyed everything that was talked about. If you did enjoy it, look forward to a part two. Hopefully I can come back on. I'd love that. And you know, just as mentioned, I figured I'd use this opportunity to kind of plug my new product coming out. If you guys do want to check this out, I promise you, you won't be let down any style of magician will find a use for this. It is a utility.

It is a tool, But I think kind of a big topic that we talked about with the show was creativity. And if you're the type of person who feels like you're creative or you want to get more into it, well, Nike, baby, just do it. It's honestly that easy. Just do it. Get into it. Research. See what's everything that's out there. Do your due diligence to make sure it's the best possible version it can be.

Make sure it's not just a copycat effect and you know if you love it if you're passionate about it it's probably going to turn out great and you know just just really work on your imagination and you know if you want to create something new which it sounds silly but if you can just create something in your mind you can most likely bring it to reality so just try hard just do it But I know it sounds simple, but it's like, that's all it really takes. So be passionate. And until next time, guys.

Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.