Fantasma Magic
Digital Downloads
by Mike Durant
July, 2008

The I.B.M. started out (in 1922) as simple correspondence between a few magicians. After a time, the organization took shape as more and more magicians took an active part.  They talked about the latest effects in letter after letter having to wait for the next envelope to show in their postbox.  It's now the twenty-first century and things have changed...not so much in the content but more in the delivery. The folks I am going to talk about in this column have only been in the retail magic business as a company for a few years (since 2006 to be precise).  But it was started with a vision of what they could do for magic in the delivery of products and ideas.  And they have done an amazing job, so let me start off with just a little ‘hype' and an ‘attaboy' or two for Fantasma Magic. (Read More)

They have done an outstanding job of encouraging young magicians to excel in this wing of entertainment as a true artform.  They have put their money and support into encouraging and rewarding excellence, especially for our future, the youth members of our organization.  Roger Dreyer and his staff are dedicated to their ideas with a real sense of service towards his target audience.  For example, they have an actual phone number that you can call 7 days a week if you have a problem!  What a concept.  This column is about their latest project, FDD - Fantasma Digital Downloads. It's a high production value how-to video correspondence delivery system featuring some of the greatest magician of our day. You can link to it from the Fantasma home page or go directly to www.fantasmamagic.net. 

Start with the areas that everyone will be able to enjoy, the free stuff in the FDD Extras area.  There is a biography section with Roger Dreyer interviewing the magicians.  There are just four to date, but others will be posted as they are completed.  These really are nice interviews, not something hastily edited to add a bit of fluff so that there would seem to be ‘lots of stuff' on the site.  The Bob Fitch interview, the longest so far, to be sure, is six and a half minutes, for example.  These really are interviews and worth your time to watch.  There is also an actual ‘free stuff' page in the extras list.  It only has one thing so far.  But it is definitely worth watching.  It is a four part ‘round table' between Simon, Bon Fitch and Eric DeCamps.  It ends up being almost half an hour of very interesting and informative discussion between three very savvy magicians.  If you don't do anything else, check that out.  

Let's move on to the meat of the site, the Digital Downloads.  The idea of internet downloadable videos is not a new concept.  But there are a couple of things that I think make the offerings here worth your consideration.  First, take a look at who is ‘teaching' you.  These are some of the biggest and brightest names in magic, Johnny Thompson, David Roth, Simon Lovell, Shoot Ogawa, Bob Fitch and others.  Then consider the price.  So far, at least, all of the videos that are available here are just $13.  Well, OK ... they are actually $12.99, but that is really just ‘sales speak' for $13, right? 

But before I get any further, I suppose I should give you the "bad news".  Because of their need to protect their content from copyright pirates, they had to ‘encrypt' their videos.  There are limitations on your use of these videos.  I want to tell you about this up front for a couple of reasons.  First, because it is a sad commentary on the state of ethics in the world in general, but in our fraternity specifically, that they need to do this. ... while I lament the need for these sorts of protections, I also understand the need to protect their investment and the rights of the authors of the content.  So I do not hold this against Fantasma. The other reason I want to get this out now, is so that you know - up front - what is required to enjoy these videos. 

In order to enjoy the FDD content you need a PC running Windows XP - service pack 2 or later, or Vista.  You also need Internet Explorer 7 or later and Media Player version 10 or later.  To download and play the purchased videos you need those three things.  You cannot be on a Mac.  You cannot be using Linux (like I do more often than not). You cannot use Firefox (the browser that I prefer with windows or Linux). And the last bit of bad news is that you can only watch the videos on the specific PC on which you download them. That is all the bad news.  However, let me just point out that the rest of the site is available with any OS and Internet browser,

Assuming you have not stopped reading, you may be wondering what you get for your hard earned money?  Well I am glad you asked.  There are, at this writing, 21 amazing little gems in the FDD section, with more being added all the time.  They are classified into four ‘levels of difficulty': beginner, intermediate, advanced and expert and you can ‘selectively' list just the effects of any ‘level' that you like.  You can also search by ‘artist' as well.  And there are free ‘teaser' clips from each of the videos that show a performance of the effect.  For the Utility skills, you get a presentation showing much of what you will learn.

Looking a little more in depth at one of the levels, I am going to talk mostly about the novice level partly because it shows the most diversity (so far) and because I feel like the more advanced magicians out there will be better able to recognizing the individual value (or lack there of) of any of the effects for their personal style.

There are four ‘Beginner' videos.  Two are what I would consider ‘complete effects'; Helder Guimaraes teaches the classic ‘Oil and Water', and Jorge Blass presents a great card ‘morph' called ‘White Cards'.  The other two are more about teaching ‘moves' or ‘skills'.  Simon Lovell teaches some very useful card controls and Levent shows some great card flourishes.

The Simon Lovell control video is pretty amazing.  In just ten minutes he teaches five utility ‘skills' that combine to ‘control a card' to the top of the deck.   Actually that only takes about 6 minutes.  The last few minutes he gives some alternate moves to some of the skills, a variation to control the card to the bottom and a few more ‘frills'.  Certainly a lot of ‘bang for the buck' for someone just starting out with a deck of cards.

The Blass ‘White Card' effect is very nice.  The ‘moves' should be within just about anyone's skill level and can be performed with business cards or blank playing cards that you prepare yourself.  Because the ‘skill' level is easy, you can spend your effort focusing on the performance aspects, going for a smooth and effortless looking action so you will be able to pay more attention to your audience.

I decided to take a look at one of the intermediate routines as well because that category has the greatest number of tricks (again, at this time ... but I expect that will probably be the case most of the time).  The one I selected teaches an effect that instructor/presenter Doug Edwards calls ‘The 5 of Clubs'.  There is a ‘gaff' that you need to ‘prepare' but all the details are clearly explained and demonstrated.  The ‘performance' skill level is not that much above what you would be able to do for one of the beginner's effects.

I should also mention that, while cards are clearly the most common props for these videos, David Roth (and others) teach coin effects and there is a rope effect as well.  I expect you will see other non-card effects as well as new material is added.

Let's talk about the purchase process.  That can be a make or break for a business model like this.  If it is too cumbersome, people will get frustrated and possibly bail before their purchase is complete or be less likely to return.  I know that I have done that more than once.  Luckily, this was not a problem here. You do have to register.  But registration is easy.  You can do that during checkout or you can get that out of the way before hand.  In either case,  click the ‘Account Login' if you want to do it ahead of time.  During the ‘Check Out' process, just click the ‘continue' button in the ‘New Customer' box once you have selected something you want to purchase.

Registration needs to ask for the standard stuff ... name and address (they need that to process a credit card), email and a phone number (so they can contact you if there is a problem with the credit card).  Then you get to set your password.  That is all there is to that part of it, and as I said, you can do that before hand or as you are checking out.

If you have an account, you just log in (either before hand or during check out).   The system remembers you so you don't need to enter your data ever again ... unless something changes, of course. 

Now that the system knows who you are, it is time to enter your credit card info.  Fantasma has decided not to keep credit card information beyond the time needed to clear the transaction, so you will need to enter that each time.  I think the ‘safety' of not having my CC info floating around is worth the little extra effort of entering that information each time.  Just below the payment information area is a place to put in a "coupon" or a "Gift Voucher" code.   The Gift Voucher system allows you to ‘gift' someone magic without having to pick the wrong magic for a friend.  Nice. 

Now, remember how I said early on that these guys really care about magic?  Well here is a perk for you folks.  IBM member can get a discount.  Check out the next issue of the Linking Ring.   Information is also availabe available here on the website in the members area CLICK HERE.  Also, if you are at the Combined Convention in Louisville, you can get a special discount code from Fantasma there as well.

Here is a little tip that I discovered.  If you are interested in several of the videos and want to use your ‘discount coupon' to best effect (and who wouldn't?), be sure to ‘buy' them one at a time.  The code gives a fixed dollar amount as the discount.  So, if you go one item at time you can get the discount off every video session.  If you check out with more than one in a single transaction, you only get the discount only the first video.  You have been warned!

Because they want to make things as good as they can be, there is one last item on the purchase page.  It is a ‘comment' box and it allows you to leave a note to the Fantasma Staff.  Tell them if there is something that you think they could do to make the process better.  They really do want to hear from you.

This business model may not be earth shattering or stunningly new.  They do seem to do this amazingly well and it does seem to be solid value that a great many magicians can take advantage of and it is a chance to get some instant magical gratification.  I applaud the efforts that Fantasma invested in getting this to us while still protecting the artist's rights.  That is not as easy as you might think these days.  If you get a chance to poke around the site and like what you see before the convention is over, be sure to stop by the Fantasma booth and tell them what you liked and what you had problems with.  They want this to work as well as it can for as many people as possible.  And don't forget, if you have a problem, they have a phone number with a real person that you can call every day of the week.   Enjoy!