The Dink Network

Does anyone else here do XCM (Extreme Card Manipulation)?.

After a year and a bit of practice I decided to make a video, edited to some epic music as well. I'm trying out new editing techniques so I would like comments from anyone on this. Please tell me what you think of the editing and the video in general as well:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=oj22FAFKM_g&fmt=18

Too lazy to make it a link...

I am very impressed. I've never seen XCM before.

The editing was pretty good. I think the stripy shirt and your room conflicted with the atmosphere you were going for though. Maybe try it in a darker room with a small light on the cards? Or glow in the dark cards? Or fuzz the background? Something like that.

Thanks for your comment.
Thanks for the suggestions too, I'll try and find a black backdrop if I make another video and I'll use a black shirt.

I'm always open to constructive criticism.

That's pretty neat. Did it take many tries before you could get a successful performance on tape?

If I tried, the cards would just ducking explode all over the room.

For most of the moves it doesn't take more than 1 attempt because I've practised a lot. Whenever I have free time I pick up a deck of cards and stuff around with them for a while.

For the few more difficult cuts it takes me 3 - 5 attempts. An example of a 'more difficult cut' is the cut at 0:16, where I have 1 pile of cards balancing on the back of my hand and the rest of the deck opened up, this particular cut is known as the most difficult and most exotic one-handed cut in the world.

That's awesome. I especially like the one at 36, where you make a square and then spread them out (I don't know the names of a lot of them).

So do you card tricks of any kind or just XCM?
I do tricks, but I know a couple things like the one handed cut and the finger fan. Can I ask where/how you get the tutorials or whatever you use?

his link

I don't do card magic, just XCM. I learned most of what I know from tutorial dvd's I purchased and the rest I figured out from hand-speed performance from other people's XCM videos.
The actual name for the one-handed cut is 'The Charlier Cut'.
Also, just so you know, I will be releasing my own XCM tutorials on my youtube channel:
LINK
I won't be releasing them very often because I have a life, lol, but they will come. I won't be teaching any copyrighted moves, as they just get taken down by youtube for copyright infringement, but most common moves aren't copyrighted anyway.

Can you actually copyright moves? I'd have to look into that...

Very impressive! Never heard of this before. It must be frustrating when you're learning, having to pick up and sort out those cards every few seconds!

@ metatarasal:
It seems the answer is yes, as many people have had tutorials for copyrighted moves taken down by youtube and some people have even had their account suspended.

@ Sparrowhawk:
Yes, it is very frustrating. I think through all the time it took me to learn, about 10 decks of cards got thrown at the wall, lol.

Speaking of decks of cards, what kind do you use? I know that some decks are designed for just card manipulation and stuff, but I wasn't sure what kind you used. Btw, I subscribed for when you do come out with new videos.

Yes, that is true, it is best to use a high quality deck when performing XCM, since XCM involves fans and spreads, cheap 1 dollar decks will not work, as they don't spread very well.
I use 'Tally-ho' decks, I find them to be best, but a lot of people prefer 'Bicycle' decks. It really depends on which works best for you, you need to try them out and find out which is easier for you. Since you live in the United States (according to your profile), it should be easy for you to get your hands on these popular brands, as I've heard they are quite common in America.
It sucks for me because in Australia high quality decks cost about $9, and they are hard to find.

Yeah, the cards I buy are great for fanning, I usually pay about 5-9 dollars, but I find some great decks on www.ellusionist.com, they have the good items.

I just uploaded a quick trailer on youtube for the tutorials -
Tutorials Trailer

Yeah I think the black background with long sleeved black shirt in the tutorial looks a lot better

You might be interested to know that the part of the brain that coordinates the hands is relatively massive compared to the areas that coordinate other regions.

This is what we would look like if our body parts were proportional to how much of our brain is dedicated to controlling them:

http://piclib.nhm.ac.uk/piclib/webimages/0/41000/400/41489_big.jpg

It's actually a much more difficult task for the brain to coordinate and make fine motor movements, such as in XCM, then most people probably realise. Along with logic, language and planning, fine movements of the hand is one of the higher brain functions uniquely (or mostly uniquely) our big brains afford us humans

I Lol'd when that image loaded. Thanks for that piece of information, and the feedback.

At the moment I'm trying to find the best settings to render my videos for highest quality on youtube. I know the current quality of my videos are good, but I know they can be better because the raw video file recorded straight from the camera, is of much better quality than the video after it has been edited and saved. If anyone else here uses Sony Vegas for video editing, could you let me know what settings you use to render your videos. Thanks.