A Sticky Situation

Remember all the fun arts and crafts you used to do as a kid? Making things with glitter, paper, glue and scissors was a great activity (and made a great mess). Whoever thought I'd get to have a job where I do arts and crafts in making prototypes of magic tricks?

Part of being the new guy at FUN means I'm still learning the ropes of just how tricks are produced. I'm working on the development of several different projects at the moment, but the one I spent most of today on involves creating templates for applying spray adhesive.

Using an Xacto knife and the hands of a surgeon, I lovingly handcrafted several templates to use. Then, I did a run of the project myself for about an hour - to learn what worked, what didn't work, and how we could change things to make for the most efficient project.

Thinking about magic in such a radically different way is challenging, but fun. Rather than trying to engineer a series of sleights to accomplish an effect, you're engineering a gimmick or gaff - then engineer how to make it.

What this experience has taught me is a little bit more about how to think inside, outside, and about the box, and to look at a situation from all the angles - not just the familiar ones.