Illusion Impact is a series of plans that show how to build illusions for under $100 without a lot of expensive tools. The plans go beyond technical drawings and show actual photographs of the props being built with step-by-step instructions.

Illusion Impact is designed for people who have minimal carpentry skills. Many of the illusions could be built on your kitchen table with simple tools. Some of the other illusions will require basic power tools like drills and a jigsaw (both of which will cost you less than $50). Everything is designed around the idea these illusions may be the first time someone has tried building anything.

That depends upon how clever the concept. I deliberately chose ideas for this series that lend themselves to simple manufacturing methods. I've probably created over a 1000 ideas for illusions. A good many of them were simple ideas that ended up in this series.

Both. All of these illusions I would have considered using in my own professional gigs (some are from my original show). There's nothing wrong with book ending a $5,000 illusion with a couple $40 effects that entertain your audience. Surprisingly, some of these effects are more entertaining than some $5,000 illusions.

Most of them are based on old concepts in magic. I've taken some of them like the Sword Basket and thought of different ways to re-imagine them (Voodoo Box). Some of the ideas I've never seen anything like before, but I try to keep in mind that stage magic dates back several thousand years and existed in hundreds of different cultures. Other ideas are a rethinking of earlier ideas I published.

Good question. My goal is to create a library of ideas for people to use. I want to come up with as many different illusions as possible that cover a variety of effects.

I've got some really cool stuff. This isn't going to be 40 zillion ways to make someone appear or disappear using black art (but there will be appearances and disappearances and some black art effects, but within reason). My goal is to get people to think about stage magic in a different way. I know this series has certainly made me think differently.

There are a lot of different ways. One of them is to think about how I can take an existing trick and change the materials to make it more practical for the series. That's how I came up with the Razor Wire illusion. I was trying to think of an affordable and portable version of my walking through a mirror effect when I decided to use something instead of mirror. That lead me to barbed wire. The result is an illusion that appears much more dangerous and dramatic than the original, fits in a large briefcase and costs less than $100 to build. That was a really cool feeling when I came up with that. I like Razor Wire more than my original (more expensive and less portable) effect.

I'm only going to announce stuff after they've gone to press. Sometimes complications come up and deadlines are missed. I don't want to be the kind of guy that announces stuff that never gets delivered. I like to follow Apple Computers policy of not making announcements about unreleased products. Besides, it's more fun this way.

[Go to the Illusion Impact information section]

[Go to the Illusion Plans section]