08-14-2012, 09:49 AM
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#17 | |
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 935
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Last night, Adam and I have talked on Skype. Basically, the only thing he didn't agree with was that this thread was posted publicly without him being contacted privately first and the only reason why he replied in the above manner was all and only because he felt attacked, which is quite understandable. Of course, we would have preferred to see the replies dealing with the actual issues he had with the thread rather than attacking or threatening anyone, but he sincerely apologized for that so I suppose we can leave that behind.
I personally was under the assumption he was actually contacted though, as I personally told someone who said to talk to Adam a lot, to let him know about it and Adam signed up to the board about just as fast as he would have if he would've been contacted. Apparently he wasn't. My bad. Doesn't take away that I would have posted this thread nonetheless and I have explained why. He wisely figured we couldn't possibly change each other's minds about it. Also, the past days I have taken quite some of my time to help Flatline Magic to fix the file and folder permissions as their tech guys didn't seem to be able to figure this out by themselves. I contacted Adam to meet on Skype as well because as much of an urge he seemed to have to get in contact with me, as invisible he was on Skype after I added him. I told him there were some more issues with his company and that I thought it would be hard to deal with these privately. I put it to the test and figured that, indeed, privately it didn't work out well. Respecting every magician Adam has publicly shown to be a big promoter of equally respecting every magician out there, whether they are good or bad, or amateurs or professionals. Nothing wrong with that. However, on the Flatline Magic blog he put the following: Quote:
When I asked Adam about this, I was told to have taken it out of context, which apparently is that many magic sellers out there are being dishonest about the effects they are selling. However, this is not mentioned in any way nor do I see how it could possibly be linked to the quote the way this was stated, so to be accused of taking it out of context I think is quite ridiculous. No one could possibly read it like that. If the context would have been mentioned though, I would have agreed to the fullest because (as most if not all of you know) we are one of the biggest parties against dishonest and false advertising and are the first to expose such. From the Skype call I can tell Adam's thoughts on the art seem to be very similar to mine. I would've liked to see those thoughts being represented by his company as well though. Communication As a follow-up on the previous topic, I think the communication of the company and its people seems very rushed and careless. Fin already mentioned this, but also for instance their PR guy who I previously applauded, later on told me that by posting this thread, I was publicly exposing magic. Adam told me that he by no means supported this statement and did not accuse me of exposing magic by any means, for which I thank him. I hope each of the guys realize their responsibilities though. Especially for someone who is responsible for marketing and public relations (and I say this with my Communication, Digital Media-specialization background), blatantly saying something like that is a no-go because it could have a terrible impact on the company as a whole. Also, communicating is broadcasting yourself properly. For instance, I wonder if there is one person who could take their introduction video serious and who thinks it's appropriate for a professional magic seller, regardless of the extremely poor quality: Quality rather than quantity This is something I am always very glad to read, but when having a look at the raw video footage, I doubted they really cared about the quality. This doubt was caused by many poor performances and explanations to be seen in the footage. Even in case of performing for perfect spectators (read: giggly teenage girls) the reactions were far too poor for the shown effects, caused by obvious performing issues. I asked Adam about this and he told me they recorded at least ten tricks that day. I couldn't disagree with this more, not only because that basically means they apparently didn't put enough time in practicing any of it, but also because this means that they didn't care about the quality at all and only cared about the quantity. I was glad to have seen the live performances and reactions of Adam's 'Stomp', produced by Ellusionist, otherwise I would have thought he wouldn't be a good performer at all. It just hurts to see someone this potential, who has proven to be able to live up to quality performances and productions, not using any of this for his own company and independent productions. Practical Magic Unfortunately, along with the "quality rather than quantity"-statement, this is something else that many magic sellers are stating while the majority of them don't actually mean it. In Flatline Magic's case there is no difference. About half of the currently available effects don't seem to be constructed for live performing. They said they perform all of those effects live but their artist Cody was asked whether he performs the 'Digital Change' which he taught and which is sold on the website, and he answered this with a big no and even said it wasn't his cup of tea. Enough said. Logo Last but not least, the company logo. I must admit I thought their logo looked fairly good on first sight (probably because it was the only professional looking feature to be seen on their site). I figured it was designed by Collin Stover, the guy of Bedeceived, another young magic and playing card seller. However, there is a major issue with it, which I didn't notice till I showed it to a designer friend of mine. He gave me the response that kind of summed up and completed all of the company's unthoughtfulness for me, regardless of this just being extremely unfortunate: "It may be cause I'm green-blind but I read FATLIE, only later noticed the L and N there". Guys of Flatline Magic, I'd like to suggest to make the logo all-white and to sort out all the things mentioned in this post as well as in Fin's post. Just changing some public statements would already do a bunch, but it'd also help if you would use your connections to make the teaching better and to make some better looking product descriptions and cover designs. Using just MS Paint for the latter things requires a lot of skills and great knowledge or taste. I apologize if it seems like I'm attacking you but I hope you understand it is just an honest review and that it's for a much higher goal. I appreciate you taking your time to clear up some things over Skype and I'm glad to see we think about the art in a similar way. At least that's a beginning. Now it's time for the next steps, to get rid of the 'some kids starting a magic company just because they think they can'-appearance and to start living up to your ages 18 till 37 and the related wisdom. Do what's right. Best of luck! |
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