Georges Proust ' s passion and love for the art of magic is well known . A magician , collector , historian , publisher and creator of the Académie de Magie and the Musée de la Magie in Paris , he has made discovering , promoting , sharing and passing on magic a central part of his projects since the early 1980s .

Today he is offering an exceptional boxed set - limited to 600 copies - with a USB flash drive containing an unparalleled collection of videos featuring Tony Slydini ' s most important routines , with full detailed explanations . 1 Also

1 Among his routines : The torn / mended newspaper , Slydini ' s pellets , The mystery ball , The paper cone , The scarf cigarette , The knotted / unknotted scarves , The sponge balls , The two pins , The helicopter cards , The coins through the table , The sugar sachet , The red and black cards , The napkin balls , The Fantasy cigarette , The magic tobacco and The porto glass . included are two exact reproductions of his legendary tricks ( the safety pin sets and the knotted and unknotted scarves ), two ½ Dollar collector ' s items , a key ring and a brand new 100 page luxury edition book ( in French and English ).

In collaboration with Juan Tamariz , this project is based on video footage produced by director and producer Christian Fechner in 1978 . It is the result of a month-long shoot with Slydini under professional studio conditions , with a control room , a team of specialized technicians and three video cameras . The story of this treasure , which was almost lost forever , is a suspenseful adventure , akin to discovering new copies of Georges Méliès ' films . Following filming in 1978 , the original video footage of Slydini disappeared when they were moved after the company ' s warehouse caught fire . Busy at the time with the box-office success of his films and his television series , Christian Fechner only took up the Slydini project again in the early 2000s , digitizing and transferring the copies to DV and DVD tapes . It was after his death in 2008 that George Proust inherited the working tapes set aside by his widow Solange Fechner . These images are a veritable miracle , and the collector feels he has a duty of memory to save this heritage and expose it to the magic community for posterity .

The long restoration work then began , entrusted to director and video specialist Jean-Luc Muller . He patiently removed the omnipresent time code , cleaned , remixed and subtitled more than three hours of footage ! In spring 2018 , a team made up of Georges Proust , Juan Tamariz , Consuelo Lorgia , Yves

By Sébastien Bazou

Carbonnier , Gaëtan Bloom and Jean-Luc Muller began to think about investigative work and filming to edit the routines and explanations into sequences with archive footage . This project is a collective adventure , and Bogdan Murat , director of the Musée de la Magie , deserves a great deal of praise for his coordination of these archival efforts .

While there are some very good books on Slydini ' s magic that explain his routines frame by frame , they don ' t capture the very essence of his timing-based work . In video format , the images speak for themselves , and the master takes us by the hand , breaking down his techniques , gestures , postures , concepts and philosophy of misdirection step by step with precise explanations in close-up and enlightening advice . This masterclass takes us inside the mind of one of the greatest close-up artists of the twentieth century . But this video exhumation doesn ' t stop there , featuring a host of bonus features 2 to complement the master ' s routines , including never-before-seen archive footage and contemporary interpretations such as Jean Merlin ' s pellets .

It took a great deal of time ( four years ' work ), money ( several tens of thousands of euros ) and love to restore Slydini ' s artistic testament to the world of magic . A serendipitous opportunity for all fans of our art .

2 Two hours of archive footage and bonus features , including : behind the scenes of the Slydini project , a documentary about a magic dinner , a mini Super-8 mm archive with Slydini and Arturo de Ascanio , an 8mm archive with Slydini ( 1962 ), a lecture-demonstration at the Cirque de Paris in December 1978 , two versions of The torn / mended newspaper , an extract from the magazine Mad Magic " Spécial Slydini " ( 1980 )...

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