Jonathan Levit - The Stranger. A Real Magic Interview

Hey everybody, welcome to Real Magic Review and welcome to my first interview with Jonathan Leavitt So before we do that, please like, subscribe, check out cardmagiccourse.com I've just put two more videos on there for the Royal Road course. Now a few people have been asking, you can buy that Royal Road course, which is an ever-expanding thing on its own, or you get it as part of the subscription package. So when you sign up to Card Magic Course 999 a month, you get everything that I do, my lecture and the lot, or you can buy them as separate things. So first of all, huge thank you to Jonathan for doing this. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, is get creators talking about the stuff that they do and magicians, and it's of course with the work of putting everything together and expanding, it's something that I've been a little bit daunted about and I'm really, really appreciative and thanks so much again for Jonathan for doing this, for giving me an hour of his time. It was a long interview and that's what these are going to be. I'm not going to kind of cut them down to a concise thing. This is an opportunity for creators and magicians to talk about what they want to talk about. And I got the idea because I was, well, I've wanted to do it for a while, interviews, but I was looking at the app and there was so much in it and I thought wouldn't it be nice, rather than trying me to remember all these different things, for Jonathan to come on and talk about it himself, because he's in it, he's doing it every day, in and out. So it was a real pleasure to talk to him. I hope you enjoy it. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, okay? This is the first of many. I'm not sure what the sound's going to be like or anything yet. I think there was an issue with my mic, but you can hear me and that's fine. But genuine feedback would be really appreciated because hopefully there'll be many, many interviews. I will be doing them incidentally separately from the reviews, so you can watch the interview and then come a few days later. We'll do the live tomorrow. I'll talk about it then. So come with any questions about it then, and it'd be great to see you. Okay, enjoy it and I'll see you at the other end. Hey! Hey dude, that was funny. That really freaked me out because I saw your face and I heard your voice and it was like, oh, he's lagging. Is he talking? Is he talking? I know. I know. I was like, oh no, it's gone wrong already. Thank God we're not doing it live. How are you, my friend? I'm good. I'm really good. Thank you so much for doing this. We're recording now. Oh, I'm so happy. It's not a formal interview, as many people who've seen my show will know. But you are the first. You are my first interview with a creator. I love it. I love it. I'm so glad to be doing this. Is it 11 o'clock there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, which was quite funny because when you emailed me earlier and said, should we do it at three your time? And I Googled it and it said that would be like midnight here. And I was thinking I got up at six and then it wasn't at all. So when I said it might be a bit late, it was like, what, 11 o'clock? It's not too late. So it's absolutely fine. I do better. I do better. I've seen you in this situation on your videos. It looks like you're in some sort of long palace. This is your backdrop, right? I've just realised. No, that's the hallway. That's the hallway. Is it really? Oh, it is. I thought it... I know. Everybody thinks it's a background. Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. Or it's a great background. It's the new 3D, you know, it's a new... It's your next app. That's what that's the new... It's my next app, right? MamiQ for humans. No, it's... I live in a historic building in Pasadena, California, in LA, and it's built in 1898. So in LA, that's old. In the United States, that's old. Nothing compared to the rest of the world, but in the United States, it's old. So this used to be an old hotel. It's now condos, but it's a very famous building. And it's been restored back to its old glory. So it's really this lovely building. But what's cool is we do a lot of filming here of TV and film. You see it all the time. And for our viewers that are magicians, they'll appreciate the fact that the Prestige was shot here. Oh, great. The movie with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. That's kind of fun. So when Hugh Jackman's in Boulder and he opens up those big doors and comes into the hotel, and there's a front desk of a hotel and the sweeping bookcase behind, that's our building. So it's kind of fun. Well, it's good to see. It's good to hear because I've been watching all your videos. And The Stranger has become a cult. It's become a really good community. I heard about it, a guy called Justin Exley texted me about it, because I was starting to review apps. And I was one of these people for a long time that was like, you know, a sleight of hand, I don't really do apps. And apps have now started becoming something bigger than the app. You know, I think when they first came out, there was like Rising Card and all these things. And it was nice. It was cute. But now they're sort of becoming a different thing. And I think there was MamiCube and CubeSmith and then this. And with these whole communities built around them, they're actually doing a lot more than a trick with an app. And The Stranger is a, you know, I'm not here just to pick it up and sell it to you, but just to actually. So it is a big thing. And it seems to be growing by the day. I mean, you're doing these daily updates. Yeah. And yes, I'm very engaged in that, not only the development of it, but the community around it. And I'll tell you about it. But I do want to come back to the community, because I think that's the most important thing. The app itself, you know, for me, creates the biggest and best response I've ever had in my 40 years of doing magic. And I say that not lightly, that on stage, whether I'm on stage for a large group or I'm in an intimate group or a small close up situation or just with a few people around a coffee table. I never have received reactions like I do with The Stranger. And the reason is that you are creating an experience. And I think this is you're talking about app magic. This is, you know, forget apps for a second. Think about how we are as magicians and what we have to create as magicians. We have to create an experience, write an event, something that touches somebody on an emotional level. And and The Stranger is has what we've done in The Stranger is to create a created a it's it's an experience. And you're it's a performance. And there are things built into it to to rise, you know, create an emotional rise in the audience and then a letdown. So really, you know, a release, right? Rise and release. And then when you get to the final reveal, whatever that happens to be, there's this emotional outburst. And so we just like constructing a good magic trick. The Stranger has been constructed in a way to allow that to happen during the performance. And so we have to think in terms of, you know, you know, app magic is not something I really enjoyed or appreciated early on. Right. When when we were first seeing them hit the scene. And now that's changed. I mean, there is the the level, the quality out there of some of these these effects are just off the chart. And and I always believed that it was the it was the combination of the digital and the analog that had to take place for them to really work, that we had to feel as an audience, because we know that we're holding in our hands a computer that that can put somebody on the moon, you know. And so so the fact that you're doing something with your phone, it's not that impressive. We know that. So we have to break through that and have an organic analog experience. And for the for the trick to really sing. And and I and so that I think that's the goal. And I think many of these effects are now starting to do that. That's what we try to try to accomplish with Stranger is that your phone is just the phone. Right. We're not using the phone for any odd reason. We're not using it as a piece of technology. We're using it as a phone. And so anybody in the audience, they all have their phones. And so when you take your phone out, you go, we're going to make a phone call. OK, that makes sense. It's a very natural thing to do. And so the Stranger, which allows for any something is is chosen, whether it's a playing card or now in version two for iPhone, whether it's a word or or a number or or any piece of information, a serial number on dollar bill, whatever it is, that piece of information, you can make a phone call to a random number generated by the audience. And without you even touching the phone, that number entered into the phone. You call that seemingly random person. You have a real phone conversation and they reveal it. So it's a very natural thing. And the fear comes from the audience. The audience, you know, when you say we're going to call somebody we don't know, you can see the audience immediately go, oh, we're not supposed to do that. You know. And so there's an emotional reaction there just from the plot. Right. And and of course, it comes from the old wizard plot. You know, that's the the genesis of that from, you know, from years ago is the old wizard plot. So that that plot works. So then we have to put it in a in a way with the technology that that enhances that plot and makes it even more, more impossible and more, more emotional. So I'm rambling. But, yes, it's a very exciting thing. Do you know, I never apologize for rambling on this show. This is this is this is what it's famous for. It's not going to be concise. You know, I'm not going to be doing very little editing. No, no. Well, it's it's funny that I always when I was getting into card magic, I always read this effect. OK, the wizard effect in many books and this idea of having this phone someone. And it was one of those things that I kind of thought, yeah, it's kind of cool, but setting it all up. And and this this is kind of cut through that if you want it to. It's it's got I don't know how much you want to give away. This is just magicians. I'm not going to I'm not going to expose anything. But there's obviously audiences. Sorry, our audience is primarily magicians. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I'm I'm very transparent about all this stuff. OK, cool. Yeah. So I'll be on YouTube, but it's a magic product with a channel. So any layman come across it, they turn off after two minutes. So great, great, great. And my rambling has certainly got them to turn off at this point. I don't look at my average viewing time anymore. But you're going to do what you do. It's it's one of the two ways of performing it. There's this recording. Do you mind me saying that? No, it's OK. The way of doing it with with a confederate friend, which actually it's it's a lot easier than you think it is. It sets it up. So that's the easiest thing in the world, which is a fear. I think the fear is setting it up and it's sounding naff, it's fake. I always think of electric chairs, things like that. Knowing you've seen that and you look at it, that's clear. This kind of I think it's a lot easier than that sort of thing. But I'm just the recorded version is scared me, scared me as to perform it. And because of that, I did it today on a couple of people because I just wanted to. Yeah, I did it over Zoom and didn't didn't record it. I actually tried to record it for myself and then forgot to record for somebody, but that's another thing. But I was really surprised at the at the effect. I think once you've done it once, you realise that it's a lot easier than you think. The questions that I had going into it were with recording, you've got to think about timing. You've got to think about kind of is it going to sound obvious? And when you do it the first time, you're like, I'm not going to get away with this. You know, but then you realise, actually, it's it feels very. It just feels natural. You've scripted it really well, but you don't have to think about too much about timing. And obviously, the way the timing works is incredibly easy. You've thought of all that. And you've got all these really tiny details in it that actually made it. Once I did it once, I was like this is and that's with the basic version. Then you've got this new stuff, which is I mean, one of my one of my questions is going to be. If you'd have known how much work this was going to take, would you have done it? I mean, this is like I was watching a thing today and the guy that's helping you out. What's he called? What's the guy that's been helping you out a lot? Tad Nyland? Tad was saying that this is all you do now. This is it. Tad, that's right. Tad, you know, that's OK. I want to come back. There's a lot to unpack there. Let me first say the record. Let me talk about the recordings. And then I'm going to talk about the amount of work it's been. And then I'm going to talk about Tad and the rest of the community. And by the way, I was just going to. I literally said I have to run. I'm about to do this great interview with Steve. So I just hung up the phone with him. So the recording. Yeah. So there are two different ways to do it. Right. One with a live stranger, which is mind blowing. You know, you're really calling a real person. And if you're on an iPhone, you can transition that call into a FaceTime call, a video call with a lot. And that just blows it out of the water. Just the believability just goes through the roof. So I'm doing a live video call with somebody on the other end. They're talking to the audience. There have been times in Blackpool. We we did it. I had a group of French folks come up. I got a video on the online for this. And we called someone in France. I didn't say a word. I don't speak French anymore. Yeah. They I just held the phone. They had a conversation. They went to FaceTime. They're talking to each other. I'm just standing there. Right. And then the person just says name the name, the playing card and the card is revealed. They freaked out because I'm not saying a word. They're really having a phone conversation. So it's fantastic. And then the other side of that is is the other side of that is the recordings. Right. So built in are these recordings that allow you to have a playing card with you. And when you do that, when when you have a playing card revealed during the conversation, you're exactly right. It has to sound real, has to sound not like a recording. And so I've taken a lot of care to make those conversations sound organic. In fact, so much care that I've had to remove some. I'm just being full disclosure. Remove some of the recordings because the feedback has been that one doesn't that doesn't sound right in in our language or our region or country that that's not how we would say it. And so I've had to pull some and we would do them and put them back up. So there's a lot of care that goes into making them exactly right. And I listen to the community and I listen to the feedback that comes to me and I continue to try to make adjustments, which speaks to your second question. But but those recordings, they're organic. They're just normal phone conversations. And so I have tried to script them that way and then also edit them in such a way that it's easy for the magician. So I have the interactions from the stranger coming at exact moments on a time code. Yeah. Zero. The whole number. Yeah. And then as it turns out, you have a timer on your screen during a phone conversation. So you're being queued on screen. So it's really simple. People said to me, I don't know. Can I learn this? I go, give it a half hour of practice and you'll be fine. You know, and there have been instances, you know, I have. First of all, there are magicians that are ending their show as their finale. Yeah. With a recording. Yeah. No, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't hesitate to do that. Yeah. So I'm quite, quite thrilled. In fact, it's funny. There's one recording made for the U.S. You can use it everywhere, but made for the U.S. market. It was released in the first version. Pizza. It's a 35 second recording. Yeah, it's a nice idea. You call a pizza place. It's very fast. The guy's trying to get you to order a pizza. You ask him to name a card. You know, there's very little interaction from the magician. It's just very quick. And he names the card. It's sort of amazing. So I remember I got a story from a magician who called. This is now shortly after it was released, a few months after it was released. And he said, I just want to thank you. This is really great. I said, oh, yeah, sure. Because I just came back from NACA, which is the national it's for college campuses for performers. And it's a big conference and you have to go. And if you get a spot to to showcase your your whatever you're doing, your content magician go and perform something, then all the college campuses, they would either talk to you about hiring you. And it's just a great place to do that. And he said, I just came back from NACA and I did the stranger for my showcase. That's all I did. And I got off stage and eight schools immediately came up and said, what was that? We want to hire you. I was like, that's great. So that translates to a lot of money as far as bookings are concerned. And I said, wow, you did you call a live stranger? He goes, no, I didn't. I don't use the recording. OK, which one did you use? He goes, pizza. I said, so you got up on stage, did a 35 second recording and you made bookings. I said, that's you know, and and and it was actually a moment where I said, oh, oh, it really worked. It really works, you know, because I'm close to it, you know, and so it's great. It's great. It's nice to hear. And the feedback is positive. Very happy about that. So the recordings are great and should not be taken lightly. Black calling a live stranger is mind blowing. But the record I put a lot of care into recordings and continue want to do that. And I recorded twenty five languages now. They're not all available. They've been recorded. Some are still being edited and being uploaded throughout through time. But they're all ready to go. So and that was a huge undertaking to record these in twenty five languages. So you have to think about the audio in the background and that there was you going into real detail with the audio. And like putting bits of audio together, obviously, because the revelations and things like that. So, yeah, what's happening is the recordings are being stitched together, you know. So it's it's not just it's not 52 record full recordings where a card is revealed. And these are not just recordings of conversations. Right. So there's gaps for the magician to speak. And and and so what the app is doing is it's stitching together three pieces of audio. So and the reason for that at the beginning, the card reveal and the end. And the reason for that is so that we don't bloat the the app. If you had 52 recordings all with, you know, different cards, the app would be huge. So this was the most streamlined and efficient way to do it. But when you do that, you have to make sure that that when they stitch together, you don't you don't get this kind of thing happening. You know, so it's got to be nice and smooth as glass. And so part of that not only is in the recording and the way it's recorded and edited, but with the background noise, people have said, oh, for the pizza place, you should have ambient noise. It's a pizza place. Well, at first I did. I thought that to, you know, have noise in the background, you know. And the problem is that when you make those cuts that you hear the cut. So I had to make a choice to remove that. And as it turns out, it doesn't doesn't affect it. So, you know, good. So. So a lot of thought went into creating those recordings. Yeah. And I think as well, for those people that get it and again, we're not affiliated, I've got to really stress. The other thing I've got to say is that this is alcohol free, by the way. It genuinely is. I've done drinks. I've done it on YouTube. But yeah, when I when you hear those recordings, because the minute you know what it is, you're in danger of kind of going, oh, it looks. It sounds too clean. It sounds too active. And that it doesn't. It's almost like when you see a friend acting in something, you never buy it. Because, you know, he's acting. It's kind of like that thing. So and a lot of people have said, I think that when you hear it first, you go, we're going to get what you start doubting. And so when you find out the method of a trick and it's a simple method, you go, I'm not going to. And until the minute I did it, it was I could see that there was just no inclination that that was real. I mean, just no, not at all. And the fact you like the hints that you give that talking over it is actually more natural than waiting for the next bit. You know, so butting in and and all these things. And that's, again, the detail is so important that you go into all the things you can say leading up to it that make the convincers. Yeah, the convincers. Yeah, it's about. And then again, that's that emotional rise and release. Right. Convincer. What I call a convincer is the first call you make ends up being a disconnected number or it might be a voicemail or it might be somebody that hangs up on you. Right. And then by the time you finally get to a call, that is a real call, whether it's through a live stranger or the recording for the reveal. By that point, the audience has already been on the edge of their seat. And then they go, oh, you know, so when they're when you build up that tension and the first number goes to a disconnected number, the audience. So, you know, and the other thing, absolutely. And what I found is, you know, when you do a new trick, you're always nervous, aren't you? A new trick, anybody, you know, no matter how long you've been working, it's a brand new thing. The great thing about this is you can say, I'm really nervous. We're calling a stranger. So if you're nervous about doing the trick, you can be nervous. And I was, but you can actually play on that and go, oh, God, I'm really nervous. This is really weird. And it kind of adds to it. I've had a lot of magicians say, well, how do I do it? What do I, what do I do? And I said, imagine if you were calling somebody for real that you didn't know, how would you feel? Do that. And you would be tongue tied and you'd be kind of, you know, so that's another thing. Don't make it too crisp. For those people that haven't seen it, I just did. Basically, the basic effect in it, which is incredibly strong, is that if someone takes a card, you can see it or not. You can do various ways and you call either the recording or a stranger, which is set up and that can go into a FaceTime. And there's a lot you can do around that for the convincers. But there's also these other added things. And you've got in-app purchases. We'll be transparent about that. You've got two quite significant in-app purchases. And part of me when I saw that was like, ah, but then I think a good thing was you added the custom as a free part of that, which I was glad about, actually. If that had been in-app purchase as well, I'd have been like, oh, man, which one am I going to buy? So just explain the custom, because I think the custom bit is really a deal breaker for a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I appreciate that. So the version one of the app was a playing card reveal. And people would ask me, well, are you going to be able to do more than a playing card? And by the way, the playing card is amazing. Yeah. But I always knew that I wanted to add more anyway. So I released version 2.0 for iPhone about a week and a half, two weeks ago, something like this. And at the same time, released version 1.0 for Android. So Android now at that moment was in parity with the release on iPhone was at that time prior to 2.0. So you can do all of that now on Android as well, which I'm very proud of and happy about. But version 2.0 for iPhone has new features, as you're saying, and those will all be ported over to Android at some point here. So you can now reveal to a live stranger anything, right? Whether it's a word or whether it's a number or a serial number on a bill or anything you can imagine, you can reveal to a stranger, to a live call or have a live caller reveal. So the answer is, yeah, you can do anything now. Yeah. Not just a playing card, whatever you want, whatever your mind and imagination can come up with, you can do. And you're right. There are some in-app purchases, both two modules for Revelations. One is a book test module to allow any book test word to be revealed by the stranger. Whatever your book test words are, you can input into the app. But that means that that opens up other possibilities as well. It doesn't have to be book test words. It could be countries or names of men, women or boys and girls. Or it could be objects in a woman's purse. It could be anything you can imagine can be put into that module. So that's a very powerful module. A number module that allows for any number to be revealed, whether it's how much change is in your pocket or what time is it or whatever you can imagine that's a digit can be put in. So those are very powerful modules and they are in-app purchases. But yes, with the update, which has no cost to it, is the custom module that comes with it. And that is incredibly powerful because it allows for anything to be input on the fly or to be set up beforehand and then sent. So you could set up a serial number on a bill before and then switch the bill in and then that would be sent to the stranger for the reveal. But also on the fly, you can type anything in the name of somebody in the audience or anything that you can type into a keyboard can be typed in on the fly. And we have swipe keyboard now too. So that means I can type incredibly fast right in front of you and the audience will be none the wiser. So anything can be input. And nobody's said to me, oh, these in-app purchases, I can't believe you are charging for them. Nobody has had any problem with that at all. And if they did, a very simple response is yes, but also with the thing that is included, there's so many possibilities. It really opens the door. What I try to do is to give as much as I can. And then there are in-app purchases in full disclosure. Part of that has to be the case because the development cost for this is off the chart. And I am all in not only emotionally, but financially. So I have to have ways to keep the development cost moving forward. And so what I'm always going to try to do is if there's an in-app purchase, there's also something else that you can benefit from that doesn't cost you extra. So I'm always going to try to give you a nice balance. And that custom field really, really does that. And also included in the update is the ability to connect with Wikitest. Everything's got to connect with Wikitest now. Yeah. And it's awesome. Awesome. So imagine somebody doing Wikitest and searching on something and that information automatically being sent to your stranger for the review. Yeah. Pretty cool. So that integration. Two pieces of information, right? The search word and the word. So the search term and the word. The search word is sent automatically. And I just want to take a moment to thank Mark Hursting. Mark is, what a mensch, what a wonderful human being. He's amazing. Not only has he created incredible products for the magic community, he's been so gracious and so supportive to me, but I also know to so many. And he really deserves a huge round of applause and a huge thanks for all that he's done. I'm really grateful to him. So the search word is sent automatically. The word that is seen in the article is not sent automatically because that's a book test word, right? So there's no way for that to be sent automatically during the course of the call. But through the custom field or the book test feature, that can be sent quite easily. So both pieces of information are easily sent over to the stranger. It's really great. Yeah. No, it is. And I think that I don't want to be too gushy. To be honest, I don't review stuff I don't like. I mean, that's kind of the rule. But I think the in-app purchase is, I think, is a no-brainer for me. The $3.99 text is a month for the one thing that it does that just makes everything so much easier. And you can choose to use that or not. It's a gift, again, for transparency. But, again, without it, you've got something that I've done a few times and it's killed. Is there anything else you want to say about it? I mean, anything else you want to say before we kind of start rambling on about other stuff? No. I will say, you mentioned, I want to talk about the community for a moment. Yeah. Because that, to me, is what's so important here and so amazing. What's been built around it is this community of people that are all like, they all want a good thing. Right? They all want to help. It's great. They're really, it's an amazing group of people. I always knew when I called it The Stranger that I wanted strangers to become friends. Strangers, yeah. T-shirts, and people are talking about T-shirts now. It's a great T-shirt. We're strangers to each other. Yeah, put your trust in us. And I'm really proud of it because this community, they're all people that have become friends. I've become friends with a lot of these folks. And they all want to help each other. And so we have that Facebook community where it's so positive. And then we also have WhatsApp communities. And these WhatsApp, because people would ask me, well, how do I get people to help me? Right? How do I find people to help me? Well, you can ask anybody in your contacts, anybody that you know to help you. But this group of strangers, they all want to help you. This idea that you would have a group of magicians that all, they love being the stranger as much as they love being the magician. And so the idea of being a stranger to somebody else, not to make themselves look good, but to make the magician look good, it's pretty powerful. And so we have these WhatsApp groups that have formed. And these are on WhatsApp, these are groups of strangers. And you can put in there, I need somebody to help me right now or in 10 minutes. And you will get a stream of people saying, I can help you, I can help you. It's unbelievable. And so we started, obviously, the first one started here in the U.S. and run by Gus Garcia, who's an amazing, great friend. I've seen him all over the place. He's the one that said that it's like an instant nail writer or something, a modern nail writer, right? It's a modern day nail writer. He coined that phrase and he's right. I love it. So and he runs the group here in the United States and he facilitates that. And then he also helps to get other facilitators in other countries up to speed. So he's really been a tremendous help. And so we have a group in the U.K., we have a group in Germany, we have a group in Canada. And I want to start groups in other countries as well. And these groups, and we just I think we just started one in Belgium. And so and these groups are strangers, magicians in those countries that want to come together and be support systems to other strangers. So it's really something else. And I'm really grateful for it. And I think it's an amazing community of people. And a shout out to you mentioned Mad Tad, Tad Nyland. He's been there since day one of this thing. I've always said he's the original stranger. He's something else. He's not only my best friend, but he's also he's just a tremendous human being. And he's been there since the beginning. And he's a great help. He's put out his Mad Tad tips. And those are on the member site as well, those videos, and it's really great. I'm really grateful to him as well. And so we have a great time doing it. And for a long time, before it was released to the public, we were the only ones doing it, right, using the Stranger as an app. So anyway, and a big shout out. I'm just going to keep doing it. A big shout out to Robert Ramirez. Yeah, the original kernel of this comes from Robert, that he had discovered a way to, through some research, figure out a way to do this with your phone, to call somebody with your phone just as it was. And he brought a small group of us together to do it. It was so much fun. And I decided to take that and say, okay, how do we make this into something that can do some of these other things and be a little more streamlined? But we wouldn't have started without Robert. And I also want to give a shout out to Chris Rubens, who's over in the U.K. And we're talking about the WhatsApp community. And Chris has taken this by the whatever you call that, right? He's really gone out and he's facilitating our WhatsApp group over there in the U.K. And it's so great. He loves it. And he's really taken this on as a personal thing for him as well. And so if anybody's interested in the WhatsApp group in the U.K., you should reach out to Chris. So really grateful to everybody and the whole community. It's really a group effort. I will say that. Everybody's been so wonderfully engaged, especially on Facebook. And so I listen to as much as I can and try to continue that development process. So to answer your question, it never stops going. Casey, my girlfriend, laughs at me and says every time I go, I'm just going to do this and then I'm going to take a break. She says, okay, sure. Because it never stops. Every single day I'm on the phone with my developers and we're trying to create. And I've got new features coming out. I've got 2.1 plan that's coming out soon. I've got 2.2 plan. I've got, you know, just the roadmap is there. People have asked me, are you going to stop developing? Maybe, I guess, someday. But I don't see that happening for any time in the distant future because I've got so much planned for it. And personally, I want to keep doing it. It's too much fun for me. And as a magician, I want it for myself, too. So the new features that come in not only come from users, they come from me. What would I want to do? And I want to keep creating. So, yeah. So that's, I'm quite proud of it. And I appreciate having any opportunity to talk about it. Yeah, no, no. It's clearly obvious. And I was thinking, because you're a producer, you're an actor, you've done, obviously, you're a magician and you perform. But I was thinking, I don't know about you, but when lockdown started, I kind of then dove into my online stuff and the work that I could do on my card course. And that was like, OK, well, if lockdown stops now and I'm just doing that, would that be enough for me? And I'm kind of going, yeah. And I'm thinking about you. I mean, would you, how's it going to work when they say, OK, you now got your presenting jobs and is that going to be too much for you to deal with this and that? Or are you going to still be focusing? I've always been someone to wear a lot of hats and to do a lot of juggling. I always have done that. And it's something that keeps me creatively motivated and engaged. So I've always done that. I enjoy it. So from the magic performing standpoint, do I miss performing in front of an audience, live audience? Oh, yeah. But I very quickly started to get on the, you know, change my technology. And, you know, I've got CyberMagicShow.com and I'm doing online shows. And I'm really happy with the way that's working. And they're getting better and better and better in the way they're being presented. So I've embraced that very quickly. My magic coaching has really taken off. I've always done that. But now I've been very active in promoting it. And I've been working with a lot of people, coaching them online. And that's been tremendous for me. That's been really tremendous for me. And it's really gratifying to work with so many people and really help them with their – because we end up talking about not just the magic effects. And their methods. But we talk about character, story, and structure. And all of the things to put together their act. And that's been incredibly gratifying. And that's where my wheelhouse is. That's what I bring to the table. And so that's available and it's been really great. And my website has information on that. And then as far as television production and film production, I'm working on films with my partner. That we are trying to really move some of these projects along and take advantage of the fact that we have not only this downtime, but when we come out of this, we're going to be ready to possibly go into production, which is great. And then television, I have a TV show that is with a network now that is still alive. And so that's great. A couple weeks ago I pitched another TV show over Zoom. And so that's still happening. So I'm trying to not only, I'm keeping so incredibly busy. And still, so not only in new ventures, but also building on ventures that I've wanted to build on. And also finding and also staying with what I've been doing. So I've actually been busier now than I've ever been. And I'm happy about it. And then the stranger is keeping me incredibly busy. You know, as you say, I put out daily updates when I can. Not only in the community, but also working with the developers, we've been putting out new updates for features along the way. And so that's kept me busy. And then I'm also on the Board of Trustees at the Magic Castle. And that's kept me very busy as well. I think I got elected about a week before we went into lockdown. So we launched into it. So now what we're doing for our Magic Castle members, our AMA members, is we have perks in person at the Magic Castle every month. But now we're doing online perks twice a week, Sundays and Thursdays. And so for our members worldwide, they're able to engage with us on our Facebook, private Facebook AMA Magic Castle website or Facebook page. And every Sunday and Thursday we're doing these perks. And I host them from my place. And so we bring in different guests and we have different presentations that have just been amazing, amazing pieces of content. And so that's kept me busy as well. So I am certainly not at a want for things to do. And I'm having a ball. Yeah, it's really funny because a lot of people are. They've got, you know, people saying I'm not doing gigs, there's nothing to do. And loads of things are happening on Facebook. And that's great stuff happening. But I find myself getting lots of messages from people that are a bit bored. And I'm kind of like busier than ever as well. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it's really hard to wonder how you're dealing with it, because even keeping up with family, friends, people that are close to you. And I got a point a couple of weeks ago and I had text fatigue. I was like, I can't text anymore. So I have to kind of do the audio. You know, because it just got so it's a lot to deal with. You know, again, hats off to doing. Yeah, thanks. I think we have to. We're learning new ways to communicate, you know. And and when I say, hey, let's have a Zoom coffee. Right. I'm actually connecting with people that I around the world that I've wanted to connect with. Oh, you know, we how often do we say, you know what, I can't wait to see you. But we never see you. Right. We never do it. And this is sort of given us that opportunity to say, look, let's spend an hour on Zoom and do it. You know, and because if we go out and we have to we go to coffee, we meet someplace. Well, first of all, I can't do that with somebody that's not in L.A. And and and it takes more time. This allows us to really have these connections in ways we never have before. I think it's so great, so valuable. And so I've I've really been very grateful for that. And we also have to make efforts to do it and have social hour and have a happy hour. And, you know, whether we're drinking or not, just have that that concept of that time at the end of a day or, you know, when we say let's get together for an hour and and have some cheese and crackers over that. I played Monopoly with Casey and I played Monopoly with our two good friends last week, you know, a couple weeks ago and and they had a board board and we had a board and we played together. And, you know, we're just finding new ways to do it. And you just kind of have to do it. You've got to embrace it and jump in. Brilliant. And what a lovely job. So the one thing I want to finish with, because I wouldn't have done this having not been, you know, I've been on stage. So I hope it was OK. I hope it's not the, you know, the first the first interview I've done. I hope it's not the one look back at the embarrassing first one. You've been great. But, you know, I hope I've been giving you. Well, I have to I'm going to tell you, I'm going to be totally honest. Hold on. I'm going to plug in here. Don't don't leave. Don't leave. This is just real life. Computers now need power. The truth is, look, I am so grateful to meet you and meet so many people around the world in this way. And we just have great conversations, you know, and I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful to you for reaching out. I'm grateful for the fact that now you and I know each other. And that will continue. I know that. I mean, what a what a wonderful world that we're in. Absolutely. What a lovely community we have. You know, I was down on it a few years ago. I think it's a really thriving, lovely, caring, compassionate, you know, people to help each other, community. And and just before we finish, I want to finish everyone by saying, have you got any record, anything you've seen from other magicians, any products, any DVDs, any downloads, any tricks that you've seen recently? That's great that you're playing with, that you should recommend to other people. Oh, you know what? Yeah, it's a good question. First of all, go back to Wikitest for Mark Gerson. Just give him a shout out, because if you're trying to do something digitally, it's an amazing piece of technology. Yeah. And it's great. And he also has been very good about putting out, hey, here's how to modify it to make it available for Zoom in a better way. And, you know, he's really great about it. I just recently got Ryan Plunkett's book, actually, which is really amazing. It's really great. So I've enjoyed that. And and. That's the one I'm going to give a shout out to right now. And I just bought his book, but I have not books, but I've not had a chance to really crack them yet. But. But, yeah. So I would say instead of the individual tricks that I've been seeing out there, pick up a good book. And, you know, we don't get a chance to read as often as we would like, I think, these days. And this is a good opportunity to do it. Yeah. Thank you so much. And I really appreciate it. And I hope you've enjoyed it. And thanks from a stranger. I'll put all the details below and I will do a further Q&A for people that have got questions after this as well. Thank you so much, my friend. And it's really great to see you. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks very much. Take care, Jonathan. King of Spades. So thanks very much. Please check out the section underneath for all the links that you need. Any questions you've got, bring them into the live sessions on Mondays. Again, I'm trying to do Thursdays as well, but it's kind of difficult at the moment. So we'll do a live session Monday. And of course, if you're watching this later on, look in all the comments to all the info you may need. So thanks very much. Take care. Stay safe and have a great one.