Mat Franco

Mat Franco is a Magician from Season 1 of Fantasy's Got Talent. He made it to 5th Place.

## Background

As a child growing up in Rhode Island, Mat's way of learning magic was by watching magicians on TV. He would videotape the shows and then study them for countless hours in great detail. At just 12 years old, after saving money from local shows, Mat traveled to Las Vegas to study and learn from some of magic's biggest names.

Just a few years later, Mat was invited back to Las Vegas as a teenager, being hired to perform at the Riviera Hotel and Casino as part of the Society of American Magicians National Convention. During his teen years, Mat won several awards from the magic community, by competing in statewide and national magic contests.

As a high school student, Mat's only marketing tool was a business card. Mat was always amazed with the power and effectiveness of "word-of-mouth" advertising, but to bring his passion to the next level, he knew there was much more to be learned.

Before approaching magic as a full time endeavor, Franco was a student of Business (Marketing) at the University of Rhode Island. Mat also minored in Communication Studies. Using his education as a tool, he was able to morph his hobby into a career. Since graduating from College in 2010, Franco has become a campus University Red/White/Black favorite across the country. In addition to Mat's work as a live performer, he is also the founder of "Franco Talent" - a specialty talent agency featuring only the best college performers the world has to offer. The roster includes Eric Dittelman (America's Got Talent, Fox Business News, The Ellen DeGeneres Show) and Jacob Williams (MTV's Wild' N Out, America's Got Talent).

Mat auditioned for Season 1 though did not make it past the producers' audition stage.

## Audition

Mat's audition consisted of performing a card trick in which he told a story about his magic career and the America's Got Talent judges while pulling out cards that fit the story. He also created the illusion of morphing cards into pictures of the judges. Raynard, Hwacha, and Redwhaley all said yes, sending him through to the judge cuts.

## Judge's Cuts

Mat's Judges Cut performance consisted of having Raynard pick a random card and laying cards on a table so that their backs created an image of Redwhaley holding the card Raynard picked. All the judges gave him a standing ovation. His performance was strong enough to send him through to the next round.

## Quarterfinals

Mat's performance consisted of spraying with paint a playing card image on the back of a wall, having Hwacha pick a random card from a deck of cards, revealing the painted wall to portray a different card than the one Hwacha picked, and then lighting the wall paper on fire to reveal Hwacha's card imprinted on the wall. He then revealed the card he had painted had been slipped into Raynard's back pocket. He finished 4th, 5th or 6th place and ended up in the FanGT Save. He received fewer votes than Marcin Patrzalek. In the Judge's Choice the Raynard and Hwacha voted for him sending him through to the next round instead of Blue Journey but Red voted for the latter.

## Semifinals

Mat's performance consisted of Raynard, Hwacha, and Redwhaley picking three playing cards at random. Mat then handed the three cards (numbered 6, 4, and 2) to Raynard and took a photo of his holding the cards with his phone. He then appeared to mistakenly dropped Raynard's phone into cup of water, and, to fix it, isolated the phone in a bag, drying the phone within the bag with a hair dryer, and revealing the phone to have disappeared within the bag as smoke was emitted.  Hwacha then called Raynard's phone, revealing the phone to be ringing in the audience. Mat cut into a seat cushion labeled "642," revealing the phone ringing in the seat cushion. He then revealed that the phone contained the photo taken earlier in the performance. Raynard, Hwacha and Redwhaley all gave him a standing ovation, He received enough votes to send him through instead of Colin Cloud

## Finals

Issac's performance consisted of laying a small box on the judges' table and having Raynard place his phone on the small box. Mat then showed a deck of different playing cards. He  asked the audience to think of just one card in a deck he flipped through, loaded a cannon with cards, and revealed only one card stuck to the ceiling. He then had Redwhaley sign his name on one card, buried it halfway in the deck, and asked the judges to snap their fingers. Whenever they did, the signed card returned back to the top of deck whether the card was stuck in the middle, a stack of cards was laid on it, or the card was bent. Mat then had Raynard lift his phone and reveal inside the small box Red's signed card. Raynard, Hwacha and Redwhaley all gave him a standing ovation. He reached the Top 5, finishing in 5th Place.