Getting Caught

Nov 20, 2009
22
0
Sorry if this has been discussed before, I tried searching.

Anywho, just wondering how you guys handle it when you get caught, i.e you slightly fumble a sleight, you drop cards or accidentally muscle pass that coin you have in classic palm (lol).

I think this an experience every single one of you has had at least once, and I would love to hear how many far more experienced than I deal with it.
 
Aug 2, 2008
496
0
Cincinnati
I would agree that is has happened to all of us. As for me, if its obvious, I'm honest and say I messed up. Then I tell them I have another one to show them. It obviously sucks and you feel stupid. I hate that feeling but you just have to push on. Then afterwards figure out what you did wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again.
 
it depends. sometimes ive flashed, but only one person saw it, in that situation i might look at them and wink or something. depending on the crowd
but yea we all mess up. just be like haha yea im joking, i was just testing to see how observant you are all.
then you can say what ever you want after that.
just practice and practice.
we all slip up. its part of being human.
 
Sep 10, 2007
175
2
30
Co.Dublin in Ireland
Well I would just say "oh I made a mistake, but dont worry this next trick is better anyway" and then just do another trick.

Always have an emaergency trick so that you dont end on a screw up. Just for the love of god dont screw up your emergency trick.

Advice I gave you is from Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz an amazing book.
 
Nov 9, 2009
24
1
it depends. sometimes ive flashed, but only one person saw it, in that situation i might look at them and wink or something. depending on the crowd
but yea we all mess up. just be like haha yea im joking, i was just testing to see how observant you are all.
then you can say what ever you want after that.
just practice and practice.
we all slip up. its part of being human.

Yeah that's a great point. Everyone messes up, not just in magic but in daily life. You can either feel stupid about it and let it affect you or learn from it. I have messed up in my performances several times. Just a week ago I performed for a high school class (and they were the real observant/analytic type of group since it was an AP class) and some of them caught what I did on a couple of effects. Also, to be honest, my showmanship was kind of off, which didn't really help the messing up part. Now I had two ways to handle it: feel stupid and down about messing up or just brushing it off and improving for next time. I picked the wrong way. I felt stupid messing up after that and let it affect my performance that day. This was just a fluke because I have dealt with messing up before and never let it affect me. But what I do when I mess up is like what chris mentioned; just joke around with them, have a good time. So what if you mess up, you're there to entertain them so make it entertaining. Go along with your mistake and make it funny for the audience. If they've seen what you can do and already know how good you are, they won't care if you messed up. Joking around about it and having fun even makes them like you more since you can admit your mistakes.
The main point I'm trying to get at here is to not let it get you down or affect your performance. Have fun with the crowd and don't get too caught up about being perfect all of the time when performing magic. Everyone makes mistakes and learning how to deal with it makes you a better performer.
 
Nov 20, 2009
22
0
I've found for myself, I just laugh about it and tell people it's a trick, then teach them something simple so they understand a little bit. Obviously I'm not going to teach them like, the clipshift or anything rediculous, but showing them how to do a french drop, or really anything relatively simple that shows the importance of angles and smoothness really goes far.

As for having a "go to trick" in case you mess up... thats a really good idea... losing a card by accident could very easily be covered up by saying it jumps to another deck you've had in your pocket the whole time (invisible deck).
 
Sep 1, 2007
109
0
I've got a pet peeve about this. I had never seen anyone else talk about it until James Brown. And basically what it comes down to is hating those "Oh damn, who turned up the gravity in here?" one liners when you drop a prop.

You're creating a moment in which the audience realizes you made a mistake. Hell, you might as well take out large neon lights, make them start blinking "I made a mistake," because that's what your audience is going to remember at the end of it all.

Making that witty one-liner doesnt dismiss the mistake for the audience but rather frames is and draws it to their attention.

Let me give you an example. The other day I was out with a buddy who does some magic also and I was performing. Now I've been getting into some coin stuff and was performing this one-coin flurry type thing that I've been doing for a while, and i dropped the coin in the middle of it. Now instead of saying anything, I just picked up the coin and went on. At the end of the routine i thanked everyone and walked away. Talking with my buddy afterwards he told me everything seemed to have gone well, they reacted well and what not, and I said something along the lines of "well yeah, except i dropped the damn thing." And you know what? He asked me when. The magician watching didnt remember me dropping the coin. You think the laymen did? No chance.

So what am I trying to tell you to do? Well...It's simple really; forget your mistakes. Don't frame them, dont make them obvious. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake and you move on. Think about the mentalists who supposedly contact the dead. In a single session, they throw out about 20-30 names and only get 6 or so hits. The audience, however only remembers 1 or 2 misses and that they were right most of the time. Why is this? Because the mentalists FRAMES the times they hit, and just ignores the misses.

Magic is about what the audience remembers. Memory is about framing. It's all about framing.

Also..half the time it's a minor stumble that means nothing to them, but you feel like it's a huge flash.

I mean, what's the worst thing that can really happen during your show? Basically when a spectator does say "I've caught you; I know what you did," right? And it's important to know what to do what what's hapenning when they say that.

Situation 1, they could be lying. They like to do that.

Situation 2, never assume you've been caught, cause you might not have been. You may have flashed, but never assume they saw it. If you go on as if nothing was wrong, so will they. The key here, is to not care. If they catch you, they catch you, oh well! Go on. But finish the trick. If you dont care about whether or not they catch you, when you flash on something like that, you'll go on as if nothing was wrong and so will the audience (generally.) If you care, however, you'll actually hurt yourself and give something away by getting nervous and thinking "Oh no! I've been caught!"

Situation 3, they really did catch you... And i guess you're getting into heckler stoppers here, but the best thing you can do is, well, not care. See, now when a heckler catches you and calls you out on it, their ego starts to grow... They get all proud of themselves "Ouuu I caught the magician, I'm special." And by going "no...no you didnt" or trying to make some excuse, their ego grows even more because now they know they caught you. The only way to get rid of this problem is to stop this from hapenning; burst their bubble. And the way you do this is to literally go "I dont care." You make it clear that no matter how big their ego gets..You just dont care.

So when you do a deck vanish and someone goes "You put that in your pocket!" You go "Yeah." and shrug. Because youve just burst their bubble. Again, this is all about framing. They wont remember "I caught the magician!" anymore because you didnt make an issue about it. You gave them no reason to remember the moment. They'll remember the other awesome stuff you did.

Just a few little things. Credit to James Brown for a bunch of the thinking here.

Cheers,
Lucas
 
Nov 20, 2009
22
0
So what am I trying to tell you to do? Well...It's simple really; forget your mistakes. Don't frame them, dont make them obvious. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake and you move on. Think about the mentalists who supposedly contact the dead. In a single session, they throw out about 20-30 names and only get 6 or so hits. The audience, however only remembers 1 or 2 misses and that they were right most of the time. Why is this? Because the mentalists FRAMES the times they hit, and just ignores the misses.

Magic is about what the audience remembers. Memory is about framing. It's all about framing.

That is an INCREDIBLY good point... I'd never thought about it that way.
 
Nov 9, 2009
24
1
I've got a pet peeve about this. I had never seen anyone else talk about it until James Brown. And basically what it comes down to is hating those "Oh damn, who turned up the gravity in here?" one liners when you drop a prop.

You're creating a moment in which the audience realizes you made a mistake. Hell, you might as well take out large neon lights, make them start blinking "I made a mistake," because that's what your audience is going to remember at the end of it all.

Making that witty one-liner doesnt dismiss the mistake for the audience but rather frames is and draws it to their attention.

Let me give you an example. The other day I was out with a buddy who does some magic also and I was performing. Now I've been getting into some coin stuff and was performing this one-coin flurry type thing that I've been doing for a while, and i dropped the coin in the middle of it. Now instead of saying anything, I just picked up the coin and went on. At the end of the routine i thanked everyone and walked away. Talking with my buddy afterwards he told me everything seemed to have gone well, they reacted well and what not, and I said something along the lines of "well yeah, except i dropped the damn thing." And you know what? He asked me when. The magician watching didnt remember me dropping the coin. You think the laymen did? No chance.

So what am I trying to tell you to do? Well...It's simple really; forget your mistakes. Don't frame them, dont make them obvious. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake and you move on. Think about the mentalists who supposedly contact the dead. In a single session, they throw out about 20-30 names and only get 6 or so hits. The audience, however only remembers 1 or 2 misses and that they were right most of the time. Why is this? Because the mentalists FRAMES the times they hit, and just ignores the misses.

Magic is about what the audience remembers. Memory is about framing. It's all about framing.

Also..half the time it's a minor stumble that means nothing to them, but you feel like it's a huge flash.

I mean, what's the worst thing that can really happen during your show? Basically when a spectator does say "I've caught you; I know what you did," right? And it's important to know what to do what what's hapenning when they say that.

Situation 1, they could be lying. They like to do that.

Situation 2, never assume you've been caught, cause you might not have been. You may have flashed, but never assume they saw it. If you go on as if nothing was wrong, so will they. The key here, is to not care. If they catch you, they catch you, oh well! Go on. But finish the trick. If you dont care about whether or not they catch you, when you flash on something like that, you'll go on as if nothing was wrong and so will the audience (generally.) If you care, however, you'll actually hurt yourself and give something away by getting nervous and thinking "Oh no! I've been caught!"

Situation 3, they really did catch you... And i guess you're getting into heckler stoppers here, but the best thing you can do is, well, not care. See, now when a heckler catches you and calls you out on it, their ego starts to grow... They get all proud of themselves "Ouuu I caught the magician, I'm special." And by going "no...no you didnt" or trying to make some excuse, their ego grows even more because now they know they caught you. The only way to get rid of this problem is to stop this from hapenning; burst their bubble. And the way you do this is to literally go "I dont care." You make it clear that no matter how big their ego gets..You just dont care.

So when you do a deck vanish and someone goes "You put that in your pocket!" You go "Yeah." and shrug. Because youve just burst their bubble. Again, this is all about framing. They wont remember "I caught the magician!" anymore because you didnt make an issue about it. You gave them no reason to remember the moment. They'll remember the other awesome stuff you did.

Just a few little things. Credit to James Brown for a bunch of the thinking here.

Cheers,
Lucas

Very, very well put. I couldn't agree more, thanks for all of the insight!!
 
Sorry if this has been discussed before, I tried searching.

Anywho, just wondering how you guys handle it when you get caught, i.e you slightly fumble a sleight, you drop cards or accidentally muscle pass that coin you have in classic palm (lol).

I think this an experience every single one of you has had at least once, and I would love to hear how many far more experienced than I deal with it.
i just try and do stuff that i can do without messing up the most....seriously....you will never catch me trying to do a flourish....you will probably never catch me doing many Daniel Garcia effects....he does them very well....i suck at them....
 
Everything LucasCG is correct, maybe a bit disagreeable about hecklers but pretty much everything is correct.

My opinion about hecklers is not to say I don't care, because it means you don't care about not getting caught which translates to quite a few as I don't care about showing you the best. Believe me, watching several magicians for roughly 3 years I know these things from a spectators POV.

Some heckler caught a crappy double lift and the magician said "I don't care", the heckler shut up but the three other people including me were turned off by the comment. If you don't care then neither should we, if you don't care about getting caught then maybe we aren't seeing something very worthwhile.

Other people will tell you to say these lines at hecklers, "so do you feel big and mighty now" or something along those lines which are dumb lines to. If they are going to call you out then quite a few will say yes being a smarta%$, this leads to a arguement.

My advice is this, don't listen to them and ignore them. Do something so freaking amazing they can't help but shut up. Many people will disagree with this method, but it's tried and proven against all hecklers and I do mainly mentalism. This type has quite a few hecklers if not done correctly, and each time I would finish w/e effect they were trying to disprove and do something similar but completely different method.

My line is this, Never admit being caught under any circumstances. Come up with a witty line or something but never admit "defeat."
 
Oct 28, 2007
453
0
Sydney Australia
I witness David Copperfield stuffing up his Ring Flight in front in a crowd of 8000 people. He dropped the ring, at the most crucial moment.

"This trick is so good, you need to see it again" and he performs the vanish one more time. Here is the interesting part.

I didn't notice he made a mistake until a magician pointed it out to me later.
None of my friend's noticed the mistake. Why?
Because in his mind, it wasn't a mistake.

If you don't see it as a mistake, so wont your audience.
 
Jul 26, 2009
39
0
Canada
Sorry if this has been discussed before, I tried searching.

Anywho, just wondering how you guys handle it when you get caught, i.e you slightly fumble a sleight, you drop cards or accidentally muscle pass that coin you have in classic palm (lol).

I think this an experience every single one of you has had at least once, and I would love to hear how many far more experienced than I deal with it.

Sometimes they don't notice if you screw up, so I just keep going. However if it's real obvious I just tell them I messed up and do a different trick.
 

Luis Vega

Elite Member
Mar 19, 2008
1,838
278
38
Leon, Guanajuato Mexico
luisvega.com.mx
I've got a pet peeve about this. I had never seen anyone else talk about it until James Brown. And basically what it comes down to is hating those "Oh damn, who turned up the gravity in here?" one liners when you drop a prop.

You're creating a moment in which the audience realizes you made a mistake. Hell, you might as well take out large neon lights, make them start blinking "I made a mistake," because that's what your audience is going to remember at the end of it all.

Making that witty one-liner doesnt dismiss the mistake for the audience but rather frames is and draws it to their attention.

Let me give you an example. The other day I was out with a buddy who does some magic also and I was performing. Now I've been getting into some coin stuff and was performing this one-coin flurry type thing that I've been doing for a while, and i dropped the coin in the middle of it. Now instead of saying anything, I just picked up the coin and went on. At the end of the routine i thanked everyone and walked away. Talking with my buddy afterwards he told me everything seemed to have gone well, they reacted well and what not, and I said something along the lines of "well yeah, except i dropped the damn thing." And you know what? He asked me when. The magician watching didnt remember me dropping the coin. You think the laymen did? No chance.

So what am I trying to tell you to do? Well...It's simple really; forget your mistakes. Don't frame them, dont make them obvious. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake and you move on. Think about the mentalists who supposedly contact the dead. In a single session, they throw out about 20-30 names and only get 6 or so hits. The audience, however only remembers 1 or 2 misses and that they were right most of the time. Why is this? Because the mentalists FRAMES the times they hit, and just ignores the misses.

Magic is about what the audience remembers. Memory is about framing. It's all about framing.

Also..half the time it's a minor stumble that means nothing to them, but you feel like it's a huge flash.

I mean, what's the worst thing that can really happen during your show? Basically when a spectator does say "I've caught you; I know what you did," right? And it's important to know what to do what what's hapenning when they say that.

Situation 1, they could be lying. They like to do that.

Situation 2, never assume you've been caught, cause you might not have been. You may have flashed, but never assume they saw it. If you go on as if nothing was wrong, so will they. The key here, is to not care. If they catch you, they catch you, oh well! Go on. But finish the trick. If you dont care about whether or not they catch you, when you flash on something like that, you'll go on as if nothing was wrong and so will the audience (generally.) If you care, however, you'll actually hurt yourself and give something away by getting nervous and thinking "Oh no! I've been caught!"

Situation 3, they really did catch you... And i guess you're getting into heckler stoppers here, but the best thing you can do is, well, not care. See, now when a heckler catches you and calls you out on it, their ego starts to grow... They get all proud of themselves "Ouuu I caught the magician, I'm special." And by going "no...no you didnt" or trying to make some excuse, their ego grows even more because now they know they caught you. The only way to get rid of this problem is to stop this from hapenning; burst their bubble. And the way you do this is to literally go "I dont care." You make it clear that no matter how big their ego gets..You just dont care.

So when you do a deck vanish and someone goes "You put that in your pocket!" You go "Yeah." and shrug. Because youve just burst their bubble. Again, this is all about framing. They wont remember "I caught the magician!" anymore because you didnt make an issue about it. You gave them no reason to remember the moment. They'll remember the other awesome stuff you did.

Just a few little things. Credit to James Brown for a bunch of the thinking here.

Cheers,
Lucas


Best. Advice. Ever!!!!
 
Sep 1, 2007
109
0
Everything LucasCG is correct, maybe a bit disagreeable about hecklers but pretty much everything is correct.

First off, thanks.

Some heckler caught a crappy double lift and the magician said "I don't care", the heckler shut up but the three other people including me were turned off by the comment. If you don't care then neither should we, if you don't care about getting caught then maybe we aren't seeing something very worthwhile.

Secondly, when I say to literally not care, I don't mean that you do so in a disrespectful way; it's not an off handed and dismissive "I dont care". When I say this I mean that you should have a general attitude that no matter how special they feel that they caught you... it simply doesnt matter.

In the example I gave for instance, when a spectator says they caught me doing a deck vanish and that it's in my pocket, I simply look at them and casually shrug and say "Yeah," and move on. Go to the next trick. I give the sense that I don't care, but I don't explicitly state that this doesnt matter to me. I don't do this in a rude way, which i think is a mistake many people make with hecklers; being rude.


If you don't see it as a mistake, so wont your audience.
My point exactly. Great story btw.

That's all I've got for now. No deep, long post.. sigh.

Cheers,
Lucas
 
Aug 10, 2009
3
0
I haven't been learning magic tricks long, I've been doing juggling a little longer. I just do tricks for friends at work, really. I do both very casually. One think I noticed about getting caught is that when you are juggling and you make a mistake, it's never seen as being caught out - your audience sympathises with you far more than if you, say, try a sleight and fail. When you're doing a magic trick and you mess up, there is this massive sense of being caught and people are almost accusing. Is that everyone else's experience, or is it just me?
 
That's the thing though Lucas, it's not saying it but giving off the impression. I feel the same way no matter what was being said but the vibe that was being given off. I want to see someone who isn't even paying attention to the jerkoffs, because it's for the same reason above, the vibe.

The magician is in control and he gives off energy to the spectators. If you give the vibe that the heckler is a jackass and you don't listen to what he says then I'm most likely going to feed off that energy and end up saying something. It's one thing if the magician says something, complete other if the other specs do.

However, it's all what works for you and works well.
 
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