"What's Up With Creativity?"
Let's talk about something having to do with creativity in magic. There is millions of ways you could go in this but I am only going to talk about 4 of these ways.
1st way - Raw Creation: Coming up with something new without taking from anything. I.E. - A new card slight, or inventing a brand new principal never before seen.
This way of creating in my opinion is by far the hardest to accomplish. I believe you have to practically be born to do this and must have a very unique mind to accomplish such ideas. With this I will blow you a kiss and wish you the best of luck because this is so hard. The main reason is because it's all been done before. I can't tell you how many times I thought I was Billy the Badass because I thought I created something so cool it would change the way we look at a certain trick. Here is a short story. I was watching "The Illusionist" and he just did the "Orange Tree" illusion. I made it my quest to come up with a way to accomplish such an amazing feat. I did just that. I worked for days and nights. I came up with blue prints, all the measurements, the apparatus, gimmicks, design, and everything but the kitchen sink! Then I went to go show this idea to a magician I have much respect for and he told me that there were already better versions out there that look a lot better than that. I was completely crushed. I felt so depressed the next day because when you put that much effort into something and someone has already topped it in a blink of an eye you get very down over this. So people looking to do this type of creation, have fun. You're in for a ride. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though, there is some more to this story as well. About a month later I reminded him of this incident and how crushed I was that it was already done. He said to me, “It’s the fact that you could come up with that from scratch without any prior knowledge to any workings is what is really impressive". I haven't forgotten these words ever since he said them to me and it would be in your best interest to remember them as well. If you can create something of that caliber and it has already been invented, it shows that you have the ability to create something possibly revolutionary. Keep at it and maybe we will be seeing you in the magic community as the new best thing to hit the scene!
2nd way - Combination Creation: Combining effects to invent a completely brand new routine or trick. I.E., combining various card sleights to invent a new Ambitious Card Routine.
This is one way of creation I can honestly say I have been successful at. Here is my story. I needed an opening effect for my show and when you're short on cash you tend to take what you know and manipulate things a bit. My opening effect was a spin off an Amazing Jonathan bit, which actually had no magic in it. I turned a comedic bit in to a prediction effect. It was fine for a while, then evolution took place. I performed it for some fellow magicians and the same person I told you about in the previous story about my "Orange Tree" illusion plans, came up to me and we discussed how I could make it better. He told me of another trick that was similar and said give that a try. Before I go on, there were over a million factors that went into my evolution of my opening effect spanning over months of work. So I won't go into incredible detail, but I will tell you what trick my creation is based off of, along with a description of my effect "Do You Have Your Receipt?” My effect is based off of the following. Amazing Jonathan's comedy bit with a jumbo deck, "Believe" by: Joel Paschall, "Angle Zero" by: Daniel Madison. "The Insurance Policy Gag", along with a certain method I learned about in "Cutting Edge: Cards and Coins" with Jon Born and Jason Dean. Now for the description. I bring a volunteer up and ask him to say stop on a card. He says stop and I show him and the audience his card. I then tear a corner off the card and say this is your receipt in case I mess up. If I do, show me this and I'll make sure you're good to go. I clip it to his shirt so he doesn't lose it. I hand him the torn card and ask him to put it to his chest, close his eyes and imagine his card so he will be able to remember it better. I then secretly set the regular deck aside and grab a jumbo deck and say open your eyes and put your card in the middle. We go through some jokes and presentation. He eventually puts his card in the middle. When I try to find his card, it's missing from the deck. I say well I messed up. He then shows me his receipt (The corner of the lost card). I say okay, I have a prediction. I state "This envelope was here before the show". I turn the envelope over and it says what I had just stated. I get some laughs. Then I go okay, okay. I hand him the envelop and tell him to open it and see what is inside. It's the lost card. I slowly put the corner (the receipt) to the torn part and they match. I let him keep it as a souvenir and now it's time for my next trick. That is a perfect example of what I call Combination Creation. I took a bunch of foreign ideas and put them together and made one solid magic effect and routine. Give it a shot and see what you can come up with!
3rd way - Alternation Creation : Keeping the exact same routine as you were taught but alternating the gimmick or the handling in a way you think is better or in a way that better suit you needs. I.E., Instead of doing a pass to get a chosen card to the top, you find a different control to get the card to the top to make it easier.
I did this very type of creation with so many effects and in my opinion made them way easier and way better, at least in my opinion. For example I did this with Jay Sankey's "Omnilope". He teaches you how to construct the gimmick. I made it bigger, and better to fit for a stage show. I made every subtlety possible to make the method so undetectable to anyone it is impossible for the lay audience to backtrack the effect and figure it out. My way blows the bridges up. As a side note I highly recommend getting Justin Miller's “Endure” lecture notes for more information about the ideas and extended learning by what I meant by blowing the bridges up. But anyway, that’s a good example of this type of creation because I suited it for my needs, made it, in my opinion, better than the original, and it accomplishes the same original effect. To put this simple, why would you walk to the nearest lake, get a pail of water, carry it home, and boil it so it's purified, and drink it warm. You could get the exact same thing by going to your fridge and drinking a bottle of COLD water with WAY LESS EFFORT! You don’t have to do the most knuckle busting sleights to get a card to appear on top when you could just do a simple double lift. When you simplify the method it does wonders. It makes it easier to do along with a lesser percent chance of messing it up, It gives takes a lot of energy away from worrying about the mechanics and puts it into your presentational energy which is far more important than a stupid method. You don't have to be a magician's magician. Your magician buddies aren't paying you to do shows, normal people are. Don't worry about impressing magicians because it doesn't mean that much at the end of the day. Impress the person who is paying you which is a lot easier to do mind you.
4th way - Presentation Creation: Keeping the exact same routine as you were taught, not changing the mechanics of the method but solely the presentation. I.E. Taking the same effect and performing in a way that suits you (comedy) instead of the teaching or presenting performer (serious).
This in my opinion is the easiest to do because it should come natural. All you're doing is adapting it to what you character would do or say. For example, we’ll take "Shiv" by: Andrew Mayne. I do this in my shows and when I first learned it, I saw Andrew take a serious and almost demented approach whit a no remorse attitude. I on the other hand am not that character. I am more laid back, sarcastic, and funny. So I made the presentation that way. Method and Trick are the exact same. It's the presentation that sets me apart from the rest. There isn't much more to explain about this method of creation so I'll leave it at that.
In creation of a magic effect, some ways are easier than others along with the fact that creation just comes easier to some and takes more work for others. It is possible to do all four of these methods separately, but I recommend a combination of the four to create a harmonious balance that will be completely unique in method, presentation, and in overall magic effect. If this is done properly, you are on your way to a script of all created material that will have lay audiences and magicians scratching their heads!
