The Art Underattack

[Nathanael463]

Hi all, once again I am here with another, well, more of an opinion piece. I was just on Youtube watching TOP by Alex Pandrea. And I noticed some of the comments below. Things like "No longer an art, it is being turned into a business. I am not liking theory's latest videos at all." Or things like that. And I know there will always be people who scrutinize magic as a whole and that cannot be avoided. But for even other magicians to say these things, do they have a point? And even if they do, are they not missing the fundamental aspect of why we do magic? Allowing people to witness the impossible?

Over the past few months I've really been challenged in finding my place in the magic world, and the questions just keep coming in, so glad that you are all here to provide some insight and trust me the responses have definitely helped me. But I find that magic these days, is getting harder and harder to make people believe the impossible, because unfortunately, we have amateurs uploading how to do these tricks onto Youtube, where anyone can watch and figure out the secret, and it is slightly saddening. My other question is, what do we do about it? And I don't mean that we try to ban people from posting magic tricks on Youtube, that'd just be insane, but rather, what do we do about our performing, because let's face it, we are the ones left to struggle to keep this idea of the impossible alive in our magic.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[chriswiehl]

the only thing really to do is to stop producing magic in general. if creators dont put dvds out, then there will be no 12 year olds (even 30 year olds) exposing magic on youtube.
its been talked about lots before how to stop piracy (which i believe you are trying to get at) and it is very tough, and it is going to happen. the only thing we can do about it is to try not to support these people who expose and to keep to ourselves. now im sure you dont want magicians to stop producing tricks (too many ppl would complain) and yes magic is a business, people are paid to create magic and to sell magic.
i feel that magic is very much a business and that we are hypocrites. the "magicians code" (which no one follows) states that we should never tell the secret. but i feel that there has been a clause made saying that we cannot tell the secret, unless we can make money off of it. do i pay for magic. yes i have. but we can also try to use our little minds to create our own to try to break out of this box we live in.

to stop this exposing thing, why not make fake youtube videos and flood youtube with them? i have done similar things and i have gotten some very mean responses from people who tell me i am not a real magician because i try to keep the magic community a little more discreet and secret. but not one person can do it alone.
people will rather get things for free (even if they are youtube videos that dont explain much of anything) than to pay for it.
the only thing we can really do is to close off magic to the public and keep it a private matter. keep it a club setting where only members can retreive the information.
But remember, magic is a business, and it is gaining popularity every day, with appearances on ellen and criss angle on tv doing his thing and david blaine. media has turned this magical art into a pop culture joke to people. many "magicians" now of days are kids who want to be popular and older wash outs who all do the same magic. we dont see this as an art anymore like we did back in the day where the magician was a sacred guardian of secrets, now we are youtube magicians looking for subscribers to hopefully make a profit of sorts exposing.
thats just me. i hope someone else out there can some how side with something i am saying.

 

[Nathanael463]

I agree

Yes I agree, with what you're saying, and no I am not saying that magicians should stop producing tricks, or selling them or else the business would die completely. I guess, we should be the ones to keep to ourselves as you said, and I do miss the old days when magicians were keepers of secrets. But at the same time if that was true, we wouldn't be here learning to become magicians ourselves. I do my best to keep the secrets of magic to myself, that's why, as much as I want Theory11 and Ellusionist and their counterparts to stay in business, my brother and I don't advertise where we learned our tricks. While it might be mean to keep these things from the public, I firmly believe that magic is an art that needs to be guarded, not show boated on Youtube. And I know I have seen David Blaine and Chris Angel and other magicians on various pop culture places, but while it is somewhat upsetting to see that, it is nice to see the very people we learned from out their blowing people's minds. But I think what Daniel Madison did, creating his own underground brotherhood in the UK is something that maybe not all of us, but a few of us need to do. Because as much as the world goes on publicizing magic, the style we are bringing into the world needs to be kept under wraps.

And that's not to say that we can't make a living on it right? But we need to be more of a whisper on the wind so to speak, minimal exposure through business advertisement, and more of our talent being spread on word of mouth. Do any of you agree? Or am I shooting blanks here?

 

[Michael Moore]

There are a few obvious things we can do to prevent people from learning the secrets to our tricks by simply looking on Youtube. The first thing to do when you perform a trick is to NEVER say the name of the actual effect. ex- "& now, I'll stop my pulse... & I call that Control.", because than all they'd have to do is type in Google or Youtube "Control Revealed", & come across a video or torrent, as opposed to if you didnt give it a specific title, than all they have to go on is stopping your pulse, of which there are several methods, & the 1st one they come across theyll of course believe thats the answer, even if it isnt. Or give it a different title completely, such as "Life Pause", or "Heart Freeze", than they'll type that in & be searching forever & just be chasing a figment of your imagination. So do this with every trick you know & have learned. The second thing would be to do what you can to make it different, & just say "Yes, that is ONE way to perform an effect like this, but the way I do it is completely different." & if your performance & conviction is strong enough, you can still fool them. Another thing you should do is focus on your showmanship skills, because I believe that if your a good entertainer as opposed to just being a magician, methods wont matter to them. Your goal should be "How can I make them have fun?", as opposed to- "How can I fool the heck out of them?". Be entertaining, be innovative, be different, & method wont matter as much.

 

[chriswiehl]

to elaborate on your comment moore, people shouldnt be using most popular names in the presentation anyway. like pressure? when do you think we make a big deal out of pressure. people just search up magic phone in balloon they will find stuff on it. just type in cell phone in balloon and the first thing there is T11
so just the description of most effects will give away the name. so that obviously wont work.
we need to take these ideas and make them our own. do something out of the normal dvd presentation to them.
i feel that if we could get out of our little magic rooms and actually go out and try to build ourselves up, we can come up with presentations that are not cookie cutter presentation.

 

[mehar]

As for the discussion on 'when you pay for magic you get the secret' bit, I think that it's a good thing. Think of it, how many people are willing to pay cold hard cash for something, compared to getting it for free? I could give you a pack of matches and you'd probably take them, even if you had no use for it. If you had to pay $1 for the pack of matches, suddenly you won't want to pay for it and won't get the matches. That's how I see the whole 'money = magic' situation.

 

[formula]

Things like "No longer an art, it is being turned into a business.

But I find that magic these days, is getting harder and harder to make people believe the impossible

My other question is, what do we do about it?

Everything is a business these days and that's not neccesarily a bad thing. Don't let anyone tell you magic is any less artistic because people have been smart enough to make money from it.

You know, I think you're right it is harder to fool people into believe the impossible these days. A good way to overcome that is not to expect everyone to be complete idiots and believe what we do is actually magic, when we perform well enough it may look like real magic but most people are wise to us now so the jig is up on real magic. I would find it insulting if I was at an event and a magician tried to tell me what he was doing is magic.

Finally, there is nothing we can do about it. The way the internet is we'll never stop fools from uploading bad videos, can't stop muggles and such from going to conventions and we'll never stop piracy. All we can do is keep our secrets to ourselves and perform the best we can.

 

[RealityOne]

First off, I think that saying that magic is under attack is a bit overdramatic. Yes, YouTube exposure is bad and should be discouraged, but it really only effects your magic if you are performing those effects and if your audience goes running to YouTube after every performance.

I would suggest learning from books, magazines and lectures. If you do, nobody will be able to look up your effects on YouTube.

Also, perform in a way that doesn't make your audience want to figure out how the effect is done. Make your presentation about entertaining your audience and not about fooling them. You want your spectators to think "that was amazing" not "how did he that?" That requires using something other than say-do-see patter.

 

[Nathanael463]

Hey all, once again I love the responses you have all been giving me. But now I have something else. I recently performed, probably one of the first tricks I was ever introduced to. It's simple, works, and gets a good reaction.

I have performed it for people, and some of them have said "I know what you did, I am just not sure how you did it." Is this still a good thing? Because well the trick is logical, the selected card appears on the back of the Bicycle Guardian pack (Take a look at it if you own one) and people know that it can only ever be that card. But while they say "I know what you did" They have no idea how they could have possibly picked the card. Is this still a good thing?

 

[KINGOFHE4RTS]

This is a message directly to theory11: DO NOT PROMOTE YOUR VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE! If you haven't realized this yet, the majority of people that make YouTube tutorials only reveal tricks that they have found on YouTube. If you only post teasers and previews of tricks on your website, then it will be more difficult for 12-year-olds to reveal your tricks. I don't understand why you feel the need to get views on Youtube. Sure, YouTube is convient for hobbyists to easily find the best new tricks, but for most of us, it is not nessesary for you to post preveiws on YouTube. One of my favorite effects is Divided by Jesse Feinberg, one of the videos you did not post a preveiw for. The outcome is, it is not exposed at all on YouTube.

 

[descartes]

This is a message directly to theory11: DO NOT PROMOTE YOUR VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE! If you haven't realized this yet, the majority of people that make YouTube tutorials only reveal tricks that they have found on YouTube. If you only post teasers and previews of tricks on your website, then it will be more difficult for 12-year-olds to reveal your tricks. I don't understand why you feel the need to get views on Youtube.

The fact is that T11 is a business, and no business will refuse free publicity for itself and its products.

It is true that if everyone stopped producing new DVDs and stopped advertising them on youtube, the amount of exposure would reduce, but it would also be counterproductive in the long run. Every art form needs new practitioners to survive. Without new talent and fresh perspectives, the art of magic would simply stagnate and wither away. What is needed is a balance between easily available information and overexposure. How to achieve this is another debate altogether.

 

[formula]

I have performed it for people, and some of them have said "I know what you did, I am just not sure how you did it." Is this still a good thing?

They don't know what you did then do they. A lot of people will tell you they know how you did it, just ignore them because 99% of the time they come up with some crazy theory just to look like a smart arse.

 

[Nathanael463]

Thanks

Yeah that's what I tell people, they can come up with a method, but the method is sometimes completely not what happened. But I think that the crazy idea's people come up with, that's the magic they see. No?

 

[KINGOFHE4RTS]

The fact is that T11 is a business, and no business will refuse free publicity for itself and its products.

It is true that if everyone stopped producing new DVDs and stopped advertising them on youtube, the amount of exposure would reduce, but it would also be counterproductive in the long run. Every art form needs new practitioners to survive. Without new talent and fresh perspectives, the art of magic would simply stagnate and wither away. What is needed is a balance between easily available information and overexposure. How to achieve this is another debate altogether.

You have some good points, but there are some things I want to point out. I don't mind theory11 posting their videos on YouTube (I would prefer if they didn't), but I cannot take that they are using YouTube Promoted Videos to get loads of unnecessary views. What this system does is it features Theory11's videos on YouTube, and anytime someone clicks on their promoted link, then theory11 has to pay YouTube money. The money itself isn't that bad, but the exposure the videos get do more damge than good. Theory11, one of your rules is that "If your product is really that good, it will get around on its own." I don't understand why you feel the need to break your own rule.