The Art vs The Tools

[kennethcmerrill]

There are few card tricks that can sustain a meaningful presentation. . . Ace assemblies and pick-a-card / find-a-card tricks can't. The ambitious card routine is probably one example of where the presentations are too much for the effect -- anything that starts out personifying a card ("pretend the card is someone in your life...") is a bit too much.

I agree completely. I think to have any success with cards, you have to focus on simply giving people an experience and not trying to be to "meaningful" about it. Be intriguing, be charming, be funny, etc. There are still a lot of ways you can do this, but it has to really grow out of your character and your relationship with the audience, and I think sincerity and authenticity is the key.

I suspect the problem is with the implausible nature of the presentation. As I said above, is the presentation inextricable from the effect? My haunted key presentation is about a wardrobe closet in my grandparent's house that I was afraid of when I was young. The door to the wardrobe would always be open when I woke up, despite it being closed when I went to sleep. I thought it was my older brothers trying to scare me (this was around the time that the Amityville Horror story came out). When I was a little older, I spent a couple of nights there by myself and the same thing happened despite my efforts to lock the wardrobe. During that stay, I remember hiding the key in the bottom drawer of a dresser in another bedroom (there is a lot more to the story which ties the key to the opening wardrobe). When my grandfather passed away, in a box of things he left to me such as his WW I medals (I'm a bit of a history buff) was the key... As with most "supernatural" type magic, less is more with the effect. The key turns over once in the spectator's hand, slowly. The story is personal and plausible and the key turning over makes sense as part of the story. I have the box from my grandfather with the medals where I keep the key. It is the attention to detail that makes something become a "presentation piece."

Your presentation sounds awesome! This guy had a similar story, but it was impersonal (he used the famous Winchester house, not a place meaningful to him) and devoid of any real detail. It felt like his script came stock with the effect, though I know he had written it himself. It's unfortunate, too, because this magician has a very successful career as a performer, and he's very confident in his abilities, and yet he seems blind to something even a novice like me can see. I'm not sure how to avoid that kind of thing in my own practice...

 

[NinoIng]

An interesting read so far.

I’m still quite new at writing my own routines and ‘magic’ in the traditional sense plays a heavy part. I’m building tricks around folklore, natural magic and traditions of the area - many of which I take creative liberties with.

I wouldn’t underestimate the power of ‘magic’ in the modern psyche. It might be true to say that the majority of people don’t believe in magic but there are a large percentage who are probably open to the idea. It depends what ‘magic’ you are presenting.

Harry Potter-style will get you nowhere with modern audiences not because it isn’t believable anymore, but because it’s inauthentic. People associate that kind of magic with storybooks.

If you want an authentic magic presentation, look into the types of magic that people stil believe in and practice. The modern ‘craft’ and all its offshoots has hundreds of thousands of known followers across the world and perhaps hundreds of thousands more.

The key is authenticity - the audience have to believe that you know what you’re talking about even if they don’t believe it themselves. Framing it as an experiment in the beliefs of others is a nice way round this.

Never underestimate the vast array of unusual things that people generally believe. It’s enough to check out the comments on all those ‘flat earth’ pages to realise that huge numbers of people live very different realities.

In fact, we all live different realities whether we like it or not. Your presentation just needs to be authentic I feel, and then it won’t matter whether they ‘believe’ or not.

 

[Seth Hughes]

i think that magic as an art form should only be 20% method and the rest is showmanship this does not mean that you can make a magic routine with only the patter it has to be a ratio. you can't do a routine with amazing presentation but sloppy handling and on the contrary you can't have amazing handling but terrible presentation they are both equally important. i have yet to find the balance but i know that when someone does that is when they go from being a good magician to being a legendary magician.
thank you for bringing up this subject.

 

[Popay]

I have so much opinion about a lot of stuff said here..but I don't know...it just feels pointless somehow...but since I have nowhere else to talk about this it I might just write my thoughts..
I'm nowhere near a lot of these magicians or any of you posting here for that matter.. I've been doing magic for about 6 years now (not professionaly) and I'm very passionate about this craft.. like, so passionate I try to explain my friends why some magician is better than other (not talking about methods) even though they don't really care...but I care.. I'm hurt when I see some random "magician" goes on talent show in my country and has zero presentation skills, his sleights aren't good at all and you can cleary see he put minimal practice in his performace, but it's just enough to fool lay people and judges with some mediocre card trick...and than for the next few days I have to listen my friends talk about "that awesome guy who did that awesome trick on TV"...
And I figured out that magic is theoretically complicated craft... "art" of magic, or what ever you wanna call it, will never be like painting, or movies, or music...
Technically we can have the same debate over music.. what is more artistic? todays pop music where they just repeat stuff repeat stuff repeat stuff (little Bo Burnham reference)...or bohemian rhapsody, with no chorus, 6 minutes long, and written by one individual, which is often listed as one, if not the best song of all time..
But music as such can be viewed by all people as whole and people pretty much understand how music is created...while for magic they don't...as Chris said in his video, someone can buy self-working trick for few bucks and be greatest magician someone has ever seen...
So it's hard to determine what is good magic and even harder to determine what is art in magic...art itself is term nobody can define fully, somebody says something is art, others disagree...and that's that
And I don't understand why putting percentages on what is more important, presentation or method ... both are equally important and need to be practiced...I've seen magicians with so bad or cringy presentations that whole effent didn't make any sense... and I've seen perfect and interesting presentations but slights/method was not practiced enough and whole thing fell apart... my point is.. practice both...and make your magic worth at least something...

 

[Lord_Magic]

I'm hurt when I see some random "magician" goes on talent show in my country and has zero presentation skills, his sleights aren't good at all and you can cleary see he put minimal practice in his performace, but it's just enough to fool lay people and judges with some mediocre card trick...and than for the next few days I have to listen my friends talk about "that awesome guy who did that awesome trick on TV"...

Oh boy...do you make comedy videos on You Tube?

Because you're relatable af. Goodness, you basically spoke my heart out.