What do you present your 'magic' as?

[darosa.justin]

Hey guys,

I've performed alot recently, trying to perform as much as I can. Anyway, I like to present my tricks as real magic, as a mystery. I avoid saying want to see a trick or other things similar because I like the suspense.

People usually just go "sure...." after I answer their "how did you do that!!!?" (the typical reaction) question with "magic". So is there a better way for me/everyone to present the magic or answer their question?

Another way of saying "it was magic"?? maybe
Advice please!

 

[whonjohn1]

It depends on what I perform, and also the person I'm performing for. For card effects I sometimes reply, "very well". After performing something like Stigmata when the reaction comes, "How the hell did you do that?", it's sometimes fun to say, "I didn't do anything.. You did it". People will often look at the palm of their own hand with a spellbound look on their face.
I try not to give the same presentation over and over. I like to keep things fresh. I don't ever push "magic" or "just an illusion" on anyone, unless I know I have them right where I want them. Sometimes I think it's better just to shrug and say, "I don't know".

 

[Loz]

Personally I think this is a fascinating topic so I may ramble a bit

I think presenting your traditional card tricks and coin tricks such as coins across, three fly, acr, biddle trick, triumph etc etc as magic to your audience is somewhat patronising. In this day and age, no one believes magic exists and you will have to do something akin to making an elephant appear in front of them to convince them magic is real.

When I showed a trick to a friend and he asked how I did it, I replied half seriously with "magic." He replied "BS, if you could do magic I doubt you'd be messing around with cards and coins. It's just sleight of hand." Fair enough, I thought - so from now on whenever I perform (which is admittedly fairly rarely) I present it as a sleight of hand demonstration - an ACR stops being a cheesy "hurr, your card jumps to the top!" presentation and turns into a simple sleight of hand demonstration which becomes more and more intense and impossible as you go on until the sleight of hand used becomes incomprehensable - dare I say it - rather like the Vegas Card Cheat routine, but without the blatant exposure. It's ok, you can all start beating me with sticks now.

Obviously the sleight of hand explanation isn't applicable for all effects, like The Invisible Deck or Thought of Card to Pocket. For these effects my explanation is psychology, much like Derren Brown's style, where you are supposedly influencing the audience member into doing what you want, or predicting their actions based on their personality, which obviously is not true - but it's a far more plausible explanation than "ok, here I have an invisible deck of cards...." or "ok, I'm going to phone your mum, and she's going to get a deck of cards and reverse one and the two decks are joined by the relationship between you and your mother!" you get the idea.

Now I'm not saying perform every single effect like some kind of demonstration, but this isn't the 1600's anymore and people don't believe in witchcraft unless they're frankly, slightly odd. When I hear some cheesy explanation for some effect which involves "magic" it just makes me feel slightly nauseous.

My fine 2 english pennies, anyway.

 

[robotsunshine]

Just sorcery can be a cheesy answer, but just sleight of hand seems to kill a lot of the effect. If someone showed me something amazing, something that lingered in my thoughts for a while, it'd destroy it for me if they said, "Eh, just sleight of hand. I'm good with cards." Personal opinion here, but that seems to just eliminate the mystery and half-solve what's going on. I may not know exactly how you did it, but I know some tricky stuff was involved.

But, spectators already know it's sleight of hand, right? They don't want to believe. I often wonder about that... when a spec. sees an impoosible effect, they always ask how it's done. We've ALL heard, "How'd you do that?" I'm wondering if "sleight-of-hand" isn't an acceptable answer in most peoples' imagination - some little spark of them that wants to believe they just witnessed something paranormal. It could just be plain ol' curiosity, but still... rarely do you hear spectators launch into a thesis of, "I know you had a special contraption or moved it when I wasn't looking, I just can't figure out when!" You're usually greeted (if the effect was good enough) with pure awe and intense puzzlement, but not analysis.

The supernatural angle can work. Look at psychics with a firm grasp of cold reading and a working knowledge of metal bending. They can get some people to believe. Not always, and not everyone, but it does happen. Some people believe in UFOs - a lot do, actually. There's people who say Bigfoot is real, or that sea monsters inhabit lakes, or that vampires really do exist. Then there's the far out crowd, those that think our government is overrun by a race of genetically-superior super lizards, or whatever. Given the right evidence and presentation, people CAN believe in stuff like that (when I first saw David Blaine's Street Magic special, pre-magician, I didn't know what to think. Did I think magic was the cause? Some supernatural power? Not really, but... jeez, how else did he do all that? What REALLY happened here?)Maybe the 1600's left a lasting imprint. It's certainly fun to think about the otherworldly, sometimes.

I've actually been toying with a weird idea - not so much that I have magical powers, but that I have the ability to change and enforce paradigms on people. That's the presentational hook I'm working on. I don't use powers to push the coin through the bottle, I temporarily change how the laws of reality work and how the spectator sees it. I change the paradigm, there. It becomes a perception and philisophical thing, then - but it's lacking flash, and I want to tinker with it somemore.

 

[Shodan]

Entertainment.

 

[Krash]

You know what?

Whenever I perform an effect or a routine for somebody, I try my very best not to influence their reactions. By this, I mean that I try and let whatever reaction come as it is.

So, if somebody happened to react to an effect as "real magic", then I let them. If somebody wants to react to it as skill, then that's fine with me. However, most people will tend to look at magic as nothing more than entertainment. That's fine with me because that's pretty much what we are trying to do, no?

This is all within reason mind you. So, if somebody literally started to freak out and start shouting from the top of their lungs that I'm the devil or whatever, I'll usually try to set them straight.

Then again, this aspect of magic is up to you.

Shane

 

[lachomagician]

Simply say: "I don't know, it has never happened before"

 

[Bizzaro]

I like to insult my audience but not their intelligence. They know if I whip out a deck of cards, chances are I am gonna find their card and I would rather be percieved as an artist with skill as someone who might look at a dancer or a painting.

Life is perception and everyone will look at what you do differently. Some people will be drawn in to the idea that you are a "real magician" while others will just think you to be full of cheese (mmm cheese).

Can't please everyone so you might as well just please yourself.

 

[fabiooris]

well, I present my magic differently for different kinds of people. On a regular basis, i present it as a mystery, not necesarily a trick or REAL magic, just as a WOW! "There's no way he could do that" type of reaction. Wherass for my ADV. theater dept calssmates, I do it as a trick. But on a regular basis, a mystery.

fabio

 

[CDarklock]

I present my magic as skill.

I can do something you can't.

If you took the time to learn, you could do it too, but you didn't... and you won't.

Not telling you how it's done is just how I rub it in.

 

[Kaos]

tha one dude who said they present it as Slieght of Hand till it becomes incomprehensible, and then someone said that it would kill it. i can honestly see it workin out ok if presented well. tha way i do it is i usually do some simple visual quick card things or w/e to get attention. and present them "tricks" but leave a few things unanswered then i move into tha more real psychology. mentalism presented as psych. "nothin psychic jus really good at psych." and i back it up with evidence ( i honestly am good at influence and reading ppl wit psych so this style comes naturally to me) and i present them as not tricks but psych. and this elevates tha energy 10 fold. but thats my style and tha reason it works for me is cuz i incorporate my personality in it. im not one person when im chillin and a different one when i perform. i integrate and i live magic and perform myself. same person. to get your best style look at yourself and do you. and jus elevate yourself and perform that. so my way wont necessarily work for you but YOUR way WILL work. u jus gotta find it.

 

[Wesker]

I've worked it into my routine so that I start off as everything being a kind of trick, after I get the first reactions on my starter I tell them that everything I do is actually done through a transferrance of energy and that with the last "trick" i've actually taken some of their energy (For entertainments purposes I assure you!) for my next effect in the routine.

The next trick is usually a lot more powerful so it really gets them to gasp, you can only imagine the reactions I get when I have my E.T. with me :X

 

[Jakeh]

I like going for the "energy" and "universe bending" kind of stuff, especially if you can back it up with an awesome effect.

 

[arcangeld]

How you do that?

Here I'll show you.. do some psedo-explanation and use a different method and do a different effect in the end.. XD

 

[Zac]

I've mentioned this before I think.

The way you present your magic HAS to be tailored to your audience. I perform for people like myself, young fresh out of college professionals and college students and overall twenty something-college aged crowd. If I were to do an effect for a group of 25 year olds and then respond to "How'd you do that?" with "I have supernatural powers." I will have officially went from the "cool guy that just blew their mind" to "that creepy weird guy with cards."

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with using that as your persona. It just doesn't fit me. And perhaps if I were performing for your audiences I would adapt my presentation to that of a supernatural one. Again it goes back to what communication scholars call, managing your message.

Like someone else said, people these days know that there's a trick to it. They know it's sleight of hand, but that doesn't make it any less impressive. I truly feel that a great response to "How'd you do that?" is simply by saying "Magic."

Oh "but magic's not real," some might reply, then we get into the thought that maybe "real" magic isn't actually actually making something vanish or two things switch places; but rather making someone see something they just thought impossible, I believe Paul Harris calls it astonishment. (Another topic for another day).

Personally, for my normal crowd, I go with a, "This is something cool that I can do, and look how fun it can be, yes I did sit alone for hours on end practicing these things, and yes that makes me a nerd and slightly weird, but right now you think it's pretty cool" type presentation. For me it works. And I agree with the person above who said that they poke fun at their audience, I do that as well, but in a playful non-threating manner, and again I don't know how or why but it works.

Anyway, I'll close with this; You have to play to your audience. I'm not saying you have to be a different person when you perform for different crowds, but you have to know some things will work better for some crowds than others. Example, if I were performing an effect for a group of elderly women, I wouldn't make fun of them like I would if I were doing the effect for a group of 19 year olds.

Sorry for the lengthy post, it's a slow day in the travel business.

 

[Tomas Simkus]

Hello guys,

Someone mentioned that with a card trick you cannot create real magic effect. I would like to disagree. The first time I saw David Blaine I was fascinated and in my mind there were thoughts about real magic.

I am personally like to present my magic as a real. But in a restaurant work or party job there is no way this could be done (at least my way). So I present it as an entertainment.

Thank you for your time,

Tomas

 

[robotsunshine]

Maybe the supernatural angle doesn't work because we present ourselves as entertainers in a profession notorious for weird gizmos and palming techniques. Try it from a sort of Room 401 / Scare Tactics angle (remember Scare Tactics? Awesome show): don't label yourself as anything. Don't say you're a magician, or can you show them something - just do something weird and noticable. Make things move with your M5 and let someone notice. Do a levitation but act as if you aren't aware it's happening; then when someone notices, look uncomfortable and excuse yourself. Out dining, make all your silverware bend, then look embarrased and frustrated. Can you cold read? Approach someone to warn them of impending danger, then launch into a very serious mentalism routine, preferably without billets or anything, just straight cold reading.

Maybe not the best for hired shows or people who know you, but throw on some old, dirty clothes and try it at a bar, nightclub, the street, etc. Appear serious and paranoid, and let the spectators come to you. Might be fun

 

[Kaos]

Maybe the supernatural angle doesn't work because we present ourselves as entertainers in a profession notorious for weird gizmos and palming techniques. Try it from a sort of Room 401 / Scare Tactics angle (remember Scare Tactics? Awesome show): don't label yourself as anything. Don't say you're a magician, or can you show them something - just do something weird and noticable. Make things move with your M5 and let someone notice. Do a levitation but act as if you aren't aware it's happening; then when someone notices, look uncomfortable and excuse yourself. Out dining, make all your silverware bend, then look embarrased and frustrated. Can you cold read? Approach someone to warn them of impending danger, then launch into a very serious mentalism routine, preferably without billets or anything, just straight cold reading.

Maybe not the best for hired shows or people who know you, but throw on some old, dirty clothes and try it at a bar, nightclub, the street, etc. Appear serious and paranoid, and let the spectators come to you. Might be fun

co-sign lol! im tryin that when im bored

 

[dummyisdumb]

Hmm... I don't think anyone in their right mind believe it's real magic. I show it as sleight of hand, most people think that.

 

[Nate Malini]

I like to say "i was born this way" after a mental effect.