theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Comedy and Why You Suck At It

I'm taking acting classes at school right now. I highly reccommend that every magician takes them. David Blaine took them, look where he is now.
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Second, anywho I have sit in on some lectures on improv, the real only problem I have is not letting loose, I am very subconscious at times. Furthermore I did find it helpful to create a character script outline, with subtext before we did the improv show at a thespian convention once.
 
Steerpike said:
But that's the thing. You already have a coherent style that took hours of work. I'm assuming some people here have watched Whose Line Is It Anyway? No matter what the game, each comedian has their own distinctive style. That's what makes them good. The improvisation comes easily to them because they already did most of the work.

And for magicians, if you've scripted your routine already, you can effectively improv because you don't have to worry about what move is coming next. You can go on autopilot and think on the fly.
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Ahh, thanks for clearing things up, that makes more sense now.
 
Steerpike said:
Seriously, magicians love quoting Robert-Houdin. "We are not conjurers, but actors pretending to be conjurers." Be honest. How many of you have ever taken even a single acting class in your friggin' lives? How many of you have even read Stanislovski? If I get more than half a dozen honest people saying yes they have, I will be deeply surprised.
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As a side note - I work as an actor, so it's an affirmative from me. I don't really have much to add, since comedy isn't particularly a strength - not in the strongest performance sense of the word anyway - but I do agree with what you're saying completely.

It's true though, in music, in acting, in whatever. I've heard it said that one great paradox of acting is that you have to know the script intimately to be able to sound like you're saying it for the first time.
 
So that's, what? Four people in a community of thousands who have actually studied the craft of acting. About what I expected, but still depressing.

I hesitated to do this, but I think somebody needs to say it.

RebelAce69 said:
Some may disagree with me on this, but be yourself and don't "script" jokes. There needs to be a bit of truth behind anything if you want someone (especially an audience) to believe it. Anything scripted can kill that. The difference between just being funny and having a good attitude between memorizing jokes that might make people chuckle, is light and day. That's why some comedians are more successful, because they have jokes people can relate to.
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This was an utterly jaw dropping moment for me due to the arrogance of those remarks. Worse yet, it's from a moderator. I know such a title means nothing to people in the real world, but around here they're authority figures and are supposed to be held to a higher standard. Unfortunately, this is symptomatic of the problems I see in the community, exacerbated by the fact that no one else openly disagreed with these comments.

I have made it very clear by now that I'm not against either scripted or improv humor. I'm against badly done humor. And Rebel for you to say something that ignorant, I can only assume that you just aren't good at either scripting or improv. At all. That you haven't seriously taken the time to develop either one as a skill.

Prove me wrong.
 
Just to add my name to the list, I've studied performing arts in general, and drama in particular. Not with any special reference to Stanislavski, but I've got a passing familiarity with his work. And I've done a bit of stand-up comedy in my time, not particularly expertly, but it gave me a bit of insight into how it works.

One point I'd like to make is the differentiation between ad-libbing and improv. Improvisation is a particular theatrical skill normally involving interaction with other actors in a defined scenario. This is different from coming up with off-the-cuff lines and jokes. Both, however, require experience and work. It is true that occasionally you might come up with a clever one-liner on the spur of the moment, but practice and applied effort will hone that skill into one that can be relied upon.
 
Steerpike said:
But in jazz improv, you already have to know the scales, what key you're playing in, what modes are appropriate over what chords, and what meter and tempo you're playing in.

That's what I'm getting at. That's my point. To be good at improv you have to understand comedy and your subject material way ahead of time. Colin on Whose Line... is hilarious. But he didn't just wake up and decide to be funny. He's been honing his craft for years.
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I agree with you there. But are you saying that comedy magic is improv? Because, from what I said before, I do not think that you can call what comedy magicians do improvisation.

-Kevin
 
Steerpike said:
So that's, what? Four people in a community of thousands who have actually studied the craft of acting. About what I expected, but still depressing.

I hesitated to do this, but I think somebody needs to say it.



This was an utterly jaw dropping moment for me due to the arrogance of those remarks. Worse yet, it's from a moderator. I know such a title means nothing to people in the real world, but around here they're authority figures and are supposed to be held to a higher standard. Unfortunately, this is symptomatic of the problems I see in the community, exacerbated by the fact that no one else openly disagreed with these comments.

I have made it very clear by now that I'm not against either scripted or improv humor. I'm against badly done humor. And Rebel for you to say something that ignorant, I can only assume that you just aren't good at either scripting or improv. At all. That you haven't seriously taken the time to develop either one as a skill.

Prove me wrong.
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I think he's more of trying to give advice than anything. Comedy magic is hard. To replicate something like on of Bill Malone's performances is extremely difficult.

I think what he's trying to say is that don't try too hard to be a comedian and focus more on being a likable person in your performance. Otherwise, the jokes you attempt will only achieve the bad humor you talk about.

-Kevin
 
TeeDee said:
Just to add my name to the list, I've studied performing arts in general, and drama in particular. Not with any special reference to Stanislavski, but I've got a passing familiarity with his work. And I've done a bit of stand-up comedy in my time, not particularly expertly, but it gave me a bit of insight into how it works.
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I bring up Stanislovski because having read his work is pretty much a foregone conclusion with actors. Every actor has read his book at some point or another. Makes me wonder why more magicians don't.

It is true that occasionally you might come up with a clever one-liner on the spur of the moment, but practice and applied effort will hone that skill into one that can be relied upon.
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Truth isn't always a sexy answer, but if anybody can read that and find anything wrong with the logic, it will be enough to spend me spiraling into depression once more.

KevinOwens said:
I agree with you there. But are you saying that comedy magic is improv?
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No.

KevinOwens said:
I think he's more of trying to give advice than anything. Comedy magic is hard. To replicate something like on of Bill Malone's performances is extremely difficult.
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If I'm reading him wrong, that would be great actually. If Rebel is willing to come in and tell me as much, I'll break out the cake and Jones soda.

But I hedge my bets on assuming the arrogance of other magicians because it so often turns out to be right.
 
Steerpike said:
No.



If I'm reading him wrong, that would be great actually. If Rebel is willing to come in and tell me as much, I'll break out the cake and Jones soda.

But I hedge my bets on assuming the arrogance of other magicians because it so often turns out to be right.
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Fair enough

-Kevin
 
I bring up Stanislovski because having read his work is pretty much a foregone conclusion with actors. Every actor has read his book at some point or another. Makes me wonder why more magicians don't.
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Because most magicians do not associate acting with magic yet. Sorry if I am stating the obvious.
 
nexusmagic said:
Because most magicians do not associate acting with magic yet. Sorry if I am stating the obvious.
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Then they need to shut the hell up and stop regurgitating that Robert-Houdin quote at me.

Unfortunately, it's hard to pimp slap someone via cyberspace so I have to rely on the scalding heat and venom of my words.
 
Fact of the matter is that magicians are like a lot of people: they're lazy.

Worse yet, they assume that something they're ignorant of is easy. Writing and acting are two big ones with magicians. They can't write and they can't act, but they like to pretend they can. The fanciful world of Make Believe is a lot more accommodating than the real world wherein if you suck at something but stubbornly try to do it anyway, people will tell you to shag off.

Can you yell and pretend to be angry? Big deal. Everyone can do that. You're not an actor.

Can you sob in fake hysterics? Whoop-dee-doo! Children learn how to do that when they want ice cream or to skip school. You're still not actor.

Can you do card tricks that make teenage girls scream in surprise? I've seen Ed Wood movies with better actors than you.

I would say that learning to write and act requires the same amount of work you put into your sleight of hand, but that's a bad example if some of the videos and battles around here are any indication.
 
Steerpike said:
Fact of the matter is that magicians are like a lot of people: they're lazy.

Worse yet, they assume that something they're ignorant of is easy. Writing and acting are two big ones with magicians. They can't write and they can't act, but they like to pretend they can. The fanciful world of Make Believe is a lot more accommodating than the real world wherein if you suck at something but stubbornly try to do it anyway, people will tell you to shag off.

Can you yell and pretend to be angry? Big deal. Everyone can do that. You're not an actor.

Can you sob in fake hysterics? Whoop-dee-doo! Children learn how to do that when they want ice cream or to skip school. You're still not actor.

Can you do card tricks that make teenage girls scream in surprise? I've seen Ed Wood movies with better actors than you.

I would say that learning to write and act requires the same amount of work you put into your sleight of hand, but that's a bad example if some of the videos and battles around here are any indication.
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double true- acting is not easy, but it's not just finding the patter and the lines to go with your tricks. The best way to find a stable character to play (in my opinion) is to practice a routine that has a theme, which every routine that you perform should have. A theme in your performance helps you communicate to your audience whatever you want to tell them, because magic is something that helps you emphasize whatever it is your theme is. Whether it be seeing isn't believing, people want to be fooled, you cant trust your instincts, or whatever.

kevin
 
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