Dealing with Mess-Ups : Getting Through It

[j.bayme]

All,

As we took a recess last month, we wanted to make sure we got a Cerca Trova up right on time tonight (Friday)-- as it's now officially the 1st of December. As I write this, I just got off the phone with Danny Garcia, Wayne, and Dana-- they've been shooting all day today and will continue to all throughout the weekend. The first thing Wayne mentioned on the phone, however, was that they've got some hilarious outtakes. And that got me thinking.

What are some of YOUR best outtakes? What are some of your most memorable blunders, mistakes, or mess-ups, and how did you get through it? Whether it be an act of god (ie, a bird flew into your IT line in the middle of a floating bill routine), a heckler, or a genuine screw up-- how did you get through it? Your reaction can be exponentially more important than the mistake itself.

I'll share my own to get things going. It was around December of 2000-- and it was one of my first big theatrical performances. I was 13. This was in front of a sold out crowd of around 1,200-- one show, one night. I was nervous as hell as I had only done a few theatrical performances at the time, and that affected my focus-- and my preparation.

The last effect in the show was Gypsy Thread (Gary Ouellet). The rest of the show was flawless, and this was just the home stretch. The last 3 minutes of a 90 minute show. In the beginning the effect and the music, lighting, and ambiance was perfect. The thread was torn into pieces. The pieces were clearly shown. The music began to build up. The pieces were rolled into a small ball. The ball was then slowly unraveled... when it happened. The ball of thread became tangled. Badly tangled. 100% more tangled than it should have. 101% more tangled than it should have.

This was the concluding moment-- the last minute of one of my first big shows. As I stared at the tangled wad of thread glowing in the blacklight on the stage-- music crescendo'ing-- I yelled at it in my head "PLEASE UNRAVEL. PLEASE UNRAVEL." It wasn't listening to me. It didn't unravel.

Keeping myself moving, I laughed, I said "not only have the pieces fully restored into a solid line of thread, but they have magically tangled themselves together into a magical... ball... of... tangled... thread." The audience laughed. The rapport built up over the rest of the night redeemed itself, and it really wasn't a big deal after all. While it was the most memorable minute of the show for me, it certainly wasn't for them. They remember the peaks, not the valleys. You don't ever remember the comedian's bad jokes-- the ones that only get a half hearted laugh. You remember the best ones.

I learned from this. I dealt with it. I moved on. And the next time I performed it-- it went off without a hitch.

That's my story. What's yours?

 

[clarrus]

It's nothing glorious but I was doing this trick where four aces show up on the the four piles of cards after the spectator cuts the deck into four piles. I know a pretty simple trick but somehow something went wrong and I ended up with a 5 and three aces. We both just laughed and redid and trick. I put four aces spread amonst the deck......you guys know the rest.

 

[Tricky Nicky]

I actually had quite a funny moment happen today. I was performing Mr. Stickman for a couple friends and the effect was going great. I vanished Mr. Stickman, and then spread through the deck to find where he ended up. Well, I had left a blue card in my red deck. So here was this random blue card, that I had forgot about, in my red deck. I just said, "And that's another trick, I apologize," and they got a really good laugh out of it. I think they thought that was more magical than Mr. Stickman. So, like what's already been stated, a bad moment could be potentially a rather good moment.

 

[arcangeld]

What some people tend to forget is that laymen wouldn't know the techniques so they would not be expecting it when one messes up. This is why awareness and ability to adapt is crucial during performances. Lets say a flash from a DL just quickly reposition, your IT breaks (those fickle things) then you can do other things.

My most memorable ones was doing a variation of voodoo ash, I asked a spectator to pick a card. The card was then picked, and the spectator was asked to write it on a piece of paper and to fold it in half. While this was going on I was taking out my lighter, the spectator handed it back. Unfortunately, due to me not paying enough attention I did not notice the paper was folded half and then another half.

What does this matter you say? Well through experiments and dealing I found that a single notepad, no lined ( i dont know if it matters but yeah..) piece of paper when folded in half and burned the fire is not as hot and does not burn when rubbed on skin.

So the fact being I was surrounded by other spectators I just went on with the trick, the card was revealed in ash on my arm and specators were astounded. I however had to keep a painless and smiling face and had to spend the entire month after that with burns on my arm.

This is an example of an audience not realizing the mishap.. and also a lesson to always be aware..

 

[Flyspazz]

Many years ago when I was about fourteen I was doing a Christmas party show for a small company that puts tags on the back of T-shirts. I was performing the Zombie ball and it came off the gimmick, fell to the floor, split in half, and was there just rolling around in little circles. Being so young I was just mortified and didn’t have a clue what to do or say. Then a mom in the audience says” hey, isn’t there supposed to be flowers or a handkerchief when it opens”. Out of nowhere without thinking I said “actually there was supposed to be a rabbit but he’s so young he keeps jumping around from trick to trick in my magic trunk. Then to my amazement all the kids started laughing like crazy. So in my line of tricks I moved the “rabbit out of the empty box” to the next one and when I produced the rabbit they went nuts. I don’t think they even knew how bad I screwed it up. The next year when booking the show the reservationist from the company says “hey, are you going to do the floating ball and the rabbit from the box again this year?” I just laughed and said “actually this year the rabbit's going to come out of my hat.” Like Bayme says, people remember the best out of the show and again they may have not known the mistake and certainly didn’t focus on it.

 

[Liam Carrie]

man i once did a trick for Steven Harper, and i was performing jay sankeys "lottery" effect. i screwed up by doing one of the moves wrong but i think i fooled him.

 

[ManningMagic]

My biggest outtake wasn't really in the handling or trickery of a trick. My goof was something i did. I am human, and every now and then human tends to fart every now and again. As they say, silent but deadly. Those spectators ran away faster than i could come to the climax if the trick.

 

[sky_lark]

Eh, so the November Cerca Trova got left behind?

This isn't big or anything... but I was doing that trick where you show four aces, place them down. Place three cards on top of each ace. Compile three of the four piles together, shuffle them in the deck. The four aces reappear in the last pile.

So I am showing them the four aces... "Regular aces" show them the front. "Regular backs" show them the backs. I can see people silently cracking up. Then I realize my mistake. When I showed them the backs, they were seeing the front of random cards (These random cards were helping with my trick)!

So I go back to prepare, come out again. This time, I show three aces and one set of random cards (supposed to look like one card).

Finally, I get it all down. It was all pretty hilarious.

 

[MitchellStafiej]

I was performing Cellular Mitosis at a stage show for a Darfur rally and when I was going to go select my volunteer, a girl with an obvious mental/psychological/learning disability ran up on stage. I didn't want to be mean so I continued with the effect on her. She didn't follow any directions, and I can't blame her, but it just sort of hindered my performance useless.

Not trying to be mean, just sharing one of my worst performing experiences.

Also, I was performing on the streets in -20 Celsius weather last year (yes I love performing) and the sidewalks were sheer ice. Halfway through my performance I stepped backwards at a moment and slipped right on my ass. I just got up and stayed confident. Funniest yet most embarrassing moment of my magic .

Mitchell

 

[conjure_pitch]

Well one time I was doing a variation on a hofzzy Osbourne type trick where there card transposes from my 5 card packet to their deck that they hold the entire trick. The wrong card transposed. In short invisible deck is my best freind in the whole world. Especially at that moment. Saved my performance, especially seeings how there were only 6 tables at this christmas party. So in short

The list thus far is

Ways of saving screw ups:
Shrug it off and try again, hope the audience forgets.
Invisible deck.

Hahah

 

[Austin Fields]

I wish I had a really funny one, but this one went from bad to worse

So I was performing ambitious card for a group of friends at lunch time, and random small freshman came over, I took no notice and continued, well, I hit the "here ill show you with less cards, you hold this top half of the deck and..." and I didn't realize the SMALL freshman somewhat behind me. Anyway he called it out and started flipping stuff over, well he look satisfied with it. I was about to try and save it but my best friend said
"you need to leave bro (yes, 'bro' , welcome to California)"
and the kid went from a smirk to a confused frown, then my other friend stepped in front of him to shut him out of the circle, I was a spectator at this point.

The freshman ended up pushing my friend, who turned around and got in his face, and my magic video went from ambitious card to the pre-fight interviews before the match, when they yell at each other and stand up and act like they're going to fight right then and there.

I have a video of it actually if someone wants to see, no swearing I don't think, but just shows how bad a performance can turn.

~Beans

 

[elementalconjurer]

i was doing a dice stacking demo for some friends and it went wrong. funny but wrong. i was doing some simple stuff. 3 dice stacks, i had colored dice i was seperating and stacking. and then i wanted to do a 5 dice stack. so i scooped up the first one. it was cool, did the second, third, fourth, and then came the fifth. yeah this is where it went horibly wrong. as I went to scoop it,
i nicked the side causing it to hit the person to my side in the head. he was drinking a soda which. spilt all over the place. and when i walked over to see if he was ok, i slipped on the soda and fell. it was the funniest moment of my life. (magicaly)

 

[WarriorMagician2010]

This really ins't a screw up on my part but it totally srewed up my show.

So, i was doing a simple mind read type trick, where i had the spectator chose a card and just by them holding it in their hands i told them what it was. i don't know why i ended my routine with this, i think it was because i had to leve soon and wanted to get ready, but i digress.

So this kid a total idiot sees the trick and right before the volunteer shows the card the idiot says...

Now before i tell you get a deck of Bicycles.

... "thats easy, he counts how many BIRDS there are inthe corner and that tells him what the card is"

BIRDS, wherre the hell are there birds in the corner of a deck of Bicycles. Go ahead look there isn't. this ruined my entire performance, and the worst part was i got grounded because i was late. Why was i late, you might ask? The kid stole the card and spent 10 minutes looking for the birds in the corner of the card and wouldn't give it back until he found them. i know i go to school with idiots.

 

[Dizzi]

I worst messup would probably be doing sinful...and then accidentally having the coin fall....I just had to say 'sometimes, the coin doesn;t always go through'

 

[Liam Gray]

so one time at school, i was preforming david blaines arm twist infront of the sizable group that had gatherd. But a few seconds to late, i noticed i had forgotten the most important move of the trick so i wouldnt be able to spin my arm around the whole way. Right then i noticed that i could pop out my shoulder. It was really stupid, but i did. I then procided to twist my arm the whole way around, and acting like it hurt wasnt needed. It DID hurt. After i had had my arm literally twisted 1 and a half times around, i got up and told everyone that that was all the time i had. I went to the bathroom and untwisted my arm and popped it back in.
I learned my lesson.
Just because you can save a trick doesnt mean you
SHOULD save the trick.
I've had a bruise for the last month.

 

[dasuprememep]

I hate performing for a camera, because my style of magic is improvision. I mess up a lot, and when I do, I have developed the skill of catching myself again. I totally messed up a hermann pass, by forgeting about who was watching from where, and I just said, "Woops, I didn't mean to do that, I'll just try that again, pick another card."

They don't really care.

 

[sourboarder]

Ambitious card

O the old ambitious card routine... I will try to explain this with minimal exposure.

I was doing a show for an arabian man I believe is what ethnicity he was. He has never seen magic before in real life. So I had a deck all set up for my walk around an outlet mall. I started with Bizarre twist... he flipped out at the climax. I then did a customized here then there uses Daniel madison's card to shirt pocket with color change to get the card to a blue card then another color change to get it to an indifferant card and told him to check his shirt pocket. BAM, a blue backed card that was once red changed to blue and transported into his pocket... he was just about to leave because he couldn't handle all the magic. I then did my ambitious card routine. Everything was flawless until I got to my shapeshifter into signed card. The finale. The way i set this up is normally I get a brake under the bottom card stick it the signed card and load it while into the upper half... I forgot the actually sleight name.... sorry. But instead of getting 2 cards I actually got 5 I was thinking Oh MY GOD! so I relaxed and i said so its not the top card, or the second, then i got to the card above his and i said you know why it your card hasn't reached the top yet.. he said why. I said I forgot to whip the deck as u know the shapeshifter has the "single card" above and i then perform and he walked away without saying anything. Now there's a man that will remember me for quite a while the reason I know this is because I was eating at a restaurant about 3 months after I performed for him and he came over and introduced me to his wife... thats what magic is all about.

 

[gOOfy]

What are the odds? Haha.

Ok. This, next to winning a 100 bucks on a lottery ticket, has to be the luckiest things that has happend to me.

This was sometime this April. I was doing an ACR with a Card To Pocket ending. I was performing out front of a movie theater for some people who were waiting for their movie to start. It was a Friday night so it was crowded. I started to do The Pass when someone bumped into me pretty hard from behind and I lost their card.

Now, I let my step-bro play with my cards all the time. He's 4 years old so he just spreads them around and stuff. He told me to pick a card and I did, then my parents called me down for dinner so I just dumped the card into my pocket and we went downstairs.

...That card that I took from my bro was in my pocket...and it was the same exact card that that spectator chose. So I was already set-up to take the card out of my pocket.

Like, what are the chances right? My little bro pulled a little magic trick of his own on me. A future magician right there.

 

[Mshade]

One time I was doing a simple trick for my friend called 'Hitman'. The thing is I was using a borrowed deck and it was too old and warped for me to control the card properly. So I somehow ended the trick with the wrong card in their hand. I told them, "turn it over..." and when they did they just looked at me and said it wasn't their card... they told me their card was the 5 of clubs. So I quickly found it, palmed it off and revealed it to be in my pocket from the start.

Another time I was trying to do a Derren Brown card force. The card I wanted them to think of was the Jack of Spades which I had in my pocket. I went through the whole thing but I got a gut feeling that my spec wasn't thinking about the Jack. So I just played the situation and did the opposite. I said your thinking of a red card... like a heart and from his eyes I say I was right. Then I said, 'yeah, it a low card too I think, like a 3. yeah it's the 3 of hearts.'. He jumped up and just gave me an inquisitive look. He said that I was lucky. So I did it again except for this time I made his friend think of the jack of spades.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows though and I have several times been caught without an out and been embarassed and this will probably happen a lot in the future also. The trick is to always have an out and when things don't go as you planned to improvise. Dai Vernon, who I believe to be one of the greatest sleight of hand magicians of the 20th century took a lot of his magic inspiration from jazz which is very free from structure. He would start a trick not exactly know where it was going and sometimes he would get major coincedences which lead to impossible miracles for his audiences.

If you screw up at the end of your trick, keep going like the trick isn't over until you can find another opportunity to make the magic real for your audience.

 

[darosa.justin]

Sometimes, if a force goes wrong or..anything goes wrong...I cahnge plans, and if im thinking of doing trick A ill switch and do trick B instead, to suit the situation.

Just 2 days ago, i just got a friend to pick a card, with no idea what trick i was doing. In the end...lets just say that it was a good reaction. The trick i did- i completly just made up on the spot. Im gona try and improve it, and it can be the first trick i invetned!! Although there are several efects out ther wich are the exact same thing.