How many people here trample their own effects?

[Randy]

IE: You have way too endings to a routine. The card goes here, it goes there, it's torn and restored, now it appears in your pocket, wallet, under a glass, under a shoe. Etc.

Michael Ammar's Lecture got me thinking about that and how he mentioned that when he performs now days he's usually not doing that much with a table or cards (Besides Card on Ceiling). When he showed two card routines in the lecture they were pretty much the essence of magic. A person selects a card, and then the magician finds it. The spectator names a card, and the magician turns the wrong card into the right one.

Two very simple, yet very powerful effects that people can easily remember and recall later on. (Also, Card on Ceiling which is another very straight forward effect). Though, there are SOME routines that don't trample the magic. Pop Hayden has a really good one and I know Vernon had a few too.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

This feels like only half a thought. Like it needs to be developed more.

I can't remember who said it, I think it was either Eugene Burger or Teller who said that so much magic these days is not magic, but stunts. I think it's Eugene Burger. I actually don't like watching most magicians perform because they are just so bad at it. They cram as much work into every trick as possible, thinking the more there is, the better it is. The more impossible, the better. Impossible doesn't mean magical and the human mind needs time to process each effect if you want a good reaction.

The best tricks are slow and meaningful in my opinion. I have 5 effects in a 45 minute set and I'm considering cutting one more so they can really breath. I learned a lot from Paul Brook's Alchemical Tools. One of the things he stresses is stretching out a trick as long as possible. He even talks about how his version of Out Of This World takes half an hour to perform. 30 minutes for a trick that takes most people maybe 3 minutes.

Ever since reading that I've slashed my repertoire. If I can't slow it down and create real impact with it, it's gone.

 

[Luis Vega]

This feels like only half a thought. Like it needs to be developed more.

I can't remember who said it, I think it was either Eugene Burger or Teller who said that so much magic these days is not magic, but stunts. I think it's Eugene Burger. I actually don't like watching most magicians perform because they are just so bad at it. They cram as much work into every trick as possible, thinking the more there is, the better it is. The more impossible, the better. Impossible doesn't mean magical and the human mind needs time to process each effect if you want a good reaction.

The best tricks are slow and meaningful in my opinion. I have 5 effects in a 45 minute set and I'm considering cutting one more so they can really breath. I learned a lot from Paul Brook's Alchemical Tools. One of the things he stresses is stretching out a trick as long as possible. He even talks about how his version of Out Of This World takes half an hour to perform. 30 minutes for a trick that takes most people maybe 3 minutes.

Ever since reading that I've slashed my repertoire. If I can't slow it down and create real impact with it, it's gone.

Ok...half an hour for Out of this World seems excesive to me... way to excesive... Though I agree extending time for most effects to maximize potential, to milk all the reactions, but if you are not careful, you can get your audience bored.... which is a very bad things..

I knew a magician here, and he extended his effects a lot.. and to be honest in one of them I was falling sleep while he performed a stacked deck routine about angels and demons... very boring...

Few magicians are able to pull this out... and I also think it depends on your character!...I also slashed my repertoire with that in mind... however in my theatre show I?ll be performing 12 tricks in an hour and a half.. which to me seems good, since some routines are performances, some of them mentalism...

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Find his book and read it and you'll see why his half hour presentation makes total sense.

Again - just because most magicians can't pull it off, doesn't mean it isn't a good way to do things. Most magicians, even a lot of the professional guys, are really bad at performing. This is why magic has a reputation as being filler for 'real' entertainers. I believe most magicians don't respect magic enough to put the effort into making it powerful.

 

[Craig Browning]

Find his book and read it and you'll see why his half hour presentation makes total sense.

Again - just because most magicians can't pull it off, doesn't mean it isn't a good way to do things. Most magicians, even a lot of the professional guys, are really bad at performing. This is why magic has a reputation as being filler for 'real' entertainers. I believe most magicians don't respect magic enough to put the effort into making it powerful.

I think you're right and you are also right about Paul's book, one that Jeff McBride is using as a bible in his training classes, so Paul must be saying something right (I think I need to read it again).

The majority of performers today present magic as if they need to prove themselves in some way, which is why I question them; are you buying such and such an effect for the sake of creating magic or what you think it will make you look like -- for the sake of feeding your hungry ego?

My favorite example about doing something "slow" and creating enchantment is Billy McComb's version of the Flash Vanish Bird Cage (the one of Blackstone fame). For years we've seen this effect; the sudden and impossible vanish of a bird & cage but then Billy brings it out, covers it with a silk and you see it slowly melt in his hands into total nothingness. It's beautiful!

Other examples of simple and deliberate Magic range from the Orange Bowls and Fish Bowl Productions to properly timed manipulation acts that create anticipation in order to exploit it so as to bring about surprise.

Watch Eugene do the Gypsy Thread. . . or most any one of his noted routines; they are slow and deliberate and typically very simple in method.

Where the problem is when it comes to "slow" is usually Patter and not knowing how to use silence and create timing. That is why I tell everyone to get trained eyes on what they do and LISTEN to the critique. Not just magicians, most of which will pat you on the back and tell you that it's great, but theatrical directors and choreographers -- people that understand timing and presentation. You want them to rip you apart and help you rebuild things in a way that makes the effect/routine stronger. Such is what most FISM competitors do in order to smooth out their programs and make them flawless.

Again, EGO is the problem; magicians think they are the only one that "understands" what they are trying to accomplish but this creates blindness and the psychological inability to be honest and call a turd a turd. This is a curse 90% of us suffer from and it causes our acts to suffer as well as our audiences. We have to learn that we ARE NOT the great Gizmo or whatever our press materials make us out to be, but rather human beings trying to create the air of things magickle vs. challenges & puzzles.