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

Magic video by me and a friend, hope you enjoy.

Technically it looks great. More importantly though, can you "entertain" a room full of spectators with a set or show? Anyone can stand in front of a camera and make it look great but I'd love to see you out doing effects for people and filming it.
 
Aha, both good observations. The answer to the first, being can I entertain a room full of spectators in a show is no, most probably not! However in informal gatherings, when a small crowd of people has formed (10-15) yes, and I love to do so.

As for the dressing part, I'm not sure if dressing up in, say, a suit (which I do wear every day, being my school uniform) would have been necessary. I perform in jeans and a t-shirt, as do many others, why not shoot it that way? What would you have suggested? Then again, it is the first video I've shot so any suggested improvements are gladly welcomed, thank you!
 
First I have to ask: What's the goal of the video?

The music was decent. Not really my style, but not so annoying that I couldn't watch the video.

I'm not a big fan of the "close up of the crotch/belly with cards being fiddled with" kind of videos. They have no real content, it's just showing off. You at least showed a couple shots with faces, which is good.

Regarding what to wear .. It doesn't really matter what you're wearing as long as it fits your performance character. David Blaine is a suit wouldn't work as well as David Blaine in a t-shirt and jeans. Tim Minchin wears a tuxedo with no shoes on stage. Angus Young wears a schoolboy suit. Penn & Teller wear grey suits. All of those outfits were chosen for specific reasons and they all fit the character the performer portrays on stage. Magicians have a habit of trying to wear suits because the common wisdom is that it will make them seem more professional. But I've seen plenty of magicians who look horrible up there in their suits which are the wrong color, wrong style or just plain wrong overall for the character. The important thing is that the costume enhances the character.
 
The goal was to have a visual-magic/flourish video with sleights performed to the best of our ability after the countless hours we put into them :) I guess we were emulating the Zach Mueller type of video, which we really enjoyed.
While I overwhelmingly prefer to perform 'full' magic tricks with context, visual magic or 'fiddling with cards' as you put it plays alot better on camera for most people, and grabs attention alot more readily than other types of magic.
Thanks for the honest feedback, it's nice to have a well-rounded variety of opinions to improve next time.
 
I agree with Luis' opinion on clothing choice. It's an incredibly important factor. Yes, many people do perform in casual clothes like David Blaine, Dan White, etc... for instance. But, while they are dressing in this "casual" attire, they do wear something that represents their performance rather than detract from it. When I see a video where some kid is wearing clothing that makes him look like he just got out of bed, with his teenage mutant ninja turtle shirt with mismatching pants, but not in a fashion statement sort of way that does not reflect his personality style, I can't help but think, why did he choose to wear that?
 
NapoleonII said:
The goal was to have a visual-magic/flourish video with sleights performed to the best of our ability after the countless hours we put into them :) I guess we were emulating the Zach Mueller type of video, which we really enjoyed.
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So .. showing off.

While I overwhelmingly prefer to perform 'full' magic tricks with context, visual magic or 'fiddling with cards' as you put it plays alot better on camera for most people, and grabs attention alot more readily than other types of magic.
Thanks for the honest feedback, it's nice to have a well-rounded variety of opinions to improve next time.
Click to expand...

When I say 'fiddling with cards' I mean flourishing. Which is not 'visual magic' because it's not magic at all. It's a type of contact juggling or object manipulation, really. Which is fine. But it's not magic. It may grab attention, but I don't know if you've done the research to see if it really plays a lot better. I would say that if it played better than full-on performances, then flourishing videos would be far more popular than they are. As it is, really the only people watching flourishing videos are other flourishers and the people that they show the videos to.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do these things, but try real performances and see how they play out before you just assume that this is what the public wants.
 
I'm not sure why you seem fixated on branding it as 'showing off' - I mean is the singer showing off when he sings? Is Usain Bolt showing off his speed when he runs the 100m, which is a competition to see how fast you get from A to B? You can always ask, "What's the point of this" regarding any sport, art form or pretty much anything, and often it will boil down to: someone's put a lot of effort into what has grown to be a passion of his/hers, and then shows it to other people, often for money. It has no meaning. If you want to call that 'showing off', that's fine, but it implies negative connotations which in turn devalue the work put in to the performance/result as trivial, or not worth anyone's time.

If people were to take that approach for cardistry videos, which this could be described as (or could it? only 5 clips show actual cardistry moves, the rest are classic flourishes magicians use) , then others would have little to answer when someone, instead of commenting on how the actual content of the video could be improved, criticises its entirety by brushing it off as 'showing off'. If you were to post a video on a performance, cardistry, general magic theory or what have you, I wouldn't question the 'point' of it, rather assess how well you achieved what you set out to achieve in that context.

When I say 'plays a lot better' and 'grabs attention' I mean exclusively in the context of videos, especially amateur-made ones. Cardistry and colour changes on their own aren't going to play better in person, for many reasons, compared to performances of an effect wrapped in patter and misdirection; however they will on video, for the simple reason that you get the 'wow's or 'kicker's straight away, in quick succession. Misdirection on video when filming for the camera is much more difficult, freedom of movement is limited. I don't think I need to do some research to ascertain that to be true. When full performance videos become extremely popular, this is almost always due to the fact that this person is either a famous professional, or has built up some other kind of following that will watch whatever he puts out, like youtube subscribers.

In conclusion, the strength of color changes and flourishing on video is that many different changes and cuts can be packed into a short amount of time, so that there will be something for almost everyone to stop and think: I really enjoyed that part. Videos of performances for other people will only be enjoyed by magicians, as you get a 'side view' of the performance lacking misdirection and often cover for moves; and performances for camera are limited to either one trick per short video, or an extremely long video if you want more than one.
As for clothing, point gladly taken, a more appropriate sartorial choice will be made when my friend and I decide to fiddle on camera some more :)
 
When a singer sings a song, they are connecting with an audience on an emotional level (or attempting to). When a singer shatters a glass with his voice (Like in Mythbusters) he's showing off. When a sprinter is in a race, he's competing. When he just films himself sprinting to show how fast he's going, he's showing off. When there's no point other than showing what one can do, it's showing off. And I have no problem with it. It's not about, "Don't do that, you're just showing off" it's about knowing what you're doing so you can do it as well as possible. If you're going to show off, show off in such a way that it is the best display of the skills you are showing off. If you don't want to show off, then you need an entirely different approach to the video. But you can't know that until you've understood that the point of the video is to show off.

How they play depends entirely on the end goal of the video. If your goal was to show some really powerful magic, then sorry, you failed. None of the stuff shown (though well executed) was powerful as it had no emotional resonance. It will be forgotten shortly after viewing. Much like those video compilations of people doing really amazing things like the kid in the wheel chair doing a back flip off a skate ramp, or the high dive into a kiddy pool, etc. (which I freely admit I really enjoy watching), it doesn't leave a lasting impact. Which is fine, if you weren't looking to leave a lasting impact. Sometimes it's good to just make a video that shows you (and a friend, in this case) showing off some hard earned skill.

As to the popularity of full performance videos, I have to ask, how do you know? I don't spend a lot of time browsing through internet videos of magicians, so I have no definitive information on this .. but has a flourishing video ever gone viral? I can think of two magic videos, from two very different and not all that famous performers that have. Also, those videos spread beyond the normal viewership for those performers. Which also negates your last point, that full performances are only enjoyed by magicians. I disagree entirely. A good performance will be enjoyed by most people. Otherwise David Blaine wouldn't be as successful as he is. What you're referring to are bad performance videos, which the internet is chock full of. Few people enjoy watching those, but not because they are full performances, rather because they are boring. Just like people don't like watching boring performances in person, they don't like watching them on video either.

Now that I know what your video is for, I can give my advice. I still can't help with clothing, as I just don't have the mind for it. When I want to make sure my clothing will be right for what I'm doing, I ask my girlfriend.

As I said, I think the music is a good choice. On repeated viewings, the song is even growing on me. I think you need to show your face(s) more, though. You're showing the skills you've developed, make sure people can see who it is. This might just mean adjusting the angle of the camera to have a face in the shot, or it might mean adjusting the whole body stance. You definitely had some points where the stuff you were doing was lining up with the music, which is good, but I don't know if it was on purpose or a happy accident. Try to do that as much as possible. The human brain will give a tiny burst of happy brain chemicals every time it predicts something that comes true (Which is why pop music is so popular and also so predictable). If we can tell a big beat is coming up, and something happens on that beat, it makes us happy. Also, it's more visually pleasing when the actions we see on screen are matching up with the music we're hearing either via lyrics or beat. The more of that stuff that is in your videos, the happier the videos will make people on a base level, which means they'll watch more and show it to more people.

On a technical note, you need to reduce the finger flutter of your left hand while doing passes. Perhaps try curling the index finger under the deck.
 
There's a point where I stop being impressed by color changes. That point is after the second one.

You've obviously practiced your technical chops, guy. But an audience is constantly asking themselves two questions. "What am I looking at? And why am I looking at it?" This video answers the first question (mostly). But it doesn't attempt to answer the second.

Now if this really is just a vanity piece as you suggest, fine. Nothing wrong with a little bit of that now and again. But I'd like to see something with actual personality to it next time.
 
To Christopher:
Thank you for taking the time to write such a long answer, and I can see your (many) points. The singer and sportsman are, on further thought, different.
For the performance videos, I would contest that we are both right to a point; those two videos (I can think of one, This and That?) are exceptions in my opinion, but when I said video performances I meant those filmed by someone other than the magician, who is performing to someone else (kammagic does a few of these for example), in a mostly non professional setting. As soon as it becomes professional, then the performance and production quality shoots up, and becomes leaps and bounds more wonderful than cardistry. I'm especially thinking of Lennart Green's TED video here. Unfortunately I'm not Lennart Green!

Anyway, I wasn't aiming to create very powerful magic in this video, so no offense taken; honestly, I sat down and thought ''I want to show laymen what can be done with a deck of cards'. Your advice is great, I will definitely include my face next time, and yes the music sync was intentional (and took ages to put together! :) ) Finally, exactly what I thought upon rewatching the video, my finger flutter is noticeable on the pass, and needs some work.

To Steerpike:
Point taken, I wasn't offering any reasons to the Why question. Next time, personality :)

Thanks guys.
 
Wow you seem to have been taken to task a bit there. I agree it is technically not a 'magic' video it is more of a flourish video but I also think for a first video you have done a nice job, oh and nice song choice Imagine Dragons are great.

As was pointed out there were a couple of techniques to work on as far as the actual card handling goes but overall nice job. I would suggest working out a longer routine so things flow longer and you can avoid so many cuts which can make a video seem choppy and jarring.

And I second, or third or whatever number it is at, that you should add more shots that include your face. If you want personality in your videos let us see more of the person. And on that note clothes will make a difference, jeans and a t-shirt are fine if that's you, but if you are planning on filming a video before you head out the door make sure it is a great pair of jeans and t-shirt.

Good first effort -couple of moves I want to learn now.

Colin
 
Indeed, I was a little surprised at how it was received but am glad its flaws have been pointed out. It's always good to get feedback with which you can improve.
Thanks for the advice :)
 
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