The disconnect between method and effect

[Josh Burch]

In the magic world there are 2 basic ways to classify a magic trick, by method and by effect.

For example Harry Anderson's Mismade Bill and Jay Sankey's Traveling expenses have the same method but the effect is completely different.

On the opposite end of things a false transfer and a french drop are the same effect but different method.

It seems like here on the Wire the originality of method is weighted heavier than the effect. Why do you think that is?

 

[PurpleMustache]

its strange because i was just thinking about this the other day. the reason its more heavily weighted is because its harder in my opinion to come up with new methods. also, if somebody invents a method and someone else applies it to a new effect, its nnot really fair for the second person to sell it. for example, theres a trick where someone picks a card and you put the cards in a paper bag. then you stab a pencil through the bag and it goes through their card. i took the method and applied it to a different effect. now, is it fair for me to say i invented it? i think not.

 

[Josh Burch]

It's strange because I was just thinking about this the other day. The reason its more heavily weighted is because its harder, in my opinion to come up with new methods. Also, if somebody invents a method and someone else applies it to a new effect, it's not really fair for the second person to sell it. For example, there's a trick where someone picks a card and you put the cards in a paper bag. Then you stab a pencil through the bag and it goes through their card. I took the method and applied it to a different effect. Now, is it fair for me to say I invented it? I think not.

One of Jay Sankey's best selling effects Holy Moly relies heavily on Krenzel's Spellb**** move. Dan and Dave's Hedbergs Peak relies completly on classical method to accomplish a modern effect. Even Calen Morelli's penetration relies heavily on classic coin in bottle principles. At what point does the effect beat out the method?

 

[yyyyyyy]

I feel like an original effect is more important than an original method because it's all about the spectators. To them, they're seeing the same trick. I feel that the method is only important to the performer because they discovered what works best for them. The method holds no additional power over an audience. A new effect is something the audience has never seen before, that's why magicians like David Blaine and Criss Angel rose to fame. They did things that people had never seen before and that's all that mattered to the people. Their methods may have been pretty awful but that didn't affect what the people saw.

 

[Josh Burch]

I remember Brett Daniels performing on America's Got Talent. He performed his Marilyn Monroe illusion. He uses a fairly state of the art "new" vanish to achieve the effect. I remember Pierce Morgan tell him it was an old trick. It baffled me a bit at the time but it just goes to illustrate the disconnect on another level.

It's interesting that it's like that. Morally a trick could look nearly the same as another and still be published. If it has a new method it seems to have a better chance of being published than an old method and new effect.

 

[PurpleMustache]

well, it's hard to distiguish when the effect becomes more important than a new method. it's okay if you use a method with other things or change it a little. but in my case, the method is exactly the same with no changes whatsoever.

 

[yyyyyyy]

I remember Brett Daniels performing on America's Got Talent. He performed his Marilyn Monroe illusion. He uses a fairly state of the art "new" vanish to achieve the effect. I remember Pierce Morgan tell him it was an old trick. It baffled me a bit at the time but it just goes to illustrate the disconnect on another level.

It's interesting that it's like that. Morally a trick could look nearly the same as another and still be published. If it has a new method it seems to have a better chance of being published than an old method and new effect.

Yes, it is a bit odd. I think it's all about which crowd we're talking about though. The audience, or the magicians. The methods are definitely more attractive to the magicians because we have the capacity to recreate said effect for other audiences. The audience is also interested in the method but for a completely different reason. A magician can recognize a GOOD method, the audience can not. To them, the method is just the truth. But to us, the method is the instructions.

 

[magicollie]

There was an amazing speech on EMC last year ( might have been 2010 even) where someone talked about the levels of creativity. A new method and a new effect are as creative as the other( of courses depends on how good they are) but if you were to create a new effect with a new method then that is something very clever and unique.