Unnaturalness vs. Naturalness
An Article on Presentation
An Article on Presentation
Unnaturalness is actually very simple to define, and I'm going to since it's good to know the jargon before moving onto the subject. Unnaturalness is anything that is not normal and seems out of the ordinary to a spectator when performing an effect for them. Now, I do not wish to bring any magicians or their effects down, but a wonderful example of this is S.C.A.R.E.D. by Jamie Daws. Let me note, before I continue, that I think the highest of Jamie and I consider him to be a talented magician.
The reason I am addressing this trick is because of it's large amount of unnaturalness, which ulitmately makes the trick less of a "hard-hitter" and "miracle", and more like a "puzzle" of sorts. And since you're a magician, you definitely want miracles instead of puzzles. Puzzles are everyday occurances that do not leave lasting impressions, because people can pick up a newspaper and do a puzzle any time they want. What you want to present to them is a miracle. Something that your spectators will be speaking about twenty years into the future; something that will be with them the rest of their lives and that they will tell their grandchildren about. That is how you want to affect your spectators when performing for them.
Here is a wonderful quote from Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind, a great book which covers presentation quite well, so I suggest you read it. His example (just to bring you up to speed) is a magician pulling out a coin, placing it onto a table, then picking it up again and making it disappear.
"Firstly, why put a coin down in order to pick it straight back up again? Who other than a seriously retarded individual would enact such an absurdity? Such odd behavior does rather detract from a convincing moment of magic. If you remove a coin from your pocket, place it on a table near you, then immediately pick it up to show that it's gone, then clearly the action of putting it down and picking it up was somehow special and necessary, and its very unnaturalness suggests to the spectator that some derring-do must have occured."
- Derren Brown
Tricks of the Mind, page 24
Suspicious actions and movements bring forth suspicion from the spectator. You must always have a normal reason for doing an action. Remember the old addage, actions speak louder than words. Giving some excuse that you are just doing "so and so because of this", is certainly not good enough. No matter what you say, doubt will creep into the spectators mind. Why should they believe you when you give a verbal reason for doing something? You are a magician trying to trick them and they have no reason to accept your statements about your actions. Your actions should be the ones claiming naturalness, not your words.
Once again, I'm going to bring up S.C.A.R.E.D. by Jamie Daws. I've been getting some heat from thinking that this trick is unnatural and not good to use; I'll explain my reason why I think it isn't an effective trick. In case you don't know, the trick is a haunted deck effect where the spectator picks a card and then the deck cuts to their card without the magician seemingly doing anything. The reason S.C.A.R.E.D. is so unnatural is because while the deck is moving you have your hand on it. As stated before, actions speak louder than words and spectators aren't going to believe everything you say. Spectators will think of the trick in this way. Paraphrasing Newton, "For every action, there is an equal reaction." So naturally, for every reaction there is an action. Spectators will think, "The magician has their hand on the deck and the deck is moving. Something must be making it move and the only thing touching it is the magician's hand. So, the magician's hand must be making the deck move somehow." Remember, spectators don't think we have supernatural abilities automatically, we must convince them that we do. Anything suspicious and unnatural will convince them otherwise. Now I'm going to move on and make some other points; later I will bring S.C.A.R.E.D. back up. As I move on, I want you to remember the "somehow" in the spectators thought stated before. Let's move on to another Derren Brown quote.
"The magic happens not from what you do, but from what the spectator perceives. And it has its home not in the fact that the coin vanishes (that's the result of the magic), but how it vanished (that would be the magic part)."
- Derren Brown
Tricks of the Mind, page 29
As Derren Brown explained above, your presentation should always affect what the spectator perceives. If they perceive everything you do as natural and fine, when the result happens, they are left without a how because for them there isn't one. You have just done the impossible in their eyes! You've removed the how by convincing them that everything is completely normal. This is the basis of magic; this is the true illusion and trickery that you should display as a magician. This is why magicians show their ropes as being normal, and their boxes as being normal, and their cards as being normal. Derren Brown goes on further in Tricks of the Mind, to explain that by taking away the how, you impact the spectator much more vividly. You leave no doubt in their mind that what you did was a miracle, because it couldn't have been a trick, there was no how! It couldn't have been a trick, the magician wasn't doing anything "funny" because everything was completely natural in their eyes.
"To give you an example in magic, if I were to put a coin in my left hand and then pull my right hand away, and then make all kinds of wavy motions with my right hand after I put the coin in the hand, when the coin vanishes the audiences assumes that the waving of my right hand had something to do with it."
- Alan Zingg
Time to Be Awesome Episode 08
With S.C.A.R.E.D. you leave a path to the how, and that how is the magicians hand on the deck. Instead of leaving the avenue of how open, we should keep it closed by doing everything naturally, and S.C.A.R.E.D. just isn't natural. It doesn't matter what you say, your actions are screaming that something is going on; there is some reason for your hand on the deck. This is what makes it more of a "puzzle" than an actual "miracle". It leaves the how wide open.
Now, you might be thinking, what effects are natural in magic? Well, I'll give you an example. Double lifts are used by more magicians than any other sleight because the move flows with naturalness. If a magician does a double lift correctly, spectators just think the magician is turning over one card. They think this because that's what the actions are screaming to them. That's why continuity with double lifts is essential to a good double lift.
In conclusion, look over the effects you perform. Are there an unnecessary moves or actions? If they are, is there a way to filter them out? Trust me, doing this will greatly improve your impact on spectators. Always remember, your actions should speak naturalness, not your mouth.