Is There Such a Thing as a Bad Effect?

[alex65535]

Is there such a thing as a bad effect?

People say performance is everything, but I strongly disagree. Unless there is a solid effect, no amount of performance can create strong magic. I think performance is about 75%. If performance is everything, theoreticly someone could perform strong magic with no effect. No props, tricks, mind reading or anything. While they may put on a good show, it's not magic. Even a bad trick can be performed well, but that doesn't make it very magical. Maybe slightly magical, but it's not the strong type of magic we're looking for. Almost every effect has a potential to create some sort of magic, but some effects are inherently better than others. That's why so many magicians use the same strong tricks like an ACR, levitation, or vanishes. Not all effects are created equal. Some effects for example are too cluttered or confusing, full of unessessary moves and plot twists that lead to "confusion of effect". When it's over they may not be sure what just happened, which makes it less memorable and impossible for them to tell the story to their friends. I agree that performance is most of it, but it's not everything. Every effect can be performed well, but not every effect is as magical as another. There are bad tricks.

What are your thoughts? Are there bad effects?

 

[Aris.SA]

completely agree man, I think that some effects can become stronger with the performance, but if the effect isnt a strong effect, u are trying to change nothing to NOTHING.. so I agree man

 

[Tomas Simkus]

Hi guys,

I would like to disagree, but before that I would like to know what are bad effects. Can you tell me?

Thanks,

Tomas

 

[adjones]

I don't there is such a thing as a bad effect. Maybe effects that aren't right for what you're doing... are hard, very angle-sensitive, ect. But the only thing this means is you can only perform them in certain places at certain times... it doesn't make it a bad effect, IMO. Well, Killer Spies over at Penguin was horrible, but I don't think that counts as an effect...

 

[Huruey]

There are definitely bad effects. They pop up where people have not put any effort into them and just tried to make something to sell. If you go looking for them, they're not usually hard to find.

Huruey

 

[Tomas Simkus]

guys, can you answer my question? Please, tell me the effect.

 

[spikormikor13]

There's no specific effect... By bad effect he means an effect that isn't good.

 

[CDarklock]

People say performance is everything, but I strongly disagree. Unless there is a solid effect, no amount of performance can create strong magic.

The effect is part of the performance. The actual trick is the same lame old garbage: "I know what card you picked." It's how you reveal that which makes it into magic.

 

[BrianKilledYou]

Yes there is

Yes, there are bad effects, Liquid metal for instance, First you gotta pay $30 for the secret, and then 50 dollars on forks. Too much misdirection, too stupid.

 

[THEGUY26]

Trespass by Dan Army is a BAD effect.

 

[Shodan]

Mercury is a right stinker. Not to say that you can't get away with it in front of an audience, but the construction makes me wince.

 

[Twozwozer]

Mercury is a right stinker. Not to say that you can't get away with it in front of an audience, but the construction makes me wince.

Ive performed it plenty of times infront of an audience, and Ive had no troubles at all. I dont see why people put down the effect so much.

And I dont think there is such a thing as a bad effect. But there are such things as bad magicians, bad timing, bad situations etc.

Cheers, Tom

 

[Big George]

Is there such a thing as a bad effect?

People say performance is everything, but I strongly disagree. Unless there is a solid effect, no amount of performance can create strong magic. I think performance is about 75%. If performance is everything, theoreticly someone could perform strong magic with no effect. No props, tricks, mind reading or anything. While they may put on a good show, it's not magic. Even a bad trick can be performed well, but that doesn't make it very magical. Maybe slightly magical, but it's not the strong type of magic we're looking for. Almost every effect has a potential to create some sort of magic, but some effects are inherently better than others. That's why so many magicians use the same strong tricks like an ACR, levitation, or vanishes. Not all effects are created equal. Some effects for example are too cluttered or confusing, full of unessessary moves and plot twists that lead to "confusion of effect". When it's over they may not be sure what just happened, which makes it less memorable and impossible for them to tell the story to their friends. I agree that performance is most of it, but it's not everything. Every effect can be performed well, but not every effect is as magical as another. There are bad tricks.

What are your thoughts? Are there bad effects?

Presentation is very important. This will go a long way to make your routines stronger. I agree with what you say that some routines are not very good. The trend i notice is that alot of magicians like routines that they can rely on the effect rather than developing entertaining patter and presentation. If you just rely on the effect some routines will look weak.

 

[harapanong]

If you think about the big picture, there are definitely such things as "bad effects". If there aren't, magicians throughout history won't be constantly thinking of ways to improve on a certain effect to make it better and more effecient.

Presentation is extremely important for a magician. no doubt. But I do have a little belief that presentation isn't going to save you 100% of the time. I don't know what to say: I am just afraid that if we keep emphasizing on presentation and "presentation is more important than the trick" and " presentation can make a bad trick become a miracle", the quality of tricks being churned out is gong to drop in quality. I mean, if good presentation can make any trick turn into a miracle, why learn more stuff? Why create new magic? Just pick up a children's magic book, learn what's inside, apply the "awesome presentation" and you can be the next Copperfield? I don't think so.

I am not saying children's books on magic contain crap, by the way. But generally, they are a lot simpler and sometimes look too "amateurish" to lay audiences.

- harapan. magic!

 

[David Rysin]

Yes, there are bad effects, Liquid metal for instance, First you gotta pay $30 for the secret, and then 50 dollars on forks. Too much misdirection, too stupid.

Wow....just WOW. I will not even bother listing how many things are so incredibly wrong and frankly, dumb in that statement...Or maybe I will.

To make it short and sweet Brian:

1. Misdirection is magic's best friend. There's no such thing as too much of it.

2. If you payed $50 for forks, then either you got too many, or didn't do your research because I got close to 100 of them for only $30. Plus, what did you think? They were going to supply you with a lifetime's worth of forks, or teach you a secret to make them magically appear?

3. $30 for a secret and $50 total is not a lot for an effect. Open up a copy of Genii, they have small parlour/stage effects selling for 1,500. Why? Because they are practical and get good reactions.

4. Yes, manipulating objects and bending them is stupid...That's why Refraction has been released and is selling like hotcakes along with tens of other metal bending books/DVDs.

...I digress.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as a bad effect to a certain extent. I believe that every effect can be made practical by at least one magician in the world. However, that does not mean that there aren't certain effects that just don't work for certain magicians. There are plenty of effects that I won't do because they either don't fit my personality, my performance style, or that I just don't like. Everyone has effects like that- it doesn't mean that they are bad though.

Just my way of looking at it...
~David Rysin

 

[TeeDee]

I think there has to be a differentiation between a bad effect and a bad method. For example, the effect of Liquid Metal is, in my opinion, good. Bending metal with your mind is a very impressive, direct and easily described feat. I think it's a different argument as to whether any particular method of acheiving an effect is good or bad.

I go along with Dai Vernon's description of a good effect, ie, one that can be described in a sentence. Examples of this are, "He put my card in the middle of the deck and then it jumped up to the top", or "I saw the coin in his hand and then it disappeared." On this basis, yes, there are definitely bad effects. There are loads of really convoluted card tricks, which involve loads of preliminary stuff before any magical effect takes place, such as placing a prediction card on the table, getting the spectator to select two other cards, getting them to think of a number, counting out a certain number of cards etc., etc. Although these things may be interesting exercises in sleight-of-hand or mathematical principles, I think these complicated processes dilute the ultimate effect.

This is not to say that every trick has to be over in two seconds, just that there has to be justification for all these bits of business that in some way enhances the effect.

 

[S3al]

I would have to say there are some bad effects. I mean if you really put your mind to it you could probably come up with something really stupid. But about 99% of the time, its just bad performance. I mean, we are not going to pick bad tricks to do are we? no, we are not. So if the specs hated it, I would have to say that its your own fault.

 

[Tomas Simkus]

Wow....just WOW. I will not even bother listing how many things are so incredibly wrong and frankly, dumb in that statement...Or maybe I will.

To make it short and sweet Brian:

1. Misdirection is magic's best friend. There's no such thing as too much of it.

2. If you payed $50 for forks, then either you got too many, or didn't do your research because I got close to 100 of them for only $30. Plus, what did you think? They were going to supply you with a lifetime's worth of forks, or teach you a secret to make them magically appear?

3. $30 for a secret and $50 total is not a lot for an effect. Open up a copy of Genii, they have small parlour/stage effects selling for 1,500. Why? Because they are practical and get good reactions.

4. Yes, manipulating objects and bending them is stupid...That's why Refraction has been released and is selling like hotcakes along with tens of other metal bending books/DVDs.

...I digress.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as a bad effect to a certain extent. I believe that every effect can be made practical by at least one magician in the world. However, that does not mean that there aren't certain effects that just don't work for certain magicians. There are plenty of effects that I won't do because they either don't fit my personality, my performance style, or that I just don't like. Everyone has effects like that- it doesn't mean that they are bad though.

Just my way of looking at it...
~David Rysin

I agree with you, brother. Bending metal is one of my reputation maker!!!So how it could be a bad effect?!!!?!
Still I haven't heard anything about BAD EFFECT. Only tricks. SO conclusion would be that the performer makes good or bad effects.

 

[CDarklock]

A lot of the time it's about the meta-question.

Is this trick for me?

That's where the marketing and the art get in the way of one another. You know as well as I do that if your trick needs invisible thread, and I'm a total dumbass with invisible thread, I shouldn't buy your trick. But you can't tell me that without telling me your trick uses invisible thread.

It's terribly, terribly important that you get involved with a community of magicians where people trust you enough to tell you these things. On a forum like this, if I said "I want to get this trick" and I sucked with invisible thread, I'd want to get a PM telling me "dude, that trick is invisible thread". I can do the math from there. I know better than to mouth off all over the forum about it.

Can you tell I'm on an invisible thread kick? This is like my third post about invisible thread. I'm better than 90% certain a particular trick uses invisible thread, so I'm trying to independently reinvent it with invisible $#!@ing thread. Which should tell you how well I'm doing at that.

Back to the point, when an effect is bad for me - whether for my skills or for my act - it's not really a bad effect in general. I think any effect could be good for someone, and it sells people short to claim it's bad for everybody.

 

[Shodan]

For those that are scanning the topic, the point of my whole post is that "plays well in front of an audience" is most certainly not the only criteria by which we should judge whether a trick is good or not.

The problem with Mercury is not the "effect" of the trick - which is a classic - but the method used to bring that effect about. It's clumsy, inelegant and several steps backwards from the existing work on the trick.

David Regal manages to squeeze a twisting phase, a change of the four cards to jokers, and a change of the jokers to kings, before finally showing that two of the original four of a kind have jumped to the card case, and two are reversed in the deck - which the spectator finds for themself. John Guastaferro gets a twisting phase, an all backs phase and two more changes out of the basic effect. Both of these methods use 3 less cards than mercury!

Having all four cards of each set cleanly showing both before and after is simply not necessary, and actually limits the possibilities. And if you only want the twist and the change, well you can do that too! As previously stated, it may well fly in front of an audience, fair enough. But method is important - structure is important - otherwise where's, for want of a better term, the artistry?

A bad effect can play well in front of an audience, in the hands of a good magician. I choose not to do tricks like this, because I figure that even if I can get away with it, why not do something better? Mercury is a bad trick in terms of method, construction, and structure. Sure it is a good enough effect, but why not seek out the superior methods to achieve the same thing or - as is so very popular nowadays - be creative and figure out your own method? Two reasons why not - either not knowing better, or simple apathy.