New Video from my buddy
- Thread starter ProAma
- Start date
In that we both prefer to explore alternative points of view instead of assuming we're right and everyone else is a moron?
Yeah, we do.
Yeah, we do.
That is not what you guys do lol but continue I'm intrigued. Their are magicians who should stick to magic like there are actors who should stick to acting.
Happy to continue, would you care to put forth something useful or did you just want to tell us more of the free labor you've given to companies?
I'm in no way mad about any of the points you've made. In fact, I don't recall the points you've made. I was just responding to you post which seemed a bit rude to me. I'm just encouraging you to join in the discussion with an open mind, rather than declaring the discussion at an end and claiming that you are correct. Nobody learns from that.
My first post was about the guy on the video's delivery. It came across as arrogant and condescending and made it difficult for me to seriously consider his point. I did feel like watching the video was a waste of time because he didn't tell me anything I didn't know and his shtick got old fast.
I generally try to be informative and encouraging. At times I post things that are designed to make folks uncomfortable because without being a little uncomfortable people sometimes won't challenge their assumptions they view as absolute truth.
I won't bore you with my qualifications in life because they aren't relevant. Everyone on this forum can judge the value of what I post based on what is contained in the posts. Sometimes, I'll give people the answers they need rather than the answers they want. If those aren't "real answers", then so be it. As for my words being finely crafted, it is an occupational hazard when you play with words for a living.
Christopher and I have the very similar views of magic that were crafted by many of the same influences. I think that both of our views of magic have evolved by what we've read on this forum and others and based on the thoughts and advice of mutual friends. However, Christopher's performances and my performances are very different in both presentation and substance. Christopher's performances are more serious, physical, mental and bizarre while my performances are lighter, story and emotion based and rely on many classics of magic. Despite those differences, we both continue to learn from and help each other.
But, I go hand in hand with or get along with a lot of folks on this forum - both current and past.
With that, my suggestion on how to proceed is based on this post:
@Grant C.(1) , how do you think magic needs to adapt to the times?
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this ...
Lawyered.
It will be much better, I think, if we take David's direction with the conversation so I patiently await the response and apologize for my attitude earlier.
Lawyered.
It will be much better, I think, if we take David's direction with the conversation so I patiently await the response and apologize for my attitude earlier.
Sure you apologize lol you would not ever give free labor to anyone right?
I mean come on now you clearly know more since you have not had internships or a college education but you still dabble in the same art I do.
I was apologizing to the other people who were previously enjoying the thread before the tangential bickering between us.
Assumptions are your enemy. First, I do have an college education. I didn't finish the second degree I started because I decided to change careers and had no reason to amass the extra student loan debt in the new career. Second, I don't dabble - I make 100% of my living through magic and performance.
And no, I didn't take an internship - I got paid for my skills, thanks very much.
So, to get back on track:
Let's stop bickering. I would genuinely like to hear your answer to this, given that it will probably be drastically different to mine and I appreciate that opposing point of view.
Assumptions are your enemy. First, I do have an college education. I didn't finish the second degree I started because I decided to change careers and had no reason to amass the extra student loan debt in the new career. Second, I don't dabble - I make 100% of my living through magic and performance.
And no, I didn't take an internship - I got paid for my skills, thanks very much.
So, to get back on track:
Let's stop bickering. I would genuinely like to hear your answer to this, given that it will probably be drastically different to mine and I appreciate that opposing point of view.
Oh boy I could write an entire essay on this but I'll try to keep it brief to a respectable forum post length and to get this conversation back on topic (remember it's about things that magicians are currently doing wrong).
Magic and culture is constantly evolving and at an exponential rate. In the age of information, we can acquire whatever we want whenever we want. This includes food, sex, shopping, education, entertainment.....it's all available within a device that we can fit in our pocket.This has many psychological impacts since we can get instant gratification with seemingly no work put into it. Want a date for the night? Swipe right in an app. Want pizza? Dominos will be right at your door with just a few clicks away. Want more information than all of the library of Alexandria? The internet almost literally has it all. It's all instant access with barely any work or social interaction required.
So how has this impacted magic? Well the same principles apply. Everything is so instant in the industry. Someone could create an effect for Instagram, post it on there, and then release it online for people to learn how to do all within in a week. Due to this, magic effects have the shortest shelf life than ever before. There is always some new hot item that everyone needs to get when only a week later the next best thing comes out. There is very little time to appreciate and master effects before everyone is wanting to learn the next effect in a new flashy trailer.
Same goes for performing. It's so easy now to buy a tutorial, perform it a few times, and then post a video of that effect on Instagram or YouTube since you can correct the video over and over until it's perfect. There isn't any need to go out and practice patter or social skills since it can all be performed online and that instant gratification is just as quick as well. Every time someone hits a "like" or "heart" on social media it gives us a small hit of dopamine which makes us feel good in that moment so we will continue the same behavior to keep getting that feeling of dopamine. It's all instantly accessible with very little effort required.
So that is the state of the industry in the modern world as I see it. I don't see it as a negative or a positive thing. I just see that as how things are and it's up to individuals what they can do with all the modern conveniences. As far as magic goes, I have a couple of suggestions on how magic can stand out in the modern world:
1. Stop Releasing Magic
I don't know what it was exactly, but in the early 2000's there was this trend that is now overwhelming now that you have to release magic in order to a magician. I don't when that ideology came to be but it certainly is here now. I have only been in magic for the past 2.5 years and when I was first starting out and looking at all the cool effects on the popular magic sites, I thought the only way to get my name out there was to release something with a cool and flashy trailer. That mindset couldn't be further from the truth.
My recommendation is for people to create the most mind blowing and wonderful of presentations.....and keep the secret to themselves. Sure they can go ahead and post all day long performance videos on all their social media platforms to get recognition for their craft but they should keep the method to themselves. That way they are the only ones that can provide that experience. It makes them more unique and stand out among a sea of imitators. Getting booked for a gig since only you can deliver a one of a kind of experience will pay way more dividends in the long run than releasing an effect that will be popular for about a week before something new comes along.
2. TV is dead
I predict that in the future TV will no longer be relevant. All of our media will be consumed on internet based platforms where they can be watched at anytime and anywhere. If you look at what David Blaine did for magic in the 90s due to his TV specials, you will see a huge opportunity for a new rebirth in magic like what he did. The only difference is now their has to be a change of platform. In fact most, TV networks are now putting all of their media on YouTube and Facebook. I think magicians need to capitalize on this movement while it's still young and partner with major broadcasting platforms such as YouTube Red and Facebook Live to reach the same mass audience that David Blaine, Copperfield, as well as many others did with the TV platform.
3. Quit being dorky
There is a huge stigma that a magician is that awkward guy with no social skills that you hire for a kid's birthday party to pull rabbits out of a hat. There is a line in Now You See Me 2 that Daniel Radcliffe's character makes about getting into magic since that was the only thing to do since he couldn't pick up girls. I personally would love to see this stigma go away and see a revival of the Houdini/Vernon/Marlo days of where entertainers were held with prestige and mystery.
I want to see magic be sexy again. I want to see it be exotic, mysterious, and captivating again. I want the cards, the top hats, the cups and balls, the sponge balls, and rabbits to all take a break for new trends to take over. Sure they are classics but who honestly walks around with a deck of cards in their pockets besides a guy who does card tricks? If magic was real it wouldn't be confined to all these weird and dorky objects. Instead we would be able to create impossible moments of wonder with seemingly "regular" objects. A great reference to what is really entertaining to people is all the super hero movies and comics out there. That's what magic would really look like if it was real. I believe magicians need to become the modern day super heros that Houdini and his peers were in their day.
4. Change the ethics
Due to platforms such as YouTube, there is so much magic exposure out there. Since this is the age of information and instant gratification, someone could post the work of another magician on YouTube in the form of a tutorial and get tons of fans and followers for it. Since they get that hit of dopamine from all these new "fans", they will continue on releasing other people's work for their own gain.
Instead of the magic industry coming together and publicly renouncing and ridiculing this kind of behavior, you have guys like Chris Ramsay coming out and saying that it's okay to do it now since times have changed and we need to have professionals at least teaching it. His argument is basically to fight fire with fire. Unless he only puts up tutorials of his own creations, my belief is he does not have the right to teach anyone else's work. But you see his channel as well as the Ellusionist channel posting all these tutorials on there and it makes it seem like it's okay to be putting up tutorials.
I acknowledge the argument that if someone wants to look up the method to an effect during your performance, then there is something wrong with the performance itself. I agree with that to an extent but there is always going to be that one guy that is trying to see through everything just so he can appear smarter than everyone else. Saw it for myself at a small magic show in a magic shop in St. Augustine recently. He knew I was a magician and asked if the levitating prop was just fishing line and I promptly replied "It's magic." But now he can go on YouTube and see how it was done since some 12 year old or cocky YouTube wants to get some more likes and followers.
Going back to my first point, if someone chooses to release an effect, they need to educate the ethics and theory of magic along with it. They need to explain why it's beneficial for them to keep it a secret rather than releasing it on YouTube. Bizzaro has a wonderful video of this on his YouTube page about magic piracy. I believe we need to address that more in the industry rather than fighting fire with fire.
5. Practice what we preach
This is a problem I see in YouTube comments, forum threads, and videos such as the one posted here. You will have someone on the internet preaching all day long about how magic should be performed and what the right and wrong ways are to go about it. You will see them write and reply to forum posts and comments all the time but there is just one problem......no one has ever seen them do anything. Sure they can talk the talk, but can they walk the walk?
I was having a conversation in private messages with another user on here about how it's overwhelming the number of people that will participate in SNCs that all they require you to do is make a prediction or write something. But the moment there is a performance based competition, the numbers drop to about 10-15 applicants on a good week. I tried to start a thread of people posting performances (I even included a prize for participating for a select time) and I only got one reply and it was by a guy that just used his video he made for a SNC.
With the all the available video and media outlets out there, why aren't more of us posting what we are actually doing? We don't have to release our secret A-list material but we could at least make promo reels that demonstrate that we are doing exactly what we are trying to preach at. It's so easy to take out a cell phone now and upload a live performance to YouTube. If you see something wrong with the way someone is performing something, then go out and perform it yourself and correct them with an example that they can view. That is why in most of my YouTube reviews I try to include a live performance video to demonstrate I actually put into practice what I say in the review. It's a new era but this saying will always hold true: Actions speak louder than words.
Would love to hear your guys' thoughts and feedback!
Excellent points, Tyler. Well said.
Normally when I respond to something like this, I quote sections to try to keep everything organized but I'm not going to do that this time as I think this will end up being a bit free-flowing.
First, while I do think that our culture (at least, the culture in the US that I have been exposed to) is more instant-gratification based than it used to be, I also think that people are still very much willing to wait for something special. Perhaps more so than in previous years. Example: I go to a bar/restaurant every week, while my wife takes her aerial lessons. It's kind of a hipster place, but I love it. They make pretty much everything from scratch. Bitters, liqueurs, grapefruit soda, brandied cherries, so on. It's like an apothecary shop with all the little brown bottles lined up, each one hand labelled. They change the drink menu every season and invent a whole new line up. You are probably going to wait at least ten minutes for a drink, and that's on a slow night. But this place is super popular and almost always busy. People are willing to wait, if what they get for waiting is worth it. So the challenge to the magician is to be worth it. If the show is funny enough, or thought provoking enough, or whatever enough, they will put away the phones and they will give the performer their undivided attention for as long as it remains worth it.
I don't think what we're fighting against is that instant gratification, I think what we're fighting against is that there's a lot more entertainment available in general and we no longer have a monopoly on being the most interesting thing by default.
In regards to people looking up a trick: I don't know, it just never happens to me (to my knowledge). I frequently hear, "There's always that one guy that has to know how it's done" - then why haven't they ever come up to me and show me they know how I did a routine? Honestly a lot of my stuff is available for free online, legally. My hypothesis is that my style of performance gives the audience the feeling of knowing already, or at least it's interesting enough not to want to spoil it.
I do think people should hold on to material a lot longer before considering releasing it. Work with it, perfect it, explore the options. You can always tell when a routine is something a creator has worked with a lot. The problem is that what you're asking is for people to ignore an easy income source. Art or not, a professional magician needs to make sure they can pay the bills. Putting out tricks is an easy way to make sure they can do that, in case shows get a bit sparse.
TV is a zombie, yes. While I think there is a chance the industry will realize what's going on and figure out an effective way to catch up to the new market models, I don't know when that will happen. I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "partner with" those sites - but that's sort of its own complicated issue. The problem there is that way too many people are trying to be the next David Blaine - by copying David Blaine, but doing it poorly. Even the guys who do it well, they're still a copy. What TV-like mediums need is fresh, interesting presentations. You can't do YouTube videos like a Copperfield special, it doesn't work. Magicians need to adapt to medium of presentation. They need to create interesting content, that isn't a copy of everything out there. That's where most get lost - they just create another diluted street magic special, or prank show, or they turn it into a vlog.
There's room for dorky, and suave, and mysterious, and scary, and so on. There's many rooms in the house of magic. I would love if the general opinion of magicians wasn't the stereotypical basement dweller, but I don't have much hope of that. The fact is that magic appeals to particular personality types. Frequently that is people who are shy, lack social skills, and don't know how to develop a personality on their own. So they use magic as a substitute for a personality.
The thing I have realized is this: there's a lot of circles in the magic world. Some overlap. There's a lot of folks who do hold back their really good material until someone has proved themselves. A lot of what you pointed out in your post, Tyler, is really in regards to newer magicians who are hoping to be the next YouTube star (with 5 videos and 100 views total). But there's guys out there making incredible magic who barely even interact with the magic world. And there's guys at the top of the game sharing their advice and experience who get ignored by the newbies because it's not fun and sexy to work your butt off to get successful. In short - it's easy to get a particular idea about the magic world if you don't spend a lot of time exploring it. I mean conventions, multiple forums, interacting with a lot of people. Personally I don't have the time for that - so I am content with focusing on developing my own work as much as possible and sharing my thoughts and advice with a fairly limited number of people. All I can do at this point is try to lead by example.
Normally when I respond to something like this, I quote sections to try to keep everything organized but I'm not going to do that this time as I think this will end up being a bit free-flowing.
First, while I do think that our culture (at least, the culture in the US that I have been exposed to) is more instant-gratification based than it used to be, I also think that people are still very much willing to wait for something special. Perhaps more so than in previous years. Example: I go to a bar/restaurant every week, while my wife takes her aerial lessons. It's kind of a hipster place, but I love it. They make pretty much everything from scratch. Bitters, liqueurs, grapefruit soda, brandied cherries, so on. It's like an apothecary shop with all the little brown bottles lined up, each one hand labelled. They change the drink menu every season and invent a whole new line up. You are probably going to wait at least ten minutes for a drink, and that's on a slow night. But this place is super popular and almost always busy. People are willing to wait, if what they get for waiting is worth it. So the challenge to the magician is to be worth it. If the show is funny enough, or thought provoking enough, or whatever enough, they will put away the phones and they will give the performer their undivided attention for as long as it remains worth it.
I don't think what we're fighting against is that instant gratification, I think what we're fighting against is that there's a lot more entertainment available in general and we no longer have a monopoly on being the most interesting thing by default.
In regards to people looking up a trick: I don't know, it just never happens to me (to my knowledge). I frequently hear, "There's always that one guy that has to know how it's done" - then why haven't they ever come up to me and show me they know how I did a routine? Honestly a lot of my stuff is available for free online, legally. My hypothesis is that my style of performance gives the audience the feeling of knowing already, or at least it's interesting enough not to want to spoil it.
I do think people should hold on to material a lot longer before considering releasing it. Work with it, perfect it, explore the options. You can always tell when a routine is something a creator has worked with a lot. The problem is that what you're asking is for people to ignore an easy income source. Art or not, a professional magician needs to make sure they can pay the bills. Putting out tricks is an easy way to make sure they can do that, in case shows get a bit sparse.
TV is a zombie, yes. While I think there is a chance the industry will realize what's going on and figure out an effective way to catch up to the new market models, I don't know when that will happen. I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "partner with" those sites - but that's sort of its own complicated issue. The problem there is that way too many people are trying to be the next David Blaine - by copying David Blaine, but doing it poorly. Even the guys who do it well, they're still a copy. What TV-like mediums need is fresh, interesting presentations. You can't do YouTube videos like a Copperfield special, it doesn't work. Magicians need to adapt to medium of presentation. They need to create interesting content, that isn't a copy of everything out there. That's where most get lost - they just create another diluted street magic special, or prank show, or they turn it into a vlog.
There's room for dorky, and suave, and mysterious, and scary, and so on. There's many rooms in the house of magic. I would love if the general opinion of magicians wasn't the stereotypical basement dweller, but I don't have much hope of that. The fact is that magic appeals to particular personality types. Frequently that is people who are shy, lack social skills, and don't know how to develop a personality on their own. So they use magic as a substitute for a personality.
The thing I have realized is this: there's a lot of circles in the magic world. Some overlap. There's a lot of folks who do hold back their really good material until someone has proved themselves. A lot of what you pointed out in your post, Tyler, is really in regards to newer magicians who are hoping to be the next YouTube star (with 5 videos and 100 views total). But there's guys out there making incredible magic who barely even interact with the magic world. And there's guys at the top of the game sharing their advice and experience who get ignored by the newbies because it's not fun and sexy to work your butt off to get successful. In short - it's easy to get a particular idea about the magic world if you don't spend a lot of time exploring it. I mean conventions, multiple forums, interacting with a lot of people. Personally I don't have the time for that - so I am content with focusing on developing my own work as much as possible and sharing my thoughts and advice with a fairly limited number of people. All I can do at this point is try to lead by example.
I agree... to an extent. I still hope those people who are innovative and have a body of work from years of experience put it to paper and share it with us. I love the recent books of material by Vanni Bossi, Gaetan Bloom, Tomas Blomberg, Roy Walton and John Lovick as well as the historical stuff in the rerelease of Martin Gartner's Impromptu.
We really don't need any new magic. You could build a career out of the works of Jean Hugard or Theodore Annemann. You could easily build any type of show using just Mark Wilson's Complete Course. Seven volumes of Tarbell or five volumes of Card College or three volumes of Art of Astonishment should be enough for anyone's lifetime.
I agree that TV is dead, but for most magicians it has never been relevant. The live performance of magic is what is most important. Seeing magic on your computer screen reduces the strenght of the magic. Seeing it live is .... amazing. The more people see amazing live magic, the more people will enjoy magic.
After one of my shows, someone came up to me and said something that has become an unofficial title for my show. She said, "I've seen a lot of magic shows, but your show was a different kind of magic." I perform using linking rings, cups and balls, cards, an egg bag and.... a routine using a top hat and sponge rabbits.
It isn't the props that make magic irrelevant. It's the presentation. My linking rings routine is to an orchestral version of "Fireflies" (imagine Jeff McBride's character in his Miser's Dream routine doing linking rings with a female audience member). My first cups and balls routine uses three red balls, ending up with a red 3 ball for billiards and then the 4 and 5 balls followed by the 6, 7 and 8 balls. My second routine uses my brushed stainless steel cups and green olives and tells the story about how I used to serve drinks at a martini bar while in Law School. My card tricks are a card to bottle routine (which is more a trick with cards than a card trick), Eric Ross's Election done as a compatatility test and/or Tamariz's Paradise Recovered where the audience finds the card that they drew a picture on representing their hopes for the future while discarding cards that represent envy, sadness and disappointment. The sponge rabbit routine produces 100 sponge bunnies from an empty collapsable top hat. The egg bag closes with the story of a French girl living alone with her mother during the German Occupation of World War 2 and reminds us to not judge people without knowing their motivations.
Each effect is structured to represent the impossible. At one show, when I said that a selected card was going to disappear from a sealed deck and travel to an empty bottle held by a spectator, an older woman said "I don't think you can do that." I overheard what she said and asked her to say it into the microphone. She did, I smiled and said, "At this point, I'm thinking the same thing." Impossible is a result of design and structure of the effect as well as the presentation.
Is my character a dork... I don't think so. A better description is a well-dressed, overly caffeinated and overly educated magician with an amazing sense of humor... provided you like really bad puns. I wear a french blue Brooks Brothers button-down shirt, black blazer, black pants and black dress shoes with a deep blue pocket handkerchief. I look like I just came from work -- but wasn't that the idea of the top hat originally -- to look like the people you perform for.
The key is to have a character, to be interesting and to be entertaining.
I agree that all the exposure of magic on the internet reflects poor ethics and isn't good for magic. However, as Jim Steinmeyer said, we are guarding an empty vault:
Magicians guard an empty safe. There are few secrets that they possess which are beyond a grade school science class, little technology more complex than a rubber band, a square of black fabric or a length of thread. There are no real principles worth of being cherished, only crude expediencies But magicians ahve learned to appreciate how such simple devices can be manipulated into illusion. The art of magic is not found in the simple deception, but in what surrounds it, the construction of a reality which supports the illusion." Art and Artifice, p. 7-8.
I've had people come up to me and tell me about the linking ring sets they had as kids with the cut out in them and how it is neat to see someone do the effect with "real" rings. The reality constructed is that I'm a professional and do something much more magicial than would be contained in a kids magic set.
Ask someone if the want to see an "Out of this World" card trick and then have them separate reds from blacks and you've lost the reailty supporting the illusion and gave them a track to the method on Youtube. Try it with pictures of historical figures and have the spectator turn them face down and sort them into piles of people who were good or evil. Explain the psychology of people being able to make judgements about people from photographs or the idea among some people that a photograph takes a part of a person's soul or the Rolling Stones song Sympathy for the Devil. The spectator won't be able to sleep that night.
I'm one of those that doesn't post a lot of videos. I've got some older stuff out there from five years back when Ellusionist was running the Gauntlet competitions - but none of those were polished performance because it was new material developed for the competition.
Part of the reason I don't post more is that I'm not going to put my performance pieces out there. It is too easy for someone to copy the presentation. The most significant reason I don't do the contests is that I take months to years to develop performance pieces. There are very few that I have something that is performance ready. Maybe when things quiet down in the summer.
@RealityOne
1.
I should be clear that I didn't mean that no one should release any magic ever again. I think creating new magic is important and vital to the industry's growth which is part of my answer to the question you asked Grant. The main idea that I was trying to drive at with my first point is that I want people to be more unique and have original content rather than just be knock off Wayne Houchins or Blake Vogts. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with performing effects people have released to the market it's just that I feel performers would benefit by having one or two pieces that only they can do that no one else can. One of the things that puts a smile on my face is that there are still secrets that Houdini took to his grave that we are still guessing about. I love that. I was also trying to address the issue of people feeling the need to create effects just to release them to feel validated as a magician and the huge surge of releases that happen every week that results in a lot of trash piling up in my opinion. If we slowed it down a bit, effects will have a longer shelf life in the limelight.
2.
I think you might have missed the point that I was trying to get at with point number two. Live performance magic will always be relevant and the most important part of the magic experience. You probably won't find anyone that complains more about social media magic versus live magic than me. What I was answering to your question with point number two is how the distribution of entertainment is evolving. That's why I titled it "TV is dead" because magicians need to learn how to create buzz on the platform that reaches the biggest audience. The point of TV specials was to get a performers name out there that way they would hopefully buy tickets to your show (which is basically what David Blaine's Beyond Magic special was all about was a big advertisement for his upcoming tour). Perhaps the best example of what I'm trying to get at is Calen Morelli's latest project he announced for Kickstarter. Something along the lines of what he is doing is how I think magic will remain relevant and competitive in the entertainment market (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1244286655/strange-things-happen-a-street-magic-show-by-calen).
3.
Your question to Grant was "How do you think magic needs to adapt to the times?" Point number three of mine was similar to that of point number one in that I want to see fresh and original magic. You are absolutely correct that you have to have character, be interesting, and entertaining. I wasn't disputing that. My problem is that a lot of these presentations, although they can be changed up like you mentioned you have done, are still done to death and cliched. I saw a magician perform the cups and balls routine and every laymen there knew what the punch line was going to be before he did anything since most people have seen it before and probably at least know about the misdirection needed for the effect (that's actually why Luke Dancy hates the cup and balls effect is because everyone knows the punchline and has seen the effect before). My issue with these classics of magic is kind of like the point you made in another thread titled "Stage magic can be really bad". You mention the problem with a lot of illusions is that people just look at the box and figure out the box has some sort of trick in it and it takes that magical moment away. That's how I feel about cups and balls, cards, linking rings, etc. These aren't normal items, they are props. Since they are a prop, anything that is done with them no longer has that feeling of being impossible. It's either the prop is designed to work that way or this guy is just really good with sleights and misdirection. Since all this can be rationalized, what makes magicians any different from a comedian or motivational speaker who would learn how to use these props and techniques for their own presentations? What would make a magician different from them? My answer to that is a magician can do the impossible. Imagine if I took a grenade and ate it and I exploded into millions of pieces in front of my audience and then from the remnants of my explosion a fiery phoenix arose and flew around the room and then landed back on stage in a whirl of fire and I was reborn unscathed. Going back to point number one, I would never release the method to that effect since I would be the only that would want to present that effect and it would accomplish the point that I'm trying to get at. Everyone knows what a grenade is and once it explodes it's gone, my body is seemingly blown to bits, people probably have heard of a phoenix and know how impossible it is that is flying over their heads, and then the resurrection is the impossible display that will get them to applaud. To me that would be something that would update the magic presentation and get people talking rather than something like an egg bag (even though I personally love the egg bag and think it's a wonderful classic) which people would assume that it's a trick bag or something of that nature. Even if they are wrong about the method, the fact that they can guess some sort of method such as "it's a prop" robs from that magic experience of being impossible.
Another on this point I should clarify is that I think you should dress well for your performances, especially if it's a paid gig. Ice MacDonald stressed how important it is to look professional at gigs that way it makes all of magic look good and helps other magicians get gigs as well at a lecture I attended. Dressing well is not dorky at all and that is not the point I was trying to make about dorkiness. There is memes about what I'm referring to and I think that will kind of give you a better idea of what I was getting at. Christopher described it pretty well as the socially awkward basement dweller stereotype. (I believe this picture is used for some of the memes: http://images.halloweencostumes.net/products/7915/1-2/mens-magician-costume.jpg)
4.
The point that I was trying to make with point number four is how we need to change the way we educate with magic. The arguments I made is we need to stop condoning any kind of exposure of other people's works (I view it as stealing) and when teaching effects on downloads, DVDs, and tutorials that we need to also stress the importance of the ethics and theory behind performance. So many tutorials today will just give you a method/gimmick and a 12 year old isn't going to realize the true importance of what he has just learned so he might want some quick views on YouTube. Yes good presentations will make people not want to even look up a method as I have stated but that wasn't even the point that I was driving at with point number four. In fact point number four has nothing to do with laymen. The point I was trying to make was how we should change the education in our industry. I was trying to hold the industry accountable.
5.
I definitely need to clarify on point number five. I wasn't trying to invalidate anyone since they don't post videos or participate in contests. That is completely up to everyone's own decision on whether they want to post or not and if they have the means to. I was trying to get at that we need to focus more on showing rather than telling. I'm quite guilty of this as well (but hey no one is immune to hypocrisy right?). There was someone who posted a snap change video that was off in the handling of the cards. I gave a reply of how he should fix it but it would have been much better had I just posted a video and commented what he should pay attention to that way he could visually see what I meant. I'm getting a little better about this by posting in the Departure question thread one of my private videos I haven't released yet for my ring flight presentations since it's a visual example of what I was trying to demonstrate by replying earlier in the thread.
I do mention that I don't recommend anyone should post their A-list material as you will see if you reread my point number five. What I said was maybe a promo reel demonstrating how we get people to react and cause moments of wonder and suspense. We don't have to give away any presentations but rather just show that we are being perceived as we are claiming to be perceived. Anyone can hop on here and say they have the most entertaining show and critique everyone on their performances, but it's hard to believe them unless they can prove it. I understand that not everyone has a production team that can run around and record them and produce promo reels for them (but hey if you don't have one and want to hire one look no further
). But a demonstration of knowledge can easily validate someone's character and maturity like you have already so expertly proven with your replies to questions on here. I love how you not only list the book where they can find what they are looking for but you list the exact page number to find it! That is the kind of stuff I want to see more of around here is professionalism, maturity, and character.
Thanks for the feedback guys! Good discussion.
1.
I should be clear that I didn't mean that no one should release any magic ever again. I think creating new magic is important and vital to the industry's growth which is part of my answer to the question you asked Grant. The main idea that I was trying to drive at with my first point is that I want people to be more unique and have original content rather than just be knock off Wayne Houchins or Blake Vogts. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with performing effects people have released to the market it's just that I feel performers would benefit by having one or two pieces that only they can do that no one else can. One of the things that puts a smile on my face is that there are still secrets that Houdini took to his grave that we are still guessing about. I love that. I was also trying to address the issue of people feeling the need to create effects just to release them to feel validated as a magician and the huge surge of releases that happen every week that results in a lot of trash piling up in my opinion. If we slowed it down a bit, effects will have a longer shelf life in the limelight.
2.
I think you might have missed the point that I was trying to get at with point number two. Live performance magic will always be relevant and the most important part of the magic experience. You probably won't find anyone that complains more about social media magic versus live magic than me. What I was answering to your question with point number two is how the distribution of entertainment is evolving. That's why I titled it "TV is dead" because magicians need to learn how to create buzz on the platform that reaches the biggest audience. The point of TV specials was to get a performers name out there that way they would hopefully buy tickets to your show (which is basically what David Blaine's Beyond Magic special was all about was a big advertisement for his upcoming tour). Perhaps the best example of what I'm trying to get at is Calen Morelli's latest project he announced for Kickstarter. Something along the lines of what he is doing is how I think magic will remain relevant and competitive in the entertainment market (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1244286655/strange-things-happen-a-street-magic-show-by-calen).
3.
Your question to Grant was "How do you think magic needs to adapt to the times?" Point number three of mine was similar to that of point number one in that I want to see fresh and original magic. You are absolutely correct that you have to have character, be interesting, and entertaining. I wasn't disputing that. My problem is that a lot of these presentations, although they can be changed up like you mentioned you have done, are still done to death and cliched. I saw a magician perform the cups and balls routine and every laymen there knew what the punch line was going to be before he did anything since most people have seen it before and probably at least know about the misdirection needed for the effect (that's actually why Luke Dancy hates the cup and balls effect is because everyone knows the punchline and has seen the effect before). My issue with these classics of magic is kind of like the point you made in another thread titled "Stage magic can be really bad". You mention the problem with a lot of illusions is that people just look at the box and figure out the box has some sort of trick in it and it takes that magical moment away. That's how I feel about cups and balls, cards, linking rings, etc. These aren't normal items, they are props. Since they are a prop, anything that is done with them no longer has that feeling of being impossible. It's either the prop is designed to work that way or this guy is just really good with sleights and misdirection. Since all this can be rationalized, what makes magicians any different from a comedian or motivational speaker who would learn how to use these props and techniques for their own presentations? What would make a magician different from them? My answer to that is a magician can do the impossible. Imagine if I took a grenade and ate it and I exploded into millions of pieces in front of my audience and then from the remnants of my explosion a fiery phoenix arose and flew around the room and then landed back on stage in a whirl of fire and I was reborn unscathed. Going back to point number one, I would never release the method to that effect since I would be the only that would want to present that effect and it would accomplish the point that I'm trying to get at. Everyone knows what a grenade is and once it explodes it's gone, my body is seemingly blown to bits, people probably have heard of a phoenix and know how impossible it is that is flying over their heads, and then the resurrection is the impossible display that will get them to applaud. To me that would be something that would update the magic presentation and get people talking rather than something like an egg bag (even though I personally love the egg bag and think it's a wonderful classic) which people would assume that it's a trick bag or something of that nature. Even if they are wrong about the method, the fact that they can guess some sort of method such as "it's a prop" robs from that magic experience of being impossible.
Another on this point I should clarify is that I think you should dress well for your performances, especially if it's a paid gig. Ice MacDonald stressed how important it is to look professional at gigs that way it makes all of magic look good and helps other magicians get gigs as well at a lecture I attended. Dressing well is not dorky at all and that is not the point I was trying to make about dorkiness. There is memes about what I'm referring to and I think that will kind of give you a better idea of what I was getting at. Christopher described it pretty well as the socially awkward basement dweller stereotype. (I believe this picture is used for some of the memes: http://images.halloweencostumes.net/products/7915/1-2/mens-magician-costume.jpg)
4.
The point that I was trying to make with point number four is how we need to change the way we educate with magic. The arguments I made is we need to stop condoning any kind of exposure of other people's works (I view it as stealing) and when teaching effects on downloads, DVDs, and tutorials that we need to also stress the importance of the ethics and theory behind performance. So many tutorials today will just give you a method/gimmick and a 12 year old isn't going to realize the true importance of what he has just learned so he might want some quick views on YouTube. Yes good presentations will make people not want to even look up a method as I have stated but that wasn't even the point that I was driving at with point number four. In fact point number four has nothing to do with laymen. The point I was trying to make was how we should change the education in our industry. I was trying to hold the industry accountable.
5.
I definitely need to clarify on point number five. I wasn't trying to invalidate anyone since they don't post videos or participate in contests. That is completely up to everyone's own decision on whether they want to post or not and if they have the means to. I was trying to get at that we need to focus more on showing rather than telling. I'm quite guilty of this as well (but hey no one is immune to hypocrisy right?). There was someone who posted a snap change video that was off in the handling of the cards. I gave a reply of how he should fix it but it would have been much better had I just posted a video and commented what he should pay attention to that way he could visually see what I meant. I'm getting a little better about this by posting in the Departure question thread one of my private videos I haven't released yet for my ring flight presentations since it's a visual example of what I was trying to demonstrate by replying earlier in the thread.
I do mention that I don't recommend anyone should post their A-list material as you will see if you reread my point number five. What I said was maybe a promo reel demonstrating how we get people to react and cause moments of wonder and suspense. We don't have to give away any presentations but rather just show that we are being perceived as we are claiming to be perceived. Anyone can hop on here and say they have the most entertaining show and critique everyone on their performances, but it's hard to believe them unless they can prove it. I understand that not everyone has a production team that can run around and record them and produce promo reels for them (but hey if you don't have one and want to hire one look no further
). But a demonstration of knowledge can easily validate someone's character and maturity like you have already so expertly proven with your replies to questions on here. I love how you not only list the book where they can find what they are looking for but you list the exact page number to find it! That is the kind of stuff I want to see more of around here is professionalism, maturity, and character.Thanks for the feedback guys! Good discussion.
Last edited:
More and more, I think this is going to be a realm for the future of magic. I think magicians need to learn to master video.
Not to say that magic in the future should be presented only through video, but that we need enough solid examples of really good magic on video that poor examples pale in comparison. There's no single way to perform magic, of course, but it's good to have great examples all throughout various mediums of delivery.
We've mastered the parlor, the stage, the strolling party, the restaurant - why have we waited so long to tackle video?
@TylerScottIllusionist
I think we are agreeing more than we disagree.
1.
I want people to be more unique and have original content rather than just be knock off Wayne Houchins or Blake Vogts. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with performing effects people have released to the market it's just that I feel performers would benefit by having one or two pieces that only they can do that no one else can.
Complete agreement. There are a couple of effects that I perform that pretty much use the scripts and methods from the written version -- mainly because the scripting of the original effect perfectly fits my character. However, even for each of those, the script is edited and the methods altered. I have several pieces (egg bag, linking rings, cups & balls) that were constructed after learning everything I could about the effect. I'll agree that nothing I do is completely original, but is more a compilation of what I know, substituting one mthod for another.
I was also trying to address the issue of people feeling the need to create effects just to release them to feel validated as a magician and the huge surge of releases that happen every week that results in a lot of trash piling up in my opinion.
Again, agree. My suggestion was that people prove their work through performance and when they have a body of performance tested and fine tuned work, then release it as a book or even a DVD set. I also was expressing my thoughts that most magic is an adaptation of old methods and that you could learn everything you need from a handful of books (granted, I prefer to have several closets full of books, but that is me).
2.
That's why I titled it "TV is dead" because magicians need to learn how to create buzz on the platform that reaches the biggest audience. The point of TV specials was to get a performers name out there that way they would hopefully buy tickets to your show (which is basically what David Blaine's Beyond Magic special was all about was a big advertisement for his upcoming tour).
The difference I see in our approaches is that I see that all marketing is local. The best example is Steve Cohen who makes a nice living doing weekly shows for 30 people in New York City. Granted, he has had a show on the History Channel, but his attendence is primarily driven by word of mouth. I really don't think that social media reaches that many people because of the saturation factor -- there is so much stuff out there that it gets lost.
3.
My problem is that a lot of these presentations, although they can be changed up like you mentioned you have done, are still done to death and cliched. I saw a magician perform the cups and balls routine and every laymen there knew what the punch line was going to be before he did anything since most people have seen it before and probably at least know about the misdirection needed for the effect.
...
These aren't normal items, they are props. Since they are a prop, anything that is done with them no longer has that feeling of being impossible. It's either the prop is designed to work that way or this guy is just really good with sleights and misdirection. Since all this can be rationalized, what makes magicians any different from a comedian or motivational speaker who would learn how to use these props and techniques for their own presentations? What would make a magician different from them? My answer to that is a magician can do the impossible.
I guess we differ on the idea of props. I believe the magician justifies the prop and not the other way around. I've done Cups and Balls routines for birthday parties where the adults in the back of the room were standing up to watch. The key is how you present it. You have to prove the props are nothing but what the seem. My audience handles the cups and they touch the linking rings and make sure there are no holes or gaps, they see every ring separate and then hold them when they are linked.
You're idea about the magician having a prop that does the work or the magician being really good at sleight of hand and misdirection goes more toward our biggest obstacle - how do we change the perception of the rules of the game so that the audience doesn't view their role to figure out what we do. Darwin Ortiz says talks about magic NOT suspending disbelief but establishing belief. Outside of well performed mentalism, I've never seen a magician establish belief and I've seen Darwin perform card tricks and they were just that. Paul Harris talks about a fleeting moment of childlike astonishment. I've often thought that the reason it was fleeting was because it lacked a connection to the audience. Paul's discription of a "little bit of strange" is probably more accurate to the audience's reaction to most street magic - "that was interesting... oh well." Tamariz talks about leading the audience toward a path of the method and then disproving that method. I think that leading them down a path to a method still has them thinking about what the method could be. My sense, is to have the audience not care about the method through your presentation. To have them just give up trying to figure it out and enjoy it because they want there to be magic in the world. It is interesting that spectators describe my effects first by the presentation and then by what happened: "The one about how you met your wife, with the cards that kept changing" or "The one with the letters from St. Peter and Satin" or "The one about having a drink of wine at the end of the day with the needles." I've had spectators come up to me after a show and ask me to repeat something I sad because they wanted to remember it to tell someone else. We can do the impossible by bringing the spectators into our world and showing them that amazing things can happen if they just believe.
4.
The point I was trying to make was how we should change the education in our industry. I was trying to hold the industry accountable.
I agree completely. I don't like exposure and explain why it is wrong every chance I get. BUT, it doesn't affect me. Most of the stuff I perform is burried in books or developed independently (or based on consulting with fellow magicians).
5.
I was trying to get at that we need to focus more on showing rather than telling.
Agree completely. Let me think about ways to show the things I talk about through video.
Great post Tyler.
I think we are agreeing more than we disagree.
1.
I want people to be more unique and have original content rather than just be knock off Wayne Houchins or Blake Vogts. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with performing effects people have released to the market it's just that I feel performers would benefit by having one or two pieces that only they can do that no one else can.
Complete agreement. There are a couple of effects that I perform that pretty much use the scripts and methods from the written version -- mainly because the scripting of the original effect perfectly fits my character. However, even for each of those, the script is edited and the methods altered. I have several pieces (egg bag, linking rings, cups & balls) that were constructed after learning everything I could about the effect. I'll agree that nothing I do is completely original, but is more a compilation of what I know, substituting one mthod for another.
I was also trying to address the issue of people feeling the need to create effects just to release them to feel validated as a magician and the huge surge of releases that happen every week that results in a lot of trash piling up in my opinion.
Again, agree. My suggestion was that people prove their work through performance and when they have a body of performance tested and fine tuned work, then release it as a book or even a DVD set. I also was expressing my thoughts that most magic is an adaptation of old methods and that you could learn everything you need from a handful of books (granted, I prefer to have several closets full of books, but that is me).
2.
That's why I titled it "TV is dead" because magicians need to learn how to create buzz on the platform that reaches the biggest audience. The point of TV specials was to get a performers name out there that way they would hopefully buy tickets to your show (which is basically what David Blaine's Beyond Magic special was all about was a big advertisement for his upcoming tour).
The difference I see in our approaches is that I see that all marketing is local. The best example is Steve Cohen who makes a nice living doing weekly shows for 30 people in New York City. Granted, he has had a show on the History Channel, but his attendence is primarily driven by word of mouth. I really don't think that social media reaches that many people because of the saturation factor -- there is so much stuff out there that it gets lost.
3.
My problem is that a lot of these presentations, although they can be changed up like you mentioned you have done, are still done to death and cliched. I saw a magician perform the cups and balls routine and every laymen there knew what the punch line was going to be before he did anything since most people have seen it before and probably at least know about the misdirection needed for the effect.
...
These aren't normal items, they are props. Since they are a prop, anything that is done with them no longer has that feeling of being impossible. It's either the prop is designed to work that way or this guy is just really good with sleights and misdirection. Since all this can be rationalized, what makes magicians any different from a comedian or motivational speaker who would learn how to use these props and techniques for their own presentations? What would make a magician different from them? My answer to that is a magician can do the impossible.
I guess we differ on the idea of props. I believe the magician justifies the prop and not the other way around. I've done Cups and Balls routines for birthday parties where the adults in the back of the room were standing up to watch. The key is how you present it. You have to prove the props are nothing but what the seem. My audience handles the cups and they touch the linking rings and make sure there are no holes or gaps, they see every ring separate and then hold them when they are linked.
You're idea about the magician having a prop that does the work or the magician being really good at sleight of hand and misdirection goes more toward our biggest obstacle - how do we change the perception of the rules of the game so that the audience doesn't view their role to figure out what we do. Darwin Ortiz says talks about magic NOT suspending disbelief but establishing belief. Outside of well performed mentalism, I've never seen a magician establish belief and I've seen Darwin perform card tricks and they were just that. Paul Harris talks about a fleeting moment of childlike astonishment. I've often thought that the reason it was fleeting was because it lacked a connection to the audience. Paul's discription of a "little bit of strange" is probably more accurate to the audience's reaction to most street magic - "that was interesting... oh well." Tamariz talks about leading the audience toward a path of the method and then disproving that method. I think that leading them down a path to a method still has them thinking about what the method could be. My sense, is to have the audience not care about the method through your presentation. To have them just give up trying to figure it out and enjoy it because they want there to be magic in the world. It is interesting that spectators describe my effects first by the presentation and then by what happened: "The one about how you met your wife, with the cards that kept changing" or "The one with the letters from St. Peter and Satin" or "The one about having a drink of wine at the end of the day with the needles." I've had spectators come up to me after a show and ask me to repeat something I sad because they wanted to remember it to tell someone else. We can do the impossible by bringing the spectators into our world and showing them that amazing things can happen if they just believe.
4.
The point I was trying to make was how we should change the education in our industry. I was trying to hold the industry accountable.
I agree completely. I don't like exposure and explain why it is wrong every chance I get. BUT, it doesn't affect me. Most of the stuff I perform is burried in books or developed independently (or based on consulting with fellow magicians).
5.
I was trying to get at that we need to focus more on showing rather than telling.
Agree completely. Let me think about ways to show the things I talk about through video.
Great post Tyler.
I'm not sure I agree 100% that *all* marketing is local, but I will say that all the marketing that most of us are likely to do is local. It's extremely difficult to market effectively with social media, due to the saturation as you mention, David. Facebook numbers mean nothing to real life - I've seen an event with 3K saying they were going to attend only get hundreds, and I've seen an event with only hundreds saying they were attending get thousands. Facebook has two values in my mind - 1) it gives you a way to gather data if you use the ads right, and 2) It gives you something to point at when you're selling yourself to bookers (Look at how popular my page is, basically). It's also extremely tricky because the various platforms keep changing how they deliver your content to your "fans". A professional page on FB is basically worthless in my mind.
I actually dug my chop cup routine out of the dust of my busking memories for the presentation I did on perception a couple weeks ago. I mean, it's perfect - it's a routine that is built around manipulating perception. My routine is nothing incredible - the beginning is a fairly standard "is it under the cup or in my pocket?" thing, followed by two balls being under the cup, then a soccer ball that barely fits in the cup, then an elephant. The last three are set up so it seems like I'm picked up the cup, doing the reveal, setting it right back down, and then picking it up again without ever going near it.
It went over so well, I was actually surprised. And proud. I played that last reveal like Lindsey Stirling plays a violin. My script at the very end is basically saying, "If I get you to look here, while I do something sneaky over here, I could produce an elephant under that cup." Pause a beat, make eye contact with one or two people. "You want me to produce an elephant under that cup, don't you?" Pause a beat. "Well, ok." Reach out, touch the cup. Lift the cup, a toy elephant is laying on the table (Which, due to its proportions, almost doesn't look like it would fit in the cup), set cup aside, accept applause.
These people are learning to be neuroscientists and doctors - all of them freaked out. This includes both the professor who hired me and her department head.
This just goes to show that even classics that are thought to be extremely well known and exposed can still be fantastic if they are routined to be so. Way too many magicians think they can just learn a basic routine and go out and do it. And the crappy part is - for the most part, that's true. The motivation to create original, interesting, creative magic has to come from inside. You can go out and learn tricks from other people and copy them word for word and do alright as a magician. But to be really good, to be respected and thought of as a name instead of as the generic title of "magician" you have to create your own material and that's SO much harder than just copying people and accepting applause. It's also way more satisfying, but that's not enough for some people.
David and I really do have very similar motivations and goals in performance. So similar that I'm surprised how different our solutions ended up being, really. I think that's a thread on its own, there.