Commonalities
This is what human beings really bond over. When we have a shared passion to talk about, we can just go on and on. Me especially. So it only stands to reason that you really should try to find a way to work your interests into scripting when you know that your audience is going to be into the same thing.
The Biddle Trick – Babe Ruth’s record has been broken many times over, but he’s still a legend even today. A card is selected and designated to be the ball. It’s lost and relocated as the pitcher decides what pitch to use on Babe. The deck is held by the spectator while the magician takes the packet. Here’s the wind-up… and the pitch… the packet is snapped and it’s a homerun! The “ball” is missing from the packet! It turns up face-up inside the deck as a souvenir for some lucky fan!
If you’re getting a strolling gig at a sports bar, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you already know something about sports. Wouldn’t it be great to start doing sports-themed magic for the guests? You have the advantage of knowing facts and trivia about the local teams, legends of sports history, and what’s happened this season… Turn that into scripting. Think about the kind of reactions you could get if you devised a way to turn a chop cup routine into a trick about football (soccer on my side of the pond).
This is where it pays to know a little about a lot. You should become a sponge of knowledge so that no matter what situation you walk into, you have something to talk about. There really is no limit to what you can do. Think of a card routine based entirely on video games. A cups and balls routine about travel? Why not? For a real challenge, try your hand at punk mentalism.
The best way to go about this is to set yourself up in a venue where there is bound to be some crossover between your interests and your audience’s. This sounds like it should go without saying, but you’d be surprised how many people overlook the obvious. To reference my earlier example, if you’re really into sports, you might want to consider getting a gig at a local sports bar and doing magic themed to the game of choice of the patrons.
What this does is establish to your audience that you are not simply a 1-dimensional performer, but that you have a lot in common. All of a sudden, you’re a brother-in-arms. This occurred to me for the first time when I saw Paul Green’s performance in the Live at the Jailhouse DVDs. As part of his scripting for one effect he asked, “Do you like those CSI shows?” Turns out, one of the women at the table was a huge fan of the series. As if he wasn’t already in with that group, he now had a common bond with one of them based on a favorite TV show.
The Invisible Deck – After learning that the spectator is into CSI and mystery novels, the magician proposes they do a mystery story themselves. The spectator selects a card to be the murderer and one to be the victim. The murderer’s identity is a secret, while the victim is torn in half. The magician begins looking for clues while handing the spectator an invisible deck of “mugshots” to pick from. The magician attempts to guess the identity of the murderer. In the end, the spectator reveals the bloody card. The magician takes out another real deck and spreads it out across the table to reveal one face up card: the same card the spectator named as the murderer.
People love to feel like they’re in on something. By writing scripts based on commonalities, the performer lets his audience in on a little conspiracy that only they share. Sure, there are people with these interests, but this performance is something that only the real fans get to be in on.
There are few things more ingratiating to a spectator than to hear the performer say, “You like that, too? You have to see this, then. I have a little trick about that.” Humans want human companionship, and these common interests appeal to the pack instinct that resides deep inside of us.
Don’t forget that humans still have a very primitive drive. We’re pack animals by nature, and the size of the pack is just as important as the sense of unity within it. The magician being an entertainer already has value of social status in that he has connections with the staff of whatever venue he’s performing in. He’s also able to stave off boredom (the enemy of all sentient minds), which is always welcome. And now on top of all that his interests run parallel with the rest of the pack so he’s easy to get along with.
This all goes back to being likeable. I have a whole ‘nother essay in the works on that, but for now this is just a primer on the concept. No audience is going to tip you, invite you back, or become a regular customer if they don’t like you as a person. There are numerous ways to do that, though I personally believe that knowing a little about a lot so that you always have something to say and something in common with your audience goes a long way toward achieving this end.
So there you have it. This is by no means the most comprehensive article on scripting out there. All I’ve done is scratched the surface on four facets of writing good presentations that I’m particularly fond of.
If one of these appeals to you, consider this a brief introduction and a springboard to do more research on the topic and draw your own conclusions. I hope also that the abbreviated descriptions of novel ways to perform the selected effects have gotten your creativity working. I’ve often said that there are countless ways to perform any effect, but I’ve never done much in the way of giving examples. It was an interesting challenge for me to come up with these, and I may very well use some of them myself.
This is what human beings really bond over. When we have a shared passion to talk about, we can just go on and on. Me especially. So it only stands to reason that you really should try to find a way to work your interests into scripting when you know that your audience is going to be into the same thing.
The Biddle Trick – Babe Ruth’s record has been broken many times over, but he’s still a legend even today. A card is selected and designated to be the ball. It’s lost and relocated as the pitcher decides what pitch to use on Babe. The deck is held by the spectator while the magician takes the packet. Here’s the wind-up… and the pitch… the packet is snapped and it’s a homerun! The “ball” is missing from the packet! It turns up face-up inside the deck as a souvenir for some lucky fan!
If you’re getting a strolling gig at a sports bar, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you already know something about sports. Wouldn’t it be great to start doing sports-themed magic for the guests? You have the advantage of knowing facts and trivia about the local teams, legends of sports history, and what’s happened this season… Turn that into scripting. Think about the kind of reactions you could get if you devised a way to turn a chop cup routine into a trick about football (soccer on my side of the pond).
This is where it pays to know a little about a lot. You should become a sponge of knowledge so that no matter what situation you walk into, you have something to talk about. There really is no limit to what you can do. Think of a card routine based entirely on video games. A cups and balls routine about travel? Why not? For a real challenge, try your hand at punk mentalism.
The best way to go about this is to set yourself up in a venue where there is bound to be some crossover between your interests and your audience’s. This sounds like it should go without saying, but you’d be surprised how many people overlook the obvious. To reference my earlier example, if you’re really into sports, you might want to consider getting a gig at a local sports bar and doing magic themed to the game of choice of the patrons.
What this does is establish to your audience that you are not simply a 1-dimensional performer, but that you have a lot in common. All of a sudden, you’re a brother-in-arms. This occurred to me for the first time when I saw Paul Green’s performance in the Live at the Jailhouse DVDs. As part of his scripting for one effect he asked, “Do you like those CSI shows?” Turns out, one of the women at the table was a huge fan of the series. As if he wasn’t already in with that group, he now had a common bond with one of them based on a favorite TV show.
The Invisible Deck – After learning that the spectator is into CSI and mystery novels, the magician proposes they do a mystery story themselves. The spectator selects a card to be the murderer and one to be the victim. The murderer’s identity is a secret, while the victim is torn in half. The magician begins looking for clues while handing the spectator an invisible deck of “mugshots” to pick from. The magician attempts to guess the identity of the murderer. In the end, the spectator reveals the bloody card. The magician takes out another real deck and spreads it out across the table to reveal one face up card: the same card the spectator named as the murderer.
People love to feel like they’re in on something. By writing scripts based on commonalities, the performer lets his audience in on a little conspiracy that only they share. Sure, there are people with these interests, but this performance is something that only the real fans get to be in on.
There are few things more ingratiating to a spectator than to hear the performer say, “You like that, too? You have to see this, then. I have a little trick about that.” Humans want human companionship, and these common interests appeal to the pack instinct that resides deep inside of us.
Don’t forget that humans still have a very primitive drive. We’re pack animals by nature, and the size of the pack is just as important as the sense of unity within it. The magician being an entertainer already has value of social status in that he has connections with the staff of whatever venue he’s performing in. He’s also able to stave off boredom (the enemy of all sentient minds), which is always welcome. And now on top of all that his interests run parallel with the rest of the pack so he’s easy to get along with.
This all goes back to being likeable. I have a whole ‘nother essay in the works on that, but for now this is just a primer on the concept. No audience is going to tip you, invite you back, or become a regular customer if they don’t like you as a person. There are numerous ways to do that, though I personally believe that knowing a little about a lot so that you always have something to say and something in common with your audience goes a long way toward achieving this end.
So there you have it. This is by no means the most comprehensive article on scripting out there. All I’ve done is scratched the surface on four facets of writing good presentations that I’m particularly fond of.
If one of these appeals to you, consider this a brief introduction and a springboard to do more research on the topic and draw your own conclusions. I hope also that the abbreviated descriptions of novel ways to perform the selected effects have gotten your creativity working. I’ve often said that there are countless ways to perform any effect, but I’ve never done much in the way of giving examples. It was an interesting challenge for me to come up with these, and I may very well use some of them myself.
