Part 1: Some Theory
“There is a difference between the spectator’s not knowing how something is done, versus his knowing that it cannot be done.” -Simon Aronson
I want to really dissect this quote in order to make a point.
Say you are performing for an audience and they catch you on something. You have flashed. Maybe it is just a palm that they saw. The kicker of the effect is that the card ends up in their wallet that had been in their pocket the whole time. Even though the spectator only saw the palmed card and not how it ended up in their wallet, they will most likely feel unsatisfied because they saw the palm. Why? I honestly do not know. (Example from Strong Magic, by Darwin Ortiz.)
What should you say when a spectator says, “ HEY! I saw that. I saw you holding the card”
Should your answer be:
Well, if you saw the palm, how did it get In your wallet?
Well, I’m sorry that you saw something, let me try to live it up with a better effect.
Umm, well, I’m sorry.
They don’t sound very good do they? The answer really depends on if you see magic as a very hard puzzle or if you see it as something that is completely impossible that has no explanation. Which do you think Magic should be? A puzzle? Or… True Magic?
It is a personal opinion that can only be answered by yourself.
---
Puzzle? Or real magic?
When you are watching a effect by a another magician, what usually goes through your mind? Probably something like this:
“Wow, that is amazing. Now how could that be done? A pass? Double lift?”
Am I close?
Remember that time when you were not a magician? You had no prior knowledge of how any of these miracles could have been done. You thought that these performers were doing real magic. Yeah, I know you remember. You had that feeling, that feeling of disbelief. The feeling that maybe, just maybe, magic can be real.
The question that you were probably thinking as a layman was this:
“Wow, that is amazing. Could there really be a way to do this?”
You had that sense of impossibility. You did not know if it was real or not. It could have been completely real. You did not know this man/woman. They gave you that magical feeling.
Since the spectator does not know if what you are doing is real, you have to make your effects that much more impossible. You have to create that illusion of real magic. That what you are doing is real. In order to do this, you must first believe that what you are doing is real. You have to KNOW that you are doing real magic and not some cheap puzzle. When you believe and show that to your spectators, they will believe in it also.
Believing that you are performing magic may sound silly. But once you do it, You will get reactions UN-heard of. The spectators will start to question if you are actually doing what you say you are doing and soon enough, they will believe.
BUT, you cannot just “puzzle” someone. Magic is much more than that.
How many magician friends do you know? Either in real life or online. Probably a few. Most of your magician friends will choose to settle for the easiest path for a magic effect. They will do what looks cool or is the easiest way to do something. They probably won’t work into a effect, they probably will settle for an OK performance. The probably won’t think about there magic. They probably just perform whatever they think is “in” at the time. They will settle to perform “puzzles.”
But you won’t settle for the easiest. You will not settle to perform “puzzles.” You want to perform real magic. You are going to go out of your way. You are going to do everything you can to make true magic. You will. How do I know, right? Because, you want to perform real magic instead of puzzles. You are going to get rid of everything that “screams” puzzle. You will add everything that you find magical to add to the effect.
Everything you say will sound magical. You will be magic. You will be a real magician.
You are going to grow from being a puzzler to a magician. Today, you are going to believe that you can do this and you will. You have the confidence. You have the man-power. You just have to work.
Once this is done, you will be a real magician.
---
Belief
Most magicians will refuse to show their magic as real magic. They think it is stupid to think that up to date audiences will believe in magic. They think audiences will not believe in magic as a literal thing. They will refuse to believe in their own magic for that same very reason. They are puzzlers. They create small puzzles for audiences to figure out. This is not magic.
Here is an example to make my point:
Let’s say you are watching a movie or a play. A fictional one at that. Do you honestly believe that what you are watching is real? Look at the play, Peter Pan. People go to see plays to be entertained, to want to see something that they know is fake, but believe that it is real. Even for a small amount of time. People know that Peter is not really flying. They know that all of the characters are just actors playing a role. They know that there are wires and special effects, but the audience has to forget about all of that to believe in it. They forget that flying isn’t possible and they forget that the characters are actors and actresses.
The same goes for a magicians performance. Say you are doing a levitation or making a bill float. The spectator knows that you aren’t really levitating or making things float. The audiences intellect tells them that. BUT his senses and emotions are telling them that, yeah, this guy really is floating or the bill really is floating.
You know what? Forget about trying to create that sense of disbelief. Get your audience to believe that your magic is real. There is nothing wrong with doing this. Some magicians think that it is wrong to “trick” your audience into believing that your magic is real when this is not the case. We aren’t tricking them into anything. The audience has the choice of wanting to believe or not.
Your audience has a big part in creating your magic. Most laymen have the intellect to know that you aren’t really doing real magic. But they have to desire to want to believe that it is real. It is basically impossible to get your audience to believe that what you are doing is real, intellectually. BUT you can make your audience believe that it is real magic, emotionally. ALL magic is responded through the emotions, not the intellect.
Have you ever noticed that after you perform and ask the audience exactly what they saw that they usually over-exaggerate? Your spectators are not trying to tell you what had happened, they are trying to describe the emotions that they felt when they saw it.
Again, it is impossible to prove to an audience that what you are doing is real intellectually. Why? Because your audiences are not dumb. They are just too smart. They will always have that thought in the back of there mind that what you are doing is not real magic. That you are not really reading there mind and you are not really floating. BUT when your presentations are aimed at hitting their emotions, than their emotions will over run their intellect and they may just believe that you are doing real magic.
---
Talking to long: Emotional Memory
Patter is a huge part of a magic effect. It either makes it, or breaks it.
But, some magicians patter for so long that the audience forgets about the main effect.
Try this:
Get a coin or small object. Do a French drop. Now, pretend to hold it in your hand and patter for about 10 seconds. Than show that the coin has vanished.
After that, go to a different audience and try this:
Get a coin or small object. Do a French drop. Now, pretend to hold it in your hand and patter for about 1 minute. Than show that the coin has vanished.
Which got the better reaction?
You will find out that the patter for only 10 seconds will get the better reaction. By the time you are done with the 1 minute patter the audience will forget about the coin anyways! Sure, the audience knows intellectually that you placed the coin in your hand. Yet, emotionally, they half forget that the coin is in your hand.
The more time between you placing the coin "in your hand" to you speaking to the opening of your hand the less of a reaction you will get.
Say you are performing the effect Triumph. You have this huge patter line after you mix up the cards face up and face down. Than, after your huge patter line that you have just said, you show the deck to be face down, except one card. You probably won't get much of a reaction. Why?
The audience only half-remembers (emotionally) that you shuffled the deck face up and face down.
Everyone knows what a ACR is right? Well if not, the effect is basically that a signed card keeps coming to the top of the deck in an impossible fashion. That's about it. I've seen tons of ACRs so far in my (very short) life span and so far, most of them aren’t that amazing. Yeah, the card keeps coming to the top of the deck.
Continued...
“There is a difference between the spectator’s not knowing how something is done, versus his knowing that it cannot be done.” -Simon Aronson
I want to really dissect this quote in order to make a point.
Say you are performing for an audience and they catch you on something. You have flashed. Maybe it is just a palm that they saw. The kicker of the effect is that the card ends up in their wallet that had been in their pocket the whole time. Even though the spectator only saw the palmed card and not how it ended up in their wallet, they will most likely feel unsatisfied because they saw the palm. Why? I honestly do not know. (Example from Strong Magic, by Darwin Ortiz.)
What should you say when a spectator says, “ HEY! I saw that. I saw you holding the card”
Should your answer be:
Well, if you saw the palm, how did it get In your wallet?
Well, I’m sorry that you saw something, let me try to live it up with a better effect.
Umm, well, I’m sorry.
They don’t sound very good do they? The answer really depends on if you see magic as a very hard puzzle or if you see it as something that is completely impossible that has no explanation. Which do you think Magic should be? A puzzle? Or… True Magic?
It is a personal opinion that can only be answered by yourself.
---
Puzzle? Or real magic?
When you are watching a effect by a another magician, what usually goes through your mind? Probably something like this:
“Wow, that is amazing. Now how could that be done? A pass? Double lift?”
Am I close?
Remember that time when you were not a magician? You had no prior knowledge of how any of these miracles could have been done. You thought that these performers were doing real magic. Yeah, I know you remember. You had that feeling, that feeling of disbelief. The feeling that maybe, just maybe, magic can be real.
The question that you were probably thinking as a layman was this:
“Wow, that is amazing. Could there really be a way to do this?”
You had that sense of impossibility. You did not know if it was real or not. It could have been completely real. You did not know this man/woman. They gave you that magical feeling.
Since the spectator does not know if what you are doing is real, you have to make your effects that much more impossible. You have to create that illusion of real magic. That what you are doing is real. In order to do this, you must first believe that what you are doing is real. You have to KNOW that you are doing real magic and not some cheap puzzle. When you believe and show that to your spectators, they will believe in it also.
Believing that you are performing magic may sound silly. But once you do it, You will get reactions UN-heard of. The spectators will start to question if you are actually doing what you say you are doing and soon enough, they will believe.
BUT, you cannot just “puzzle” someone. Magic is much more than that.
How many magician friends do you know? Either in real life or online. Probably a few. Most of your magician friends will choose to settle for the easiest path for a magic effect. They will do what looks cool or is the easiest way to do something. They probably won’t work into a effect, they probably will settle for an OK performance. The probably won’t think about there magic. They probably just perform whatever they think is “in” at the time. They will settle to perform “puzzles.”
But you won’t settle for the easiest. You will not settle to perform “puzzles.” You want to perform real magic. You are going to go out of your way. You are going to do everything you can to make true magic. You will. How do I know, right? Because, you want to perform real magic instead of puzzles. You are going to get rid of everything that “screams” puzzle. You will add everything that you find magical to add to the effect.
Everything you say will sound magical. You will be magic. You will be a real magician.
You are going to grow from being a puzzler to a magician. Today, you are going to believe that you can do this and you will. You have the confidence. You have the man-power. You just have to work.
Once this is done, you will be a real magician.
---
Belief
Most magicians will refuse to show their magic as real magic. They think it is stupid to think that up to date audiences will believe in magic. They think audiences will not believe in magic as a literal thing. They will refuse to believe in their own magic for that same very reason. They are puzzlers. They create small puzzles for audiences to figure out. This is not magic.
Here is an example to make my point:
Let’s say you are watching a movie or a play. A fictional one at that. Do you honestly believe that what you are watching is real? Look at the play, Peter Pan. People go to see plays to be entertained, to want to see something that they know is fake, but believe that it is real. Even for a small amount of time. People know that Peter is not really flying. They know that all of the characters are just actors playing a role. They know that there are wires and special effects, but the audience has to forget about all of that to believe in it. They forget that flying isn’t possible and they forget that the characters are actors and actresses.
The same goes for a magicians performance. Say you are doing a levitation or making a bill float. The spectator knows that you aren’t really levitating or making things float. The audiences intellect tells them that. BUT his senses and emotions are telling them that, yeah, this guy really is floating or the bill really is floating.
You know what? Forget about trying to create that sense of disbelief. Get your audience to believe that your magic is real. There is nothing wrong with doing this. Some magicians think that it is wrong to “trick” your audience into believing that your magic is real when this is not the case. We aren’t tricking them into anything. The audience has the choice of wanting to believe or not.
Your audience has a big part in creating your magic. Most laymen have the intellect to know that you aren’t really doing real magic. But they have to desire to want to believe that it is real. It is basically impossible to get your audience to believe that what you are doing is real, intellectually. BUT you can make your audience believe that it is real magic, emotionally. ALL magic is responded through the emotions, not the intellect.
Have you ever noticed that after you perform and ask the audience exactly what they saw that they usually over-exaggerate? Your spectators are not trying to tell you what had happened, they are trying to describe the emotions that they felt when they saw it.
Again, it is impossible to prove to an audience that what you are doing is real intellectually. Why? Because your audiences are not dumb. They are just too smart. They will always have that thought in the back of there mind that what you are doing is not real magic. That you are not really reading there mind and you are not really floating. BUT when your presentations are aimed at hitting their emotions, than their emotions will over run their intellect and they may just believe that you are doing real magic.
---
Talking to long: Emotional Memory
Patter is a huge part of a magic effect. It either makes it, or breaks it.
But, some magicians patter for so long that the audience forgets about the main effect.
Try this:
Get a coin or small object. Do a French drop. Now, pretend to hold it in your hand and patter for about 10 seconds. Than show that the coin has vanished.
After that, go to a different audience and try this:
Get a coin or small object. Do a French drop. Now, pretend to hold it in your hand and patter for about 1 minute. Than show that the coin has vanished.
Which got the better reaction?
You will find out that the patter for only 10 seconds will get the better reaction. By the time you are done with the 1 minute patter the audience will forget about the coin anyways! Sure, the audience knows intellectually that you placed the coin in your hand. Yet, emotionally, they half forget that the coin is in your hand.
The more time between you placing the coin "in your hand" to you speaking to the opening of your hand the less of a reaction you will get.
Say you are performing the effect Triumph. You have this huge patter line after you mix up the cards face up and face down. Than, after your huge patter line that you have just said, you show the deck to be face down, except one card. You probably won't get much of a reaction. Why?
The audience only half-remembers (emotionally) that you shuffled the deck face up and face down.
Everyone knows what a ACR is right? Well if not, the effect is basically that a signed card keeps coming to the top of the deck in an impossible fashion. That's about it. I've seen tons of ACRs so far in my (very short) life span and so far, most of them aren’t that amazing. Yeah, the card keeps coming to the top of the deck.
Continued...
