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Doug Peters Special user I have a life, so I only have 591 Posts |
RiffRaff - link or didn't happen
"if you have any answers, it's time to ask harder questions!"
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RiffRaff Special user 671 Posts |
Buskers Café Americain, I believe.
And it did happen. |
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Doug Peters Special user I have a life, so I only have 591 Posts |
Failing that link, you could always reproduce one "specific, concrete example"?
"if you have any answers, it's time to ask harder questions!"
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Tim Cavendish Inner circle 1404 Posts |
Sometimes the winning move is not to play.
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RiffRaff Special user 671 Posts |
Greetings, professor Falken.
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ASW Inner circle 1879 Posts |
Quote:
On Feb 23, 2017, RiffRaff wrote: If true, that's somewhat depressing.
Whenever I find myself gripping anything too tightly I just ask myself "How would Guy Hollingworth hold this?"
A magician on the Genii Forum "I would respect VIPs if they respect history." Hideo Kato |
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rnaviaux Loyal user 287 Posts |
I have no desire to rewrite this book but am willing to summate what I got out of this: 1. Find out exactly what it is you are trying to communicate with you trick, routine, act and/or show. 2. Include those elements that contribute to this communication. 3. Remove those elements that don't contribute to this.
Mr. Ortiz provides a list of factors to consider along these lines. Much like a movie maker has to worry about set design, lighting, sound, mood, characters, etc. a magician has a list of aspects that can affect the quality of the communication that he is trying to affect via some magic effect. I find this has given me a lense through which to more critically evaluate any effect I might perform down to the exact facial expressions, words and movements I might make in an effect. All of this is weighed against the final effect. Darwin mentions "audience impact" as being the standard by which one judges the effectiveness of what one is doing. I think this goes back to idea that is being communicated and how well can you communicate it. A specific thing I am working on is how to make what I do not corny. More natural and real. It's amazing how hard I have to work to take a simple effect and excise the things that I do to that make it look like I am "performing" so as to get a more focused result. This book provides a map of sorts to find areas to improve I wouldn't have thought of before. Mr. Kaufman once made a comment that the book was useless for any competent practitioner as they should already know this information. (This was years ago.) This may well be true but for someone that doesn't already "know all about it" (like myself) this is an invaluable guidebook. A specific point that seemed to really cause some angst was the comment about "no room for challenge" in magic. Well that one idea alone is worthy of serious contemplation. I no longer ask an audience to say "how many cards are there" or "what card do you have?" and then prove him wrong. I think this is just a lazy way of insuring you have conviction. I have changed several patter lines as a result. But it goes deeper than that of course and raises new problems that need to be solved not all of which I have answered to my satisfaction. (No need to hash it all out here.) One benefit of reading this book is I went from "tricks are cool" to having a much finer sensibility of the construction of effects and routines. Rightly or wrongly I now have opinions and am willing to dig in to a routine and find out what makes it work and adjust it to make it work better, or fail in the attempt:) An example is Darwin's Signature Effect - I have a love/hate relationship with this effect and have been performing it for close to 17 years now. I have found there are several points in the routine that if you go too fast or waste time then you lose impact and raise suspicion. Using various tools in Strong Magic has helped me to observe these points and not ignore them, learn from what is happening and then put into practice exact technical solutions. Admittedly, some of these changes are minor and I may be accused of overthinking the routine. But I enjoy the work and it's fun to analyze and talk about which might be the greatest benefit I have gotten from the book. Your mileage may vary:) Disclaimer - I am a real fan of all of Ortiz's published material. |
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ASW Inner circle 1879 Posts |
Quote:
On May 5, 2017, rnaviaux wrote: The irony is that Kaufman isn't a competent practitioner [in the sense of a professional entertainer]. He does however do tricks for friends. Clearly this isn't the book for him, but at the same time he's hardly qualified to judge. Not merely on the basis that he isn't a mature performer or that he lacks the desire to elevate his performance abilities above an amateur level. As I understand it he didn't even want to publish the book and fought against doing so because he thought it would be a commercial failure. He was completely wrong as it is one of the best selling books in magic history. I'm sure he's still smarting about having to relinquish the rights to the author, who has since reprinted and sold out several times and has sold publishing rights in non-English speaking markets. I enjoyed your post.
Whenever I find myself gripping anything too tightly I just ask myself "How would Guy Hollingworth hold this?"
A magician on the Genii Forum "I would respect VIPs if they respect history." Hideo Kato |
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Cryptghost New user 65 Posts |
Sorry to raise this thread again, I am thinking about getting this book but does anyone know if this compatible with Mentalism acts too?
I have thought about getting Derren Brown Absolute Magic but it seems way out of my price range, I am looking for books on mentalism theory and presentation. |
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DiegoNovati New user 39 Posts |
Cryptgost,
My humble opinion is that ‘The Magic Way’ by Tamariz is better because it provides you more direct useful information on how to create the effects. About presentation ‘Scripting Magic’ is the book for learning how to create your speech. |
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Rachmaninov Inner circle 1076 Posts |
Any book on magic theory will be valuable to mentalists. The principles are the same.
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Pierre Cardinlemon New user Budapest, Hungary, EU 40 Posts |
Quote:
On Mar 8, 2019, Cryptghost wrote: Strong magic is in my opinion the most systematic book on showmanship. I usually underline the most important ideas in the books I read, and in this one I have underlined almost every sentence. I think nobody can go wrong with reading Strong magic. This being said, in my opinion Nelms' Magic and showmanship has more ideas directly applicable in mentalism. I consider these two books complementary, so I recommend both if you want to improve your presentation. |
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Cryptghost New user 65 Posts |
Thanks for the great feedback, I managed to pick a cheap copy of Strong Magic and Absolute Magic, but I am really looking forward to reading Strong Magic after all the very positive feedback
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Rachmaninov Inner circle 1076 Posts |
You will not loose your time with those two books for sure !
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tecumilic New user 95 Posts |
So I have read various comments in different threads about “Strong magic” that state that the book will improve your improve your close up magic. Is the advice in the book focused on specifically close up material or does Darwins advice translate to platform magic awell? I know this is a weird question about a theory book I'm just curious if the advice on performing and showmanship are assuming a close up scenario
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