Hello everyone,

Here is the video of me performing "the thing".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-K6HClRic
Start from 1:00

I'm a comedy magician so it's my first time trying to do some kind of stage magic.
I finished the DVD and practice much but I cannot still get it performed well.
I'm quite frustrated because I don't know how to perform and makes it more real.
It looks just unnatural.
Can somebody give some advice or tips?
How to make the thing looks like "something really floating there"?
Thank you very much.

Best,
YuYen

That will sound obvious, but... Practice. As much as you can.

Zombie-like effects lie amongst the hardest ones in the Manipulation category, so it takes much patience. Studying Mime works really well to help you understand some concepts like Isolation, for xample.

It's not something that I do at all, but I'd echo what Fabio has said, practice but more so than that perform it a lot and get some confidence in yourself.

Audience reactions seemed good so take that on board and give yourself some credit.

It's not at performance level yet, my friend.

I know, so that's why I need some advices.
Thank you.

YuYen

It's definitely got a lot of potential for you. When you are not using the cloth and just watching the invisible ball float around the room, I felt like using your hands weakened it. I think if you just follow it with your eyes and head, it would be more visually pleasing. Or if you used both hands to lengthen the pantomime and pretended to roll the ball around in your hands, maybe it could roll up your arm to your shoulders and you catch it on the other side. It reminded me of the one ball juggler in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtztrcGkCBw . Obviously, this is very different from the "Thing", but I thought you might draw inspiration from his motions.

You have to convince the audience a lot and break though a lot of notions when performing the THING. First you have to convince them that there is nothing in the cloth. Next you have to convince them that there is some orb that you have under that cloth that only you can see.

To prepare your mind and body to mime the actions needed, use a different cloth. Go through the motions and see how you are holding it. Notice your hands and how they hold the cloth naturally without the gimmick. Now imagine you have an orb under there would it just go up and down? Most likely an orb could go sideways as well right! How fast? How Slow? Wouldn’t it just stay still and hover too?

You really need to think and focus on this and make your movements motivated by the orb not your hands. Do not over due the THING, it is not a zombie ball, it will lose its luster very fast. So keep your routine with it short and sweet. However you can get some great millage out of it during a show as a call back. When you see a dead spot in the show grab the cloth and catch another one. This will make the illusion play bigger in your act.

Now for my next point! Why are you breaking your character and doing a silent magic effect to music. If you’re a comedy magician then you talk and you talk a lot. I would recommend that you script your THING routine to be comical and have patter lines for it. I personally feel your un-naturalness is because you are going out of character and you should be aware that when you do that your motions and movements are not the same as when you are doing comedy something you are use too. So re-script it and make it a comedy piece and I feel you will get more millage out of the routine.

Hope this helps
Floyd

Thanks all the advices above!
I really learned a lot from all of you!

Floyd, what you said is really really useable for me!
I've used the non-gimmicked hank to practice since this evening.
Other advices that you gave me is also very useful!
You really help me a lot everytime when I post something here.
I have your "Chicken Scratches" and "Taking center stage", they are all great.

YuYen