I am afraid that relying on what "feels natural" often leaves you trapped in the familiar.

What do you mean by that, Pop Haydn? I'm just starting out so I'm genuinely curious.

My take is that for some, "natural" may be a rambling or maybe frenetic style, and for others "natural" may be using a lot of "uh's, um's, "ya know's" etc. Performing magic is a performance. The perfromer needs to be "effective" in the presentation, otherwise all you offer is the visual.

What "feels natural" is your normal everyday personality. It is always going to feel more "natural" to you than playing a larger, more dynamic personality. You should seek to enlarge your natural personality in ways that help your performance--make it more exciting, energetic and fun. You should try to constantly enlarge your performance by being more emotionally expressive, and more enthusiastic.

The main reason I finally dropped the Whit Haydn character, which I played for 30 years, is that I couldn't find a way to make the character more expressive.

The Pop character was a way to make the performance character much larger.

The "familiar" is a trap. It is comfortable and inviting. But it leaves you where you are.

If you see how I have changed the character from "Whit" to "Pop" over the past ten years, you will better understand the reasons. The Pop character is much more dynamic and expressive:

This is the "in between" character, Pop as a gambler/con man--more suave and less emotive and fun:

Developing and "growing into" a character takes a lot of work and considerable time. I feel my character is just coming into complete focus, and it has been more than ten years since I began. In order to grow, you have to be willing to move out of your comfort zone. The trap of the familiar makes change and growth difficult.

Pop, you should be charging for these lessons.

Pop...thanks for sharing those last two videos in particular. This is a very clear example of how a performer's character can morph, change, grow, mature, or whatever over time. Excellent.

Here are two little video clips that describe some important elements of scripting:



When transitioning between effects, it is important to be already introducing the new effect as the props from the preceding one are being put away and the new props are being brought out for the second.

You want a smooth and seamless segue from one trick to the next.

This avoids any perceived break in the routine and keeps people from losing interest. People tend to walk away in their minds whenever there is a break in the action. They are looking for a chance to stop paying attention.

As an old street performer whose audiences would only stay as long as I could hold them spellbound–they were always on their way someplace else, I always want long routines and smooth changes. This avoids any semblance of anything coming to an end and breaking the spell.

Even if my audiences today in theaters and chairs aren’t likely to walk away, I always feel that they are going to, at least in their heads.

The opening line of any trick is extremely important. I believe that the most important lines in a routine are the opening and closing. Having these right will make it easy to move from one trick to another and makes it easy to do routines in a different order.

The opening line should create interest and carry the routine forward. “Would you examine this? Is it an ordinary knife?” would be confusing to the helper.
What is an ordinary knife? What should I be looking for?

Meanwhile, the rest of the audience is left just waiting for the answer and for the trick to start.

Much better is to use a line like “Does this look like a real, solid object to you?”

First, this is a question that is easy to answer: “Of course!” But the suggestion is that it is not going to remain solid.

The audience leans forward wondering what is about to happen…is it going to become soft or disappear or something?

Why would the magician even ask a question like that?

A well thought out opening line should suggest the theme, arouse interest and carry the routine forward.

When magicians ask me about the importance of scripting a routine, I point to some of these things. It takes time and thought to develop lines such as these, and they don’t just happen spontaneously. They need to be crafted.



I was talking with some guys here on the Magic Café about conflict and complications in magic routines.

Every magic trick is like a little play, with the magician as the Protagonist, and the assisting spectator as the Antagonist.

The magician has a card chosen, the spectator wants to put it back anywhere he wants, or otherwise creates Conflict.

The magician wins, creating Resolution.

Along the way are complications.

This is how a routine is developed–by filling in the details of plot and character. Conflict and complications are the easiest ways to enlarge on the plot.

If you ask someone to take a card, and they want to put it back some place different than you suggested, this is a great moment of conflict that can be manipulated into the routine and provide engagement and emotion.

Whenever there is an emotional exchange between the performer and his spectator assistant the audience is galvanized; what is going to happen? Nothing engages interest as well as conflict and emotional drama.

The more the magician can express surprise, worry, slyness, anger or joy, and the more he can set his little play us to make the spectator respond with emotion, the more fun and exciting the presentation.

The magician should seek out such complications and use them to add to the interest level of his little drama.

When we design a magic routine, we are creating a story for the spectator. It is a story that he or she can tell about what happened to them when they saw “this magician.”

We want them to think the story is worth retelling, and we want them to be able to defend their story from those who might try to diminish it–“He probably just made you take that card.” “It must have been a trick bottle.” “He probably had it hidden in his hand.”

If the spectator is not prepared for that, he may feel stupid, and not have an answer–“I hadn’t thought of that.” This will ruin the story for him and he will never tell it again.
When the spectator can say, “Of course not, I thought of that…” or “No, it couldn’t be that because…” the story becomes much stronger and more fun to tell. Whenever the subject of magic comes up they will tell their story.

They may even begin to exaggerate the story as they keep telling it, to make it big enough to create the same reaction on their audience as your performance had on them.

In creating a magic routine, it is often useful and fun to acknowledge the possibility of commonly known magic ruses such as palming or forcing a card, or putting something up the sleeve.

Even kids have at least heard of these things. The magician can respect the audience’s intelligence by admitting the possibility and then either disproving that that could be the method, or turning the supposed method into an effect itself–as when the coin actually does go up one sleeve and down the other.

You show that you recognize the audience is too smart to be taken by the old tricks, and then take them with those very same ruses.

You also help them to remember these things so when they tell the story later, they can defend it: “I looked for that!” “It couldn’t have been a force…” “He showed his hand empty, he couldn’t have palmed it.”

They then feel much smarter when they tell the story: “I thought maybe he forced a card on me, but…”


http://www.popsmagic.com/store/p85/One_W......ine.html

Hi all,

Thanks for sharing it, for me is really intresting. I read all story!!!

i will try share my shows.

cheers!

Wow the information in this one post alone is so insightful. Many thanks for the time that people have gone to offering world class advice. Furthemore, I have really soaked up everything that Pop has put forward here. Obviously a man who is passionate about what he does. Thank you all again for your valuable time. I gain great confidence from the community I am proud to be a part of.

Pop Hayden gave you a master class, so this is probably superfluous, but I have never let that stop me before...

This is a general outline of how I would go from the big picture (you want to do a trick) toward the specifics (what you do when you perform it), with one thing flowing from the other.

1. Know how you come across as a person as well as a performer. Funny? Serious? Professorial? Charming? Pushy? Con man? Friendly? Current?

2. Build on that. Create your on-stage personae out of how you come across naturally.

3. Build on that. Who you are can suggest how you present material. Suave, man of the world? Con Man? Pop Hayden? Chris Angel?

4. Build on that. Your specific material choices and presentations can then grow out of your personae. Shin Lim could choose to do the 20th Century Bra trick, but I doubt
he will...it doesn't fit his style and persona.

5. Build on that. Take the material you like and that fits your personae and think about how that trick’s presentation matches you. Pop's videos are a perfect example of that approach. Or, for another example, Gregory Wilson's character is The Honest Con Man so, though he can perform twisting the aces with any presentation he wants, he makes it fit by presenting it as a demonstration how a con man can distract/misdirect you. So every ace that turns over is further proof he got you to look away just long enough to do the secret move. It takes a simple routine and makes it a stronger performance piece because the patter and presentation makes sense with his performing style.

6. Build on that. Why are you showing a particular trick to the audience? An effect can have any number of story arcs, so which one fits in with all of the above?

This is the first trick I ever learned...
There are ghosts...
There are no ghosts. This is really what is going on...
I got scammed the other day...
This is how you can be scammed...
Science just discovered that...
Have you seen the latest security tech?
I found this at a garage sale and...
Do you believe in mind reading?
Mind reading is just face reading...
The NSA is listening to everything...
Let's make a friendly wager...
One time I saw a guy do the weirdest thing...

7. Build on that. Write the trick's specific story content that is consistent with the premise and persona.

8. Build on that. Hone the script through real performance...tweaking it as new lessons are learned and lines come up on the fly.

Hope that helps.

Hey Danny Jay,

My process for writing routines is:
1. Write the script the way you think will sound best
2. Memorize it (or at least the main ideas and really good lines)
3. Perform it and allow it to morph and improve, note when cool moments happen spontaneously and try to recreate those moments in other performances
4. Every so often, film the routine and write what you actually said down, then start over.

I find that it keeps my material improving and changing. To me my routines are never done.