Hi!

How do you guys go about scripting moves, especially at a 'magic to music' part? I mean - this could take pages over pages of tedious sentences.

Let's say vanishing a card (music at background):

Right foot - step forwards.
Left foot - step forwards.
Right hand - move from the waist to shoulder level.
Right fingers - move inwards and outwards showing the card on both sides.
(Head - looking at hand)
Right hand - make upwards motion whilst vanishing the card.
(Head - looking up to the air)
Etc. Etc. - this is only for a 3 second part!

What is the correct way to go over here?

Thanks!

Simcha

How you choreograph your moves would depend on the your character and the style of music you use.
Tempo will dictate.
Classic, rock, jazz, etc, etc?

Is this a real question about choreography and dance?

Is this how you want the audience to perceive / remember the effect?

You can draw a diagram of the steps and notes of rhythm and music.

- Slow, slow, quick, quick

Whatever works. I don't do dance magic, so I can't really answer that part, but whatever it takes to produce clear, usable instructions for anyone who will need those instructions. You are trying to create consistency. Your script (blocking) exists to facilitate the creation of that consistency. Use still photos of each pertinent move. Video yourself making the motions, whatever gets the job done. In blocking my performance, I only insert basic literary descriptions of pertinent moves, then look for potential difficulties in early rehearsals. Those problem spots receive notes as well and I take that information into my final rehearsals and performance. Once learned, the script itself has little use.

If you want to be complete and accurate what you laid out is exactly what you should do. it is tedious. It will take a long time and it is a lot of work. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it.

It depends how much of dance steps you know. You could write out each move you make to the music. That’s what I do. This way I can remember years from now. Each step to each beat of the music must be broken down this way. If you have a move or step in between the beats, then you count it by halves. For example, one and two and three and four, etc.

I like to put the counts on one part of the page and the step underneath. For instance:

One, two, three and four, five, six, seven and

Step, step, step ball change. Step, produce fan, step, cross right over left and

eight.

touch.

If you are not a dancer, you can still draw it out this way. I like to combine the steps with the actual movement to the trick. For instance, walk a few steps, produce a cane, then move some more. This way it’s not dance, dance, dance… then do the trick. Then dance, dance, some more.

Re:

I did that once to record a handling for a coin vanish ... about twenty years ago and kept the page until recently. You see I recorded the timing or the actions but lost the sleight itself - and so kept the scrap as a reminder in the hopes that I could remember the rest. No such luck.

IMHO you can use a video recorder and work with a dance coach to get things into proper notation if you need it on paper.

I think choreographers use something called Laban notation to record their dances. Don't know much about it. MIght be useful . . . or not. Google?

Jack Shalom

It's like Sanskrit if you have ever seen it. It's a good idea, but like a foreign language, you have to learn.

You can script moves in a number of ways, but it really comes down to what you want from the exercise: a written record or a magic act.

It's easy to get carried away with the details and totally forget the point of the thing. Besides, every time you make a minor change in the moves, you need to go back and change the notation. I've been there. Eventually, I settled on just enough notes that I could remember the routine. And then came the videotape.

If you're doing the act to music, by far the best way is to get the sheet music and jot your notes right on it, using a shorthand that you can develop yourself. Of course this requires that you can read music, at least enough to know where you are.

Ballroom dancers often use such a shorthand: RF for right foot, F for forward, and so forth -- basically what tommy described. Sometimes it's in a column format, where one line is for tempo, another for footwork, and another for direction. But the trick is to avoid getting so wrapped up in the abbreviations and detail that you end up missing the forest for the chlorophyll in the leaves. Ballroom teachers have lots of stories of people who had the moves down perfectly -- and moved like a robot.

Memory and repetition still work, and a video camera is invaluable.

Become the effect (And I'm not kidding) Do the thing to the music until it feels perfect. Then do it until your muscles remember it by themselves ( In conjunction to the music). This frees your mind. Then use your mind to analyze the crowd as you perform the effect and make the necessary changes.

This works very well until the client has your wife turn off the music while you are in the middle of it all
(Those darn retirement communities here in Florida!!!)

Script is focused on effects when your question asks how to illustrate methods (body language in this instance).

I could therefore give an infinite number of replies to your question.
"Like the fog blurs everything when it gets to it..." (illustrating the parrallel between the forward move and the vanish)

"Like life disappears when the trap opens under the feet of the hangman"

I can't move my hand further 'cause it may get chopped as well

The air is pretty acid there...

What you see is not always what you get

Just a question... does it vanish or does it become invisible?

If you get there, you just move into a blind spot

There are black holes that no one can see, they swallow everything

Love is in the air... or is it death?

Some people are nihilists... don't give them your card

Cards have always expressed destiny: even if we know what they mean, the future can't be seen

Don't think that giving your card means a lot: when people look for it, most often they've lost it.

etc...