Scripts are not "fine" scripts are necessary. The two negative points you have made about scripts both are examples of poorly used scripts. If you don't know your script well enough to ad lib in and out of it then you don't know your script. Secondly, sounding sincere and fresh when you're doing the same thing you've been doing for 10 years is part of being a quality entertainer. I know some pros who work without scripts but they sound just as canned and "robotic" by the end of the night as someone who reads their script out loud. Not having a script doesn't make the 1000th performance feel any less rehearsed. That feeling of spontenaity comes from a competent performer doing his job and acting like it's the first time for everyone. The key is learn your lines and your choreography so well that you can forget them.

Dave

This is what Derren Brown said about this issue today:

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......orum=146

Scripts are vital. It's painful to see someone that has the technical chops, only to fall on their face because they don't know what to say.

But, you should also be bale to improvise in all situations.

Improvising is much easier when you know your script. It can be much harder to identify situations where you should stick to your script. Some comments from spectators are best ignored. Pretending not to hear is sometimes the right thing to do.

Thanks people of the script thinking free world that we live in!

Interesting. The majority do seem to go for the use of a script idea. And I can see why.

The problem I have found is that when devising new plots, I usually have an idea of the sort of presentation that fits my personality of what I want the trick to be shrouded in. My natural personality is off-beat, slightly wacky, almost to the point of schizophrenic. And a tad comical. Therefore I cannot script 'comedy' as much of the gags I end up using are pieces of funniness that happen through natural progression of the trick. And these can't happen when in the practising stages of an effect. You can't anticipate what the reaction will be from the crowd, so therefore can't necessarily put in gags which may not be appropriate for that particular audience.

Every audience is different, so how can one script possibly be used for all?

I totally agree however with knowing what you are going to say inside out makes the entire job less nerve wracking and also free's you up for adlibing.

In summing this little rascal up, I'd say that it really depends on the performer knowing his or her strengths and their ability to work a crowd through quick thinking, character or, if not possesing these traits, to use a full script.

Scripts. Love 'em or hate 'em. Big one's or small ones. Tight ones or lose ones. Treat them like clothing: a different shape and size for each of us.

I'm a medium.

It's called audience polarization. Something very few magicians (or solo performing artists in general) seem to grasp. Polarization is the process of shaping the audiences individual personalities into a single collective personality. All the really great movies and stage works do this well. If you successfully polarize your audience, the script does in fact become a "one size fits all" type work. If we adhered to your theory that no one script can work for every audience, then we must dicount the success of every blockbuster movie or long running smash hit Broadway production. Or for that matter hit songs that become "standards."
Polarization is a complicated process, and much to complicated to describe here. But do some research and you'll learn the proper way to do it.

It's safe to say that unless each audience is from a totally alien culture, with a different language, common experience and language will out.

If I hold up an apple, point to it and say, "Watch," I can assume each audience will:

1. recognize an apple,
2. surmise I am going to do something remarkable with it and,
3. will watch it closely.

Steve

I would like to add that the great improvisers, Jonathen Winters, Robin Williams, Lenny Bruce all used scripts extensively and only ad libbed a small amount each show. Somewhere, I don't remember where, I read that in an hour show Robin Williams only had 5 minutes of improvisation.

I would argue that, if you perform a lot, you are working from a script without realizing it. Just because the script is memorized and you never took the time to write it down doesn't mean there's no script. What I mean by that is you will use the same words and phrases for each routine you do. If things change they change only slightly and you always pull things back to what you have learned works. The more you do a routine the more set the script becomes. The hard part is keeping it feeling fresh after you've done it 100 times in a week.

I didn't use a script either. I would start out with a vague idea of the presentation and just kind of "wing it" for the first several performances. After 10 or 20 performances I'd come up with lines and it would start to go more smoothly. One day, I realized that every time I added something new to my act that it didn't feel like a professional piece till I had worked it in. That was when I gave scripting a try.

Few people actually sit down and just come up with a script because it's tough to get into performance mode when you're staring at a notepad. At the recommendation of a friend I started to use a voice recorder and I'm told that works for lots of other people. I start to rehearse the routine and when I think my presentation is starting to come together I record myself. Then I transcribe what I record into the beginning of a script. The great thing about the transcribed script is that it's exactly what I'd say when performing but it also gives me the opportunity to refine it even more before I perform. In the end, it's a little more work but it greatly reduces the time it takes for a new piece to make it into my A material.

Dave

Amen, BDC. Amen.

You took the words right off of my keyboard!

Here's another tip on scriptwriting. I'm not entirely sure that I know why it works, but it does.

Don't sit down to write your script. Walk.

Here in Acadia National Park there are many fine places to walk for hours. Somehow, speaking my attempts at a script over and over while walking gives them a natural cadence. I might work out the key parts of a script while walking, then when I think it's good, write it down for the first time.

Sideshow talkers tell you to match your speaking pace to the speed that people are walking. Shakepeare wrote a lot of iambic pentameter. The "iambs" are "feet." So a line of iambic pentameter is:

"I HATE to SEE that EVEning SUN go DOWN."

This makes the lines easier to learn, too.

I also use rhetorical devices. My examples are always in threes. Sometimes I might have three spots of three examples or three related phrases in a script.

Of course, my character is not "natural," a quality valued highly in the late twentieth century, but which in my opinion is overrated.

Try walking while scriptwriting. Let your body shape the language, then write it down.

Yours,

Paul

I swim. Something about being free from gravity just unlocks my creativity.

I saw Karrell Fox perform on at least a half-dozen occasions. His script went exactly the same as it did on each of the other occasions. But he knew it so well and had done it so often, that he did it without straining. It did not appear to be "canned" or forced.

Aldo uses a script. His improv ability is great, but many of what you assume are adlibs are merely subroutines in the working script. I don't know any professionals who don't use a script. Not one.

For those of you intimidated by the task of actually learning your script once you have it, try Doc Eason's advice. Tape the script up next to your bathroom mirror and read it as you get ready in the morning. If you play the radio loud enough no one will hear you rehearse. I taped one next to the mirror and one in front of the commode. On slow nights in the kitchen I hang on on the ticket board in the kitchen and read it while I cook. I learned "Sam the Bellhop" in 2 days this way.

Another good way to learn a script is to tape yourself giving a reading. Play that tape in your car or through your walkman, sometimes just listening, sometimes reciting with the tape. You'll have it down in no time.

I think that pretty much sums it up right there.

-Jim

Good points for using a script. If anyone still has doubts as to how you can use a script and still look spontaneous, just go to a local live theatrical performance -- a play, musical, ballet, opera, or whatever. Not a high-school production, but a regional or professional theatre show. It's all scripted and then rehearsed for weeks and weeks under a director (and, in the case of musicals, more than one director). The acting is what makes it look spontaneous, but, still, a good actor will respond to each and every audience.