anyone got any advice on both misdirection and handling aduience?

Experience will help. ;)

Go out there and do something instead of thinking about it.

:)

- Ling

That's a very vague question. It might help if you can specify the conditions, settings etc.

i mean when doing close up card tricks and sometimes people keep on staring at your hands, trying to see what u are up to. i talk to them to distract them but sometimes they dont look at me....

talk about interesting stuff like jay caught taking drugs...(jay's fans no offence)

HUH? Now that's VAGUE.

Huh? Caught taking drugs? Wadcha talking about man?

I mean, to the audiences, who's Jay? Jay Chou? Jay Sankey? Jay-z?

Thats more like distraction than misdirection, cos its incoherent to the effect.

Like 'help me pick a card please, okay, now lose it in the middle. Oh by the way, Jay was caught taking drugs. (did something sneaky) ANd your card is on top.' :huh:

Hmmmm....

I do stuff like this. Works well, if you have the confidence.

Neutral distraction:
I ask them: "What would YOU like to see?" (normally, no one answers at this point). Then i lean back a little. We then proceed to converse. As i do it, i point a lot, especially with the hand that is holding the deck. Whenever i draw that hand back to my body, that's when i do whatever i have to do (eg, prepare for DL, excecute a pass etc..). I riffle the deck with my thumb a lot, so its very natural for me to land into a DL or whatever.

If they still look, and i ain't got nothing else to talk about, i just tell them: "Relax! Don't have to look so much. The magic doesn't happen in my hands or the cards!" Most of the time, this works (for me).

Aggresive distraction:
Catch their attention off guard by snapping your fingers. When i see them stare to much, i snap close to their faces (very rude, and not recommeneded). As they look up to me, i move in for the kill. :g: Or i say sarcastic stuff like: "Hey.. I'm up here. Not on the cards that are down there."

Passive distraction:
Make use of body language. This is a very stealthy and somewhat difficult-to-master technique. If you wanna have just one person's attention, look at him, eye to eye, having both palms face up as often as possible (with or without the deck). And lastly, make sure that the toes of your feet are pointing to him. Make your whole body faces the person that you are talking to.

In doing so, about 90% of the time, the rest will look at him. At this point, he's most probably at a lost, maybe suffering from a possible mental block (if you DID ask him a difficult-to-answer question). That's another opening for doing whatever you need to do. To lessen the impact, tilt your body away from him a little.

Hope this helps. I can help, though, particularly on the body language part. :)

if girls just wear more revealing than it's better...no offence

Thanks for the advice.

Magicdow. I think he meant the girl magician, not the girl audience :P

hahaha magicdow what were you thinking? >.<

Come on, you guys can't think I'm that gullible or stupid right? :) Of course I now what he's saying. Maybe I'm just being sarcastic? Very chim right?

I have a few tips to contribute. When you are talking to them make eye contact with them most of the time without fail they will look up. But for hecklers thats another story, I usually do some self-working tricks that blow them away leaving them with no words to say then after this they might loosen up and start to enjoy the magic if they still burn you hands just stop and leave. Another thing is when performing to someone or small crowd create rapport with your spectators.

What I mean is create a connection so that they feel eased when they are with you and will just enjoy the magic. One way to do that is to talk to them about something you have in common with them. Or something that has to do with them. Make them feel happy and relaxed but then again it just depends on the situation. If its a quick street pick up trick then I guess anything goes but more intimate settings require a better connection between the spectator and magician.

wow.... i got some great advices... thx guys...

i would recomend u to go look at penguin magic's review..look for the type of trick u want to do with..then watch the preview vid of the trick..now observe how the magician speak in the video..learn the way he speak,the action.

now,go practice on a friend who is more experience,ask him to rate u..

hmm.... that's a nice one... i'll go try...

can anyone tell me what's a DL? i think it is very useful since i see you guys mentioning it quite often.......

Sorry that would be known as Exposure, if you have the basic knowledge of magic. You would know what is a DL, it could be known as SL or DL.

its a extremely difficult sleight which in full means a Direct Launch (hope this is not considered exposure). Also known as a Shot Launch, it was invented by Mezine Laoree around 30 years ago and has been extremely popular since then.

it involves a quick switch of the card. imagine u have the deck in ur LH, and the FD card in ur palm up RH held between thumb and middle finger. what u do is that the card in the RH is tossed onto the deck by allowing the card to shoot over the middle finger.

as this is being done, the LH thumb pulls the top card of the deck towards the thumb causing the card to bend with the middle upwards. by releasing the LH thumb, it will also cause the card to shoot.

so in essense, it is a DL of the card from the deck to the RH and the prev card onto the deck.

lots of practice is needed to ensure that the 2 cards do not hit one another during the flight. they have to kinda slide over one another at most!

so go and practice!

(i know its quite hard to read text, so if after reading many times and u still dun get it, look for me (Gordon) during the next SMC meeting.)

well, essentially, a DL is one of the most essential sleights in card magic.

It doesnt sound right to me that a person whos already in the stage of misdirection and audience management do not know what a DL means.

Shout in their ears B)

For a GREAT book on misdirections, get Tommy Wonder's Book of Wonders.

Read my review of it here.

Nice one Gordie.

;)

i borrowed a book from the library and it never said anything on DL... thats why i asked....

About learning, it's best not to learn the way he speak or how he moves. Just have your own style or presentation.

Yeah, i agree with Winder.
UNDERSTAND the motives behind what is said and how it is said, but don't try to copy it. In doing that you become a clone and lost your own personal touch and personality to the effect.

What book is that? I believe a reasonably good book on card magic will teach you a DL.

well, many "magic" books in the library are kiddy kinds mainly teaching prop-type effects. (at least, used to be long ago)

in fact, trickster, there are some other threads on recommended books, so u may want to check those out!

Here's some tips on some recommended card books you'd be interested to invest in should the basic ones from the libraries be insufficient for your growing appetite:

Royal Road to Card Magic
The Expert at the Card Table by S.W. Erdnase
Encyclopedia of Card Tricks Edited by Jean Hugard
Annemann's Card Magic by Ted Annemann
Protean Card Magic by Paul Gordon
Card College Series
Edward Marlo - The Unexpected Card Book
Dai Vernon's Ultimate Secrets of Card Magic
Revolutionary Card Technique by Ed Marlo

...These are for serious cardicians :) DLs are mentioned plenty of times in them, as well as, clear descriptions and concise explainations.

Cheers,
ning ^_^

oh i see.... i think i will go check out that Japanese name book shop at taka... something with kino... cant remember...

Yup, Kinokuniya should have some of them like Royal Road to Card Magic & Encl. of Card Magic. I wouldn't be surprised if they carry David Blaine's book as well :P

If you can't find them, you can just email me directly if you wish to order any of the titles and more. Er... but you won't be getting the David Blaine one from me *grinz* :lol:

i saw david blaines book at borders b4, but i dont think david blaine's book is worth getting...

u might also slowly progress on to other genres of magic, some books might include:

tarbell's course in magic
mark wilson's complete course in magic
bobo's modern coin magic

Yep, those are good books too... I dunno. David Blaine's book reminds me of the one Beckham did quite some time back. It's very... coffeetable :P Just my opinon. I still respect the guy for reviving the magic spirit all over the world with his TV specials :)

o ya.... now i remember... borders.. forgotten about borders... lol