Hi guys!

I recently had this charity show at suntec city. I've got a video of it. feel free to give your comments about it. Be frank. You can insult my act. Does not matter as long as i can learn from it. I am still pretty new in stage magic and I am sure I've got alot to learn from many of you. For those who know nothing about stage magic, feel free to comment based on an honest audience point of view.

Thanks.

with regards,
Shufi


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlKkKr5M7HA

guys, the earlier link takes too long to load...

here's another one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AI9T73-TYY

hmm.... No difference with the loading it seems. But nevermind, enjoy the video clip guys! Do remember to leave your comments. Thanks.

I have to say this, i really admire your attitude dude..... B)

Here's some comments based on a layman point of view, in chronological order. :g:

Overall, your performance was very carefully rehearsed and timed carefully to the music, using musical cues. It is obvious you have put lotsa effort into it. And I see that you are still changing the act and constantly evolving it.

Your entrance was a LITTLE bit early, with a few awkward moments where you are standing there waiting for the music to start. But you showed great improvisation there where you tried to do a little thing with a "pseudo magic" effect.
You are really good that way Shufi, from bits of this act and the one you did at Ngee Ann. You are quick on your feet and can improvise your way out of situations.
Perhaps try coming onstage when the music started?

The parasol production after the 1st silk bit was I think nicely placed. However, something I noticed, which wasn't very noticable in the video, is that your left hand was very stiff from the start up to that point.
It is said that the difference between a layman and a magician is that if a layman can figure out 10% of your effect, they feel it's not magic; if a magician can figure out 90% of your trick, but not the last 10% they feel that they are fooled.
I think there's a bit of that here. I dunno if you can find a way to mod your jacket or have something extra that can give you full use of your left hand (and maybe more importantly, the left elbow) while allowing the parasol production at that point.

The magic colouring book had the hiccup in the beginning of showing the coloured pages, but again, you improvised and turned the situation around with an extra "trick". You are really quick on your feet that way.
A little personal opinion here, maybe you want to consider getting a better magic colouring book. Your one doesn't open properly and seems to be quite inclined to fumbling. Find another one that opens fully.
Having said that, I personally find the magic colouring book a little "over-exposed" and "over-performed". Almost everybody has at some point or another while they are kids or otherwise, seen someone turn an empty book into a coloured one. Even if they didn't know how it's done, it still diminishes the "magic", in my personal opinion. If you want to keep this "theme", there are other effects and props that have the same plot-line (a colourless item turned colourful) that you might want to explore.

Another thought on the colouring book. Consider a little stand of some sort to hold up the colouring book in an upright position during the effect. When placed flat on the table, it is not really visible to the audience and seems "out of play" and disconnected with the disappearing silks.

I dunno if this is a viable option, but can less ditching/loading be done to the briefcase? Because there are a lot of traffic back and forth the briefcase. I felt the briefcase is almost the center of the act with a lot of attention kept being drawn to it.
The TT and the hankball, could you have it as some kinda body load and ditch them in some kinda holdout or topit or even into your jacket pockets? I'm not sure the viability of this thou so that's just for you to consider.

The ropes sequence was very nice and well practised. Nothing much I can say there. :) Except that don't do the behind the back toss unless you are absolutely confident of catching it.
I have a feeling that it's deliberate, but I don't quite understand why you would wanna do that.

Torn and restored newspaper had technicality difficulty during the restoration. Unforseeable but is it preventable?

Your multiplying bottles is a fitting ending, and generated the most response.
I like the way you timed it to the music, nice. :)
Don't know if you noticed that sometimes you were putting the tubes over the glass with 1 hand, and sometimes with both hands?
If you could handle it with 1 hand all the time, it might look more consistant. If not possible, then handle it with both hands all the time maybe?

And there you have it, my comments from a layman point of view. Hope at least some of that makes sense. ;)

I just wanna say again your attitude is great mate, keep at it. B)


Cheers

well i'm not going into the technical bits because i'm not really that technical myself, but seeing as to your performance is the first stage act i've seen in a long time i thought it was pretty enjoyable.

i thought the ending where your produced the bottles was very neatly done and i totally enjoyed it. i could see you were having fun as well? that's great.

and oh, now i know what you were talking about when you spoke of the kimage people. haha.

I not able to said anything because i don't do stage show, but 1 thing i will like to point out was the eye contact. Hope you don not mind.

Magic On Stage
- By Jeff McBride

EYE CONTACT

One of the important tools to make any piece of magical theater better is eye contact.

A very helpful exercise I give many of my students is to hold the magic up, just to the side of their face, while the moment of magic is happening -- kind of like selling soap on a commercial. This allows the audience to see the magic, but also, for the performer's face and eyes to be involved in the experience. In addition, there is also the magical moment when the magic happens, between the performer's eyes and the spectator's eyes, that you can both share in this moment of magic. This is what I call "heads-up hands-up," or "new school" close-up magic. B)

hey everyone!! Thanks for the comments! Really appreciate it. Especially Aloy. His comments were very thorough! THANKS!

Aloy, just for your info, the tossing of the rope and then dropping it was intentional. It's in sync with music. Hear it carefully. There's a segment in the music where it's suitable for the gag.

Maybe it did not work well or perhaps, the music was played too soft. But I don't intend to potrait myself as a serious magician. See myself better as a half-clown/half-magician kind of thing... haha. I always like to insert what appears to be mistakes in my act, but fact is they were all intentional. That way, you cant tell them apart from the genuine mistakes. haha!

Once again, Thanks everyone!

Ahhh....i did think that it was intentional, because i noticed the scratch stop in the music and thought it's too much of a coincidence. :D
Maybe you were too convincing in looking like you really dropped the rope, so it comes across like a real fumble.

If you are trying to put in a little physical humour, maybe you can try dramatizing it a little more.
Just off the top of my head, maybe try tossing the rope REAL high, and stretch out your hand very confidently like you are certain that you will catch it, and even make a catching motion when it falls pass. The "funny" will be from your expression as you "try your best to maintain a wide smile while you panic and try to think awkwardly how to get out of the embaressing situation".

But if you are going for such a gag, you might want to think of a way to very cleverly get out of it "sticky situation" you created for yourself.
E.g. doing some fancy footwork to kick up the rope to your hands, cause it to raise up magically to your hand....etc
I think this is quite important.

It's like doing those failure effects where you pretend to fail in a trick, you don't pretend to fail and then just leave it there like that (unless it's mentalism where they have specific reason to not to been seen as 100%).
You want to recover by providing an ending that's even more surprising and more impossible than the effect that was supposedly "promised but failed".

So if you want to pretend to throw the rope and miss catching it, i think you should try to think of a very clever way of recovering from that, so that it makes you look even more "clever" dispite your "mistake".

Aloy, I am working on that actually. trying to find ways to do some rope juggling! haha. I agree with you hundred percent!

Mmm..Good performance on the whole. I like your quick thinking to cover up the colouring book mistake. And i liked the multiplying bottles ^_^

I personally feel that there is not enough energy showing from you, I think you really need to catch the audience's attention. Maybe something pyro might do the job as that little thing might just arouse the interest of the people there. I think you would wanna make yourself look big on the stage, maybe go from side to side, and not stick to only the centre. The stage is yours, make full use of it. Correct me if i'm wrong, maybe the stage is too small.

One more thing is that i feel there is not enough "posing". Cuz after an effect, i feel that a pose is essential so as to give your audiences a time to clap. You need to somehow control where they will clap and not clap just as and when they like. This may also result in not so good clapping respond as some of them may scared malu, don't wanna be the only one clapping and stuffs like this. You need to acknowledge their clappings and stuffs like that, maybe giving a bow, which I saw once in the video but most of the time you just went back to your briefcase. Haha, of course I'm not saying that you should give a bow everytime they clap.

I the main problem i saw was how to really catch attention, you will have to ask yourself, will a passer-by stop and watch your act? Or will that person just walk away.

Haha, you may think that I only have negative comments. Of course not! There are some good points too. Multiplying Bottles is sure a good way to end the act. Not forgetting how u handled the situation when something went wrong with the colouring book. I think if i were you, I might not know what to do. The music coordination is good too. The music cues are being used.

Btw, I wanna ask if you mix your own music. Because I'm currently having problems with finding music suitable and long enough for one of my acts.

I think that that will be all i have to say for now.
Good Work!
:D

Just use softwares like cooledit pro version 2.0... it is easy to use. That's what I am currently using to edit my music. Hope that helps.

pal the audiences are TOO loud. I guess some are ven chattin with their friend to watching to your performance. turn the music LOUDER than them to shut them up :)

By doing so, you get the attention and you need the music for your performance too ;)