What differences lie between a magician and a layperson? The answer is of course the knowledge of magic and its secret and along with it - the difference in the appreciation of magic. In appreciation of magic, i mean the type of magic magician vs laypersons like.


For magicians, we love magic that are:

- Ingenious/ clever
That is to say, the method to achieve the effect must achieve the following response from a magician after sharing the secret: "What the?!? That is sooo clever, why have i never thought about it???" In other words, more commonly known to us as magician foolers.

- Ranks high in difficulty
Difficulty of sleight-of-hand of course. How many a times we have busted our knuckles from practising a crazy sleight-of-hand to perfection at home, before performing it to a fellow magician. And when he/she asks how long it took to practise that, we say: "Well.. i was born with the ability to do it!" And, of course, it could have been achieved with a way simpler sleight, but I can do it the more difficult way!!

- Non-gimmick
Needless to say, why should we use the gimmicks when we can achieve it using the knuckle busting sleight of hand, even though the effect is entirely the same in the end??

- Complex
Let me just show you an example:

Let audience A pick two cards. Sign it. Shuffle back into deck. Doing some fanciful flourishes, find the four Kings in the deck. Miraculously change the four kings into four Queens. Hand two red queens to audience, put two black queens in box. Suddenly by magic, the audience is holding the black queens, the red queens are nowhere to be found - in the place is the two cards the audience has picked out. and... wait.. there's more! The two queens are the only red-backs, while the two picked cards are bee cards while the rest of the cards are actually blue backs!! (By the way, how many of you are lost after reading this? )


If you haven't noticed by now, all of the above have nothing to do with the general effect at all. Laypersons in general, however, love a different type of magic. They like effects that are:

- Non-sleight-of-hand (to them at least)/ Fool-proof/ Self-working
A sleight-of-hand magician seems more to them like finger gymnastics. They appreciate the complexity but don't feel the 'magicality' of it. Conversely, a non-sleight-of hand magician does REAL magic!! Sometimes the magic even happens in their hands!

- Gimmicks (not that they should know it exists)
Think - Audience: Wow the bill is in the lemon!!
Magician: Chey... Its the lemon thinggy what...

- Clear-cut and spontaneous
JC Sum borrows a coin there and then and WOW! It bends under his magic powers! Wham-bam! WOW!*magic* -End-
Cyril walks to the burger poster takes out burger, bites it, puts it back! *Stunned* wham-bam! -End-


My question is simple: Are we the magician for magicians, or the magician for laypeople??
How many times have we scoffed at the effect that employs a method that you felt was stuupid, or at the effect that utilised a gimmick, or at the effect that seemed to be 'too simple'??

Of course i do not mean that you should not practise ANY sleight of hand. My point is that gimmicks should be utilised appropriately. Think of the effect that we are presenting - is it too confusing? Is there too many 'kickers' in the routine? (I wanted to write climaxes, but felt that it sounded sort of wrong.. but you get the idea)

Perhaps we might want to rethink all of that...

A.

PS. I'm sure this must have been discussed endless times, but this is just to share, especially after the reading of an article by Nique Tan in the Quantum Ring (i believe). This is also based loosely on an article by Lu Chen (which by the way is in traditional Chinese which is why i didn't include here :P).

Nice read. You should take a look at Darwin Ortiz's Designing Miracles. Inside he mentioned about the different appeals to magicians vs laymen.

Actually, I think that complex routines do not have to be just for magicians only. The main thing is to avoid having a convoluted plot.

A complex and long routine should be paced appropiately and if a routine involves several effects in one, then the magician has to work to present them clearly so that the spectator understands what's going on. It will help greatly if a unifying theme is applied throughout the effects rather than a "pick-a-card and see what I can do with it" routine. The routine then becomes a lot more coherent and makes more sense.

Ah.. I think the topic is about the mindsets of Magicians and Laypeople. Not on how to pace up the complex routine up for an audience.

Anyway, I will talk more about Laypeople. During this few years, I will keep observe and look at people's performance, outside or inside. So to me, a layman will see it as a magic, no matter how complex it goes, or how simple it is. What a layman want is, understanding your magic, is it magicial to him, or is it to him, "like that only?"? Its like, all of us know how to do powerful strong, impossible magic to people, but are we making sure that they understand what is the meaning of that magic to them.

A layperson wont know the high and low of that effect, but they will only know what is in their eyes. Layperson in general, like magic that are direct, meaningful and make sense, in short, you don't talk about your meaningful life but it doesnt make sense to them. Indirect magic are less of a likings unless you are pronounced as the magician of that place, and people expect you to do some magic to them, and when indirect approach came in, it results in a, "hey, i not expecting that but its good".

Direct magic like cards, sponges, ropes are common effects.

Indirect magic are likely to be big illusions, mentalism.

I not saying that those direct magic cannot be in the indirect magic or vice versa, but the approach that you used in handling your effect, and where you do it. Is it a place for you to beat around the bush and then come out with a rose? Or it is a place that speaks, watch the bill switch becomes $50?

Before I went too far off, we come back to a layperson's thinking. Take note that a layperson is not a heckler, though he can be a heckler in a way, that he don't know any magic, but just want to be superior over you. A simple, natural layperson, will be defenceless, and look for something that doesnt require them to do much things, example, they wont want to hold that thing, then put that thing, take another thing, put that thing. Too much work will make them feel tired and not enjoying. Yes, we need to get them involved in the act, but not too much of physical involvment, but more of a mental, eye contact involvment. Bringing them into the story, relating something that is linked to them, it brings out the magic that you doing. Lay person are generally people that are safe to say people that wants to see magic as a form of entertainment, not a form that tells them miracle do happens.

A heckler layperson will be much more different, he enjoy magic like the rest, but he will only enjoy it, if you can prove him wrong, or something out of the box. He see the normal find card lost card magic, you do the same, but he wants something more, so he asked to shuffle the deck, or say guess the card now. This people requires much less attention, because in general, they are the minior people in the group of people, when you spotted them, just do it to the person beside them.

Thus a Lay person doesnt care how much it takes to make David Copperfield flys, or blindfold driving, but he/she will only care that what they see is really happening, not by some juicy talk that happens on sales. :)

My 2 cent worths.
Larry

I took one and a half hour to write the post and 15 minutes to read and assimilate Larry's post - all during the exam period.. :unsure:

Anyway, Larry you are right - I was talking about the difference in the mindsets of magicians vs laypeople in general, excluding the hecklers, mainly the mindset towards the type of magic we appreciate. To super-summarise everything, I only wanted to make the point that we should be aware whether we are doing an effect for the laypeople or for ourselves - the magicians.

It is no doubt that it is highly satisfying to the magician to accomplish a difficult sleight (no gimmick!!) but to the audience - aka the laypeople, it makes no difference if the presentation is lousy. If the presentation is clear and straight-forward, despite the 'supposedly' not-so-ingenious theory behind it (and, maybe, the gimmick - no knuckle busting!!), the effect is a successful one.

Ade.

Before I learn magic:
-David Blaine is "Waaaah....!!!!"
-David Copperfield is "Knn........ (too stunned to saya anything)"
Didn't bother about why magician always want us to put the card "in the middle". Didn't bother why magician need to turn the card faced-down before putting in our hands. Didn't bother why magicians always use cards for mind-reading, can't just simply read my mind.

After I learn magic:
-David Blaine is "Hmm... nice DL but a bit unnatural"
-David Copperfield is "Hmm.. I wonder did he use XXX to accomplish.."

Ok, my point is, I think we should just concentrate being a magician for laymen. More fun to do that.

My magic, for now, can't impress magicians anyway.

Hmm...I meant to put across the point that complex, difficult material that slay magicians can slay laymen too.

But yea, there are some differences in magic that we perform for magicians and laymen.

For magicians, there may be tendencies for us to perform to impress and show off technical abilities. If we pick that approach for laymen, it will probably fall flat because what they're looking for is entertainment and not how good you are.

That being said, I find that I always enjoy good, well presented magic performances whether or not I know the secrets of it. Presentation is key.

I once showed my friend videos of two magicians. One of them was of Cyril Takayama doing all those crazy illusions. My friend was certainly very impressed but he started trying to work out the solutions to the illusions.

The other were videos of Whit Haydn, and because Whit's presentation and personality were very entertaining, he ended up enjoying Whit much much more and the best part I realised was that he didn't ask "How did he do that? Did he do ...so and so.." questions. He was so thoroughly entertained by Whit that figuring out solutions to the routines didn't cross his mind.

hey.

I think most of the slightly convoluted effects come from the fact that magicians need to sell their magic to other magicians and it probably wont be bought if the magician can obviously see the method.

CSJ

Very interesting discussion. Agree with a lot of what yong_tianadeline says here.

Earlier this evening, I attended an Oz Pearlman lecture(Brisbane). One thing I noted was that he kept on emphasizing the need to reduce dead time. His effects are done very very quickly. He stated that his opener is timed at less then 40 seconds and his audience tend to have very short attention span. If I remembered correctly, he also mentioned in passing that his average time per routine is 3 mins or so (if I did not remember wrongly) Seems to be the total opposite of Brad Christian who always emphasizes the need to slow things down and concentrate on the audience reaction.

Both are very detailed and technical in everything that they do, but the style is so different. Totally different philosophy. Do you think that lay audiences prefer fast impact magic like Oz, or more to Brad-Christian-audience-dialogue style that is done at a more relax pace.

I think with regards to complexity of a trick, perhaps for a magician's magician, complexity is used as a mechanism to make it more difficult to de-construct the trick. For lay people who come without or with little knowledge of sleights, this complexity is far less necessary and in fact may even hamper the desired outcome as it get kinda confusing. None the less it's always cool if u can baffle another magician =))

Peace out
Bryan

p.s
Ade, i sooOOo wanna see that complex trick you decribed actually performed hahahahaha...

Wow!! :o How did this old thread get dug up again? Almost forgotten about the article i wrote. LOL.

Joel,

I totally agree that openers must be short and strong. As for routine length, i guess there can't be an exact 'within a certain amount of time' rule as long as the routine is magical and bogged down by loads of dead time. Personally, i think, most of the time, audiences should be given the time to appreciate the magical effects and not just do a 'hit and run'; with the exception of a few effects.

For me, i really don't appreciate having to mentally use a lot effort to keep track of the magic that's happening because its way too fast. I guess there's a fine balance to keep with boring your audience too much because its slow-moving and going too fast so much so your audience cannot catch up.

Ade.

PS. Bryan, I've actually seen an effect that's slightly less complex than the one i described (still complex, nevertheless) and i was lost 1/3 of the way through the effect. I was like this --> :wacko: by the time the effect ended. LOL!

I think for complex effects , instead of having a ridiculously incredible ending like the bee's back and red backs and blue backs , maybe there should be constant results ? Or maybe it should just be many little tricks linked together to form somewhat a routine ? Or maybe its just visual magic that captures the audience's attention ? Like for example , Daniel Garcia's Satisfaction Guaranteed from the Daniel Garcia's Project ? Or Nacho Mama's Triumph ? I think Satisfaction Guaranteed can be counted as a complex trick. Lots of talking involved.

Each person here seems only to be flashing a single facet of a multi-faceted gem. There is also a distinctive lack of collective agreement in terms.

Complexity - everyone seems to have a different idea of what this means.

Simplicity - even worse; nobody really agrees what simple really is.

Quick visual magic vs Slow magic with dialogue - doesn't this depend on the situation and conditions under which you're performing? How can one have one without the other?

I don't think there's anything wrong with a long and complex effect as long as it's CLEAR and CONCISE. Everything you did or said should add to the magic.

Either way, to each his own. Have it any way you like; but have it the way that works best for YOU. By that of course I mean you get the BEST reactions from the audience by the way you chose to perform. Tying yourself down with a 'rule' from somebody else is like wearing another person's clothes - they won't fit exactly.

You have to go out there and PERFORM and REFLECT on your performances AND WORK IT OUT YOURSELF. To do anything short of that is an injustice to your magic and yourself.

Shade

Thank you so much for taking the effort to craft your wonderful posts, Adeline, Larry, and all the other senior magicians out there. It was very enlightening, especially to a newbie like me. I'm sure it pulled a lot of us magicians back to earth by making us realise that for laypeople, it is only the effect that is important, not the mechanism of achieving the effect. Many of us, me included, would curse and swear when we find out the simple mechanisms of some simple tricks and label it as "lame", "cheapo", etc. I think that we should give credit/$ where it is due to the people who created these tricks, and try to see it from the perspective of a layperson and not a magician who already knows a lot. Sometimes, phrases like "Ignorance is bliss" really rings true, in magic.

Regarding the difference in philosphy of Oz Pearlman and Brad Christian, perhaps what Brad Christian meant was to slow down the tempo when revealing the effect. Like when you are turning the top card over to show the signature. Do it really slowly, to allow everything to sink in. Give the spectator(s) time to register what you just did. This does not mean that you do the entire routine at the pace of a snail. Oz Pearlman probably told us to speed it up in order to quickly catch the fleeting attention of our spec(s). We have to appear energetic, enthusiastic and high in order to captivate people, especially at the start. Neither are wrong. This is just my interpretation of their philosophies. Just my 2 cents worth.

I think as for complex tricks. Important thing is not to leave something out of play for too long , which was mentioned by Justin Miller in the trick " Stranger Card " regarding the Prediction. And i think it makes lots of sense. So that your spectators wouldn't be wondering " where did that come from ? "

You are probably going to hate this answer but... It depends on who your audience is! Both styles have different pros and cons which appeal to different people. For example, if you are performing for somebody who really 'believes' then a really fast Oz style would blow them away. Likewise, if you are dealing with more of a 'non-believer' slowing the trick down and really emphasizing presentation could turn a simple trick into a miracle.

This reminds me of a time I trying to perform to my friend's father and was failing badly. He saw all of my tricks. Even when I fell back to my reserve 'easy to do and basic tricks' he still saw through it. So I stopped firing trick after trick, slowed down, and blew him away with a simple shapeshifter. Just my two cents.