How do you improve your presentation skill? and the overall effect you give your audience when you are performing? Sometimes i just feel that my presentation has been staying on the same spot over the few month without improving or even worse deterioting. When i look back at some of the performance i gave to my classmates, i was totally disappointed with myself and the worst thing is, it is killing my passion for magic.


I am not just aiming for the reaction of " Wow, he can do this" or " How does he do that". I believe when you see Derren Brown performing, you can feel his charisma and something extra in his performance even for his close up.( I do not know if you get my meaning for the last sentence)

Is repetition of the same routine over the months cause of this feeling?

First of all realize that there is no short cut. No one is born with 'excellent presentation skillz' or whatever have you.

You must script everything in your routine. And I don't mean just the words. Script your body language, your facial expression, where you eyes move, the inflections in your voice. Script the exact words.

Practice until you can do it in your sleep. It will build discipline.

A performer like Derren Brown can perform the exact same effect flawlessly every single time, not just the sleights, but up to and including everything I have mentioned above. And every time he does it, it will be the same.

If you want practical tips, I suggest learning an effect that lives or dies by presentation, e.g. Twisting the Aces. If presented well it is a minor miracle. If its not presented well, the spectators won't catch a thing.

PM me if you want details on how to improve. I'm going through a round of polishing my presentation as well. I'm sure we could learn from each other.

[QUOTE]You must script everything in your routine. And I don't mean just the words. Script your body language, your facial expression, where you eyes move, the inflections in your voice. Script the exact words

How do you know where you must look and what facial expression you must have in order to make the presentation better?

^ for me its always good to have a good magic buddy to pinpoint ur mistakes from a magician's point of view. I know i have one in jason and he constantly picks out my flaws , where i should look ,where my eyes move and what should i say and the presentations and justifications i do

Matt is right, it's about scripting and after that, rehearsing it to make sure you're smooth and familiar.

If you haven't had experience in drama or acting before, grab the opportunity to learn from lessons that are offered around in school (if you're still in school). Putting yourself to act in a role unfamiliar to yourself teaches you to become more in touch with your own expressions, etc. It's often said that an actor playing the part of the magician will probably be better than just a magician performing.

I recommend getting Ken Weber's Maximum Entertainment, it tells you in theory what to look out for and how you should work on your presentation. If you start working about the parameters offered in the book, you'll find that your presentation will improve immediately.

Take note that performing for people you know is often pretty challenging because they'll tend to heckle you harder. Some of them may also not be as willing to elicit reactions because they may not like to be fooled by you. That's good in some ways because it then challenges you to think about your presentation and work harder to deal with these situations.

It might be a good idea to take a tried and tested routine and just follow it accordingly so that you understand why it was structured and build that way.

Some effects work better than others. You have to identify what kind of reactions each and different effect has on others. Usually, the best way to know is to perform it.

After performing an effect, break it down to see why it worked or did not work and how you could further improve it. Repetition should only improve the routine because after each performance, you will review it and make improvements.

One thing that always gives me hope, and it is something I heard about showbiz, is that a performance always seems worse to a performer than it really is. Of course, this is not to encourage slack, but it always allows me to analyse my performance more rationally.

I think the most practical advice I can give, which you can try if you find it necessary for your purposes, is the use of scripts. That is, a script of patter, technical moves and general movements. This, together with adequate practice, will make you more confident to give a smoother performance, and this always seems better. Nothing irks the audience more than a jittery performer.

I have always recommended Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz, as he covers his thoughts on magic theory not just on a performance aspect but also on the routining of tricks and acts. I am currently still on Magic and Showmanship by Henning Nelms, and so far, it seems pretty good (although on some aspects of contradiction, I tend to agree with Darwin Ortiz more).

In case you have only skimmed the above, I will just provide some points for you. Do find out where the problem of presentation actually lies:
1. Technique
2. Trick (Maybe the handling is awkward or the whole effect does not suit you)
3. or simply Presentation

I would assume that the main problem is just presentation, and I would suggest (in addition to scripts):
-Slow down (if you are fast - this is a common 'mistake')
-Use pauses when appropriate (in speech and movements)
-Look at the audience and smile (probably when you pause)
-Be lighthearted and use jokes that suit you
-Watch and learn from other performers
-Ask for advice during SMC meetings

Good luck!

Some tips that work for me:

1. Where to look

Your audience follows your eyes. i.e. You must look where you want your spec to look. As you practice your routines/effects, certain key 'misdirection' points will become evident where you need to spec focused on something else for a while. Use your gaze to redirect their attention.

In fact I make it a point whenever I practice to consciously identify these points.


2. Facial expression

By default, smile until it hurts. Get it down before going further. Its harder than it sounds.


Also what really helped me was to learn some basic coin magic. The humble coins across routine contains everything you need to know about the body language of magic.

Thanks everyone for your advices, i got a surge of energy inside me to urge myself to improve my routine after reading the comments. :g:

Hmm... get the book "Magic & Showmanship", it has plenty of tips to help you in presentation.

Anyway, sometimes (only sometimes) getting opinions from fellow magicians may not be the best way to guage your performance. Magicians all have their own bias and pre-concieved notions about how a presentation should go. What's good for them may not work for you and vice versa.

The best judge is still at the marketplace (the spectators).

I think getting the audience to comment on your performance will not be a fair test because they are amazed by your magic already so they will give high rating. I once asked one layman how was my performance and he gave high rating for it. That is just what i feel about it.

I think that what you are experiencing is that you tends to feel that you have performed it like a thousand million times. And when you want to perform the trick again you became complacent and think that you will be able to pull off the trick without any flaws.

Just try to think back the first time you are about to perform the trick. You must have put in hardwork to ensure that you will be able to pull it off without any flaws right?

But after you have performed for a number of times you would tend to not take in the same effort as you had put in for the first time you are about to perform the trick.That is because after some time you became familiar with it.

Becoming familiar with a trick is not a bad thing as it helps you to be able to perform anytime ,anywhere.

So what i suggest you to do is to just treat it as the first time you are performing the trick and if there are spare time. You can even read up or go through the videos about the basic moves like d***** l*** or even classical f**** even a p***. Try to master each and every move and it would come in handy when you need it.

I being abit lengthy but what i want to say is that you should treat every performance as a important one and not just some performance to entertainment. Because you will never know if you will slip your hand and reveal the secret behind the trick.

gL

Looking for reactions?

Books recommended:

The 5 points in magic (Juan Tamariz)
The Magic Way (Juan Tamariz)

These books teaches on how to use body language and clever construction of effects to achieve a suspension of disbelief in spectators.

Huh? Sorry but.. I really can't understand your logic here. The point of performing magic IS to let your spec be amazed, why is it not fair? So what is fair?

Try performing your best effect using a very lame presentation, see if they are still amazed by your "magic".

Err, both Banghao and Axl have their own logic.

I don't think most laypeople really note the presentation, as they're more focused on trying to catch you (or watch you, whichever suits).

If you perform any strong effect with adequate presentation, the spectator would tend to give higher marks.

If you perform any effect (be it strong, filler or weak) with horrible, boring, numbing, blinding, irritating, devasting and pretty much just plain murderous presentation, you would...

*breathes*

... you would get the spectator confused(or dead) and thus get low marks!

So, in that sense, it's not 'fair'.

But anyway. Performing to magicians to ask about presentation and tips would be more logical. Laymen can't seem to help with that. (Or they wouldn't be lay.)

Actually, I think magicians would be more helpful on sleights. Presentation is something a layman can appreciate. They will be able to tell whether it's entertaining, it's magical, it's boring or flat.

Laymen are lay because they don't know the "secrets" involved. I mean, look, you and I may not be Oscar-winning actors but we can certainly tell the difference between good or horrible acting. :D

I agree with Axl that laypeople can give you a good review on your performance.

If laypeople are indeed "more focused on trying to catch you", then you are doing magic wrongly. Darwin Ortiz, and countless other magicians, have pointed out that magic should not, as a general rule, be presented in a challenging style which causes the audience to try to unravel the 'puzzle'.

Ultimately, they are the audience and they want to be entertained, and they are entertained not by your sleights, or patter, but everything as a whole which constitutes your presentation. And hence, they are probably the best people to ask for general opinions on your whole performance.

However, while magicians should be good at giving you feedback on your sleights, they can also tell you how to structure and routine your effects and acts, and knowledge of the sleights necessary for your purposes helps them to give you advice that you can actually use without compromising technique.

If I were to use the same acting analogy as Axl does, yes, the audience will probably be in a better position to tell good acting from bad acting because the actors act for them, not other actors. But, the lay audience would probably not be able to tell you exactly what the actor did that made the performance great, or what to improve on, they can only do a general one. But, other actors with technical knowledge can tell the actor specifically how to improve.

As to BangHao's point that audience tend to give positive comments, you have to get an honest audience with a keen eye for detail whom you can trust to give you good feedback. Like the acting analogy, you want to look for critics with an astute judgement, not just any layperson who is inclined to be 'nice'.

Perhaps to Darwin Ortiz and the others, they dislike that style, but I find it works for some people.

It's not "wrong magic". It's just another way of doing it.