Do you guys ALWAYS make a magical gesture before revealing a change? (eg. wave, snap, squeeze)

What and why?

If you don't, why?

Yes, it really helps to make a magical gesture. It lets the audience feel and see the moment magic happens.

Yes I do. For almost every tricks which I have performed, I would always have some magic gestures like example wave, snap and squeeze. I find that it is a very good habit to make magic really magicial and especially when all the eyes are following your hand (do a change/vanish objects).

You can even treat it as a sense of misdirection too (example: you squeeze your hand to do a coin vanish). When doing magic, I preferred to implement some magicial gestures to make me look like I have the power to change a card/ Vanish a coin etc. In fact, this will also bring surprises to the audience.

Cheers
Invisible

The significance of a magical gesture is that it creates a magical moment. It could be a tap, a snap, a wave, anything.

A magical moment can also be created by pausing (not just a theatrical pause), using a wand, saying something magical, etc.

When doing coin magic, a snap can be a very strong subtlety (oxymoron intended) to suggest you-know-what.

I always use a magical moment, and for me, it is usually a simple gesture and a fairly long pause. This is important to me because a magical moment tells them when the magic happens, and not just that, it tells them that this magical moment is important.

does anybody mentioned that the gestures looked very corny?

No. You're SUPPOSED to do that. The audiences are supposed to see "something" in order to justify the feats being done, even if it is "corny".

Try saying, "Your card goes to the center of the deck and it comes to the top."

But when you say, "Your card goes to the center of the deck and (SNAP) it comes the top."

I'm sure you'll agree the effect is radically different.

Not all magic gestures looks corney.

I have seen some magicians add sound effects to their magic.
"Shuuuu!!!" or "Peeyoooo" when they change the card. It looks corney but usually it gets a good laugh.

A snap, or a simple wave will not look that corney to the audiences.

Magic gestures are there to add the 'reason' to an effect.

Think about it, the reason the ambitious card without the snap isn't quite the same is because you need some faux explanation why the cards are behaving like that.

Eg. In Whit Haydn's AC routine he says the 'resonance' from the snap causes the card to rise.

The catch is you have to at least make your 'gesture' believable to a lay audience. Either that or get them to suspend disbelief.

In Whit's case, his charisma causes the specs to suspend disbelief in the name of comedy. If you ever watch Derren Brown perform cards, notice that he does not use a single magic gesture. This is because if you follow his patter very carefully, he always explains what he does (honestly or dishonestly) and is convincing enough such that the audience always believes him. After watching a performance like that, a spec will NEVER ask how the trick was done because he THINKS HE KNOWS. I refer you to his book 'pure effect' for a detailed treatise of this concept.

That's why most gestures nowadays are so stupidly corny. They are just not believable. I mean what the hell does snapping my fingers have to do with a card jumping anyway?

I don't exactly make a gesture all the time, its more like a pause to emphasize the moment of the magic. Sometimes, I will do a wave with the hand (just like Gordon). I don't think its corny unless you overdo it.

Gestures helps to emphasize the moment so people don't miss it. Especially if you're doing stage magic, then a gesture is important i think. Unless you're going for the surprise factor, then definitely no gesture, but a pause to let the audience know that something has happened.

A.

I think a gesture is important for certain moves. Not because it gives others an impression of you being a magician.

In certain moves/ position like Ramsey Subtlety, it does help to establish that the coin/ object has really vanished.

Another good example would be the LE'masque load. Wave the hands over the other hand to make the coin appear. Without the gesture, this move cannot be accomplished.

But everything has to be done in moderation, once over done, it'll look funny.

I think it really depends on how you use the gestures. I know that for myself, gestures can seem somewhat corny at times especially for cards because to us, the gesture itself can be meaningless since it accomplishes nothing for us. And sometimes, I even think, "Come on...surely the spectator doesn't really believe that a wave will cause the card to appear." Thoughts like these make me uncomfortable at times.

However, for our audience, I think it could give the impression that 'something' has happened at that instant and that's probably very important in presentation.

If you don't want to use physical gestures, you could do it verbally. I know there's an ACR whereby the theme is about calling the dog to return to the master. So the moment of the magic is when the magician says "Dog come", etc.

Maybe you could consider mixing the use of both physical gestures and verbal words, sounds so as to break the monotony.

Gregory Wilson makes a joke out of it sometimes. He says something like "Watch as a I cast a shadow on the cards... well, it doesn't do anything but it looks good doesn't it?" and then goes on to do the reveal.

Then there are gestures that are necessary like say in a coins across/cards across, it's important to pretend to take the coin/card invisibly and cause a transit to occur. It strengthens the illusion very much. In a card transposition, the tapping/rubbing of a card to the other makes the effect very much more magical than if you were to show that the cards have switched places by saying it verbally or with a snap.

So I think then, perhaps the question lies in asking ourselves what kind of gesture is necessary and how it could go further to strengthen the effect or revelation.

It is great that it is pointed out that moves can look corny, but I think they only look corny if they are meaningless, exaggerated or overused.

Meaningless (to the audience) might be something like dancing around the deck and chanting - because the link to the magic is not necessarily direct. And this may just be my personal opinion, but saying dumb (even if humourous) words are quite meaningless to the audience, unless they can be expected to believe that saying such thing could actually work magic at all)

Exaggerated may be along the lines of saying that the magic works when you press the little button on the back of the deck. I know a lot of well-known magicians say this line, but it all depends on where you draw the line to determine if something is too exaggerated and will not be believe at all.

Another form of exaggeration is literally exaggeration movements, and coupled with weird expressions, it can be highly corny. Just for the sake of an example, please check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9ie6Tfa_zI.

Overused may be something that people always do and audiences cannot stand (so the use of the wand is acceptable since I believe people actually like to see the wand in use), or something that you have been doing throughout your act too many times (for example, snapping for every single effect, even the small ones).

But, I absolutely think that gestures must be used for all magic effects, with discretion (eg. large gestures for large effects, use of more subtle gestures like a pause or wave, varying gestures, etc). It frames your magic and captures the attention of the audience when you want it.

I personally believe that, in the right circumstances, a gesture serves both as direction and misdirection.

Misdirection in drawing attention to the hand, creating a magical moment and making them think that that is when the magic happens, whereas it's actually already happened (or will happen).

Direction as in directing their attention to you, in case they lost their attention, and generally heightening expectations that something special is about to happen.

An example, in my ACR, I hold the deck in my left hand all the time. After putting the card in the middle, I lay my hands flat so they can see there are no dodgy movements, make the deck do a little hop on my lh, and say that it jumped right to the top again. I believe Tommy Wonder does something similar.

I use magical gestures sometimes...

If you use it too much for the wrong reasons, I feel it could be an overkill.

Example:

If you were to perform the biddle trick...
the magic "starts" when the spectator realizes there are 4 cards.
and there are 3 strings of "magical moments" in the effect.

The first would be the fact the 5 become 4.
The second would be the fact that there's a card in the deck.
The third would be revealing that card as their chosen card.

It would make more sense to make a magical gesture at the beginning to start the "chain of magical effects" to happen.

Doing magical gestures for all 3 would make it look like alot of hard work.
And perhaps it may even prolong the effect too long for the reactions to "add up" to the grand finale.

HOWEVER, magical gestures at the right moments whacks people (not literal)

Example:

Colour changing Deck routines / Cards.
If a simple effect like "lose a card, find a card, wrong card? change to chosen card" is used...
Then changing the miscalled card to the chosen card would be the ONE magic moment.
Doing a magical gesture and at a slow pace in that final moment is very appropriate I believe...

of course,
it's just my take :)

R™

A magical gesture is meant to bring your audience's attention to something they think you are/ aren't gonna do.

It helps to release the tension in the effect buildup.

egL: card revelation , there is a build up of tension, it will help push the tension further if the wrong card is found.
And then at the change of the card the tension's released by the actual card and a magical gesture.

It frames our magic giving it a complete finish, but w/o magic this gesture will be totally ridiculous.

who ever heard of an empty photo frame displayed ???

I think the magic gesture in reference here is the supposed gesture that causes the magic to happen (e.g. snapping of fingers, wave of the wand).
Not the posing and posture at the climax of the effect for "framing" purposes.

It reminds me of watching Liu Chen (Taiwanese magician) performing. He got this habit of adding sound effects whenever he produce a card or something. Funny at first, but it gets really irritating afterwards.

I think that gestures in general apart from being directional or misdirectional serves a deeper purpose as well. One being to add to the difficulty in reconstruction of an effect. The gesture serves as the pinnacle and release point of tension in a trick. The moment of the gesture or perhaps just before becomes somewhat of a key point in a timeline where people would expect sth dodgy to have just occured. But of course for many trick the dirty work has in fact been done much prior. As such it makes it much harder for any lay person to actually identify the exact point in which you executed a move.

just my 2c =))

Bryan