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The Effect

Paperback: 322 pages
Publisher: Dover Publications (April 13, 2000) (originally published in 1968)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0486410870
ISBN-13: 978-0486410876
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches

In this classic book on showmanship, Henning Nelms writes about how every effect needs a purpose. He teaches how to give a meaning to your magic. He gives detailed instructions on the posture, etiquette, stage positioning and movement. He gives every detail; right down to the proper method of picking up a dropped object. Nelms is a professional stage director as well as a magician and gives advice on how dramatic tensions can heighten a magician’s performance. Included in the book are 60 effects, all of which are a remade version of classical effects. However, he shows how he changes the effects to build up dramatic tension, give the effects a purpose, and give meaning to your magic. In some cases he even changes the effect, but, keeps the secret. The book teaches you how to take your own magic and recreate it to make more entertaining. As well tips on misdirection, controlling the audience's attention, and incorporating patter are given (with a chapter given to each). The book includes 200 illustrations on the effects.

Cost

10$ from
www.amazon.com
www.themagicwarehouse.com
www.magic.org

Difficulty

(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)

It's difficult to rate this book since it deals more with the philosophical points of magic, rather than the effects themselves. I would say that the tricks are mostly 1-3.5 with one or two 4s.
As for the philosophy, it's easy to understand, but, requires some brain power to figure out how to implement it into each of your own effects and ultimately your show.

Review

For me this book rates in the top 5 books ever written on magic. Right up there with Mark Wilson's Complete Course, Tarbell's Course, The Art of Magic (by: T.Nelson Downs), and RRTCM. It is by far the absolute best book on the philosophy of magic. It really taught me how to incorporate patter and how to give a meaning to my magic. As well, all the effects included are great.


Overall

For Beginners: 11/10
For Amateurs: 11/10
For Skilled Hobbyists: 9.5/10 (Since there aren’t any new or completely spectacular effects)
If you don’t have this book you should definitely get it.
Thanks for reading!

I hate this book and always have. I used to believe every word in it but got quite disillusioned. I realised in the end it was a load of claptrap particularly the garbage about "silent scripts" and I shudder every time I see it in a magic shop. The damn book nearly gave me a nervous breakdown.

I lent it to Harry Stanley once and he said "It is about time somone wrote about this". However when he returned it he said it was "just padding" Harry was an old pro who knew c*** (not the best) when he saw it.

I then found out that Henning Nelms had never done a magic show in his life. Surprise surprise.

If you want to learn presentation of magic then simply read the back section of Expert Card Technique. That is all you need to know regarding presentation of close up magic and to an extent the stage.

Now I actually like this book. I think that it's one of these books that isn't going to suit everyone and as Mark has said, there is alot of padding in there. But there's also some very good information to be got out of it. There's good information on routine building and presentation.

I wouldn't do things exactly as the book suggests but I've certainly got some very good tips from this book. If you can read between the lines, maybe think 'well I wouldn't do it that way but I can see what he's getting at' then I think this book is a very useful one.

In my opinion, it is a very helpful book with something for everyone as Lady of Mystery says, but there is a lot of tat in it. You have to steer around it and take somethings as a bit old fashioned or light heartedly. For that price though, it's well worth it! Highly recommended by Michael Vincent too!

The benefit of this book is that it hammers home the need to decide who you are as a performer, and why you're doing the effects you've chosen to do. What purpose do the tricks serve - or what are you hoping to prove.

Even if these things aren't articulated directly, just having gone through the thought process will give you much more confidence and authority.

But I agree that you can overwork and overanalyse things.

For example, I don't work to a script, but I make sure to script every routine that I do. So even though I don't prescribe the words I use, the ideas are all there, the thought process has been done, and while I play things quite loosely, I never find myself working with a 'blank' page.

Just a few thoughts.

Pete

I prefer everything in a book to be gospel or nearly so. I don't see why I should have to make the effort to weed out the wheat from the chaff. The student shouldn't have to be wondering if the teacher is right and have to waste all that time trying to figure out what is correct and what isn't. It is very easy to go down the wrong path with the Nelms book.
Beware.

Maximum Entertainment by Ken Weber. Showmanship, no chaff.

mark lewis wrote:I prefer everything in a book to be gospel or nearly so. I don't see why I should have to make the effort to weed out the wheat from the chaff. The student shouldn't have to be wondering if the teacher is right and have to waste all that time trying to figure out what is correct and what isn't. It is very easy to go down the wrong path with the Nelms book.
Beware.

Most of my best ideas have come from a disagreement with other people's ideas - often an outright dismissal of the assertions and recommendations made by performers and writers far more experienced and talented than I am...

I am different. The student shouldn't have to waste his time arguing with the teacher. I prefer the teacher to know what he is talking about in the first place.

Incidentally I don't like the Ken Weber book either. I have no idea why and cannot give a reason. I did read it but don't know why I don't like it.

Gut instinct I suppose.

But is it at all possible to have a one-size-fits-all gospel text on the subject of performance and showmanship. Surely the best you can hope for is that the reader will take your arguments away, whittle off the stuff that doesn't suit them, counterargue where appropriate and settle on an approach that works specifically for them.

This is very different to wiring up a plug.

Of course the student should alter things to what suits him and especially his personality. There is no rule that cannot be broken. However there ARE general principles of right and wrong and one size should fit most. YOu may have to adjust the fit a trifle but it is good to follow a plan which has been time tested particularly for a beginner. It is also good if the teacher has actually done some of the stuff he teaches unlike Henning Nelms who never did a magic show in his life.

You can break the rules if you are extremely talented but you should at least know what the rules are and why you are breaking them.

By and large it is wise to follow the dictums of people who know what they are talking about. I should avoid theatrical people who have had training in acting. They are usually terrible magicians. Just because you are a good actor does NOT make you a good magician. They are two entirely different mediums even though you will often read that they are inter related.

The theatrical types like Henning Nelms and others might be all right at telling you how to play Hamlet but they are bloody useless at teaching you how to do the cut and restored rope. Notice any magician that has had acting training. The odds are that they are too artificial and scripted and speak far too loudly. They think they are in a bloody play.

There might be the odd exception. I haven't seen one yet though.

I like Orson Welles as a magician and a theatrical performer in an odd cringe sort of way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=balBd0zxNIc

He was pretty good on there. However away from the movie set he was bloody awful. I used to see him perform magic and mentalism on American chat shows and he was painfully boring and bloody awful to watch.

Mark- I see what your getting at, and I agree that there is some material in the book that a practicing magician couldn't use. However, since you pointed out that Nelms never performed a magic show in his life I want to point out a positive of being a non-magician. Most magicians, no matter how hard they try can EVER sit at a magic show and feel the way a real spectator feels. Because of this there are virtually no magicians in the world who know exactly what a spectator wants. Obviously we know that they want to be mystified, and entertained, but, we hardly have any idea when it comes to the small details. Since Nelms never was a practicing magican he never "thought" like a magician would when viewing a show, and therefore he has a better idea of what the audience wants.
However, not being a magician means that not everything in the book is practicle. Perhaps a master of the art of magic should team up with the average layman and the two could write a book, the layman sayong what interests him, and the magician puttting those likes into his own tricks...

This is where I differ with you. It is ESSENTIAL for the magician to think like a layman. It is difficult certainly but entirely possible. A talented magician once told me that it was impossible to think like a layman. He was wrong. I have trained myself since I was a kid to do it. You MUST do it if you are going to be any good. Or train yourself to do it as much as you possibly can.

If I have any success as a close up performer it is because I developed the facility to do this. After all I was once a layman so it isn't hard for me to think like one.

I first learned how important it was to think like a layman when studying a far more valuable source than the awful Henning Nelms book. I would suggest studying pages 441 and 442 of Expert Card Technique and read "The spectator perspective" Those two pages (actually less than two pages) will do you far more good than the whole Nelms volume.