talkmagic.co.uk

IT'S BACK!!!!

From the creative minds who brought you "Stinky, the Popular Clown", "Back to the Future II: (spong ball edition) and "Cups to Balls to Lemons to Lenin", it's the Second Creative Essay Contest by Planet Skutt!

Coming soon from Sankey Magic is the new "The Art of Sleight of Hand" DVD. Learn the real secrets to sleight-of-hand right from professionals! This DVD was filmed during Jay's Art of Sleight of Hand Convention (which I had the pleasuring of lecturing at with both Jay and Richard Sanders) and it contains thought-provoking interviews among the professionals who performed that night.

So, influenced directly by that project is this contest's topic:

Question: If you had truly supernatural powers, what type of effect would you perform for a paying audience?

That's it! Be specific, be yourself, and be creative! Enter as often as you wish!

The contest will end August 18th and a winner will be selected. Remember, as in the previous contest, its not about the prize but the creative process and sharing with like-minded individuals.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!!

m.SKuTt

Come on guys! The last one was so much fun!

Well I'm out of the running for this one but for fun, if I had real powers I would look to deliver magic with little to no compromise; obviously I wouldn't want to frighten everyone to hell or anything so I'd do the odd thing suggestive of a normal magician, but things like visibly warping cards in front of people or changing objects of their belonging temporarily would be big ones of mine. Obviously reading minds would be pretty cool too.

One of the most important things though would be making them FEEL when the magic happens - some strange kind of sense, so that they don't just see it, but they EXPERIENCE it happening on another level.

If I got super powers i would do an elephant to cardbox routine...

-I get on stage talk about how magicans for years have done tricks with animals and then i would pick a spectator to draw an animal on a piece of paper(i would ofcourse use my superpowers to make him/here draw an elephant)...and then i would give him/here an empty cardbox...the will by them selvs put the paper inside the box... then i would shake the box and open it and out of the box comes a full size live elephant.


-Joker

Real magic eh?

Ok, so a crowd of people sit in a giant venue waiting for me to appear on stage. I'm 15 minutes late to build interest when suddenly... all the lights go out. The crowd starts to wonder if this is part of the show.

They soon realise it is as candles begin floating down the aisles to light the room somewhat. We eventually get enough light to see the stage where a tiny whisp of smoke is forming.
Without warning, the smoke explodes into a shower of doves which fly out above the audience, circle higher and higher and explode in beautiful fireworks. One dove remains on stage however. It looks at the crowd, cocks it's head, and slowly begins floating. Not fly, but floating. It floats to about 6 feet whereby it suddenly starts to twists and distort. The dove grows, until eventually it forms a human shape. A candle appears in mid air, and our floating human grabs it, and holds it close so the crowd can see the Real Magician has appeared. The dove has morphed into me!

I remain floating in mid air for a few seconds, and steadily float downwards where suddenly...

The candles all disappear as the lights instantaneously turn back on and I produce a microphone from nowhere, and begin the show!

NOW WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE!

You may find that your "ideal" magical power is something that we, as magicians, can already accomplish: producing money, levitation, reading minds, etc.

These things, from a spectator's perspective, are already part of our abilities. So, try to think outside of this realm and come up with something you've never seen or dreamt of.

Remember, it does not (and really should not) have to be "do-able" in a practical sense. The idea is to expand the paradigm in order to envision new possibilites...and if we laugh our ass off in the process, then that's a bonus!

Keep up the good work!

M.

If i had real powers......

I begin standing on the stage, suddenly i begin to levitate right up to the venue roof, i lower my height and begin to float over the audience heads. As i float over the crowd i turn towards the nearby door and float out of the door. Still floating i turn around in mid air and float back over the audience heads, as i get halfway to the stage i suddenly vanish in mid air, no puff of smoke, i simply vanish. As i vanish the audience see a strange form forming at the point i vanish. My asistant has suddenly appeared and she slowly and gracefully floats towards the stage. She Holds out her hands and suddenly a cardboard box just appears in her hand. She puts the box on the floor and opens the sealed lid. Inside the box is a smaller box that has a chain around it. She unties the chain and i emerge from the box dressed in totally different clothes and take my applause. I pick up the larger box and show it empty, it is placed down on the SOLID stage and suddenly bats fly out of the box, they fly up to the audience and just vanish in thin air.

I then look for an audience member who has a baseball cap or hat, i borrow the hat, show it empty, click my fingers and suddenly the same bats fly from the hat and perch on the lighting rig above the stage. I then point at each bat in turn, as i point they each change into different coloured silks which float down to the stage floor. the silks are then picked up and screwed into a ball, i throw the ball up into the air and it changes into a white dove.

The white dove is held in my hand and i let it fly away as it flies suddenly it changes into a black dove in mid air, as the dove flies around the room it keeps changing colour, going from white, black, red and even green. The dove flies back into my hand and i appear to pull the dove in two, splitting it into two doves.

i must stop eating all this cheese

Okay, for fun - I would go all out. Take my magic back to it's primordial roots - command the elements. Be able to produce, destroy, transfer, whatever, fire, earth, air and water; all would be under my control.

My audience would take a seat in the theatres, quietly expecting a rather unassuming magician to come on with some rabbits or whatever.

I would have someone stand up and name a fruit as another comes up on stage and verifies that the back wall is really solid - and it is. I would then use my power over the earth to reach through the back wall - and this would look REALLY freaky - and then pull the branch of the nearest fruit-bearing tree through it. The wall seals up behind it, leaving a branch jutting out through it impossibly. Hanging on that branch is their fruit. In an instant this would dissolve and be with them, right there in their hands. Some dude with a hacksaw would then come and remove the branch.

I would then summon a swirrling wind which would bellow out around the walls of the theatre becoming faster and faster (think Angel, 'To Shanshu in LA') and then STOP - the walls have GONE! The audience are now sitting, essentially in the outisde open air.

I would do the old trick of producing water with a tap of my wand (?) but for real, with ANY object outside named. Some guy's hat would set on fire but I would turn to the water to quench and put out the flame. Wind would then dry him off, and this would go on, me doing some very cool impossible pieces with miscellaneous bits of the world until we are all back inside and I ask someone to

"Pick a card, any card!"

Actually, that would be a pretty damn cool thing to be able to do. But oh well!

What do you mean "IF" i had supernatural powers?!?!?!

You mean the rest of you achieve this stuff by other means?

As you will see in mine and Gerald's next show, our powers of amazement are very real. For example although gerald appears to be a plastic wildebeest, he has the power of invisibility and will often sit amongst the audience prior to my performance gathering confidential information. Then using his powers of wildepersuassion he lulls the audience into a sense of dark foreboding and dread shortly before I enter the stage.

My own amazing powers are then brought into play as I treat them to a spectacular display of inactivity, the sheer stillness of which turns their brains into a quivering mass of McNuggets and ginger beer.

As they leave the theatre Gerald once again employs his powers of wildepersuassion to enforce the idea that something truly amazing has just happened (when in reality I simply sat and did nothing).

I used this very technique last night at the Ipswich Magical Society to great effect and if you don't believe me just read Bananafish's review of my act! http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic12899.php

(oh yes in case you're wondering, I sell the confidential information Gerald has gathered in the pre-show to unscrupulous telesales companies in order to fund my experimental cheese research).

By the way, I have to give Sankey credit for this question. He originally asked this question when he was filming interviews at his convention last year. At first I did not think much of the question (I thought it was just a "filler"), but the more I turned it over in my noodle, the more I got out of it. The reason being: magicians imitate supernatural powers (generally). We levitate things, we make things disappear, we made all the little colored diamonds on the paddle turn to RED! (why always red?). Basically, we (as Jay so poetically puts it) echo "real" magic.
Although, on the surface it may seem like a silly question, it really is not. The idea is to see if there is another realm of "real magic" that we can echo in our practical work. Just take mentalism for an example. I would argue that this branch of the art is, was, and always will be dependent on "echoing" real magic.
So, does that mean that there is a new branch of magic that has yet to be discovered? Who knows? Just like any exercise, the importance is coming up with as many new ideas as possible in hopes that one will standout, and then another, and then they connect somehow, and those connect with others, and so on...

If I had "supernatural powers" I would have a small show in a little theatre that seated around 150 tops. The pamphlet would say that I would be accompanied by an interrupter. We would start the show promptly at 7:33pm. First, my interrupter would walk out and introduce himself. He would initially get lots of applause, because he will be very finely dressed and well kept; thus the audience will mistake him for the entertainer. Once he states his role, he will announce my name and I will come out in jeans and a t-shirt, carrying a burlap sack. I will not address the crowd in any manner. The interrupter will announce to the audience that I have a very special sack that contains everything that they desire. Just name it and I will remove it from the sack.
Of course, the crowd laughs nervously because such a thing is not possible. Pierre, sorry, I should of told you my interrupter's name earlier...he randomly picks someone out of the crowd and asks them to name anything they want. With the pressure of being first, they most likely will name something common, like a copy of "the DaVinci Code". Pierre will, in turn, whisper something in my ear and I will reach into the sack and pull out the book. Pierre then runs it up to the person, who verifies that it is real, and lets them keep it. Another person is chosen, this time a braver lot..."Big Mac Sandwhich and a Small Coke!". The crowd laughs, which quickly dies down as soon as Pierre holds up his hand as a gesture for complete silence. This time the whispering takes a bit longer, but, just as promised, I produce a Big Mac and small Coke.
The crowd goes wild and now hands go up like eager students begging to get the teacher's attention. In rapid succession, items are called off: a rusty horse shoe, a roll of film with pictures of Anna Nicole Smith on it, a solid gold bar, three onions and a glass of beer (that guys was WEIRD!), etc. until they realize that, no matter what I ask for, they can have.

END NOTE: Ideally the audience will get uncomfortable with all of the material things they were given, completely free without sacrifice on their part. Ideally, when they drove home, they would feel a bit sorry that they did not ask for world peace, or money for the homeless. Ideally, they would leave better people.

What would you want out of the sack?

Anna Nicole Smith in or out of the sack would do fine as far as I'm concerned. I'd probably be dead in 3 weeks but what a way to go !

Jennifer Love Hewitt please Mike In a nice two piece black bikini OR how about my new flash kits available at flash magic at a great price and free postage for the whole of August

Ok.


What are you




waiting for?




This Friday




Is


the


dead




__________________________________________.

mike skutt wrote:Ok.


What are you




waiting for?

Wondering



what you're doing



with all



the free



ideas these lads



come up



with

Well...I thought I would give this one a shot. This is my first post of the two contests that Mr. Skutt has put on and I thought it would be mighty nifty to share my strange ideas.

The crowd gathers in a dark theater. They breathe in the misty air and feel the hair on their neck raise as the cold chill from the stage blows down on them. I walk out on stage dressed in all black. The audience is not aware that I am on stage. A spot light emitts a huge light from behind me, my silhouette only visible. This causes a minor jump from the audience, a few gasps every now again. Lights above come on as well illuminating me. The audience applauds. I pull out a simple deck of cards. The audience seems unimpressed. I open the pack and show it to be normal. Without a word spoken I take the pack throw it. I hold up my hand and yell "HALT!" In that instant every single card that was thrown into the air stops dead. They just float. I scream, "Return!" The cards quickly float back and stop mid-air in front of me. I take a clear plastic box and pull the top off. I let go of the rest of the box and it, too, floats. I look at all of the cards and then look at the box. All 52 cards regain as a pack and float into the box. I put the top onto the box. They remain floating. This bewilders the audience even further. I command the box to come up to about my chest. It does as it is told. It stops and I hold my hands up behind it. I pretend that I have a deck in my hand. I hold it in my right hand and fan it. The cards in the clear box do exactly the same. They fan perfectly. The audience erupts into pandemonium. I ask an audience member who is calm enough to come up to the stage. I ask him to name any card. Lets say he names the Nine of Diamonds. I look at my pretend fan and pick out one card and hand it to him. "Take that 'card' and sign it. He takes a pretend pen and signs his 'card'. "Take the card and rub it on the top of the box." He takes his hand and rubs it on the top of the box. A single card falls from the perfect fan. It lands face down. Then audience gasps slightly. I then hold my hand underneath the SOLID, clear box. I point at the card, then my hand. The single card falls through. The audience gasps wildly. I hand it to the audience member. He turns it over and finds it to be his own selected and signed card. The spectator freaks out and drops the card on stage in utter disbelief and fear. I then state that he can examine the deck. I hold my hands underneath the box, once again. I point at the deck, then point at my hand. The deck falls. It falls straight through the SOLID box and directly into my open hands. The audience member on stage looks at the box, cards, my sleeves, anything they want. They will find nothing. The audience leaves in total disbelief and having second thoughts about all that "Magic is fake" mumbo-jumbo.


I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for taking the time to read it, too.

Oki doki lets have a little go

If I had "supernatural powers" I would do something like this.

In a dark bar after a show (maybe some light piano music in the background), I would start by explaining that, "some people 'read' tea leaves, to reveal information about their subject. I however, do not care for tea", you say this as you are cooly having a smoke. (oh don't worry about cancer or anything though! Part of my powers would include immunity to the effects of the cigs.)

"However I can use similar principles to retrieve my information. Would you like to see?". My spectator answers "Yes!". "Very well", I say, still puffing away on my cigarette. "Firstly I would like to ask you to think of a number, word or name, that means something to you, from your past." He does so, "Good, yes that's very good. Now watch", I blow gently on the end on the cigarette causing smoke to wave off in lots of swirls. "What do you see?" I say to my stunned spectator, as he sees his most intimate thoughts being literally spelt out in swirls of smoke!

My spectator is so stunned by this unexpected miracle, that he proposes buying me a drink. I just say "No don't worry, no need for that". I then blow on the end of the cigarette again. This time the swirls of smoke form into a glass shape. The shape becomes more 'full' and dense, and as I reach into the smoke to grab it, it becomes apparent that it is now a full glass of wine. "Cheers", and with the glass still smoking, I take a sip.