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ah then you havnt seen my variation on the burgulars theme.
And if i could damn well remember what it was, id tell you.

but it does use the standard plot, and patter, but with a twist at the end.


this is one of the downsides to coming up with stuff 24/7. sometimes it goes away after a while.

I used it in my working repetoir too.

the cards were signed, that i do remember. and it was also in their hands.

lord! what was it?

this is going to be bugging me the rest of the day!
I knew i should of written the thing down!

Magic Chris wrote:No stories, keep it pure, if anything use real life situations that have happened to you to use in your "story" nothing irratates me more than a magician/performer who does the same speal each time he performs....


"right so theres four burglars and they need four coppers in a house blaaaaaaa blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa bllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

weve heard it all before so have they and its not fun, original or authentic...be natural and dont make it to flowery...

The thing about this is when performing to other magicians, one can play off of their expectations.

This happened to me on a cruise a couple of weeks ago.

The official magician performed a "burglars trick" for me and another magi. He put the kings into different parts of the deck and gave the deck a few shuffles/cuts. He then dramatically removed four cards from the top of the pack and we, being magicians, assumed that they were going to be the four kings. He turned them over and they were indifferent cards.

"They came out camouflaged!"

He then found the four kings in a surprising manner.

The point is, scripting works in certain contexts. Performing for magicians in this case decided what kind of script or patter to use.

Just like performing for older folk. It seems more patter and anecdote-esque presentation is needed for maximum impact.

A younger demographic will request less patter but the magic must speak for itself and become more visual.

I saw Guy Hollingworth's show at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh today and it was completely a story, and I absolutely loved it. The story was about SW Erdnase, and I assume you could look into it online. Anyway, the show would not have been nearly as good if not for that story, and it just really made the performance much more engaging.

Not unless you're performing for Children. Very Little Children.
Just my opinion; Adults and older youth are not going to enjoy "Hearing a fun story" with their magic. They just want to see something amazing.
I think the only reason for a story is to keep really little childrens' attention. But everyone has their opinion and approach

-Ben

Magic Chris wrote:No stories, keep it pure, if anything use real life situations that have happened to you to use in your "story" nothing irratates me more than a magician/performer who does the same speal each time he performs....


"right so theres four burglars and they need four coppers in a house blaaaaaaa blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa bllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

weve heard it all before so have they and its not fun, original or authentic...be natural and dont make it to flowery...

I don't have a story for my routines, but I do have basic scripts that I use every time. The scripts are based around experiments in ESP/mind-reading/psychic ability. Chris knows that I disagree with his opinions, but that's fine. Each to their own. Thing is, if I sat down in front of Chris and did my favourite routine he wouldn't think for a moment that it was scripted!

But we've been over this before. Whatever works best for the individual I guess. We're all different. I'm a tight working soul band, while Chris is more a free form jazz ensemble.

Oh... that just reminds me then. I do have another story trick. I never really use it, but I have tested it a few times and it does work. It's a trick I made based on the four burglars effect. It was just to spice things up and explain what was happening inside the house or whatever that they were robbing. Soon, this will be in the private forum here on the routines part. And part of this effect also uses a sleight that I made up that will be in the techniques or r&d section of the private forum.

Anyways, just saying that because I know I lied about me not using stories . But I think that's all the "story" effects I use/hardly ever use.

I also feel that using stories lead to much less spontaneity, which is one of the reasons why I love magic. Spontaneity... I just think it's great when I just mix and match sleights etc. to form a mini routine that I have never really performed before. I do this quite often and it's that spontaneity that deters me from rehearsed stories. I do a basic outline of a routine, say for ACR, but it's very general and I play to the spectator's reactions most of the time or what I feel like doing.

Hmmm

Im always confused when people talk about using a plot in magic. I absolutely hate inventing stories to relate to an effect (for example "Merlin the magical turnip summoned the slugs and chanted to cause the card to rise...") but the magic needs to be logical.

For example, im working on a routine for a competition. There isnt a storyline, but it all links together really well. My style is to tell what im doing and add a bit of comedy. Personally I think that if you make a story to go with a routine you are putting a barrier between the spectator and the Magician, as there isnt room for interaction between the two. My whole 50 minute show is based on talking to the audience and participation. I remember one show where the audience was completely wrong for the show, I couldnt get any interaction from the group and as a result I lost about 15 minutes from my show time.

Personally, if someone starts to tell me a story when performing to me, I automatically switch off. I cant pay attention to either.

Maybe by creating a story it weakens the effect as the spectator is having to concentrate on the story, opposed to the magic...



Mark

Chris is more a free form jazz ensemble

Yesum you heard it hear first!!! damm rite fooolsssss

There's many a magic routine where the story provides the necessary misdirection as well as providing the reason for you doing certain things that would otherwise look unnatural or suspicious.

It's dependant on the actual routine.

Ben wrote:

Not unless you're performing for Children. Very Little Children.
Just my opinion; Adults and older youth are not going to enjoy "Hearing a fun story" with their magic. They just want to see something amazing.
I think the only reason for a story is to keep really little childrens' attention. But everyone has their opinion and approach

I appreciate that it's an opinion but it's one that I disagree with. A good story can be what draws the people in - no matter what their age. Perhaps a lot of what you have experienced hasn't had a good story.

If people didn't like stories then there would be far fewer books, films and theatre.

Again - just an opinion but an interesting debate this is turning into.

If people didn't like stories then there would be far fewer books, films and theatre.

Again - just an opinion but an interesting debate this is turning into

Yes people like stories but they especially dont like Magicians and they find the ones that B.S more annoying

"Heres a mummy rope and daddy ropee.....i got given this the other day by a man at the market"

Ah pull the other one mate how times have you said that before...yawn people dont like their intellegnece insulting, yes true they like stories and gossip theatre etc...but ur goin to see a story...Your expecting to be narrated, when you see a Magician your expected to be amazed, not bored to death with some narrative about how he came to get these coin cards whatever....

I admit kids is different, hence I dont entertain kids.

If your doin a card trick, people can see there cards you dont need to tell them character names just call them as it is... a jacks a jack etc...if you got rope, tell em its rope....

I talk my specs thru what im doing as im doing it...rather than make sum speeeal about what happened once before...Unless ur comedy act or kids magician, then close-up needs no story telling..the magic speaks for itself..unless ur audience are menatlly wrong and cant follow simple hand movements objects and instructions then it shud just flow....


"here I have a pack of cards....cud u shuffle them..."

Not- "Here I have a mystical pack of magic cardxs given to me by a tibetan monk they were past down thru the centuries, said to possess a magical power....cud you carefully shuffle them, as u do u will notice their engery................"

Seriously were all adults here, they aint from tibet theyre not magical...ur just a weird adult pretending to other adults that theres something special about them...please sit down ur embarrasing yourself.

I feel to strongly to continue this debate - im leavinf this particular post, good day

It's one thing to say you don't think something is right FOR YOU, but a few of your comments are a bit out of line, Chris.

You would be wise to harness basic spelling and grammatical skills when you're making comments about other adults embarrassing themselves, as well. You're entitled to your opinion, but that doesn't give you license to c*** (not the best) on other people. Say it isn't what you would do - but don't call someone foolish if it's what they do.

If a story works, and enhances the effect, then how can it possibly be a bad thing?

yeah - sorry to say it, but i had real trouble wading through your post chris...

who says plots and narrative have to be the same old dry and dusty ones?

i don't get that part...

surely the biggest joy of performing is to a) perform your own work, b) have an interesting premise and storyline for what you are doing?

if you notice for example, with derren's stuff - he often gives you a little storyline before he begins - remember the seeing thru the finger tips one?

had you hooked cos it was an interesting STORY...he then demonstrated those powers on his own terms...and feeding them extra nuggets from that story along the way...that was his script, his patter and what gave the whole thing an added bit of mystery...

if he just walked in went "oy oy! lemme stick my fingers inside your jacket squire.." it would still be good..but rather bland in comparision to what he performed..

hmmm...nuggets...

If you think about it all effects have a story, whether you like it or not. I don't necessarily mean in the sense that they all contain little diatribes about where cards came from or who gave them to you but rather any successful effect adheres to the beginning-middle-end narrative structure. That's what the 'story' is, setting up an expectation then bringing it to a satisfactory conclusion, in a clear way. Of course you can throw in little twists and turns to make it more entertaining but really that's what it boils down to.[/i]

Funnily enough, I've just been studying a book on story and narrative elements in video game writing, as well as my usual background reading on creative writing, so it's all spinning round in my head today.

Humans are story-driven animals. We all feel a need for story, and given random occurrences we try to make up our own coherent stories to shape them into a pattern. Telling stories was early man's first form of entertainment, and all our new technology is still dedicated to the same function.

In its most basic sense, a plot is when events occur. A story is when events occur in a cause-and-effect relationship. The standard textbook example is:
PLOT: The king died, and then the queen died.
STORY: The king died, and then the queen died of grief.

So any time you introduce any sort of cause-and-effect or rationale into a trick, you're seeding it with the elements of story. "A particular card appears at the top of the deck several times" is frankly boring. "A card keeps coming to the top because..." well, because the spec's signature links it to his aura, or because (as per another thread) it's an obedient puppy that comes when called, or because it's jealous and wants attention, or whatever. It's a form of story, and it engages interest and emotion.

Since Iain mentioned Derren Brown, think for a moment of his glass-walking stunt in Something Wicked. He could have just said, "Look at me walking on broken glass." Instead, he told a very long and involved story about carnival stuntmen and the ability to enter hypoxic states and feel no pain. Then he did a pulse-stopping effect to lead into the glass walking itself. The trick climax occurred when he lay down on the glass, but the story climax was the restarting of his pulse and return to normal awareness. The overall result was a much more memorable effect which touched the emotions of the audience.

Again, take Derren's quick button-counting trick. Simply being able to count buttons on a tray is not very interesting. So he interweaves this with a story about being bullied at school and counting things to keep his mind off the pain. This allows for a touch of humour when he gets the spectator to slap him (to cause pain so he can count), but more importantly it engages strong emotions in a way that simply counting buttons can't.

I must recommend the book Story by Robert McKee, widely available in libraries and bookshops. Although written ostensibly about screenplays, it's a mine of information about story crafting for all writers and anyone else interested in the field.