talkmagic.co.uk

hey there, just recorded something that's going to be my card manipulation act and I need some feedback on it.
Constructive criticism is wellcome. Thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94k3quPAXm4

runnung the act from begining to very end is soooo different from practicing sepatate moves individualy. And the most difficulties I'm having is to keep up with the beat I think. (I kinda like the idea where every move is done on certain measure. This way music is actually there to reinforce and aid the routine rather then just be a background noise) But the problem with this aproach is that if a move is to be done withing say two measures and I'm one measure late the whole thing is screwed up...

I liked it overall. It's a very promising routine. Here are a few comments.

- Your productions are fairly clean, but your loading is a bit obvious a lot of times. As one random example, see the sequence from about 2:12 to 2:15. (A bit of time misdirection might work in that particular spot.)

- Relatedly, some of your overt setups take a little long, for instance 1:56 to 1:59. Three seconds is a bit long to be handling the deck like that in a flow-y routine like yours.

- I thought your body motion was a bit distacting. The dancing indeed added a bit of elegance in some places, and if you can get that look throughout, it could suit you well. In this video, though, it often looked a bit forced.

- The quality of the video and the white shirt together made a few manipulations hard to see. Depending on your performance setting, this may or may not be a good thing. (Depends what you might have been trying to hide! )

Well done, though!

thnx a lot, i'll defenetely consider your advice

I am not a card manipulator, just a card magician, so I can't do any of those productions. However, from a spectator's point of view I'd suggest you tone down the dancy type moves. The thing that always annoys me about Jeff McBride is that, while he is technically excellent, he flounces about like an annoying ponce with all the graceful body movements and false surprised facial expressions at the fan productions. You so don't want to go down that road! You look too manly, leave the dancing to Angela Funovits

I'm not even a card magician, however i would like to say this...

you run the risk of just being seen as someone having a little jig or dance on stage...you dont seem to be doing any of it for a reason...

if its possible, maybe be sitting at a table, looking dejected - or tired after a magic act, and you are throwing away your cards...and you can't seem to be rid of them...have some reason to why you are doing it...

from a spectators view point that is...

i dont know any flourishes - i thought technically it looked pretty good - but if i were watching you, i'd wanna know why you are vaguely dancing, and wonder exactly what you were doing and sharing with me...

give it a framework i suppose im saying...

IAIN, the frame I was thinking of is this:
the whole sequence is gonna be "lost and found card" effect.
In the begining I'd aproach a member of the audience, offer them to pick and sign a card, then lost it in a deck or something.The whole routine will be about looking for that signed card. And at the very end it will be the last card to appear from the silk.

if you played it as genuine frustration and apologise to the audience...sit down for a second to gather your thoughts...then you keep manifesting these cards in anger...that may play well...

I'm not a card manipulator, but I am a juggler, and that relates more to this kind of stuff than magic does, so here's my tuppence worth of thought.

It was dull. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but it was. It was long, and slow. Jeff McBride - widely accepted as the greatest manipulator of cards in the world today has a card routine that is about 2 and a half minutes long. If you take out all the weird throwing stuff he does, it's more like 2. That makes yours almost twice as long as McBride's. Also, McBride uses fast paced music, and runs about the stage waving his arms like an idiot and generally looking like something from Pan's People. It's stupid looking, but it IS very high energy, and attention grabbing.

In contrast, you do your routine (which again, is much longer than ol' jugglemonkey's) to a very slow, quite depressing piece of music. Your productions come at a very slow pace, and because of the quite clunky loads, they are often "advertised" a few seconds in advance. All this adds up to me, as an audience member, getting very bored very quickly.

Movement wise, either Dance, or Don't Dance. The weird in time swaying and over the top hand movements/facial expressions just look really silly.

Please don't think I'm just slagging you off - I appreciate how hard this stuff is to learn and you're clearly pretty good already, I just think you need to look at your presentation a lot more. You have all the potential to make this a really kick-ass routine.

I guess my advice is this:

1) Cut your routine down to 90 seconds. I know that seems really harsh, but it'll make it SO much punchier, and it'll force you to think really carefully about what to put in, rather than just doing everything you know in order.

2) Focus on motivations. If you're moving, why are you moving? If you're producing endless cards from nowhere, is this a show of magical powers or are these cards appearing on their own? Are you suprised by this? Angry? Happy? Frustrated? Once you've made that decision, be consistent with it.

3) If you're going to "pulling decks out of mid-air", watch yourself and be critical. Does it look like a deck pulled from mid air, or does it look like you're fanning a deck you've just put into your hand?

Good work on putting a routine together and filming it, I wish you the best of luck with it in the future.

I thought it was boring and technically average, if not a bit less.

Get a decent camera, get your whole body in shot, film it somewhere a bit mad, with good light and tighten up your moves.

Serendipity, Lenoir - appriciate your comments guys. Now I know what to work on.