talkmagic.co.uk

one of the many problems i have with both magic and mentalism is......

magic is usually far too fast....

and

mentalism is usually far too slow...

just as I'm about to settle down and relax, and enjoy the visual side of this "art" (if art it be - thats for another debate) - MAGIC - i can easily see a couple of tommy wonder effects in under three minutes...and, as beautiful and as fascinating as tommy wonder's work is - i am often left wanting cos i want to savour the moment of magic...and when i watch a lot of magicians - they just seem to have a motormouth - spuriously firing line after line after line...

telling the same jokes, producing the same four aces time after time, watching my card endlessly "rise to the top" for the 43rd time in the space of a minute...magic for me, a lot of the time - far too fast, and just becomes a blur...and it ultimately, becomes wasted because of that...

however!

just as I'm about to settle down and relax, and enjoy the cerebral and what-if moments of MENTALISM - i can easily drift off to sleep having to sit through someone waffle on, and on and on with some "very fair random selection", that makes me want to fire a shotgun in the air to wake everyone else up...if i wasnt asleep in the first place that is...

then there's the far too common explanations of body language experts that ironically, cannot see that their audience is becoming restless and bored s&&tless at the presentation stagnating in front of them...

what, if anything do you think we could/should/shouldn't learn from one another? agree/disagree/will post 'don't care' to seem cool....

go for it...

It's why I've started using 'Brook' as a verb...

I think its all to do with balance and judging at what speed we should perform an effect given the circumstances .
I am spending my time on my routine and timing and less on learning new effects at the moment for that reason.

I know what you mean about mentalism. It can be intermanibly dull. Then you see someone like John Archer, and you realise there is another way.
The problem is that mentalists traditionally had a sort of lecture and demonstration mentality, rather than an entertainment mentality. Hypnotists used to suffer from the same mentality. You would get long lectures on the nature of hypnosis, followed by suggestibility tests. Now we just bang right in with a few jokes and an induction, and the show moves faster.

I know what you mean, too many mentalists go off on a waffle on metaphysics or some speel on psychology. They don't seem to realise that the audience really don't care about any of that and that it's that blurb that's making things boring, it certainly does for me anyway.

I think that's why Derren Brown is popular, he keeps is explainations short and easy to understand. He's funny and presents himself in a very approachable manner, which makes him fun and easy to watch. Too many mentalists take themselves too seriously for me and try to come across too clever.

Are you sure you're not just going through one of those times Iain? When you're a bit disillusioned ( pun well and truly intended! ) with it all.
Tricks seem stale, patter laboured and tedious etc

If im completely wrong however, and id be extremely disappointed if it were so, i think you best summed it up yourself;

By watching others perform an effect, we can see where, if anywhere, we think they went wrong. I often hear a fast reveal is the wrong thing to do, as a slow reveal ' builds tension ', but if i ask a spec to turn a card over themselves they usually do it super fast because they are so desperate to see if the impossible is indeed possible. Its good to watch someone else perform the same effect you do, and see where you think they went wrong. Wrong is maybe the wrong word as it sounds so negative. Maybe not wrong, just where you would have done things differently.

Maybe its dependent on your spectators? Is it not possible that the younger among them would enjoy a super fast ACR? So used to getting things NOW, and living life at a super fast speed are they. They are the instant gratification generation with a short attention span. An ACR, as repungant as it is to some Magi, would suit them perfectly. The older would just get perplexed by such a thing, and would probably appreciate something with more grace, beauty and dynamism.

I think the problem with Mentalists milking it, i apologise for that expression but if the cap fits, is that they're trying too hard to look mysterious. Why they dont just wear a cape and blacken their eyes up i dont know.

Anyway, thats my tuppence.

hmmmm...milking mentalists...thats a disturbing image...

no, I'm actually re-invigourated with mentalism recently..just something i've noticed...

magic - very visual, but dont always get the chance to enjoy the visual side enough, because the tricks are too shotgun fast...

mentalism - you can lose the excitement/apprehension of the grand reveal by being too ponderous and "internal"...

You really are using the wrong words.

Say 'fast' or 'slow' to any performer..magician. acotr, musician etc. and they do just that. Speed things up or slow things down!
It is really a matter of 'VARIETY OF PACE
And I mean, the Pace/Tempo of any routine and of the Act itself

Magicians/mentalists in particular, tend to look at the tempo of The Trick and rarely at the tempo of The Act.
Plus they are all too involved in how the trick works, how tricky are the moves etc. They usually approach everything from their own point of view and not that of an audience's.

It all comes back to Showmanship & Presentation. And the bulk of the magic folk are not interersted in this, the keystone of performing.

Pace/Tempo have to be worked out in the planning & rehearsal stages & preferably when any decisions are arrived at, written down on paper, so you can 'see' in front of you, what you are AIMING at.
Then the trick/act are tried out in performance and returned to again & again, taking into account as many of your audiences' reactions as possible. Here the inquest begins and cuts, changes etc are made.

I used to advise young magicians to record the sound of their Act with an audience present. Then they can hear the reactions, and also their own pace/tempo of the patter.
ONLY after this did I suggest videoing performances. Otherwise we are back to the old magician thing:Looking not Listening.


FINALLY A great deal of the bad performances would disappear IF every magician would work on his Perfoming Personality.
As I have often said in my lectures( and others before me)=If you can get your audience to LIKE you, they will like Your Magic.

A 'Mentalist' in particular needs to be an actor and use Theatre's Techniques more than any other branch of Magic!
Allen Tipton

Allen Tipton wrote:A 'Mentalist' in particular needs to be an actor and use Theatre's Techniques more than any other branch of Magic!
Allen Tipton

My degree was in drama, and I've been involved with drama all my life. So I know where you are coming from and agree with you mostly.

However, why do you think a mentalist needs to be an actor more than any other branch of magic?

Surely it's all the same? A children's magician needs to 'act' that the die box is empty on that side, a coin magician needs to act that he has really put a coin in his left hand. Etc etc...

Why do you think mind reading require more theatrics than a card trick?

Principally because of 2 things:
1. The mentalist has few, or very often, no props, other than a notebook,
bits of paper a pen etc. Therefore he HAS to be more convincing.
Basically, the performer has only himself .
The old, traditional bare board and a passion.

In Theatre an actor does not play Farce in the same way as Kitchen
Sink drama, or Tragedy the same way as Comedy, and yes, Truth
is [u]needed in both genres, in more or lesser degrees.

And
2. With standard Magic the audience KNOWS 'This is 'respectable
cheating'; tricks, manipulation.They KNOW this is just entertainment.

BUT with Mentalism we are dealing with things of the mind, the psyche & they could possibly be 'real'. Often members of an audience have had some kind of psychic happenings/feelings.
We are playing to & with their minds more than to their eyes.

Allen Tipton

Very interesting thread. I don't have enough performing experience to make any valid comments, but I believe Phill Smith's Mitox (and no doubt numerous other mentalism books) discusses this subject in some detail.

Allen Tipton wrote:Principally because of 2 things:
1. The mentalist has few, or very often, no props, other than a notebook,
bits of paper a pen etc. Therefore he HAS to be more convincing.
Basically, the performer has only himself .
The old, traditional bare board and a passion.

I fail to see the difference between having some billets or a notebook to having a deck of cards and 4 coins...

Allen Tipton wrote: In Theatre an actor does not play Farce in the same way as Kitchen
Sink drama, or Tragedy the same way as Comedy, and yes, Truth
is [u]needed in both genres, in more or lesser degrees.

Well, in my theatrical training I wasn't taught to play farce differently to a tradgedy. It's the same skills, the same acting, projection, the same pacing skills etc.

How do you mean they are different?

[quote="Allen Tipton"]
And
2. With standard Magic the audience KNOWS 'This is 'respectable
cheating'; tricks, manipulation.They KNOW this is just entertainment.

BUT with Mentalism we are dealing with things of the mind, the psyche & they could possibly be 'real'. Often members of an audience have had some kind of psychic happenings/feelings.
We are playing to & with their minds more than to their eyes.[quote="Allen Tipton"]

I have to disagree with you here. I find that I play to a spec's mind if I am doing cards across or boon work.

Things like linguistic tricks to make them forget I handled the cards at all during cards across etc.

Both performances have a character, a script, timing, pacing, and I certainly don't view the card magic as less theatrical.

Interesting discussion though.