talkmagic.co.uk

IAIN wrote:to be pedantic, you were sarcastic first - i just pointed out that you had missed my point...

"it DOES do people some good, whether by enlightening them to the beauty of illusion or showing them them the limits of their observatory/intellectual abilities. Both do the audience some good."

completely disagree - doing the first (beauty of illusion) i feel is at odds with itself, the beauty of illusion is the illusion itself, not the mechanics of it...that spoils the illusion...

and making people aware of their own limits in both observatory/intellectual capacities is nothing more than smugness and rudeness on the part of the entertainer doing the exposure...

"oh? you didnt stop to think that the truck might be weighted on the other side?"

if an effect is "too old", or "over used", just means that YOU should retire it from your act...and not have some kind of say-so over others and how they choose to work...

i found derren's exposure of pepper's ghost pretty damn poor on his science of scams show, absolutely no need, and i very much doubt anyone who wanted to get people to believe that a house was haunted - would have to go to so much trouble...just turn the lights out and let the house creak away and the people's minds twist it out of all proportion...

exposure is pointless...

Perhaps my choice of using PnT was unfair; I had assumed you were familiar with some of their lesser known works. I'll describe a few of their exposure bits that come to mind. Their stage show at the Rio incorporated at least 2 routines that exposed the technical methods behind them to the audience, but fooled the assistant on stage. The knife throwing bit demonstrated the limits of perception in a fascinating way. They recently added a bit that uses the change blindness concept to fool the on stage helper while exposing the concept to the audience. It's a fun bit and people walk away appreciating that their own perception is probably as susceptible to such deceptions as the person on stage.

Teller has, on multiple occasions, exposed spoon bending/breaking, sponge ball sleights, and even Miser's Dream to illustrate the psychological techniques used by psychics. I don't see how this is pointless.

The trunk escape I described perfectly illustrates the beauty of illusion. They do an escape that usually requires a cover without the cover and ask the audience to close their eyes momentarily. They also let them know that they may keep their eyes open if they wish to, though the illusion may be broken if they do so. This creates an internal conflict that leads some people to keep their eyes open and possibly be disappointed by the method. To those who appreciate the illusion, the escape is miraculous. The exposure has a point.

Their clear cups and balls routine also technically exposes the cups and balls routine, but they do it in such a way that people forget the technical details after a very short amount of time but retain the feeling of having been let behind the scenes. It's what they were going for, and I think the routine is done very well. And no magicians lose gigs because of it.


On the (off)topic of our respective first lines: your comment that I missed your point implied that it was my fault when, as far as I was concerned, I answered your question reasonably. No hard feelings.

i think my point has still been missed though

Maybe you can post a single line thesis statement. Slowly. Like. This. So. Even. I. Can. Understand?

Because I really can't see how I'm not addressing what your posting about...

there is no need for exposure...

if by exposing something, it doesnt stay in the watcher's mind for too long, then why bother?

no performer has the right to "out" an effect's method (unless its their own to out)- as i said before, if the performer personally feels something is past its sell by date - they do not need to expose anything; just move on and do what they do...good for them...

mental epic - some people are happy performing it in its original format, others like to use osterlind's version, or come up with their own (like i did) - but it doesnt give me the right to expose the old and original version...

to deviate a little, getting into the whole "exposing spoon bending and psychic techniques" will just open up a fresh can of worms - and will ultimately go nowhere...

no one has the right to expose anything...

and i think performers pick and choose what they expose, look at the derren vs peppers ghost example...he wouldnt be that happy if people talked and exposed the techniques he really uses would he...which would actually be ironic as some are also used by tv psychics...

so why doesnt he expose those ones?

Well, now we're going toward a different territory. You're attacking exposure for the sake of exposure or exposure without thought. I'm saying that not ALL exposure fits under this category since Penn and Teller (putting aside the counter-psychic stuff) use exposure in a way that I consider artistic. They use the exposure as a means to an end rather than as an end itself.

So if we can discuss whether or not a) all exposure fits the arguably negative/selfish kind you criticize or b) exposure can be used as an artistic means to a meaningful end, we can have an argument.

Now that that's clarified in my mind, I stick with my Penn and Teller example of the trunk escape and change blindness.

exposure may well be artistic and work for penn and teller, but what about all the other poor buggers who use those effects?

penn and teller are more than talented enough to entertain people without that exposure...

This thread has a similar feel to the 'Torrenting' one elsewhere in this section...

Yes, many people may feel that any sort of exposure is wrong (for all manner of reasons), whilst others may simply choose to accept that it's part of the world we in and move on.

Personally, I've never been negatively affected by a spec 'knowing' the method, as it's usually good form to have an alternate method ready for just such occasions. However, I appreciate that not every performer will be in this position (nor, indeed, will it be possible with every effect). However, I must concur with Tony's point elsewhere in the thread - I'd be surprised if many full time, working pro's really care about exposure. It would be interesting to get their perspective on what sort of effect it has had on their approach to their livelihood.

I once got caught out doing a force

I admitted defeat, promised to be more honest next time, and forced another card

Using the same force.

No, they didn't find out. I doubt they'll ever will. I just changed the handling ever so slightly

I feel exposure is bad for spectators in most circumstances. I believe most of them would feel incredibly disappointed at what was actually going on and be underwhelmed by the simplicity of it all.

The reason why Penn and Teller can get away with this is because their presentation is so energetic and engaging you still have no idea what's going on even when they tell you.

Their version of cup and balls is evidence enough of this.

When spectators know about forces or simple moves, then yes it's very frustrating to have them call out moves, as you're performing.

I think the key is to as has been said to be well practiced enough that those moves are invisble, and to have the performing experience to be able to control your spectators, to joke with them, and as Kolm said, if a force fails, say 'oh ok - and then force again.'

It's fair enough to say that you could do without that though.

It would be much better if it just worked the first time, surely. In which case why bother exposing? No-one really enjoys exposure, it just leads to a path of them wanting to know more and more, until eventually they get bored, and feel the need to use that knowledge for something, in most cases heckling.

I'm still surprised that some think its ok to expose a method - it doesnt matter if someone's a pro or not...the exposure thing actually becomes two different questions...

1) who benefits from exposure?
2) should you know more than one method of doing something, just in case someone may know "how you do it"?

exposure is the simple fact of telling people how something is done, and once exposure starts enough times, then it slowly floods into some public's knowledge...but can you name any?

and the reason why you should know a few methods of achieving the one thing, is purely because of exposure!

IAIN wrote:and the reason why you should know a few methods of achieving the one thing, is purely because of exposure!

I disagree. I think the reason it's a good idea to have several methods is exposure to a minor degree, but mainly because laypeople are intelligent. There are certain magic tricks that almost require repetition in order to have maximum impact. The ACR, for example. If you think exposure is the only reason we need a variety of methods at our disposal, the simple test would be to try to do 5 repetitions of the ACR for a spectator who has not seen any exposures of it with the exact same method (i.e. pass, DL, palm shift etc.) Odds are at some point, they'll catch on. However, if you have 5 different methods (and/or subtleties) to repeat the effect 5 times, the various hypotheses the layperson will think of with each repetition will be negated by a method that doesn't have the same limitations.

Another classic example is coins through table. Granted, the best version (the original Han Ping Chien) did not require repetition due to its scale, most versions these days have the coins going through one by one. This is done for dramatic effect, but also to have an opportunity to negate the spectators' hypotheses. I do a 3 rep coins thru table and I use 3 methods that completely cancel out each others flaws. This is why we have multiple methods.

I would like to know a bit more about Derren Browns an evening of wonders as I'm a starting out mentalist.
I would like to know if the box ever gets touched? How to get multiple answers on a clipboard without overlaying one another, also would like to know how to do a realy good oracle act, or where I should be looking to get the right reasorses?

sleightlycrazy wrote:

IAIN wrote:and the reason why you should know a few methods of achieving the one thing, is purely because of exposure!

I disagree. I think the reason it's a good idea to have several methods is exposure to a minor degree, but mainly because laypeople are intelligent. There are certain magic tricks that almost require repetition in order to have maximum impact. The ACR, for example. If you think exposure is the only reason we need a variety of methods at our disposal, the simple test would be to try to do 5 repetitions of the ACR for a spectator who has not seen any exposures of it with the exact same method (i.e. pass, DL, palm shift etc.) Odds are at some point, they'll catch on. However, if you have 5 different methods (and/or subtleties) to repeat the effect 5 times, the various hypotheses the layperson will think of with each repetition will be negated by a method that doesn't have the same limitations.

Another classic example is coins through table. Granted, the best version (the original Han Ping Chien) did not require repetition due to its scale, most versions these days have the coins going through one by one. This is done for dramatic effect, but also to have an opportunity to negate the spectators' hypotheses. I do a 3 rep coins thru table and I use 3 methods that completely cancel out each others flaws. This is why we have multiple methods.

as i said before, every method is/should be invisible...so the mechanics are unseen...the physicality of any effect will dictate the method used...

if it looks like (to the participant) that your left hand is empty and waves over the deck, it doesnt matter what method you are using to retain a coin in that same hand...to the participant your hand is empty...

there are many ways of retaining that coin, but the only one that should be used is the one that enables you to do the next stage in the cleanest and/or easiest way possible...