talkmagic.co.uk

It's about engaging and entertaining people. That's where things can become dated.

OMG - everyone at the magic club I occasionally go to seems to be stuck in the school of lets do all of Tommy Cooper's and Paul Daniels' jokes - argh!!!

Regards the googling.
I never name the trick, not for this reason, but because it's not necessary
"I'll now show you a trick called ... " - who cares?
I know a guy who does this on every trick, and it's blatently amateurish, longwinded and boring.

If someone told me they were going to google a trick, I would say,
"Ok, if you want to, good luck with that." - I imagine it happens so rarely to become a problem.

My magic is about engaging people on a level that goes beyond tricks and puzzles, so I'm hoping for 99% of people it's not even going to cross their mind to research how to work it out. Yes, some people ask 'how did you do that?' but most of the time they don't actually want to know, they are just asking because they feel they have to say something.
my answer is always, 'did you enjoy it?'
they say, 'yes'
I say, 'thank you' and then we carry on as if they never even asked it.

I really don't think there's anything wrong with what that lad asked. If anything it shows that you really amazed him with your tricks and provided enough astonishment to prompt him to actually be interested in the workings.

Isn't this how we all got into magic in the first place? Like others have said there's no purpose or point in revealing the name of a trick.

Also Re Google... I think it's a fantastic resource and I've even used it myself in furthering my magic studies or when I want to find out a bit more about a certain sleight I can't find in a book. It would certainly take effort to find anything.

Even if he does stumble upon the method , I wouldn't see it as exposure, it's not your fault he found it- that's just the nature of the internet I'm afraid. Instead you may have inspired a new magician!

Anyway everybody should be doing their own version of routines and patter to best disguise and differentiate such a simple trick as something entirely different.

It's a little bit of a funny line to walk on arguing this topic. Like it was just said, being interested in how a trick is done is probably how 90% of us got into performing magic. I know that's how it happened for me. So it's not a bad thing he asked. I did also read in another post on this topic that you should have found out if it was just that he had to know how that one was done, or if he has had a fairly long interest in tricks, but has never really had the chance to speak to s magician personally, and just doesn't know that that's not the way to go about it. In that situation, I think that pointing him in the direction of a basic magic starter book would be the best idea, that way, even if he buys it, it's not like he'll learn any major slights, and definatly not any tricks that people would have just performed.

As for the whole internet and google thing, I do think that it's a danger in many ways to the secrets. I've sometimes looked on youtube at performances of certain trick, to see how others do present them, and some of these teenagers are just terible, they might as well have tagged it as revealed. I think that the best way to stop exposure on the internet is for the kids to stop videoing themselfs in their bedrooms five minutes after they've learned a new effect, or atleast having the sense to not upload it. I don't think that google is really a threat yet. I mean, even if you did find out the name of an effect, out of the billions of found results, the number of ones that are revealing how it's done will be tiny, most will be shops selling the effect.

Anyway, that's what I think. I do like what was said earlier though, that if someone does find out, or have a jist of how your effect was done, just say "that the old way", if they're bugged by the need to know, that will eat them up inside.

Simple :

Don't do the same old off-the-peg stuff everyone else does, use harder to find effects that would be impossible to locate with a Google search

Or:

Use patter which becomes the storyline or backbone of the effect. If this is ingrained enough they will search for words you used in your dialogue which will lead them away from the actual effect.

Astonishingly people DO state the names of the effect in their performances.
I have heard "Now I'm going to perform _______ by ________" on a number of occasions.

I think that's a bit of a harsh response don't you, it kind of sounds like you're looking down at the other people who've commented on this topic. How do you know that people here aren't performing effects that aren't your run of the mill, or are even personal creations?

Saying that people should look for harder material to perform and to work on presentation still won't stop people from finding things out though if they're persistant enough, ok, well maybe not the exact methods used, but they would still find out far too much in the searching proces.

The internet is taking away the mysteries of the world, and I think that's a good thing, knowing more about the world helps people make better decitions, however, I do know that for us in the magical trade, it does mean we've got to work harder. Who knows, this may push magic into some great new areas, being forced to progress. Maybe it's not a bad thing some of the classics are being put out in the open. Makes room for some new classics.

Not harsh, many magicians live in their own little bubble and take laymen for fools plus they also come across as show-offy one-uppers which encourages the "catch you out responses".
I have seen many magicians do the same old stuff ("Look! It's come to the top again! That's why it's the most ambitious card in the deck!" and so on) and wonder why people are bored/challenged by it.

Sorry to slap you in the face with reality, but if more people worked on originality rather than taking something wholesale from a book or DVD they'd have less to worry about.

I agree with Lord F. I also disagree that beginner books don't teach major sleights. Futhermore, Freddy was not suggesting that the methods had to be harder. He was proposing original presentations.

Just to give an example, on another forum someone said a spec asked them to repeat a mentalism effect and referred to it as the "wallet trick". Obviously the focus was on the wallet rather than the effect itself which means the spec could search on google for "wallet tricks" and may be led to it rather than the more ambiguous "mind reading trick".

Avoid cliched effects and poor presentation and you'll be fine.

As the OP of this thread my opinions have changed and I don't worry about exposure too much anymore to be honest.My brothers girlfriend did however wiki the coinvexed routine I did for her recently.''How to bend a signed coin'' is typed in and sites explaining devices etc are found.

Now even if she stumbles across the wrong method it doesn't matter.As long as she thinks she knows then the magic is no longer there.Nothing we can do.I don't like performing for people who don't just enjoy it for what it is anyways.

This very thing is the how i got into magic in the first place, i saw a trick when i was younger which still to this day confuses the hell out of me and that is why i started magic i wanted to learn more about the mystery i saw from that magician, and yes to a certain extent learning magic does ruin magic but at the same time it opens your eyes to a whole new world of possibilities, someone earlier commented on jugglers not naming their tricks, nor dancers and thats because in juggling thats not important you can google how to do a trick till your blue in the face if you cant juggle you cant do it... fact, i think thats the problem we have with magic as a whole is even if your not amazing with a pack of cards or the quickest hand in the world you can still perform (badly as it may be) the tricks to a certain extent. looking back at some of my early performances when i was in school even from several months ago i can see if it wasnt for developing your own method for tricks and trying to take peoples focus off the actual trick as such by moulding a story into the entire routine so that for the whole 5-10 minutes you are with that person the 6-7 tricks you perform all seem one trick to them, then if they google the story they will get nothing if they google "the entire trick" they will get nothing thats they method i tend to use and its worked so far i did my first real street performance about a week ago on this guy that a friend of mine knew and he is still ringing him asking him how i did what i did, hes tried to google it and found nothing because hes trying to find 5 tricks at once. sorry for the essay just my views on the subject. oh and if anyone fancies trying to help me find out how that trick that confuses me to this day is done please inbox me.

Presentation is everything.
Think about it...how the he77 is the spectator going to Google "...I shuffled and cut the deck of cards, and then he took my watch, yes my goddamned WATCH for Heaven's sake, and used it his divination skills to feel in the deck where the card was, I mean, it was like a PENDULUM the way the watch shook over my card, well, shook the most, because it did shake over the others because I had touched them too. Incredible...That was WEIRD man, not sure I;m EVER going to wear that watch again!...The cards were all mixed up, AND shuffled AND cut....that was sooooo spooky man AND he was dressed in black too!!!!"

Alternatively you could just tell them it's a self-worker by Giobbi/Paul Gordon, and let the Internet take away the magic in about 5 minutes flat.

PRESENT IT - do not "do it". I find the only people that worry about this sort of thing are the ones that "do" tricks. The ones who have moved up a level, to the realms of "performance" seldom need to care about exposure or "trick seeking". Perform the magic so it affects people's emotions, not in the "brain", then it ceases to be a "puzzle", and becomes a "magical emotional experience". Put the psychological focus onto the watch, which turns the cards into just the tool for demonstrating the evil powers you have.

Bruce

Don't do tricks. Perform magic instead.

Mandrake wrote:Don't do tricks. Perform magic instead.

Best. TM post. Ever.

TheStoner wrote:

Mandrake wrote:Don't do tricks. Perform magic instead.

Best. TM post. Ever.

Agreed. Sig quotes all round!

I try my best to avoid the word "trick" when asking people if they'd like to see some magic. At times I've even fallen back on David Blaine's famous presentation of "Hey, you wanna see something cool?"

Although I'm far from experienced (I mostly perform to family and co-workers) I've found that even a little bit of presentation can change the name of the trick in the heads of the audience, simply by adjusting what they think is the key point of it.

One time however I did a trick with sponge rabbits for someone visiting from the states and she was absolutely certain that it was some kind of mechanism of the spongey rabbits, but wanted to know more details so that she could perform it for her daughters.

I was still getting my head around the paradox of magical secrets (you can't tell anyone, but someone told you)

I told her the trade name I bought the routine under and then the next day decided to dissuade her from googling I sent her a link to a place selling it, figuring that if she invested a few dollars in it, she'd be more likely to keep it a secret herself.

I'm still in a bit of moral turmoil over whether I did the right thing that day but it's hard to sort the people who "just have to know" from those who are genuinely interested in learning to perform.

-Stacy