talkmagic.co.uk

I honestly do believe that Dynamo never visits this site anymore.

And who could blame him - I wouldnt like to visit a place where I was constantly being brought down. His manager is also a member and wrote a couple of posts a few months ago, so they obvously have a look here now and again.

jim

taffy wrote:I honestly do believe that Dynamo never visits this site anymore.

Jim is still right, though.
When I was in toastmasters (the public speaking organisation) we were trained to say three nice things about someone's performance, then three things they could improve (not three negative criticisms). It was good advice, which I forgot here.
So here's three nice things about Dynamo.
He does amazing stuff which people like.
He finds it easy to get the "How the hell did he do that?" reaction.
He has made magic cool among a certain sector (who might pay the rest of us to do magic.)
Here are two things I would like to see him work on.
I would like to see him concentrate more on patter and presentation.
I would like to see him do longer routines rather than single effect tricks.
I am still not a fan of Dynamo, but I enjoyed the hour and will watch again. Which is more than I can say about a heavily touted magic series from a few years back. But in keeping with what Jim says, I will not say who the presenters were. Tony

Thanks Tony. Constrictive critisism should be what we're about on here. Saying that in our opinion someone needs to work on certain aspects of their performance is far better than saying they're sh*te at this or that.

jim

The last two posts bring a very comforting feeling with them - constructive and helpful comments are what it's all about. I met Dynamo a few years ago at Blackpool and found him to be a very polite, friendly guy who was laid back about his skills almost to the point of being bashful. We can all knock performers for various reasons but let’s take a show of hands – how many of those knocking Dynamo have a TV show and a career which is blooming on both sides of the Atlantic? Thought so !

Mandrake wrote:We can all knock performers for various reasons but let’s take a show of hands – how many of those knocking Dynamo have a TV show and a career which is blooming on both sides of the Atlantic? Thought so !

Many, many people knocked Michael Jackson.

The world is a much emptier place with out him

I think this Dynamo guy is really cool, & I'm 53.

Good luck to the lad.

CArl...

I've not seen the show but just a comment on everyone talking about the "lack of personality", surely if that's the image that he wants for himself then that's his performing person? Correct me if im wrong here but isn't this persona when performing one of the first steps we do when working on a performance?

Just my input and probably not worth much due to my lack of performing experience, but this kind of persona is what seems to work around where I live, I find doing tricks and being very non chalant about it gets a bigger reaction, as if to suggest it's an every day thing, then POW they have their conceptions of physics itself blown apart.

Just my input

Justin

I am actually enjoying Dynamo, at least he isn't as up his own jacksie as Blaine.
I noticed that people say that the stuff he does is selfworking bought magic, well, I wish I knew where to get those tricks, they are pretty cool.

most magic dealers stock the items He uses.

I have not seen the show yet however laypeople I know rave about it.

I have not read the entire thread and expect somebody to already have said - Dynamo is entertaining people not other magicians. From what I hear he is doing a reasonably decent job, so fair play to him.

If magicians wish to criticise other (often more successful) magicians for what they are doing, they may need to consider whether they are missing a trick (sic) because as Mandrake has said, how many transatlantically successful magicians has the UK generated in the last 10 years?

I am not saying everyone should sell out and change who they are to be successful, if it's not what you do, then do not do it. Dynamo seems quite happy in what he is doing and he is successful because of it. Trying to appease the relatively small magic community rather than entertain your audience is a big mistake in any industry but entertainment especially.

I randomly bumped into Dynamo about 2 or 3 weeks ago in London at Davenports (I actually found the shop this time: it has a seedy feel from the outside), wearing that Louis Vuitton rucksack.

I'm particularly interested in the coins through table effect as well as the phone in glass bottle. Anyone know about them? I'm presuming that the effect where the spectator bites down on the folded card in the act of folding it up to give to her to bite onto involves a switch?

Whilst I applaud his choice of effects, as I'm sure with lots of magis here, watching clips of other magicians will inevitably prompt them to think that their own patter or style would be better, but it is personal preference ultimately. Whilst the lay public truly are fried in some clips, personally I like the flowery patter, which, without rambling, can still be as hard hitting and charming as a straight performance with little in the way of patter other than "watch!". Hats off to his success though, I suppose he is quite Blaine-like in that other than Colour Changing Shoelaces he has made a name for himself by using off-the-shelf effects interspersed with his own effects, which, I'd imagine, the majority of peeps here (inc myself) do. Arguably, therefore, Dynamo epitomises the ethos of a lot of magis here, but just happens to be high profile and is a celeb in himself. As long as it leaves the spectator with a moment of magic crystallised into their memory then it can only serve to promote magic.

It does show, though, that in terms of the lay public, sleight of hand mixed with gimmickry is a great combination, and lends itself to awesome reactions.

I finally caught up with this and I have to say I grew to like his persona (or lack of as some may say) by the end of the episode. Magic is always associated with being the love of the isolated, socially awkward kid but by the time they get professional, they've got the big personality and ego.

Dynamo comes across still as the guy who, despite success, is still on the outer and doesn't really fit it - like the kid who gets into magic to escape. I found it endearing.

I thought the Thames walk was overblown guff though. I preferred his close-up stuff.

Just got round to watching the first episode.

Am I right that Dynamo has changed his look slightly? He's carrying fewer 'rapper trappings' than I expected. On the downside, he now reminds me of a skinny David Blaine.

I understand where people are coming from regarding the guy's screen presence (or, perhaps, lack of it), but it does serve to give him an 'everyday guy' persona, which is much more disarming than that of a slick, RADA-trained thespian...

My only complaint with the show is the same one I have with almost all TV 'street magic' - the "no way is he/she an innocent bystander" complaint, the "that's not really the spectator's own belongings" complaint, and the "that's just the end of the trick - how much of the set-up did they cut out to make it look amazing" complaint.

That's not a criticism levelled at Dynamo himself - more a swipe at the whole genre. As soon as the Angels and Blaines cross a line, everyone else needs to do the same in order to keep up. And if the performers don't like it, the network and production company will find one that does.

Aside from that, I'm quite enjoying it.

Pete

Personally, I'm with the majority on here, I think this guy has a serious lack of carisma which really bugs me, along with the whole "wanna be gangsta" look he's sporting. I also think that the types of tricks he performs, and to me they are tricks, just seem to scream teenager on youtube who's brought everything. But, and of course it's a big one, he has managed to get his own tv which is more than a lot of us here can say.

He does seem to get the reactions for tv though. The only reason I knew of this was because I was waiting at the dentist recently, reading through a card book (my own of course), Anyway, a lady opposite me noticed that it was a "magic book", her words not mine. She said about this guy Dynamo, and how he was so amazing, I said I'd not heard of him, but now I wish I had, I could have said to the lady, that's cool, but if you really want to be amazed, search for any number of other magicians.

Basicly, he clearly is becoming the english version of David Blaine, let's just hope that that's as far as it goes, I'd rather people from other countries not think of this guy when they think of english magicians.

My little rant, but like I said, as much as I can pick holes like the rest of you, he has managed to find a fair bit of success, so good for him.

I like punk rock.

There are lots of punk rock fans that slag off Blink 182 and similar bands, because they're too mainstream, they're successful and they're not as good as their favourite underground band.

But thanks to those mediocre mainstream hacks, people are discovering punk(ish) music, and that's promting them to dig a bit deeper until they discover the really good underground gems.

I'm not calling Dynamo a hack by any means, but I think the metaphor still holds. Sure, you might like Tamariz more than Dynamo... But thanks to Dynamo, people are paying attention to magic, who otherwise might have dismissed it as being 'for kids'. And they might be prompted to dig deeper and find your faves...

Pete