Maximum Entertainment (Ken Weber)
Director's Notes for Magicians and Mentalists.
Available from : www.alakazam.co.uk and others
Price: £28.99
Category: Showmanship
Difficulty: N/A
Pages: 251
They say:
There are no tricks in this book, but it’s loaded with secrets!
The most important secrets- techniques for mastering your audience!
Product Details:
How to Be Your Own Director!
How to climb the Hierarchy of Mystery Entertainment!
How to target the "Big Three" Reactions!
Discover the Six Pillars of Entertainment Success!
Learn powerful tips for Scripting and Rehearsing, and Choosing the Most Powerful Material!
Discover invaluable Voice tricks and Language Skills!
Do you know the best way for magicians to be Funny? This book will show you!
Immensely practical tips on Sound and Lighting!
Find out what the most successful performers do Before, During, and even After every show!
Plus bonus chapters zeroing in on the special problems faced by Close-up magicians and Mentalists!
I say:
I bought this book at blackpool. after skimming through a few pages I was hooked and bought it there and then. I havn't stopped reading it since. I have hundreds of books on magic and show business and to be honest this is the first I have completely read from cover to cover. Not a single page missed. I'm about to reread it again with highlighter pen and pen and notepad in hand.
The information in this book is more crucial to performing magic than most of the information I have seen in any other book. If somebody follows all of Ken's advice in this book they will become a top notch professional or Semi-Professional. Thats not to say that what he says will be easy to follow. Hard work and dedication will be required, but this is the roadmap to your success.
The first thing you might find after reading this book is that you will not be buying as much new magic. If like me you are allways buying the latest book, gaff etc etc then buy this book. This book is worth probally all the money you have spent in the last year in the latest tricks.
Chapter 1:
Shows you what entertainment is and what magical entertainment is all about. You do want to entertain your public don't you ?
It compares magic to other forms of entertainment and shows some of the pitfalls magicians fall into when performing magic. Do you do tricks or create a magical moment.
This chapter sets the scene then carries on showing you how to get the best magical moment. Chapter after chapter on how to present to the best effect. Common mistakes magicians make. How to rectify them. This is interspersed with examples of professional magicians going off track - some of them using examples from DVDs you might own.
There are another 20 chapters including such things as Reactions, Entertainment success, scripting, choosing material, appearance and voice to name a just a few.
Its written in an easy style and I hope who ever buys this book enjoys it as much as I did.
Overall: 10 / 10 : Essential. Excellent through and through.
This book won't make you a top pro but if you want to be one will show you the road you need to take. There is no easy road to the top, but this shows you the best route with fewest pitfalls.
Alan
