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greedoniz wrote:If I ever make sense then this is purely coincedental and I cannot take responsability for such rare occurences

Wooosh over my head

Just checked your myspace! Cool Youtube vid for Sci-fi AMAZING!!!

I'm personally not all that happy with it but it's all I have. My haunted deck (spooked) is sloppy at best, the bill switch midway borders on exposure and the fiber optic ropes is ok.
I had very little time to get all these and a few more routines down on to video and I was a little bit less experienced with some of the tricks then.

But thanks never-the-less.

greedoniz wrote:I'm personally not all that happy with it but it's all I have. My haunted deck (spooked) is sloppy at best, the bill switch midway borders on exposure and the fiber optic ropes is ok.
I had very little time to get all these and a few more routines down on to video and I was a little bit less experienced with some of the tricks then.

But thanks never-the-less.

No problems!! They looked good to me!

Hope my books have arrived tonight otherwise I'll be disapointed

This is from a write up that I did several years back. There are some argumentative points herein (like the fact that a DL can be done several times in a row or the incongruity of an ACR ending with card to impossible location), but, for the most part, it is a template for creating a routine.

Routine: A set of tricks put together in such a way that one flows into the next in a logical progression.

A good example of a routine is the ambitious card, where a specific card is burried in the deck several times in a row, yet always makes its way to the top of the deck in a magical fashion. The ambitious card normally ends with a finale, wherein the card is finally found to be in the magician's wallet, or some other unexpected place, away from the deck itself.

A proper routine should have a beginning, a middle and an end, much like a play or movie.

There are several theories on routining a magic effect. Some magicians feel that each independant trick should be equally as effective as the next (flat line), while others feel there should be "peaks and valleys," or that as the routine progresses one trick will not be as flashy as the next, which leads to another, lesser effect, topped even higher by the next. Yet others feel it should not have any valleys, but be more like a hill in which each effect is topped by the next all the way to the high point, which would be the finale. You must decide how you would like to go, which is to say a flat line, peaks and valleys or a hill when building your routine.

The Open: The first effect in a routine should grab the attention of the spectators. This effect should be flashy and visual, something to make them really want to continue to watch. Much as a movie or play, the opening is what will set the tone for the rest of the show.

As an example, we'll use the ambitious card. You open with a simple DL and drop the card into the middle. Immediately, the card has come back to the top. On it's own, it grabs the attention of the spectator because they have just witnessed something completely and utterly impossible. You now have their attention. If you stop here, you have an anti-climax, so you must do this again, but you must do it in a different fashion. This leads us to the middle of the routine.

The Middle: This is the area where you must decide whether you will use the flat line, the peaks and valleys or the hill. This is directly dependant on you and your style. My personal preference is peaks and valleys. However, to make this a routine, everything that comes next should have something to do with that card getting back to the top (still using the ambitious card example), no matter how many times you place it in the middle of the deck. Obviously, you cannot continue to use the DL method or your method will be quickly caught out by the spectators.

When routining the middle area, you should have 3, maybe four, independant tricks that are reminiscent of each other. Keep in mind that you can go overboard on routining. The important thing to remember is that you must continue to hold the spectator's attention and make them care about what you're doing. If you managed to grab their attention in your open, but you lose them in the middle, you've done both yourself and you spectators a grave injustice.

The flat line is the hardest in which to hold the spectator's attention with. Because each trick that follows in this routine is no greater or lesser than the last, it can easily become monotone in feel. As a result, it is of great import that you use equally strong magic throughout the routine. This presents the magician with a difficult challenge. In this way of routining you are going to find that your pesonality is the most important part of this style of a routine. You'll also find that with this style, you'll need better patter lines and more audience participation.

This style also requires you to maintain the tension that you started with in your open. The spectators will be required to continue to watch you closely as you will be offering them no chance to relax. There is no build to the finale, just a fusilade of magic. Again, the personality of the magician is the key to maintaining this kind of routine.

Peaks and valleys is much more like a play or movie. Using this style, you start with the flashy open which garners the attention and interests your spectators. You will now slow the pace, giving your audience a chance to relax. You will want to follow the open with something magical, but not as flashy as the open. In this, you draw the spectators into a sense of calm. You will now follow that with something even more impossible than the open, which immediately gains the attention back and builds the tension again. You follow this with an effect that is not as good as the previous, or a bit slower in pace but it should be a bit better than what you followed the open with.

In this way, you will make each valley a bit higher than the previous valley and each peak a bit higher than the previous peak. This leads up, of course, to the finale, which is the highest peak that ends the routine. The challenge when putting this kind of a routine together is that your idea of a valley and the spectator's idea of a valley may be two seperate things. As a result, you will be continuously revamping this routine to make it as powerful as it can be.

The hill is the way to go if you want to follow each previous trick in the effect with something even better. This is much like an action movie where the action just keeps building. Using this method, you do not allow your specatators any time to relax and you continue to build the tension ever higher. This can be a wild ride for the spectators!

The challenge here is to constantly top the previous trick in the routine. You start with a visual and flashy open to garner attention then you must go it one better and continue this pace throughout the routine. This will, of course, lead you to the finale in a fevered pitch and your finale better be awsome, or you will have a terrible anti-climax.

The Finale: This is the "icing on the cake." This is the heigth of your routine and should be the best and most impossible part of it. It should be the most visual of the entire experience. Falling back again to the ambitious card, this is where the card turns up in an impossible place, be it in your wallet, on your forehead or under your glass.

This is the most important part of the entire routine. If your finale is not sufficiently strong or visual, the entire routine will come off as mediocre. You must put a great deal of thought into your finale as this is what your entire routine will be judged by.

Mike.

I like to start with a basic routine, then add flourishes. They seem better if done as abuild up to a trick, eg. levitating a card to get it for a trick

jack1993jack wrote:I like to start with a basic routine, then add flourishes. They seem better if done as abuild up to a trick, eg. levitating a card to get it for a trick

But where does that basic routine come from? You have to have that to begin with, it has to come from somewhere.

As a build up? Levitating a card to start a routine...Well, that would be called "The Open" by some ("some" would include me).

Levitating the card gets attention right out of the gate. That's what you are looking for in the open of a routine.

There is nothing wrong with flourishes. Consider flourishes to be akin to salt. Nice if sprinkled throughout, but terrible if dumped on lavishly.

Mike.

Michael Jay wrote:This is from a write up that I did several years back. There are some argumentative points herein (like the fact that a DL can be done several times in a row or the incongruity of an ACR ending with card to impossible location), but, for the most part, it is a template for creating a routine.

Routine: A set of tricks put together in such a way that one flows into the next in a logical progression.

A good example of a routine is the ambitious card, where a specific card is burried in the deck several times in a row, yet always makes its way to the top of the deck in a magical fashion. The ambitious card normally ends with a finale, wherein the card is finally found to be in the magician's wallet, or some other unexpected place, away from the deck itself.

A proper routine should have a beginning, a middle and an end, much like a play or movie.

There are several theories on routining a magic effect. Some magicians feel that each independant trick should be equally as effective as the next (flat line), while others feel there should be "peaks and valleys," or that as the routine progresses one trick will not be as flashy as the next, which leads to another, lesser effect, topped even higher by the next. Yet others feel it should not have any valleys, but be more like a hill in which each effect is topped by the next all the way to the high point, which would be the finale. You must decide how you would like to go, which is to say a flat line, peaks and valleys or a hill when building your routine.

The Open: The first effect in a routine should grab the attention of the spectators. This effect should be flashy and visual, something to make them really want to continue to watch. Much as a movie or play, the opening is what will set the tone for the rest of the show.

As an example, we'll use the ambitious card. You open with a simple D/L and drop the card into the middle. Immediately, the card has come back to the top. On it's own, it grabs the attention of the spectator because they have just witnessed something completely and utterly impossible. You now have their attention. If you stop here, you have an anti-climax, so you must do this again, but you must do it in a different fashion. This leads us to the middle of the routine.

The Middle: This is the area where you must decide whether you will use the flat line, the peaks and valleys or the hill. This is directly dependant on you and your style. My personal preference is peaks and valleys. However, to make this a routine, everything that comes next should have something to do with that card getting back to the top (still using the ambitious card example), no matter how many times you place it in the middle of the deck. Obviously, you cannot continue to use the D/L method or your method will be quickly caught out by the spectators.

When routining the middle area, you should have 3, maybe four, independant tricks that are reminiscent of each other. Keep in mind that you can go overboard on routining. The important thing to remember is that you must continue to hold the spectator's attention and make them care about what you're doing. If you managed to grab their attention in your open, but you lose them in the middle, you've done both yourself and you spectators a grave injustice.

The flat line is the hardest in which to hold the spectator's attention with. Because each trick that follows in this routine is no greater or lesser than the last, it can easily become monotone in feel. As a result, it is of great import that you use equally strong magic throughout the routine. This presents the magician with a difficult challenge. In this way of routining you are going to find that your pesonality is the most important part of this style of a routine. You'll also find that with this style, you'll need better patter lines and more audience participation.

This style also requires you to maintain the tension that you started with in your open. The spectators will be required to continue to watch you closely as you will be offering them no chance to relax. There is no build to the finale, just a fusilade of magic. Again, the personality of the magician is the key to maintaining this kind of routine.

Peaks and valleys is much more like a play or movie. Using this style, you start with the flashy open which garners the attention and interests your spectators. You will now slow the pace, giving your audience a chance to relax. You will want to follow the open with something magical, but not as flashy as the open. In this, you draw the spectators into a sense of calm. You will now follow that with something even more impossible than the open, which immediately gains the attention back and builds the tension again. You follow this with an effect that is not as good as the previous, or a bit slower in pace but it should be a bit better than what you followed the open with.

In this way, you will make each valley a bit higher than the previous valley and each peak a bit higher than the previous peak. This leads up, of course, to the finale, which is the highest peak that ends the routine. The challenge when putting this kind of a routine together is that your idea of a valley and the spectator's idea of a valley may be two seperate things. As a result, you will be continuously revamping this routine to make it as powerful as it can be.

The hill is the way to go if you want to follow each previous trick in the effect with something even better. This is much like an action movie where the action just keeps building. Using this method, you do not allow your specatators any time to relax and you continue to build the tension ever higher. This can be a wild ride for the spectators!

The challenge here is to constantly top the previous trick in the routine. You start with a visual and flashy open to garner attention then you must go it one better and continue this pace throughout the routine. This will, of course, lead you to the finale in a fevered pitch and your finale better be awsome, or you will have a terrible anti-climax.

The Finale: This is the "icing on the cake." This is the heigth of your routine and should be the best and most impossible part of it. It should be the most visual of the entire experience. Falling back again to the ambitious card, this is where the card turns up in an impossible place, be it in your wallet, on your forehead or under your glass.

This is the most important part of the entire routine. If your finale is not sufficiently strong or visual, the entire routine will come off as mediocre. You must put a great deal of thought into your finale as this is what your entire routine will be judged by.

Mike.

Mike, thanks that was a good read! Lots to take in mind!!

I'll bookmark this thread for when I actually get round to sorting one.

One of the Tarbell books has an essay on routining.

Get hold of a copy of Michael Vincents' DVD 'Tapestry of Deception'.

Everything that you would need to know about putting together a performance that will take the breath of your audience away.

Based on his lecture, it's not to be missed!

http://www.magicofmagic.com/