talkmagic.co.uk

Well not mine personally, but i have noticed a few co-incidences from Time to time. debunking parapsychology comes to mind

So anyone chosen to drop an effect from their act so they didnt end up being the "oooo you do what Derren Brown does"

Wierd how so many want to perform the same, and i just wondered how many and what (if you dont mind sharing) you dropped after Derren or anyone had performed to the mass audience?..

F x

I really went off Derren after a while. I think it's a bit like people going off the Beatles. It's just over exposure and being told again and again "ooh, isn't Derren good?" Plus I got tired of people saying to me "So you're a bit like Derren Brown then?" Happily I really enjoyed the last DB event (Psychic Spy) which reaffirmed my faith in him a little bit. But even so I still die a little bit inside when people mention him to me when I'm working. Last night I got "Are you going to predict the lottery then, like Derren Brown?" Sigh. Smile through gritted teeth and say, "Ooh, that'd be nice wouldn't it?"

But no, never dropped anything because I've seen someone else doing it. Mainly because you only ever see my kind of stuff in horror films or on Most Haunted!

Over here in the states it would probably be people saying "oooh so your like the guy on The Mentalist? right." Which is abit silly seeing has how some people lack the ability to see that TV and Media can embellish the things that their characters do.

Normally it really shouldn't bother anybody, it's not like those TV celebs debunking Haunted houses or Psychics or even Mentalists, well really be remembered at all.

For some reason, i cringe whenever i watch DB lately. I have never been a massive fan but out of professional courtesy, i fully appreciate what he has done for Performer's in our country. I can also see the damaging effect it can have on some performers.
For me i try to re scipt, any dealer effects i do perform (which is getting rarer by the day) so hopefully i shouldnt be in that situation. I have worked with some performers, that get the " do that Derren Brown trick again"

read my post regarding the gig i did on Friday.

Rather than Derren Harming the act, his recent specials added to it, because they were asking me questions regarding how one effect worked, using Derrens techno Jargon.



And i just smiled and said.."Kind of "

An idea I'd been thinking of building a show around was the recreation of a variety of skills performed by a reknowned Soviet psychic, hanging it on a "this was just a cold war battle of bulltwang, each side trying to con the other into spending a fortune on futile research". It's lost its appeal recently.

But I think that that's the real danger - not individual effects, but whatever thematic hook you're using. If someone big uses the same hook, then that's the whole show gone. If you're doing it right, then individual effects oughtn't be so noticeably the same, and even if they are, they should have a different meaning within the show as a whole.

EDIT: In the interests of clarity, I have never done a show.

Thanks for the replies so far,

I must admit his upcoming you tube show of debunking para-psychology has me a little on edge, not knowing how much revealation he may be doing (real or pseudo) and how that will affect peoples perception of the stuff I do. It could go either way, i know that, but on edge a little just the same.

F x

No such thing as bad publicity! Hopefully it will generate more interest in your chosen field, and as with the youtube exposers, it never really affects things in the long (or even short) run.

it's not going to dammage anything.

people wanting to watch magic, went up with David Blaine doing close up on television, because they wanted to see it live.

So,if derren or anybody else goes on and debunks para-psychology , ( which to an extent he has already done in almost all of his shows in one form or another) You have to play along with peoples craving to see the stuff done live.

Its not as if your claiming to be a genuine psychic.. your using the para-psychology as a frame in order to present an evenings entertainment.

anyway.. Google shows that there are millions of debunk sites and publications out there already.

And Derrens made his money by performing para-psychological stunts, so he's not going to expose the really good stuff is he.

I've been away so haven't seen any of Derren's new shows yet but I don't think that he does any harm at all. If anything, I think that he probabaly does us more good but stiring up an interest in what we do.

I love listening to all the psycho-mumbo jumbo explainations that all the Derrenites come up with after my performances. Much better than, 'oh, that's a clever trick'.

Lady of Mystery wrote:I love listening to all the psycho-mumbo jumbo explainations that all the Derrenites come up with after my performances. Much better than, 'oh, that's a clever trick'.

My favourite so far is still the one for the lottery prediction. Apparently he taught himself how to write numbers on that strip of whiteboard so that they look curved around a sphere. Then he holds up the board and it looks like a line of six white balls with numbers on them. Simple.

When you're up against that kind of "exposure", I don't think you have to worry about logical debunking.

But, Robbie, you mean that's NOT how he did it?!

This sort of thing has been spoke about since the emergence of the masked magician, and probably before. In the case of Derren, unless you are touting yourself as a 'genuine' psychic i really dont think you should worry. There are always ways around this sort of thing and a little creative thinking is usually all thats needed. Personally i have never been put off doing effects in these circumstances. Sometimes small 'reveals' can actually be used to your advantage with a little thought

jim ferguson wrote: In the case of Derren, unless you are touting yourself as a 'genuine' psychic i really dont think you should worry.

I really don't see the psychic community quaking in their boots (and I do have my ear very close to the ground). Derren will be preaching to the choir in many ways, and at the very least it'll be a case of "for those that believe, no evidence is needed blah blah blah..."

the other thing worth remembering, is just how many times 3 card monte` has been exposed on television world wide.

And just how many millions of people still get ripped off by Monte` throwers every day.