talkmagic.co.uk

Hi guys,
I have a bit of a problem with some of the effects i use, i tend to be a believer in quality over quantity, so i only perform 5 or so effects.
The problem i have is if i get caught buy a spectator it tends to put me off the effect, an example being: reversal, i have been doing this for over 3 years with great success, i use a remote vision presentation and a borrowed mobile phone. I get really strong reactions with it, but in a space of a week two people were very close to working it out, even though there was no change to my presentation. Now i know you cant fool everybody but how do you gain back confidence when you have worked so hard on an effect to make it bulletproof. Maybe im a bit naive, has anyone else had this problem.
Cheers.

well, firstly if they caught you out, its not bulletproof. What you need to do therefore is look at what they caught you out doing, and fix that bit.
Secondly, just because one cleaver sod managed to work it out, doesnt mean that another one would. Just performing to anoher audience and getting away with it will tell you that you just had an off day.

No such thing as bulletproof in magic.
Learn something from your mistakes.
Understand getting caught is not the end of the world, (its only a magic trick not like punching in the wrong codes in the launch sequence of a missle testing facility).
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try it again, and don't forget to have fun.

Yup.

I saw someone figure out Out Of This World once...

Really? I had no idea how that was done when i first saw it - then when i learned it, i had no doubt everyone i showed it to would figure it out. So far, zip.

Did have a nasty experience yesterday when my fiancee saw a card i had apparently palmed - lucky for me ive had a cold all week - she asked if clutching my tissue was part of the trick.

I always carry some tricks were the dirty work is carried out right infront of the spec yet they don't see it, exactly for the ocassions you describe, it helps me do a mental reset.
if I am caught out or given a plausable yet wrong explanation, then I'll usualy say "you learnt it of utube too then"

Mr_Grue wrote:Yup.

I saw someone figure out Out Of This World once...

Funny you say that, because I never learned it from a book. I saw Daniels do it on his show, picked up a deck of cards, and within 10 minutes, i had worked it out..

daleshrimpton wrote:I saw Daniels do it on his show

In Churchill's bunker? I remember that...

Churchill was "befogged".

We are very good a beating ourselves up when things do not go right.

Review what you did.
Learn from it
then think of your best performance ever
get back on your bike and have fun

Most important enjoy your self

Nic

magicdiscoman wrote:if I am caught out or given a plausable yet wrong explanation, then I'll usualy say "you learnt it of utube too then"

see that's a mistake so many people make. when spectators think they figured out the trick, even with a totally wrong method, there no longer is magic in the minds of the spectator. they are convinced they know how it was done. you must try to leave them with no possible explanation at all in my opinion.

Aye - you can try pausing for a moment, then saying, "yes... I suppose that might work."

You'll always get someone who will try to work out what they have just witnessed. Often what they say is no more than a guess and sometimes that guess will be pretty close to how things actually work.

If that's the case then always deny it and they'll just keep guessing. It's not always an indication that your performance was off or the angle was wrong. You just sometimes get people like that.

Thanks for all your comments guys, i do tend to beat myself up when things go wrong, and to be honest i have only got burnt 3 or 4 times with my main core of effects, i just find it hard to shake off.

No pun intended, but do you think it's possible that on the times you were (almost) rumbled, you were 'phoning in' the performance? I find that audiences are much more likely to catch you out if you're just going through the motions rather than working the magic.

Pete