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twiztedmusky New user 63 Posts |
I was just wondering wat other people do to divert attention. I do a trick and the audience (mostly people) and they are fixated at my hands moving or anything like that. I look up to talk but they do not follow they are intent on looking at my hands. Give me some tips please! THANK YOU!
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HuronLow Special user 689 Posts |
Hey twiztedmusky.
I feel that the audience look where you look, and when they are burning your hands, they expect you to do something. So by giving a great upward or sideways movement by gesturing and looking at your hand and talking saying things like ' i'll get some invisible powder from THERE', you could get them to look where you want them to look. If they are still burning your hands, drop both hands or use them to start gesturing while u talk and look up. Another thing is to ask them a question,usually they'll look up. OR say like 'haha,not keeping your eyes off the deck are ya? Most of the time they'll laugh and look up and boom, you're done. You could also just pause. Just keep quiet for an unusually long time,they'll wonder what' up a they expect you to do something, then look up to see what's with u, then while your hands do the dirty work, just go 'Gotcha there didn't i?'. A mysterious way to do it with a really hot chick which kills two birds with one stone is to go 'don't worry, i know exactly where your card is... just concentrate, focus, look into my eyes...' You get the point. =p While explaining something, step one step back and start explaining things,they should look up. Stuff like that works for me, I hope they do for you too. And if they really wanna burn ur hands when you wanna do a pass or something and all else fails, do it REALLY close to their eyes. Hehe... Hope this helps a bit. Just play around with it. Practice Hard! Cya
The T&R Project.
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Logan Inner circle 2290 Posts |
Hey Huron buddy!
Hehehe, I like your tip on the hot chick, thanx man! I also find that by lightly touching their shoulder, they will look at you - try to capture their gaze by answering a question or possibly crack a joke. Math questions are the best, because they will automatically think abt their eyes look up for just a second! I'm not sure why, even the easiest of math questions will yield these results! Anyway, good luck on your misidrection - it takes practice and skill to get this right as well! All the best, Logan
You've been hit by, you've been struck by, a smooth criminal.
Singapore's Hairiest Corporate Comedy Magician! |
MisterE21 Elite user Salt Lake City, UT 426 Posts |
I still have to stand by and old..well...stand by. Using a person's name does wonders, in my experience. This is even true of friends and family, who are certainly burning my hands...just because I'm related to apes and other zoo-like creatures with no manners...whoops, that was offensive to the animals...
Sorry about the digression. Misdirection comes, probably more than anything else in magic, with experience. Try using their name.. "Bob, you remember your card right?" "Now, Steve, I know what you're thinking..." "Susan, whatever you do, DON'T take your eyes off my hands." The moment you say their name, they come to attention....and BANG you do it... E
Your EFFECT is only as good as its AFFECT.
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Paul Sherman Inner circle Arlington, VA 1511 Posts |
You can't just look an audience member in the eye and expect him to look back at you. In fact, he may suspect that you're TRYING to make him look away from your hands.
You have to train audience members to look you in the eye and you do that by looking them in the eyes early and often. Look at the cards when it's necessary to look at them for some sort of manipulation (e.g. if you don't look at a deck during the beginning of a tabled shuffle you might not get the cards to weave, looking is necessary then). If your audience is used to looking you in the eye and subconsiously associates it with innocent action on your part, then your biggest hurdle has been overcome. Check out Tommy Wonder's thoughts on misdirection in regards to asking questions (Book of Wonders, Vol. 1). He explains why it might not always have the effect you want it to have. Paul
"The finished card expert considers nothing too trivial that in any way contributes to his success..." Erdnase
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Pablo Tejero Inner circle Zaragoza, SPAIN 1201 Posts |
My best advice about this: practice your effects a lot. Practice them to do them with your eyes closed.
Then play them to people. If you dominate so much the effect, you will give people the image that you always control the situation. You will never fail, so you dominate the situation so well, that people will under a magical ambient. They won´t be looking at your hands, then they will only try to enjoy your magic. All the best magic, Pablo Tejero
"The Magic is in the air, you just have to... breathe it!"
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david walsh Regular user Bonnie Scotland 183 Posts |
The key to misdirection is understanding that you must make wherever you want them to look more interesting than where ever you want them to look away from. They must want to look where you want them to.
When you look back at what you are doing you will more than likely notice that this hand burning happens at the same time in the same effects. Get a step ahead, find something interesting and relevant to occupy their mind, introduce it just before the hand burning moment usually happens. If you already have a presentation in mind make sure the interesting thing fits, if it appears out of place it will be obvious. If you have no presentation in mind one could be built around this point. If on the other hand you find they are burning your hands from start to finish, you must take in mind what Paul has already mentioned. Get them interested early, get them interested in you and what you are saying as much as they are interested in your hands and what they are doing, the way to do this is by doing nothing with your hands early on. This will induce lots of eye contact and lots of interest in what you have to say. When you start to do stuff with your hands they will become naturally interested anyway (you have found this out already eh!). In doing this you can diveret attention between you and your hands very easily. If you want them to look at your hands you just do something interesting (and relevant) with the cards/coins etc. If you don't want them to look at your hands you bring the interest back to you or your story where it started in the first place. It also helps to realise that you are not misdirecting or directing their eyes, you are directing their mind to the point that it knows where to look. hand movements alone will drag their eyes in certain directions, with out good reason the mind will realise it has been conned and has carried out an un-voluntry action. If you give the mind good reason to move their eyes it becomes a voluntry action and is not suspected. Sometimes this reasoning is backed up with a hand movment such as pointing or a gesture, due to the reasoning the physical drag is not noticed, this is useful when the reasoning is subtle.
David.
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Boxav8r New user New England 58 Posts |
Here's a long way to get to where you want to go, but when you get there you'll really enjoy it. Pick up a copy of Fitzke's Magic by Misdirection. I think it's the 3d in his trilogy, but truly an authoritative work on the subject of misdirection.
You'll be a better performer for it if you read it! You'll be astounded at the stuff you can do right under people's noses... I still can't believe the shenanigan's I get away with now! Best of Luck, Pete
Will anyone who believes in telekenesis please raise my hand?
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Chris Berry Special user 831 Posts |
Twisted, you're getting some great advice from people here. I suggest you read, then re-read it.
Especially what Pablo said: Quote:
My best advice about this: practice your effects a lot. Practice them to do them with your eyes closed. That is one of the KEY elements. Once you are able to do effects without thinking about the next move you can focus your attention ON the audience. Like Aaron Fisher said in his book on the last page. He was talking about Ramsey and about Focus. Focus is giving your FULL attention to the people. Not acting like you are but ACTUALLY doing it. Once you get the effects down 1000000000% then you are ready to work WITH your audience. Doug Brewer gave me this advice when I asked him about working in restaurants, "be sure you don't talk AT your audience, talk TO them." Very important. The more natural you are and the more you work WITH them, the more you gain their trust and you then have control over them. Another critical thing is TIMING Make sure you know when you can do a slieght. I'll use Palming as an example. I never thought I could 'get away' with it. (don't ever think you can get away with palming) I found out that there are certain time during a performance where you have the perfect opportunity to do sleights. Palming being one of them. When I performed Eddie Fecther's Be Honest What Is It? (a.k.a. 2 Card Monte) I wanted to palm off the Aces (as shown by Paul Gertner in the video Secret Sessions.) I never thought it would work for me until I found the one special moment in the performance where the audience is caught up in the trick you can palm without fear (almost!) Timing is extremely critical. All to often magicians (including myself) want to rush through effects and we try to hard. This makes for terrible performances and 'bad magic.' We don't spend enough time working on a trick and we rush through it thinking more of the trick and less of who we are performing for. Don't rush effects. If your hands are being burned don't rush, take your time and make some small talk. Get to know your audience. ACTUALLY get to know them. The performance will be more intimate and you seem like you CARE about them, not "look at me and what I can do." that's all I have to say. I'm know there is better advice out there. I'm just a no name kid from California! Chris |
debaser Special user Boulder 557 Posts |
Another thing to think about is your guilt. If you feel guilt about the sleight they will sense that and watch.
I would recommend buying kurtz' "leading with your head" I feel that it is more accessible and to the point than Fritzke's work. Matt |
crashfreze Regular user columbia, sc 114 Posts |
Doc Eason had a GREAT tip on one of his Bar Magic tapes regarding someone burning you. He said the best thing to do is ask the guy BESIDE him a question. He said unconciously the guy will briefly glimpse at the person beside him out of curiosity. I found that to be a good tip.
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Neil Elite user 486 Posts |
Card College 2 has some great advice on misdirection - about as much as you can get from a book. The rest is experience. Unfortuntately it's the sort of thing you can't practice all that effectively by yourself.
I think one should think about controlling attention rather than misdirecting. People can only look in one direction at once and, as long as a routine is moving on nicely, they can only concentrate on one thing at a time as well. It is a simple matter to analyse the trick you are performing in terms of where the attention should be and make sure your movements, gaze and patter reinforce this. If you want to place a stolen card in your breast pocket it is quite possible to do this by spreading the cards in front of them having already established a physical and psychological motivation to do so. Saying stuff like, "if you look at the card on the table you will see that..." works brilliantly. Derren Browns's Devil's Picturebook has a couple of routines with some very strong directive control which have inspired me to get away with a lot more than I had deemed possible in the past. Might be worth checking out. |
cmwalden Regular user Cedar Park, TX 150 Posts |
Everything that people have said here is good advice. The only thing I will add is that you shouldn't be in such a hurry when you're doing effects. When you're having close contact with you're audience you can take some time before you do the sleight.
Take a moment to recap what you've done so far. Take some time to connect with the audience. Take some time. Then, at a relaxed moment, do it.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
- William Shakespeare |
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