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Edward Cutting New user I only have a measly 42 Posts |
Hello there,
I haven't been posting much as I've been quite busy with my studies. However, in my free time I've began putting together a stage show, approximately one hour in length. I've sketched out the show script and the pacing and the effects but I am missing the final piece of the puzzle and I wish to ask for your collective knowledge to point me in the correct direction. The final effect of the show is, in short, a prediction of everything that has happened in the show. The idea is that there is a box onstage throughout the show and, n the end, it is opened and contains a sheet of paper for each effect predicting the outcome. I know several methods of doing this... but very few meet the restrictions/requirements I need. This is to be a one man show; there is a period of 5 minutes in the "story" of the final effect where I am not onstage and thus can partake in any chicanery required; the effect should pack as small as the box itself, if possible (which is about 30"x30"x15"). Any pointers in a helpful direction would be much appreciated, Edward Cutting |
Sven Rygh Inner circle Oslo, Norway. 1945 Posts |
Why a box??
Would an envelope do? In case, Chuck Hickok is the gentleman you should see. Sven
WWW.SVENRYGH.NO
"Keep it as simple as possible, - but no simpler" http://www.svenrygh.no/sven-rygh/presse/nrk-forst-og-sist/ http://www.svenrygh.no/video.html |
stashu Regular user 155 Posts |
Do you mean a box like the one Derren used on Evening of Wonders?
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parmenion Inner circle Switzerland/Zürich 3988 Posts |
Yes, Hickock is you man. besides it's a very good book ( the both )
“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.”
<BR>Oscar Wilde experimentaliste <br> <BR>Artist pickpocket Professional <BR> <BR>Looking for the best book test in French? send me a PM! |
Edward Cutting New user I only have a measly 42 Posts |
Thank you everyone,
I will look into Chuck Hickock's work. I guess an envelope would do.... it's even easier to carry in my show travel bag. So yes. Stashu, I haven't seen Evening of Wonders but I have heard that Derren uses a masterful prediction system that is very baffling. However, while he, being fabulously rich and famously devilish, might afford this method of prediction, I am but a starving student and can only dream of that method.... for now. Again, thank you all for your input. Have an excellent day, Edward Cutting |
scottybarnhart New user 81 Posts |
Hey Edward,
I am in the same boat as you (well, recent starving student and now starving volunteer and grad school prospect) in that I posted awhile back about this same topic (you might want to search for it). I picked up "Mentalism Inc." from Chuck and what he has isn't exactly what I'm looking for, but it will give you many ideas as to how you can achieve this effect. I read the whole thing cover to cover in a little less than two days and ended up getting from it a lot more than I went into it wanting. It's definitely worthwhile when it comes to constructing an act.
"Talent is luck. The important thing in life is courage." - Woody Allen, Manhattan
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Dick Christian Inner circle Northern Virginia (Metro DC) 2619 Posts |
While a strong prediction effect may well be a suitable "closer" you might want to consider whether what you are proposing (i.e., revealing that you have accurately predicted "everything that has happened in the show") might cross the line and be a prime example of the "too perfect" theory. Seems to me that the essential element of any performance of mentalism is that what the performer does must be perceived as something that MIGHT actually be real. Once that line is crossed by something that is just too good to be true, the effect is reduced to being perceived as simply "a trick" -- and that should be the LAST impression any self-respecting mentalist wants to create.
The tendency to forget the adage that "less is more" is IMO representative of the kind of "magical thinking" that all of us who come to mentalism from a background in magic can fall prey to. The result is that our desire to "improve" an already strong effect becomes self-defeating. To give you a perfect example from my own experience. In one of my early forays into mentalism I was hired to perform at a party held on the evening following the annual Army-Navy football game. The teams were pretty evenly matched that year. I had a locked strong box (prediction chest) delivered to the client weeks before my performance. For my closing effect, the host displayed the box, confirmed that it had been delivered to his home weeks earlier and, since he did not have the key, it had not been opened nor had it been tampered with. I handed him the key, which he used to open the box to reveal my typewritten prediction of the winning team, the final score and the score at half-time as well. If I had merely predicted the winning team and come close to predicting the point spread it would have been impressive. Instead, because of my attempt to make it better than that, a potential miracle was reduced to a simple trick and the only question in the minds of the audience was "how did he get that paper into the box." Do you want to be perceived as a mentalist or as a magician? Is your goal to impress them with your ability to predict the future, or just to make them wonder how you got your prediction into the box/envelope?
Dick Christian
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Edward Cutting New user I only have a measly 42 Posts |
Mr. Christian,
I do agree with your point, somewhat. However, in putting together the effects for the show, I must not only service the theories which make mentalism better, I must also be a slave to the story, or premise, of the show. In this particular case, the premise of the show is that it is really all a mass experiment and each effect is structured to not only feed into the next one but to create the stage and introduce the "conditions" for the final prediction; without these, I subtly explain, the final effect could never be performed. That final effect, in my mind, will not be impressive because I "predicted" the results of the other effects.... it will be impressive because, if I will have done my job correctly, the audience will be enthralled by how I supposedly achieved the effect. The fact that the effect is correct is meant to be merely the support for the greater story I am trying to tell. In terms of the age old question of "mentalist vs. magician," I have grown tired of trying to make that distinction simply because it seems to me to be useless. My background is rather varied, from theoretical physics to university stage productions to international jazz festivals to publishing editor, and, from my experience, there is one very important distinction between a good performer and a performer. A performer tries; they do whatever their craft is, and they try to do it well, or they just do it because they have to. A good performer is enchanting; regardless of their craft, the good performer holds the audience's imagination engaged and, for the duration of the show and possibly afterwards, transports them. Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, Anthony Quinn, as actors; Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin, as musicians; Picasso, Modigliani, as painters; Derren Brown, David Copperfield, as magicians; Tarkovsky, Kubrik, Scorsese, as directors; each one of these people always engage their craft fully. I've never seen a sometimes good, sometimes poor, sometimes okay performance from them; they are consistently excellent. As opposed to the mass of performers out there who, one night may be terrible and another night might shine. "Mentalists are just magicians with big egos," joked the owner of my local magic shop once. I tend to agree to a certain extent. We are, behind all the fancy explanation, behind the "last frontier of magic" type labels, behind all the pretext and false explanations, we are merely magicians. In fact, the bare bones of many of our effects would make for, in the collective view of the "magic community," **** poor magic tricks: a perfect example is Richard Ostelind's (I've just been rewatching those ETMMM dvd's again; pure gold on there) Tervil. What matters, in magic just like everywhere else, is how something is presented. At the end of the day, unless you're one of these rare entertainers whose performance is so electric and shockingly powerful that it can change people's views and beliefs, people who don't believe in psychics will think you're just a magician with a good show; people who believe in psychics will think you could be psychic at the end; people who are in the middle will be amazed but they will know that it is, in the end, a trick. There's people who believe David Blaine really did bite off a piece of that quarter; none of my colleagues in the physics department believed it, but they all enjoyed the show. All that matters is that what you're doing is a good show. If you present yourself as a mentalist, fine, I have nothing against it, but know that it is not you presenting yourself as a mentalist that defines, to the audience, what you are. Your actions do that. Therefore, if a picture perfect prediction makes sense and is justified within the central scheme of your show, then do it. If it doesn't, then don't. To close this mightly long response, I'd like to point to the top performer of our profession: Derren Brown. We know he's a magician. We know he's a mentalist. We know this. Some of the things he does we can spot, some are deviously devised to fool even some veteran eyes. And yet, do you not thoroughly enjoy his show? Does not everything he does make sense in the greater scheme of each of his shows. His entire persona, carefully thought out, like Max Maven, dictates what he is allowed to get dead on and what not. I've just seen Evening of Wonders on youtube and that first effect with the 20-Questions game; is that not... "highly unrealistic?" Guessing not that it was a ball, or that it was a football or a cricket ball or something but a rugby ball. Sure some people walk away thinking, "Yes, that's plausible, from those three questions and looking at the man's hands anyone well trained enough could tell it was a rugby ball." Or guessing the lady's object was a whip just by asking, "Is it bigger than a piano?" Was he perceived as a magician? I don't think so. What mattered was not his deadly accuracy, but the game, the game of 20 Questions played in a way people only dreamt of doing when they were children. It is the playing of this fantasy that covers up for the methodical details that might seem, in the face of many mentalist theories, to be too perfect. As for the others who replied... I've gotten a few private messages telling me the general idea of what Hickok's effect entailed and it doesn't really seem to fit what I had in mind. Thank you for your replies, however. I will continue to look for a way of doing the prediction, although, I might be building my own box contraption to use that will fit the bill just right. Making it look pretty enough for stage... well..... that's another tale for another time. Sincerely, Edward Cutting PS. I realize that may sound elitist, so I do just want to clarifly... I in no way consider myself to be a good performer: I try to improve all the time. I also in no way am attempting to insult anyone. These are just my view, posted, as others are wont to do, on these strange green forums. |
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