A thought has been on my mind lately regarding Vernon's philosophy that "a great magic trick should be able to be explained in one or two sentences". Why then, is it that we see so much complex mentalism routines? Surely the philosophy must transfer over?

How many of your routines and effects can be explained in one or two sentences?

When I think of simplicity in mentalism I think of Looch. His material is always quick, to the point, and no fluff. I can easily recall and explain all of his effects on his DVD set, which in turn would allow me to easily explain to a third party what the effect was that took place.

However, I find within classic Corinda and many others, complex effects that involve mixing ESP cards around, count down to this...get rid of that..etc.

What are your thoughts?

Matthew

Vernon's statement applies to mentalism perfectly. There are far too many convoluted effects in mentalism. The ideal effects are those that are described in sentences like, "I thought of a word and he read my mind," "He told me the name of the pet I had when I was nine years old," etc.

But Vernon shouldn't be taken too literally here. He, for example, did complex effects himself BUT what was happening was always perfectly clear in the minds of his audience. His statement refers to the overall impression an audience is left with, not the details of the routine. It's about what the audience remembers. Do they say, "He read my mind," or "He did all kinds of stuff?"

I could probably write a book on this question. But wait...I did!

Very interesting post Mr.Cassidy.

Thank you.

granterg

Keep it simple and give' em something to remember you by.

IMO it is clarity that is most important, not simplicity.

It is possible to have a clumsily explained simple effect that loses the audience. Conversely you can have an elegantly structured and crystal clear effect that is complex but holds the audience and takes them on a journey.

It is easier to make the simple clear than the complex, but it is the clarity that is important. Just my thoughts of course, this is my personal approach.

Phill

Actually I seem to have just rewritten Bob's post. Sorry!

Phill

Just don't rewrite his book too!!

Vernon's assertion is an easy one to accept. It seems to be self evident once read and taken on board.

But then you go and see someone like Derren Brown and realise that while there's a fundamental truth to what Vernon says it might not be the whole picture.

Some of Derren's closing routines are incredibly complex and multi layered to the point where it becomes hard to reconstruct what the series of effects were that you've just seen. Describing what happened in one paragraph can be a struggle let alone one sentence.

BUT... these closing routines of Derrens are constructed, performed and choreographed so brilliantly that you simply get swept along with them with each different element being more astounding than the last. You might well lose track of what specifically happened throughout the whole routine but it doesn't feel like it matters in any way or that the impact is lessen. Each individual element or reveal makes sense and fits perfectly with it's frame of reference at that specific moment and this torrent of multilayered revelations carries the audience along in such a way that the audience is left feeling that they are experiencing truly grand theatre that is being played out both on the stage and in your mind.

One thing I've learned in mentalism, which goes to the heart of the Professor's rule, is that as far as possible, one effect should demonstrate only ONE mental ability. I see too many performances where different mental abilities get mixed up in the same effect, leading to clutter and confusion from the audience's perspective. Take, for example, the typical psychometry type of routine (a la Sneak thief), where the final reveal tends to be a DD. Entertaining as it is, without proper scripting, that final phase is "dissonant" because it leaps from psychometry to telepathy.

Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel prize winning economist / psychologist, has a great TED lecture titled "The riddle of experience vs memory" (see link below). In that he talks about how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive pleasant experiences differently, and how our "remembering selves" tend to override our "experiences selves". I highly recommend this lecture as it gives a real insight to us performers for creating memorable performances that will "stick" with the audiences, long after the applause had died out and the stage lights are turned off...

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman......ory.html

Cheers,
Apurva