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funsway Inner circle old things in new ways - new things in old ways 9982 Posts |
Or, one might include fake flashes so that non magic people might buy a book to learn magic.
"the more one pretends at magic, the more awe and wonder will be found in real life." Arnold Furst
eBooks at https://www.lybrary.com/ken-muller-m-579928.html questions at ken@eversway.com |
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Dafedas B Regular user 199 Posts |
JassTan, it's case by case to be honest. If it's a micro flash, most times, I live with it. It also depends on the nature of the effect. If it's a "pure magic" piece, where the whole routine relies on one move that has to be perfect, obviously that would be wrong. But in that routine, which is a bit "fiddly", and more in my opinion in the field of prestidigitation than "pure magic", I think it's not the end of the world to have a micro flash.
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SmileAndNod Veteran user 316 Posts |
On flashing - I used to get frustrated a lot by flashing when recording videos so I figured I just wasn't good enough at the move, when this couldn't be further from the truth. The solution didn't come from more practice because that wasn't the actual issue. The issue was that I was putting myself in positions where flashing could occur for no reason. I didn't realize this until I started learning how to control attention through the teachings of Slydini and Tommy Wonder (and others of course). Trying to figure out how to pull attention away from the dirty hand I learned how to put my hands in natural positions at the side and squeezing the moment of moves into off beats. Not only does it make live spectators less likely to notice the moves (by directing their attention away from them) it minimizes the amount of time where flashing is possible. It's a lot easier to avoid flashing with the hand at the side with a coin in finger palm naturally resting against the body.
Body language is so incredibly important in coin magic in unexpected ways. After so long of being frustrated by lack of progress in coin magic, I finally learned that I was just approaching it from the wrong direction. |
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Dafedas B Regular user 199 Posts |
Smile and Nod. 100%. It's not just the practice, but also the right practice. The approach that should be taken also varies slightly on the type of material. Body language, shoulders relaxation, frame, "eye work" and event flow management are of course capital.
In my youtube vids, I purposely don't talk and often don't show my face for various reasons, so people only get 50% of the whole work. But I do put extra attention, effort and thinking into those believe me. Allow me to slightly disagree, or at least add nuance to your statement "directing their attention away from them". It sometimes the right thing to do ( depends on type of material, style, desired effect, and other multiple parameters ), but not always. I think that sometimes magicians "over misdirect" their audience. Those might feel ( even subconsciously ) having missed something important. As we have the same references ( amongst many others I'm sure ) with Wonder and Slydini, remember what Wonder was saying on his Misdirection chapter. Misdirection is too often used to paste/fix weaknesses in the handling. That's why I also love to develop material that can be performed ( or almost be performed ) without misdirection. Sharpening the handling until it is precise, open and "burnable". I still got a lot of work to do to achieve that, but that's what I'm aiming at. |
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SmileAndNod Veteran user 316 Posts |
> Misdirection is too often used to paste/fix weaknesses in the handling. That's why I also love to develop material that can be performed ( or almost be performed ) without misdirection. Sharpening the handling until it is precise, open and "burnable". I still got a lot of work to do to achieve that, but that's what I'm aiming at.
I couldn't disagree more with your conclusion. Tommy Wonder does talk about misdirection being misused when being applied as a bandaid to cover bad sleights, but the solution isn't to ignore misdirection (or direction as it should be called of course), the solution is to incorporate constant direction throughout the entire routine or, as Slydini would say, weaving it in as one strand in a cloth. The ultimate goal of misdirection isn't to make it hard for the spectators to figure out an effect, it's to make it easier for them to enjoy the effect. They shouldn't feel like they're missing anything because you are focusing their attention on what's important (while forcing them to subconsciously gloss over what's not important, mainly the method). Removing misdirection changes magic from an effect to a display of skill. I don't think it's possible to overuse misdirection. (You can misuse it though, of course). Reread Tommy Wonder's essay on the train of misdirection to see how he weaves and overlaps several types of misdirection to both strengthen the misdirection, and to allow different people to "hop on" if they miss one kind. Directing attention should be used as much (if not more) when you aren't doing anything suspicious to ensure the audience knows exactly what you want them to know. The same techniques used to make them look away from a dirty hand should be used to direct them towards a piece of information you want to convey. For instance, in a coins across routine instead of saying, "I have this many coins here and this many here" just direct their attention to the hands in turn, which also frees you up to do real patter instead of just descriptive. I believe Tommy Wonder and Slydini would both agree with me that purposefully omitting misdirection is a terrible idea. |
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Dafedas B Regular user 199 Posts |
Smile, I probably din't make myself clear, or you took what I meant to be applied in some cases as a general theory.
I couldn't agree more with everything you said above. |
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SmileAndNod Veteran user 316 Posts |
Quote:
On May 20, 2016, Dafedas B wrote: oh good! I was worried there. |
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jamo425 Loyal user 298 Posts |
Hey dafedasb, I'm not sure what kind of ring you are using but I might offer a suggestion that I found aids to ring and coin routines. Look into getting a "coin ring". They are rings made from an actual coin. They can be found in just about any silver coin style. WL's (what I have and use), kennedy, barber, morgan, peace. Eisenhower ect. If your interested, you can find coin ring dealers on ebay. What's nice is if the ring is made well, it still shows the pattern of whatever coin it was. They come in heads or tails side out, and best of all you can get them with or without patina.
I use my WL ring with my matching coins and although my ring and coin routine is much different from yours, I believe it would enhance any kind of ring and coin routine. I use it as almost a spellbound routine where the coin changes back and forth multiple times from the ring and it looks so much more "believable". The continuity between the matching color/patina really helps. Just a suggestion.. As far as the whole misdirection thing goes, my theory is similar to what apollo robbins said, that misdirection is more like trying to funnel their attention to a certain area. Or focus the spotlight if you will, where you want it to be. I know there are many magicians that don't really understand the concept of misdirection, or how to use it. Also, just as important, making sure it makes sense and looks NATURAL. In that sense, you can see how it can be misused and abused. I wouldn't go as far as to say misdirection should cover the weaknesses of a routine, and definitely not to cover bad moves. I believe every magician should chase perfection wi 0their sleights/moves. I say chase, because you should always strive to be better, nothing is perfect. Never settle.. I believe every magician must put the time in and practice so they have a strong foundation of sleight of hand. J1 I believe misdirection should be used to focus their attention to create a story for them. You use misdirection to subtly tell your spectator, "this is where you should be looking, this is what's important right now". They should be watching your routine almost like a movie, but your the director. So it's your job to know which scenes they are supposed to see and in what order. Using misdirection to cover weaknesses or bad sleights is like the camera man coming into a scene and the director(the magician) hoping you didn't see them. No, the camera man (weakness/poor sleight) should still be as hidden as possible, all while shining the spotlight on what they should be paying attention to. Magicians should know misdirection is not a cover for your mistakes, mostly because your misdirection, no matter how strong, is not always 100% fool proof. It is however, when used correctly, a very useful skill that should never be abused or taken for granted. It should always look natural and should make sense, otherwise people will notice a red flag about what your doing. In order to develop this skill though, you must first understand what it is and how to use it so you can properly put it into practice. -Jameson |
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funsway Inner circle old things in new ways - new things in old ways 9982 Posts |
I find it somewhat amusing to see "video presentation" and "misdirection" used in the same paragraph.
There are many fine thoughts offered above about the importance of misdirection (or directed focus) for good magic, but the original question is whether a demo of a technique on video might result in exposure. Does a "flash" of a coin during a live performance constitute exposure for "non magic people?" Since "flash" is one of the factors that makes coin effects popular vs other "small object" approaches, isn't "controlling the flash" a focus of study that cannot be aided by video snippets? Then again, all magic is misdirection away from mundane existence
"the more one pretends at magic, the more awe and wonder will be found in real life." Arnold Furst
eBooks at https://www.lybrary.com/ken-muller-m-579928.html questions at ken@eversway.com |
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ZachDavenport Inner circle Last time I posted I had one less than 1196 Posts |
Quote:
On May 21, 2016, funsway wrote: I've been misdirected on a video before. Its definitely possible.
Reality is a real killjoy.
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jamo425 Loyal user 298 Posts |
Ah yes I believe we may have gotten side tracked into the whole misdirection theory, using it properly, how people misuse it ect. My thoughts on the original question.. I'm not sure if flashing on video would result in "exposure", I don't know if I'd necessarily use that word for it. If they happen to catch the flash, which they may not, but if they do I think it may just result in ruining the magical moment for them.
It's difficult to put yourself in a laymens shoes after being the performer for so long. But I'd imagine if they caught the flash, say for example with a simple retention pass they might think more along the lines of, "oh I see, he didn't really put the coin in his hand". So when the transposition/vanish occurs, they of course will not be surprised. And though they might have seen the flash and know for instance that the coin is in the other hand... When I think exposure, I'd think more along the lines of executing something so poorly they're practically showing you how it's done. I don't think if you flashed a little, the spectator would think "oh ok, now I know how to do a retention pass". I guess what I'm trying to say is, if they see something flash, it's more like they caught you lying rather than them finding the actual truth. But it is definitely possible to be misdirected on video, I've seen many scenarios where I was fooled/misdirected the first time watching something. It wasn't until I watched it again that I caught what was really going on. Which is another problem with video, if your sleight of hand isn't on point, often times it can be easy to simply watch it again and reverse engineer the method. Also you have to consider that unless it's a blatent and obvious flash, they would have to know where or what to look out for to catch it. I don't think this is a clear cut black and white thing, depends what shade of grey we're talking about here. |
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