From reading in the Café, I am getting a general sense of what is meant by "off beats" as it applies to misdirection, cup-loading, and so forth. Can someone suggest a place where the topic is dealt with in depth?

If you can, find a copy of Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz. I believe he talks about it quite a bit.

The basic concept, really, is to take advantage of unimportant moments in your routine and use them as your important moments.

Leading with your Head by Gary Kurtz is the booklet you want.

I know that kennedy, a regualr user in the Café and somebody I work with regularly is busy writing a book on his theories on the matter, it might be worth PMing him.

Actually, more than that, you should try to create off beats. Develop a rhythm in your presentation and then deliberately relax it - once the audience is lulled into your rhythm their mind and expectations tune to it subconsciously. Then you either perform the necessary on a point where you allow them to relax, or you hit them with a climax that is all the more suprising because it happens out of rhythm.

Paul Harris's tricks are often quite good examples of this, though I don't know how aware of it he was when writing. I suspect it happens on a more intuitive level of simply aiming for maximum suprise effect for most magicians.

Hi Liam!


Warning, this is a little pluggy, kinda!

Thanks, yeah I am in the process of scribing down a theory or seven around focus and misdirection through the eyes of a performer.

As my training background is in theatre I am very aware of space and "on" and "off" space and where the heat in a performance lies, so I thought I should write it down. so I'm busy breaking my back by sitting in a less than comfortable chair and workign on this and many other projects.

Chris Wood, I agree totally, through creating rhythm you can create off beats, however sometimes by breakign this flow to draw more attention to soemthing. This method is used in film and theatre alot, by changing somethign in the "mixture" you make it more potant.

Don' work to hard
Kennedy

A good example of using the "off-beat", is Paper Balls Over The Head.

Doug

This is an interesting question - because so much relies on the "off beat" moments, but not that much is written about creating those moments. There's no question that they have to be created as part of a routine - all the more difficult because they have to be natural.

Creating a moment of relaxation (or releasing tension) is just one of the ways that spectators can be misdirected. In 'Strong Magic', Darwin Ortiz suggests studying John Carney's performance in his video 'Close up and Far Away' in which he uses this technique. I haven't seen that tape, but I can highly reccommend Derren Brown's video 'The Devil's Picture Book' (mainly card magic) - he this exact method several times as a means of misdirection & does it superbly.

I suggest picking up Manuel Muerte's DvD called Done by Misdirection. It really is a wealth of information and amazing effects all done by misdirection totally amazing and worth the price !