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stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
Tell the truth: how many of you have ever hired a director to watch your show?
I bet the number is smaller than it should be. Most of you know that I do not perform magic in public. I've got a show in mind, and my plan has always been to hire a director to work with me to create that show. That's just how I've always imagined it. I've never gotten around to it, and I'm not sure if I ever will. But I cannot imagine doing a show without having an expert critique it before I sell it. So fess up! How many of you have gone to a director to have your show critiqued. And for a real working pro with a fully-fleshed-out concept like Pop, if you haven't paid a director to give you a critique, why haven't you? What do you have to lose? |
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Brad Burt Inner circle 2675 Posts |
I've written on this recently. I have not used a director as such, but I have had professional friends critique my show. I HATED it. Period. Despite that I made approx. 50% of the changes suggested by the critique.
One thing I learned from the process was that it was healthy and helpful even though I hate it to this day. I also learned something that was even more valuable: You do NOT need to make a change at all points noted by those doing the critique!!! Thankfully I realized that I was not some clay golem that could not take what was said and then THINK it over and make a decision based on what both they thought and I thought about what they thought. I mean really...what if they are wrong? In about half the instances I decided upon analysis, lengthy by the way, that they really were correct and I strove to make changes consistent with what I was told. In about half the instances I decided that they had got it wrong. But, I will tell you this: I spent more time thinking about those particular insights than the others!!! And, it was of immense value in the overall construction of what I was doing. Confirmation either internal or external can be very valuable. Best,
Brad Burt
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Michael Kamen Inner circle Oakland, CA 1315 Posts |
I think Brad's points are well taken. In my experience, amateurs and even budding but poor professional hopefuls, will opt for critique by trusted magician peer, mentor, or teacher, and theater friends with whose paths we crossed. Ya just gotta seek talented buddies.
Hiring a director would be a desirable option if the resources are in place to make such a business expenditure (or indulgence).
Michael Kamen
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
A director can be invaluable. It is important that he understand your artistic goals, and what you are attempting to accomplish with your magic. You need to be able to articulate these in such a way that he can share and add to your vision.
One of the reasons theory is so valuable, is that I can communicate with my director easily about what the needs and goals of the magic are, and what thematic issues and staging issues might be significant to the magic. I think many of the big shows that have tried to combine magic and theater failed because they did not understand the inter-relationship between magic and theater correctly. The Magic Show, perhaps serrendipitously, did this very well by making Doug's performance of magic for an audience a part of the script. Pop tries to do the same thing, making his performance of magic and demonstrations of his technical devices all in real time. The entire variety show is in real time. There is no "once upon a time" story-telling. It is as if a troupe of medicine show performers from 1910, who had been in the 21st century a few years, took over the theater and put on a show--making money and selling medicine to survive here. Going in and out of that fourth wall too much can get tiring for the audience, and can seem jarring. Interrupting a story in order to demonstrate something in real time gets old quickly. Magic in story is often best as a special effect or transitional device. Great example was Ray Walston in Dam Yankees. As the devil, he made a cigarette appear in a flash of flame. He didn't do it like a magician, but effortlessly as he stood in thought about something else. In Dracula, the Count is thrown behind a sofa from where he suddenly leaps as a real live wolfe and runs off stage to end the scene. But care must be taken that the magic does not harm the story-telling. The director who allows a too convincing guillotine at the end of Tale of Two Cities, would have people yanked out of the story at its most important point, to wonder, "How did they do that? It looked like they really cut his head off!" |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
I am a director. I wear a berry and spectacles, sit back, put my feet up and give them the benefit of my advice. Which is, there is nothing more human than folly. I wonder how much I am owed as I did not know until now that they would pay me.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
If that was the only advice you had to give me as a director, Tommy, I am afraid you are fired...
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
On the babies bottom or the babies knee who would your director be?
If I had a director it would be: http://davidmamet.com/
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Michael Baker Eternal Order Near a river in the Midwest 11172 Posts |
Whit, it sounds like you are equal partners with your director in many ways. This sounds like one of the better arrangements.
Getting the once over by a talented eye would be very helpful, but should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. One of the problems with asking another magician to do so is all too apparent here on the Café. Egos get in the way. Instead of improving the act of another magician, very often we hear someone's thoughts on how THEY would do it. In doing so, their line of thinking transcends to visualizing themselves in the lead role, instead of augmenting the role of another performer. I think these are two completely different tasks being attempted. I think there are qualified directors, but I think they are not standing on every street corner that's boasting a director. There is a reason why not every director wins an Oscar, an Emmy, or a Tony. Most of these better directors would be outside the price range of most, if not all magicians. Some are good, but less heralded. Others are in the wrong business. Those who do work with magicians may have qualifications and communication skills, but there is always a risk that their abilities, once realized by a few magicians, will lock that director into a formula that works for them. Unfortunately, this could eventually lead to a similarity of product in directed acts. I'd imagine that could net a decent paycheck for the magician wannabe, but it probably doesn't do much toward encouraging uniqueness and diversity. Some of the greatest actors of all time have also taken on the role of director, and many of them have directed themselves in productions. It can be done, but as with the hiring of an outside director, it takes a talented individual to do any good.
~michael baker
The Magic Company |
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
My grandmother was a painter. Her husband, my grandfather was a builder and contractor who was born in a log cabin in Southwest Virginia and never got past the 8th grade. She would invite him to look at some new painting, and ask him what he thought. He hated this, as it always ended sort of the same way. He would look at the abstract painting, and then point to the corner and say, "I think it needs more red." She would get mad and shoo him out of the studio. After a while, in working on the painting, she would put a little triangle, or something right where he pointed and it did help the painting. She told me, "Don't take people's advice unless it rings true with you. But always look where they point carefully. They couldn't point to it if it was right."
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
If I could have a famous director, it would be Clint Eastwood. He always serves the story and the writer.
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
According to Egyptian magic a father never gives his son bad advice and I think it works. So I guess a father who was a good magician would make an ideal director for a son who wanted to follow his fathers footsteps. Some of the great actors families have been in the business for hundreds of years so I was reading the other day. Maybe that is not the same thing, I don't now.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
Tommy, my father urged me to get certified in computer punch cards or linotype so I would always have a good union job to fall back on if show business didn't work out...
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
That may have been the wrong advice but it was not bad advice as you well know son.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
The road to hell is paved with well-intended advice, Tommy...as you well know.
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
My thoughts echo Whit's and Michael's comments above. I've done some directorial consulting (or whatever the hell you want to call it) for others, and it's really difficult -- giving feedback is easy, but giving good feedback is hard, because you have to completely stifle your own willingness to set the goals. Getting the magician to listen to good feedback is equally difficult, because they've already got an emotional attachment to the work they're doing, and the more thoughtful and intelligent they are, the more they've hard-wired their rationalizations about how and why they're doing what they do.
One big problem is that a director for a magician is really dissimilar from a director for theater or film. In those forms, the director runs the show. There's proper surrender to authority there. In a magic show, though, the magician is usually the one setting the agenda. As such directorial feedback more closely approximates workshopping or consulting, and that's a trickier beast. As Whit mentioned, the best feedback is based not on the critics' tastes so much as the critic's ability to see (a) where the performer wants to be, (b) where the performer actually is, and (c) how to bridge that gap. If you can set aside your own biases about the way magic should be done, and focus on those three things, then pretty much anybody can consult as a director.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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Al Schneider V.I.P. A corn field in WI surrounded by 1080 Posts |
Whit
My mother wanted me to train to be a teacher so I would have a backup if I couldn't get work with computers. Another thought. Hire an actor and train them to do the magic. Then you are the director, producer and so on. And you get the money. Just my twisted way of thinking. Al Schneider
Magic Al. Say it fast and it is magical.
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The Burnaby Kid Inner circle St. John's, Canada 3158 Posts |
Quote:
On 2011-08-21 17:47, Al Schneider wrote: It's sound, if you can get good writing to go along with it. I'd argue that's probably the big thing that Mamet brought to the equation for Ricky Jay, a strong sensibility towards scripting.
JACK, the Jolly Almanac of Card Knavery, a free card magic resource for beginners.
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
Just try and get an actor to prepare for thirty years learning card moves.
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Brad Burt Inner circle 2675 Posts |
It's funny.. I have been involved as the supplier for props for several companies that were putting together multiple and identical magic shows for differing purpose.
In both cases they hired outside of magic going for college theater students. These students were given scripts that they were to follow exactly. Training in the props used, etc. Both 'show' were very successful for the folks involved and the theater students some of which I saw in the shop after were totally thrilled as it added to their portfolio, etc. The scripts had been put together by a team that consisted of one magician each and then various other departments of the companies involved. There was training cadre that acted in much the way a director would act, etc. It was quite enlightening in many ways! Best,
Brad Burt
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
I believe you, but I take it a pass, a second deal, or a bottop change were not called for?
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