Paper Crane Productions Blog

I have heard the term rehash thrown around a lot among magicians. Somebody develops a new twist on a sandwich routine and the effects merit is dismissed because it is just “rehashing old ideas”. To a certain point I agree, I mean who wants to see yet another sandwich effect or someone’s take on the ambitious card plot. So the temptation is to break new ground, forget about the old plots and focus on all of this wonderful new technology that surrounds us.

Today I looked through the entire inventory of Fun Inc. and was surprised at how many ideas I had based on old forgotten effects of the past. I discovered new ways to look at old effects, new uses for old gimmicks and a bunch of stuff I never heard of and I thought I knew it all. So I have set up a plan for myself. A magic plan; a plan to rediscover the great effects of the pre Blaine era of magic. I’m going to be looking at the old books, old magazines, old marketed trick heck I’m even going to talk to old people. I hope you join me on this magical mystery tour it should be fun.

Ah… You again – Welcome back!

I’ll skip the usual pleasantries and we’ll toddle straight into the main subject matter, as mentioned in last times post, we’ll be discussing filtering for our character today.

After looking at our character profile, we should have a pretty good idea of how we want to come across, I believe that the most effective starting point when transcending to an outlined character is to look at the kind of magic or mind-reading that this character might perform.

For instance, look at David Blaine. I’m sure that David has a knowledge of card manipulation, or perhaps dove productions, but can you imagine the damage it would do his character to perform such things?

So that’s what you need to think about for your character, write down all effects that you currently know and pick through to find the ones that you feel would suit your character.

Whether or not an effect would suit your character depends on various factors; if you want to be seen as sheerly sleight of hand based, a card shark or similar, then most of your effects will want to be card based.

Transpositions of cards would work well, memorized decks would work well, whereas a floating dollar bill may not suit!

This is where we need to look deeper into the outline we created with our profile previously, to create a WHOLE character we need to decide the premise of our ‘powers’ of creating the impossible.

A couple of examples lie below to give an idea of potential reasons that we can do what we can:

1. After studying card cheating techniques for years, the sleight of hand skills are extraordinary.

2. From a young age you enjoyed watching people, this gave way for an understanding of human psychology to develop – you can influence people or read their body tells.

3. Mystery premise – No one really knows too much about you, who you are or what you do, you don’t say all too much either, but incredible things seem to happen all around you which transcend explanation.

The above are three very simple examples of where you might base yourself. Once this is decided you can accurately go through your list and pick the material that suits effectively.

I must stress that this is just a guide line, there will be certain effects that you can make fit your character if you really feel they’ll benefit your performance.

Up to now we’ve analyzed our current situation, out lined the character that we want to be and where we need to change in order to do this and selected material to suit!

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Next time we’ll look at how to get the premise across effectively when introducing yourself to a group!

Until then, go write some words and put lines through some of them and ticks next to the others!

Later.

D.

www.Mindlapse.net

Good morning world!

It’s that time again. If you’ve only just joined us, have a quick read through the previous two articles I’ve written (don’t worry, I try to keep them around 400 words!) to introduce what we are trying to achieve here; to build a more complete and therefore more powerful performance!

So, last time I asked you to write down a few words to encompass the way you think your audience currently perceives you, as well as a few words to describe how you wish to be perceived!

Have the list in front of you and look at it. Take in what you’ve written down.

In this part, we’re going to create a performance character profile.

This will give us a pretty sweet skeleton to build our performances around.

You will need to write a short paragraph about your character in the third person. If you have a stage name, why not use this here.

I’ve outlined an example below based on the words I wrote last week. these were:

I would like to be perceived as:

1. Confident

2. Entertaining no matter what the situation

3. Sophisticated and well mannered

4. In control of the performance

5. Creating the impossible with ease

So, on to my character profile!

When Dee Christopher enters a room, all eyes are on him. Smartly dressed, all in black, with a walk that commands attention.

When he approaches a group, he speaks with confidence and leads the conversation while allowing the impossible to happen around him.

His performance style is suave, with a touch of humor and he always leaves the group on a high note, with all feeling like they’ve witnessed something special.

If you read through the above, it’s only a very basic description, but allows you to get a real image of Dee Christopher’s style, dress, performance, the way he interacts with people. It’s a very powerful tool to have that solid basis to work around.

It’s one thing writing a list, but when you create a profile, it gives you a mental image of what you’re aiming for, which makes progress a lot easier!

Next week, we’ll look at filtering for your character! Stay tuned!

Peace Out!

D.

www.Mindlapse.net

Bonjour monsieur! (or lady)

It’s good to see you back again! Last week we discussed the basis of the following few posts of my weekly little blog spot powered by the ‘Crane.

This week, we’ll begin to delve a little into one of the ways that you can begin to build a powerful performance, a WHOLE performance.

As with any kind of plan, we must first review the current situation. We’ll call this section The Analysis.

I always find that a very effective technique is to write words that you feel encompass the way people perceive you and your character, and then several words describing how you’d like to be perceived. From there, it’s quite easy to recognize what changes must be made.

So, for example, write five words in each instance. i.e.

I feel that I am currently perceived as:

1. Shy primarily

2. Witty when comfortable

3. Well mannered and understanding

4. Trying hard to perform the miracles I do

5. Having unorganized presentations

Recognizing the strong points and weak points of your character is step one to success in becoming a more rounded performer! From the list above, it’s obvious which are the stronger and which are the weaker.

So how do we want to be perceived?

I would like to be perceived as:

1. Confident

2. Entertaining no matter what the situation

3. Sophisticated and well mannered

4. In control of the performance

5. Creating the impossible with ease

Now, looking at the list I just presented as an example, you can see that I’ve tried to stick to similar themes to give me the opportunity to explain the ways in which one might evolve in these areas.

This is what we’ll cover in the next spot, so take the time to write out a few words, maybe five, ten, twenty that you feel relate to the discussed above.

Imagine that, homework from a blog! But trust me, it’s worth the 10 minutes it’ll take!

Th-Th-Th-That’s all folks!

D.

www.Mindlapse.net

There was a test, one of many in fact, conducted by independent researchers on whether people could tell the difference between Pepsi Cola and Coca Cola.

Ten plain white cups were lined up, five were of Pepsi, five of Coke; the test was simply to take a sip of each and write down which brand of soda you thought was in each respective cup.

It was found that the vast majority of people couldn’t tell the difference.

When you see taste tests between these two brands however, people taking a branded bottle of each soft drink and tasting it, the vast majority were able to note considerable difference and say which drink they preferred.

The reasoning behind this is what we’ve come to know as composite perception. This is essentially the name given to how people take all aspects of a whole into account when evaluating the way it affects them.

In the case of Pepsi and Coke, it was the elaborate red branding we’ve all come to know as Coca Cola’s brand and the futuristic blue approach Pepsi use that gave the subjects the impression they preferred one over the other, when in a plain cup taste test they could not tell.

The strength of branding and advertising knows no bounds!

So, it’s relevance within the study of magic and mentalism performance? It’s very simple, to gauge the best experiences for your spectators, you want to make this experience a complete one.

This entails the correct character, the correct scripting to work with the persona you choose, the correct effects you present and their relevance to the premise of your character, the clothing you wear, your watch, your wallet, the new or used state of the playing cards which reside in your pockets as you approach.

So, how do we begin to attack the problem and analyze ourselves in such a way to create a more rounded performance?

You’ll have to tune in next week for some step by step tips!

DC Out!!

D.

www.Mindlapse.net

There are very few magicians and mentalists whose work I respect more than Wayne Houchin, both his magic and his work in film production. When I heard that he was going to be featured on the cover of Genii Magazine. I was really looking forward to it. Wayne is someone I really look to as someone who is not only a smart marketer of himself but also a person who has some very well put together effects. I loved the interview and I think it bests demonstrates the huge difference between magician of old and the YouTube magi that we have today.

First I would like to say that I think that Wayne handled the interview very well and gave some of the smartest answers that I have seen in the pages of genii in a long time. The interviewer who was Richard Kaufman could have used some coaching before he interviewed one of the most loved magicians in the industry. Let me give a few examples. Genii started the article with a little background info on Wayne declaring him one of the hottest magicians on the planet-the internet planet. What? The internet planet? Please tell me the name of a magician that would be considered one of the hottest on the planet who does not have a big internet fan base. After reading this line I became very suspicious of how much Mr. Kaufman knew about Wayne and his thousands of fans from all age groups around the world. I am sure Kaufman has a great level of respect for Wayne or he would not be on the cover. It should also be noted that Kaufman had great things to say about Wayne’s magic and career. I think the real issue is that Richard doesn’t seem to respect the way Wayne achieved his popularity. Particularly in the area of so called single trick DVDs. I love Wayne’s answer about single effect DVDs while quoting David Alexander “why would magicians put two decades of their life and sell it for thirty bucks”. It makes sense right?

Kaufman later in my opinion devalues Wayne’s work by suggesting that he sells a small amount of information for a lot of money. As someone who came up in the modern era of magic I was a little insulted that Richard would make the assumption that someone like me or even magicians much younger than me would not buy his magazine. To be honest I think his magazine is by far the best when compared to Magic and Reel Magic and I never miss a month. I would have to assume many young readers buy his magazine or else certain companies would spend their advertising money on a different publication, one that will reach a younger audience. I can cite several other examples of Mr. Kaufman’s sometimes obliviousness to the “MTV” generation but why I like Kaufman and I can’t blame him for not understanding the popularity of a guy like Wayne. The main issue I have with the interview is the repeated way that Kaufman’s magazine and many others in the over forty age group disrespect the way kids are moving magic into a new direction. Instead of exploring old ideas, the young guys are breaking new ground. Personally I think magic will become more and more radical and less traditional which how it should be. Magic is finally mimicking pop culture and if we’re lucky maybe it can change it.