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