This is written VERY late after a VERY long day in London. During the day I performed "wee Wee Mentalist" and "twilight angles" with a deck stacked to perform each one after another. These both packed a large punch with those I performed to.
The circle vist had two purposes,. One to witness some world class magic, the other to hand in our forms to join up. The performers were Michael Vincent, Will Houstoun, Robert Pound and Franco. Michael Vincent was as elegant as ever, and the magic of Robert Pound was enjoyable and showed why he was one of the most booked workers out there.
Michael Vincent performed spectacular fluid and elegant magic. A demonstration of "the Professors nightmare" that has made me want to grab my magic books and rope and expand my range. He also included a few comments to one of his effects just to freak out magicians. Just as Paul Daniels baffled us by passing the hoop over a levitating girl just once MR. Vincent freaked us out by demonstrating that a trick we've seen before and KNEW used an invisible deck did NOT use an invisible deck that time. We spoke to him afterwards and he was very happy that we noticed this as he'd been in debate with another magician about weather or not he needed to demonstrate this.
I got a chance to chat to Michael Vincent at the end of the night and ask his advice for the examinations. I asked him to sit through a quick trick and to tell me if i was pitching at the right level. I performed wee we mentalist. HE did seam to genuinely enjoy the effect, I asked for his input. His suggestion was to place that in the middle, to finish on a strong closer and to do something to catch attention in the first 30 seconds. HE also spoke of classics of magic, and how a classic is a classic for a reason. He said a classic performed with my own personal twist would be good addition to a set and impress the examiners, At this point Robert Pound joined us. I spoke of my plan to perform the "4 card trick" with a little stick man and they both agreed this would be a good example of a classic reworked.
So next step. List all I can do, find out how long i have to perform for, time myself and work out a structured routine with what I have. And then look at additional material, robe magic, cups and balls etc. It may sound odd to build a routine and then take bits out for new material, but his way I will be ready to go with little prep, and can slowly improve this set as opposed to waiting until I master something new, rushing to learn and still not having a clear vision of what i want to do for my audition.
Time to hit the books and que the montage music
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
the other two gigs.
The second of my three gigs was a freebie for the premier of a film. Death the Film was being shown in Colchester and I, along with my friends, was asked to go along and perform some close up to the crowds. Whilst I took along my close up case I actually packed a very limited selection on me. Serial Killer (from the Dark Side Deck), Wee Wee mentalist (as an ice breaker) Cartomancy and twilight angels. I felt VERY relaxed at this gig. Not so relaxed as to not want to do well, just sure I was up to the task at hand. This gig was only hours after the high energy kids party but I was confident the body would hold out on me. I walked causally up to small groups, introduced myself and performed a small set. I think I felt less pressure because I knew the crowd and also knew that people only expected a few minutes of magic. I picked material around the subject of Death and Fate. This gave me an instant opener. The approach is typically the tough part of the job, but here because everyone was gathered for one goal, and that goal was entertainment around a certain subject I felt the ice had already been broken.
Twilight Angels proved itself once again. This effect is certainly a keeper. It brings genuine enchantment into the mix. I may try some other effects that have what a cynic may call 'mushy' feel.
After the film we went to our regular drinking den (where many magicians hang out. The cast of the film were also there and Harvey and I spent the night entertaining them and waxing lyrical on the nature of magic, true magic, bizarre magic and film. A good night where interestingly the magic was more like a seasoning, an extra twist on the conversation. I just played around forcing and tracking cards, sort of performing jazz with magic. Most enjoyable.
A few days after this I perform the third gig in this sequence. A free gig again at a local school. WOW. TO begin with the teacher was VERY receptive and appreciative. this makes a big difference to my confidence. Also I had a SECOND table for prop storage. I NEED a second table for putting stuff on! I had to device a simple trick to teach the kids, so I created my own version of the misers dream, but this came at the end of the show. These kids were 5, so card magic was out. It was the wrong place for my new found Balloon magic skills. I had an hour and a half to fill. This would have left me looking like a bunny in head lights but I am now a lot more confident in making the most of my material.
Following the teachings of David Kaye I used as much participation as possible. The Auto Milkgo glasses performed well, but as before the Diminishing Milk proved amazing value for money, as did the magic colouring book. The appearing flowers delighted the kids, in fact two girls kept asking at every opportunity when I would be giving them to the teacher. The vanishing coke bottle also performed well. However I need to tweak it, sealing in some liquid for good. A job for next week when I'm preping for my next show. Over all this show went incredibly well. I want to learn more classical magic to work into these situations, I performed a classic cup and balls routine and it went down well enough, but I think some coin work or sponge balls would have flipped the kids out.
So what have I learnt?
I can be quite charming to adults when I want to be
Magic is not the be all and end all to being entertaining
jazz magic is fun and good for confidence
From the kids
SECOND TABLE!
Need to tweak coke bottle
Current routines are good, BUT a days study with seriously silly will improve things
Over all. Happy to be learning new magic and using new magic. Next update a bit about theory and new effects.
Twilight Angels proved itself once again. This effect is certainly a keeper. It brings genuine enchantment into the mix. I may try some other effects that have what a cynic may call 'mushy' feel.
After the film we went to our regular drinking den (where many magicians hang out. The cast of the film were also there and Harvey and I spent the night entertaining them and waxing lyrical on the nature of magic, true magic, bizarre magic and film. A good night where interestingly the magic was more like a seasoning, an extra twist on the conversation. I just played around forcing and tracking cards, sort of performing jazz with magic. Most enjoyable.
A few days after this I perform the third gig in this sequence. A free gig again at a local school. WOW. TO begin with the teacher was VERY receptive and appreciative. this makes a big difference to my confidence. Also I had a SECOND table for prop storage. I NEED a second table for putting stuff on! I had to device a simple trick to teach the kids, so I created my own version of the misers dream, but this came at the end of the show. These kids were 5, so card magic was out. It was the wrong place for my new found Balloon magic skills. I had an hour and a half to fill. This would have left me looking like a bunny in head lights but I am now a lot more confident in making the most of my material.
Following the teachings of David Kaye I used as much participation as possible. The Auto Milkgo glasses performed well, but as before the Diminishing Milk proved amazing value for money, as did the magic colouring book. The appearing flowers delighted the kids, in fact two girls kept asking at every opportunity when I would be giving them to the teacher. The vanishing coke bottle also performed well. However I need to tweak it, sealing in some liquid for good. A job for next week when I'm preping for my next show. Over all this show went incredibly well. I want to learn more classical magic to work into these situations, I performed a classic cup and balls routine and it went down well enough, but I think some coin work or sponge balls would have flipped the kids out.
So what have I learnt?
I can be quite charming to adults when I want to be
Magic is not the be all and end all to being entertaining
jazz magic is fun and good for confidence
From the kids
SECOND TABLE!
Need to tweak coke bottle
Current routines are good, BUT a days study with seriously silly will improve things
Over all. Happy to be learning new magic and using new magic. Next update a bit about theory and new effects.
Monday, October 15, 2012
three weeks, but three gigs
Quite a while since the last update, but much has occurred. I'm going to put this up as three or maybe even 4 blogs over coming days. Why? 3 gigs, a few insights, much happening. Why the delay? I spent 10 days being quite ill. During this time I was focusing on my paid work for Fabric8 . And since then I have been playing catch up on the Fabric8 work.
So GIGS. IN the last post I spoke of a gig at a wedding where I was engaged to entertain predominately the children. I have a saying, actually i's more like a pseudo religious Gregorian chant. "gig's begit Gigs". I impressed the Magiian there for the grown ups quite a bit it seems, he hired me to enterain the kids at his son's party. This wa VERY short notice, one week. But I had the kit and I was good to go so I decided to just go for it.
I rocked up a little too early, thanks to a pessimistic sat nav. This wasn't awkward as he was a nice guy, though it may have diminished the impact of my arrival on his kids. For birthday parties at home I'll endeavour to show up a little early but not TOO early. I was all set to use my new Balloon skills as well as all my new shiny kid's props. All worked well, Diminishing milk should be singled out for special praise. That's one hard working prop. I bore in mind all that Silly Billy says in his book on performing for kids and asked the kids questions every moment I could, interacting with them and empowering them. At the end of the show the kids were VERY happy as were the grown ups. So things I learnt.
1- SORT OUT SAT NAV
2- Arive a little early but there is a thing as TOO early
3- I need to put something on the floor in case of spills (since found some waterproof table cloth with a star pattern
4- The table is unstable, it needs to be less wobbly, I also need a second table for storage.
From this gig iI got ANOTHER gig. Gigs beget gigs. HOWEVER Kids parties beget kids parties. I like performing kids magic, it's fun and rewarding but not at the expense of grown up parties that pay enough for me to work less, and allow me to explore other magic.
So GIGS. IN the last post I spoke of a gig at a wedding where I was engaged to entertain predominately the children. I have a saying, actually i's more like a pseudo religious Gregorian chant. "gig's begit Gigs". I impressed the Magiian there for the grown ups quite a bit it seems, he hired me to enterain the kids at his son's party. This wa VERY short notice, one week. But I had the kit and I was good to go so I decided to just go for it.
I rocked up a little too early, thanks to a pessimistic sat nav. This wasn't awkward as he was a nice guy, though it may have diminished the impact of my arrival on his kids. For birthday parties at home I'll endeavour to show up a little early but not TOO early. I was all set to use my new Balloon skills as well as all my new shiny kid's props. All worked well, Diminishing milk should be singled out for special praise. That's one hard working prop. I bore in mind all that Silly Billy says in his book on performing for kids and asked the kids questions every moment I could, interacting with them and empowering them. At the end of the show the kids were VERY happy as were the grown ups. So things I learnt.
1- SORT OUT SAT NAV
2- Arive a little early but there is a thing as TOO early
3- I need to put something on the floor in case of spills (since found some waterproof table cloth with a star pattern
4- The table is unstable, it needs to be less wobbly, I also need a second table for storage.
From this gig iI got ANOTHER gig. Gigs beget gigs. HOWEVER Kids parties beget kids parties. I like performing kids magic, it's fun and rewarding but not at the expense of grown up parties that pay enough for me to work less, and allow me to explore other magic.
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