Let Me Make Myself Clear
Quiet folks . . . if you listen carefully, you can overhear the patter in the next room over . . . it’s The Little Magician Who Could. Shh . .. I hear him:
<muffled noises> . . .
<something sort of intelligible> . . .
<audible patter>:
. . . then the card turns into a red card . . . and now the coin is back in the coin pouch . . . Thank you . . . <muffled noises again> . . . <audible patter> . . . and look. Now there’s two balls under this cup, and one over here, but if I put one here and place this one here then swing the wand like this, now there’s one here and one there and one there, and now we’re back where we started. Here I’ll show you how I do it. First you pick this one up here and pretend to put it here, but you really put it here, and now all three are over here and then if I lift this one up, it vanishes and reappears over here . . .
Someone wheels in a cage of screaming banshees . . . at last . . . audio relief
Root:
Let’s remember our roots. This month’s root: Clarity of Effect. Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen/heard that “patter” before. Unless you’ve been in magic for 30 seconds or less, you’ve heard it. The question is . . . how many of you enjoyed it? If you raised your hand on that one, before lowering it back down, smack yourself across the face with it first. The problem with that so called presentation is that it’s ridiculously confusing and is not clear at all. Of course this is just one effect . . . cups and balls, but there are so many other effects perpetually poisoned by this performance style. We’ve got to break the cycle. For this article, we’ll just address the cups and balls as our test subject, but keep in mind that this applies to all of your magic.
First, let me say that my intent is not to focus on helping you create some patter. My intent is to help you understand how to communicate to your audience the effect. Many people argue that the cups and balls is all about the final load. I disagree to some degree. In one sense, yes, that is the punch line, but if it were only about that, then wouldn’t you just show the cups empty, place them on the table, then lift them up and show the loads? There is so much more to the cups and balls.
First, forget about the loads for a moment. Let’s examine a couple of potential phases of the routine . . . I say that what follows is one example of a good cups and balls routine:
- Appearing Balls
- Traveling and/or penetrating balls
- Growing Balls or Appearing balls
Let’s briefly walk through this . . . keep in mind, I’m not going to address any technique, just effect:
- Show all three cups as empty and place them on the table mouth down.
- Wave your wand and lift each cup to show that the balls have appeared under the cups.
- Pause for effect.
That’s phase one. What’s the effect? Three balls magically appeared inside of three empty cups. There are couple of key points here . . . first did the audience know that the cups were empty? If not, you have no clarity of effect. One they know that the cups are empty, did they realize that they now have balls under them? Sounds silly, but so often this moment is forgotten. Pause. Even if your patter was as lame as this:
Here are three empty cups.
Make sure they are empty.
Just a magical wave of the wand . . .
And now there is a ball under each cup.
Even that lame patter at least has the clarity of effect. Pause at the right moment and make sure that the audience is with you. Now it’s on to phase two of the effect. Let’s say that you’re going to have them travel from your pockets to the cups. Great. Let’s “perform” it:
- Remove the ball from the cup
- Show the cup empty
- Place it back on the table
- Show the ball in your hand
- Place it in your pocket
- Make a magic gesture (snap, wave, etc)
- Lift the cup to show that the ball is back
Of course, you can vanish all three balls first, then reveal all three are back at once, or you can do it one at a time. The point is make it clear. What are you doing? I’m causing a ball to magically reappear inside that cup on the table. Period.
In order for them to “follow” that, they must first know that you removed the ball from the cup and that it’s empty. Next they must know that you put the ball in your pocket. Third, and most importantly, they must know that the balls are back under the cups. That’s critical. Without those key moments, you don’t have an effect.
You follow the same process with the loads for the final phase . . . make sure they know the cups are empty, and make sure they know that the final loads have appeared. So let’s go back to our Little Magician Who Could and change his patter so that he is The Little Magician Who DID.
. . . As you can see, the three cups are completely empty. However . . . with a simple wave of the wand, look under them now and you’ll see that three balls have magically appeared. These balls are very talented. They have two major skills . . . one, they can teleport, and the other skill I’ll tell you about in a moment.
If I take each ball from its cup and place it in my pocket and snap my fingers, they magically teleport themselves back to the cups . . . look . . . they’re back underneath the cups. I’ll put them away again, and this time they’ll show you their other skill . . .
They can grow to 100 time they’re normal size. <eavesdroppers are deafened by the thunderous applause>
Now, I’m not suggesting that this is the greatest patter or greatest version of the cups and balls. However, the script is Clear. Also, it has a couple of decent moments of mystery and playfulness (i.e. “I’ll tell you the second talent later . . .”)
So what have we learned? Hopefully you’re seeing that simplifying your words and actions can impact the clarity of an effect. If not, reread the first part of the article before continuing on. The other message, as is the message of most issues of Roots and Branches, is that thinking about your magic and analyzing and critiquing it helps it grow and helps you grow in the art.
Branch:
Let’s build our branches. Your challenge for the next 30 days is to pick one of your longest routines and clear it up. Go through your repertoire. Find an effect or two that is a bit longer than others. Whether it’s because it has multiple phases or because it’s more of a story type of an effect. Either way, pick the effect(s) and then break down each component. What are you trying to accomplish? What is the effect for this phase? What is the effect for that phase? How can I better explain that to my audience? Can I do it physically rather than verbally?
Take the time to do this . . . you’ll thank me later. 😎
now shh . . . I’m listening to the sound of the The Little Band Who DID and DOES . . . Skid Row.
Please take a moment to reply and “like” this article.