You, Me and Dupree

Ok. This is weird. I thought I had written an article about this in the past, but I searched the archives and could not find it, so here goes what might be a duplicate article. First, check out this YouTube Clip. This is a trailer for the movie You, Me and Dupree. It’s all part of the article, so take a moment to watch it. Pay particular attention to the relationship between Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson. Then notice Matt Dillon’s role.

Watch The Clip

Ok. Now that you’ve watched it, if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll likely notice that this trailer is nothing like the actual movie. For those who have not seen the movie, let me clarify. In the trailer above, you see what appears to be Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson as a happily married couple. Then along comes psycho evil killer Matt Dillon. The movie, in reality, is Kate Hudson is married to Matt Dillon and their friend Dupree (Owen Wilson) moves in with them and nearly wrecks their marriage. It’s a comedy, not a horror flick.

However, the kicker is that all of the clips in the trailer are actual clips from the movie. They are just taken completely out of context. Couple that with some thematic music, and you have a completely different looking trailer for what appears to be a completely different movie. This trailer can actually be found in the bonus section on the movie DVD. By the way, quick disclaimer . . . I didn’t really like the movie that much, and there were way too many scenes that I felt were inappropriate and I would rather not have seen, heard, etc . . . This movies pushes the PG-13 rating to the fringe edge.

Anyway, I’m not here to critique the movie. I’m here to give you a root that you can use to branch out.

Root:
Let’s remember our roots. This month’s root: Context and perception. It’s very easy to take the same “pieces” and create a completely different outcome. What does that mean to the magician? Well for starters, there are various elements to your performance. Let’s look at a case where you’re doing a 30 minute show consisting of 4 or 5 effects. In this scenario, you can look at the show in 7 pieces:

  1. The opening monologue
  2. Trick #1
  3. Trick #2
  4. Trick #3
  5. Trick #4
  6. Trick #5
  7. The closing monologue

Or you could look at each individual unit as multiple pieces. For example each trick could be broken down into multiple sections:

  1. Opening line of trick
  2. Phase 1
  3. Phase 2
  4. Kicker ending
  5. Transition to next trick

Of course each effect/trick will be different and will have different components. So what do you do with this information. Change the order and change the tone. Like the music for the trailer above, your voice can set the tone for the performance. Take the sentence below for example. It is repeated 7 times. Each time with a different emphasis:

  • I never said he stole that car.
  • I NEVER said he stole that car.
  • I never SAID he stole that car.
  • I never said HE stole that car.
  • I never said he STOLE that car.
  • I never said he stole THAT car.
  • I never said he stole that CAR.

You’ll notice that with each sentence, if you emphasis the BOLD RED word with your voice, the meaning of the sentence changes completely. Below are the same sentences followed by another sentence that is implied by the first sentence. In other words, in the first sentence where the word “I” is emphasized, the implication is that although “I” never said it, someone else DID say it.

  • I never said he stole that car. She said it.
  • I NEVER said he stole that car. In this case, I’m just emphatically denying that I said it.
  • I never SAID he stole that car. I didn’t really “Say” that he stole that car, however I did write it down or somehow imply it.
  • I never said HE stole that car. I never said “He” did it; I said “She” did it.
  • I never said he STOLE that car. I didn’t say he stole it; he borrowed it
  • I never said he stole THAT car. It wasn’t “That” car, it was this car.
  • I never said he stole that CAR. He didn’t steal a car; he stole a truck; a computer; whatever.

As Jerry Seinfeld said in his book Seinlanguage,

I’ve written the words. The deliver is up to you. Remember, timing, attitude and inflection are everything.

The key is in the delivery, and delivery is context and perception. Perception is influenced by context and delivery (timing, attitude, inflection, etc.). The above sentence can potentially have 7 different meanings, depending on how it’s said.

Branch:
Let’s build our branches. Your challenge for the next 30 days is pick an effect or your show and analyze it in terms of context and perception. What does the audience perceive. What happens if I swap the order of these two tricks in my act? How will I transition between effects with a new order? How will it impact the audience? Test it.

Do the same with an effect or two. What if I do the current phase 2 first and the current phase 1 last? Can the trick be done that way. Can it impact the audience in a more effective manner? Test it.You need to be constantly thinking about your magic. Remember, just changing which points to highlight in a movie trailer can completely set up a whole different experience for the viewer. So consider drawing focus to a different part of a routine. In our routines, there are often key moments/images that you try to create with your audience. Change them. Experiment. Try new angles. Try new focus points.

This is the kind of stuff that keeps you sharp and keeps your act sharper.

Now go study the classics, and go discover your true magical self.

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