Hello everyone Michael O'Brien here
today we're going to be discussing the
importance of theming your magic and
making it your own. Now this is something
that a lot of magicians overlooked when
it comes to their performance. Often
times you'll see highly visual magic but
with no story or no reason to get the
audience interested in what's happening
other than you're doing something
cool your hands. In this video we're
going to be talking about the three ways
that I like to hook my audience,
draw them in, get them interested in
what's happening. So that when the very
visual aspect happens it gives them more
of a reason to react strongly and it
hooks them in and gets them emotionally
invested. Now the first and foremost
thing that I suggest you do is create an
engaging story. Oftentimes I see a
magic performance and it would go
something like this for example.
"I'm going to go ahead and take
your card we're going to put it inside
the middle of the deck. Your card is not on
the top it's on the bottom. If I just
wiggle my fingers like this and give a
snap your card is now on the top."
Narrating or explaining what you're
doing during a routine can get very
boring after a while. It might almost
be better to not say anything at
all than to simply narrate or explain
what you're doing while you're going
through it. Let's use that same example
one more time except let's make the
story a little bit more interesting and
a little bit more engaging for the
audience. "Alright we're going to take
your card and lose it into the pack. Now
you may or may not know this but believe
it or not magicians are actually very
good card cheats. They have the ability
to take your card out of the deck, turn
it invisible and then place it on the
top without you seeing them do it.
You don't believe me would you like to see
let's go ahead and take a look."
Then you would just mine the card
visibly coming out of the deck going to
the top and then when you turn it over
now the card that they chose is on the
top of the deck magically.
Technically speaking, the exact same
thing has happened. the card was placed
into the deck, it was shuffled and now
it's on top of the pack. But the
second time around the story itself was
a lot more engaging and fun because
you're talking about this
impossible thing that couldn't
possibly happen and you're
getting them emotionally involved in
whether or not it's true or whether or not
it's possible and then you demonstrate
it to be so so it creates for a lot more
of a interesting piece that like I said
you can get them emotionally invested in.
Then from there the the actual
sleight of hand or the act of making the
card vanish and then reappearing on the
deck or in your pocket or fold it inside
of your wallet or whatever you want to
do; the very visual piece becomes a lot
stronger because it's not just oh the
card was here and now it's not there
anymore now it's on top, but instead it
has sort of a reason or a motivation
behind why it's not there anymore and
why it's somewhere else. So think about
that and come up with ways that you can add
sort of a story element to your effect.
One last example that I'm going to use
on this is a routine actually I created
not too long ago which was sort of a
trivial piece it was kind of interesting
but I decided to add a story element to
it to take it sort of the next level and
the emotional responses that I've been
getting have been a lot stronger. I do a
sort of sponge ball type routine only I
use rose petals instead of sponge balls.
Simply changing the the item from
the sponge ball to the Rose added a
little bit more interest to it and we're
actually going to talk a little bit
about that specifically here on the next
topic but it's still missing the story
element I was still stuck in
"place the rose petal in the finger
wiggle my thumb just like this and then
the rose petal vanishes and then open
your hand oh look now it's in your hand."
You know and it was fun and it was
interesting but it was still missing
emotional hook. So instead I came up with
some sort of a story for it for example
you know, "you hold on to my pedal and
I'll hold onto yours you know the really
interesting thing is love is something
that should be shared amongst two people.
You should never let someone completely
hold on to your heart though" and then
you open they open their hand and the
rose petals. The same exact thing
happened except the story was just a
little bit more interesting. So it
made the overall experience for them a
lot more fun so that's my advice come up
with some sort of an interesting story
and you're magical definitely you'll
definitely see bigger reactions. The
second thing I'd like to talk about is
always make the more interesting choice.
What does that mean exactly? On the
surface the statement sounds pretty obvious.
Obviously if I had to choose
between one thing in the other I would
choose the one that's more interesting
for people right? But this is still a
concept that a lot of people overlook.
Let me give you another example.
For a very long time, I'm talking five - six
years or so I've been doing a card to
pocket routine where the selected signed
card vanishes from the deck and it's in
my pocket under impossible conditions.
This happens over and over again and
then it's a very end of the routine the
card completely vanishes it's nowhere to
be found but there is a mint tin that's
been sitting on the table the whole time.
You open up the mint tin and lo and
behold there's a folded card inside you
dump it out and unfold it in its the
selected card.Now this is a very visual
piece so it does get some very good
reactions simply because the magic is
strong but I wanted to try something a
little bit different with my children's
shows in mind. I wanted to create
something interesting for the kids
so what I did was three things:
One, I swapped out the deck of cards for a deck
of pokemon cards. Number two, I swapped
out the mint tin for a pokeball and
number three, I gave the whole story
and overhaul. I kind of got away from me
"Oh magicians you know can palm cards
invisibly and make me disappear and
appear in my pocket and stuff and I
turned that story into a story about
Pokemon and what that means. Pokemon
actually stands for pocket monster you
see cuz look your Pokemon no longer is
in the deck it actually wants to get out
of the deck and jump into my pocket and
so I would kind of do the exact same
routine but the story was different and
the props were different. I decided to
take something that was ordinary and
mundane and change it into something
different that people would have more
curiosity about because it's not
something you see every day. To see a
magician using pokemon cards it's very
interesting and believe it or not this
piece has actually becomes the most
requested piece in all of my shows now.
I initially decided to do this because I
wanted to add a little fun element for
my children's shows and it really does
get a really good response to the kids
because the kids can understand a
Pikachu or a Charmander or a Bulbasaur
squirtle better than they would
understand a club a heart spade or a
diamond and so it makes a lot more fun
they can connect to it but the thing
that I didn't suspect or should I say
didn't expect is for the adults to
really enjoy it too it has a certain
level of nostalgia to it because a lot
of the people that are my age now or
maybe even a little older grew up with
Pokemon and so just seeing that deck of
pokemon cards come out of case and
there's always at least one person of my
audience it goes "oh my god Pokemon" and
they get really excited! I haven't even
done anything. All I did take the cards
out of the case and they start losing it
because it's interesting it's different
so I highly suggest that you do that!
Going back to the example that we use a
little bit earlier with the rose. I've
really always enjoyed Sponge balls! Sponge
balls is probably the most visual and
exciting and hands-on pieces of magic
that you can do. If you don't do the
Sponge balls already i highly suggest that
you do because it really gets the best
reactions out of any any other type of
magic that I perform. but again I wanted
to make the more interesting choice
what's a sponge ball why would I be
making a little red ball jump for my
hand to yours? Now there's different ways
to justify it.
That it is a clown nose or
you know it's a ball that maybe my kids
play with and they left it in the car
and so I decided to use it whatever your
patter is that's fine. But I wanted to do
something again more interesting! I made
the more interesting choice and I
substituted the sponge balls for an
actual real-life rose so you can pluck
rose petals off of and the rose petals
are soft enough that they actually act
very similar to the
sponge ball so you can do sort of the
same moves and I just did my exact same
sponge ball routine but using rose
petals and the theme about love and it
made the reactions one hundred percent
better! and like I said it's definitely
more interesting choice.The third thing
that a lot of people overlook is make
sure to theme your magic to your brand or
your look. Now what do I mean by this
exactly? I'm not saying that you have to
go out and if your color is orange that
everything you have to do is orange or
anything like that but just make sure
that you're being cautious about the
props that you use or the things that
you perform or things that you say.
For example let's take a classic in magic
the cups and balls. You can see all sorts
of different cups; they have brass copper
wood plastic as a little plastic ones
that you get from the joke shop that you
probably had when you were a kid with a
little tiny little pom pom balls. Try to make
the more interesting choice and make
sure to seem it to your overall
performance. For example I tend to dress
very vintage I look like something out
of Newsies right? it would look pretty
silly if I were to come out with little
toy cups that I got from the joke shop
and did a cups and balls routine out
like a corporate party or something like
that. For me I actually use very
old-looking copper cups and little
baseball's because there seemed to my
look there seemed to my brand and most
importantly they definitely have a
target audience so if you're performing
at a corporate event you want to use
very nice
cups cups and nice balls nice cards things
like this. You're performing magic for
maybe a children's party. It might be
okay to bust out the little
plastic cups because they are kids and
that's fine but again it's very very
important to make sure that you theme
your magic to your actual brand and your
overall look so that it doesn't seem out
of place or doesn't feel like a magic
prop. You know if you're going to perform
some sort of routine you need you to buy
a magic prop for and that magic prop
looks like a plastic toy that you bought
at a magic shop it might be a good idea
to either build your own prop and theme
it to your to seem it to your
personality or it might even be just
fine to take that prop and paint it
differently or find some way to make it
seem less like a magic gimmick and more
like an actual item that you would use
on a day-to-day basis. Make it a real
world item so that's it for this video I
hope that you enjoyed it I hope that
they got the creative juices flowing!
Just a little bit but again it's very
very important that you come up with
ways to take your magic to the next
level and make sure that you are giving
your magic a reason for people to enjoy
it, so give it a nice little story or
some kind of meaning behind it or some
emotional hook or something always make
the more interesting choice don't settle
for just using the same pattern that
everyone else is using or just using
items the way that everyone else uses
them. Make them more interesting and
different! Instead of using a
regular deck of cards maybe use tarot
cards like for example Dee Christopher,
he's a Mentalist and he does the goth
look and everything like that it'd be
pretty silly if he came out and did the
pokemon card trick right because that's
just not his look but he uses the
special ESP cards or I can even see him
using tarot cards in some sort of
in effect and it would make perfect
sense for his character. Which takes me
to point number three make sure to theme
your magic to your specific look that
way it doesn't stand out like a sore
thumb because the last thing you want is
someone to go that looks like a magic
trick it looks like you bought that in a
magic shop you know or something like
that. How off times have you done to do
something those are magic cards because
the cards don't look like a regular deck
of bicycle cards I got actually had that
happen where you're performing magic
with a nice Theory 11 deck of cards and
then people go hmm that's a special deck
isn't it just because it looks different
it doesn't it doesn't look like a normal
object or a normal real world object it
looks like something fishy is going on.
Just some things to think about there
but i really hope you enjoyed this video
please leave a comment below and let me
know any ideas that you might have of
different ways to improve your magic. If
you have any questions please
leave those below as well and i will be
sure to answer them as soon as possible!
My name is Michael O'Brien thank
you so much for joining! Be sure to
subscribe to check out more videos just
like this one stay tuned for the next
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