Casting Spectators for Magic TV Shows

So the truth is that most TV magic shows cast their spectators. They do this for the same reason most decisions are made on television — to save money. You have a limited budget, so you have a limited time with your crew and rental equipment at a location. The costs add up fast. Some sites charge thousands, most crew members get paid vast amounts for overtime, and you must get the cameras back to the rental unit by midnight.

We’re casting for several reasons. It might be that there’s not typically anyone at the location, and we’ll need to bring in spectators. If we’re shooting at an arcade, the arcade might request that we close the arcade down for the day. If so, we will need to bring people in to be spectators. If we’re filming far away or remote, we would need to do the same.

Sometimes you need a specific kind of spectator for a particular trick, like a chess expert, siblings, or someone of an exact age. In this case, we’ll also need to cast the spectator. The same goes for when you want to include a celebrity spectator on your show. You’ll likely brainstorm potential celebrities, and then a booker or your talent will reach out to them directly.

The most practical reason to cast your spectators is that they need to want to be on telly. They’re going to need to sign that release form. Not everyone wants to be on television, especially when shooting in cities like London. We will almost always leave London if we’re ever doing a hidden camera prank. I’ve offered people £10,000 on the spot to sign a release form because their reaction to a trick was so good, and they’ve declined. The magician Troy has a brilliant story about the lengths Channel 4 went to get one spectator to sign a release form after giving a great reaction.

If you’re in America, you must avoid spectators with tattoos unless you plan to get the tattoo artist to sign an artwork release form… I’m not kidding.

The obvious reason to cast a spectator is to guarantee a good reaction. If you're lucky, you might shoot the same trick three times, and one of the reactions must be brilliant. You can’t afford to keep shooting the trick over and over again. Some people - rather a lot of people - do not give good “tv-ready” reactions to magic. They get flustered by the cameras and the thought of being on television. Even a good, nuanced reaction won’t always translate well on tv.

There are ways to shoot subtle reactions well, showcased in In and Of Itself, but most tv shows rely on large exaggerated reactions to get the person at home excited or interested. You can cheat this by using celebrities — as we tend to share an existing connection with them, their reactions do not need to be so big to have such a huge impact on the viewer.

There are huge risks and downsides to casting spectators. Derren openly cast the star of his Apocalypse TV show. The public (Reddit) and then the press quickly found the hero contributor had an acting profile on a casting website. Many people took this as a sign that he was a stooge acting in Derren’s show.

I don’t blame the press or the British public for this. When you watch the show, you’re asking yourself if this is legit or if the guy is in on it and acting — to then find out the guy is an actor, and that’s how Derren found him is far from ideal. Every show I’ve worked on produced by Derren’s team since then has come with a memo “do not use actor casting websites to cast spectators.”

Using those sites was standard practice for a long while — you weren’t actually casting or paying for professional actors. Those sites featured non-pro actors who wanted to be on TV. They’ve been used for a long time to cast people for reality shows and prank shows. Magic casting is a little more challenging without them.

Justin Willman will cast spectators for his television show for legitimate reasons. When one of his tricks, The Invisible Man, went viral a few years back, news outlets reached out to the hero contributor. The guy was even featured on a big YouTube channel telling the story of him being cast for the show (3.6 million views!!). I see no harm in this, but the interview broke the illusion for the audience that the guy was merely walking by when they were shooting the trick, and it gave insight into the casting process.

This will always be a risk when you’re casting spectators. They will almost always tell their friends. I have stories of people discovering what I do and telling me how they or their friends were once almost cast to be on a magic show. Harry De Cruz and I once went to a comedy show taping, in which one of the comedians told a story of a friend of theirs being pre-showed for a magic show — super awkward.

Outlets and publications might always contact the spectator, but the spectator themself might end up having an audience of their own. It wasn’t long ago when my brother sent me a YouTube video of a famous coffee expert reacting to himself on an early Derren TV show. In the fifteen years since he had been on the show, he’d amassed an enormous following on YouTube. In the video, he revealed how he met Derren through Andy Nyman, and he also told some bum squeaky TV mechanics.

He shared with his followers that his vox-pop/post-match interview in which he told the camera how amazed he was about the trick was actually about a different trick that was cut and not the one on the show. This is standard practice for all television and was likely done by the editor without Derren, the director, or the executive producer’s involvement. Editors will often instinctively cut magic with the same rules as reality or documentary tv series.

In a future article, I will go over my advice for street casting and casting people for unsuspecting/hidden camera magic. For now, I’ll leave you with my broad stroke points on casting for a television magic show.

1. Assume the spectator will tell their friends or the world about the casting process.

2. Where possible, don’t be afraid to open cast and reveal to the audience at home how you cast the spectators.

3. Ensure the spectator wants to be on television before you shoot.

4. Make sure the spectator enjoys magic, and warm them up with more magic beforehand.

5. Aim to perform a trick to three spectators max; whenever you cast more than three, it tends to be a waste of time, so pick the best three.

6. Where possible, get a friend or family member involved. Even having them there on the day will make them more comfortable.

Now that we’ve opened up the world of casting spectators for television, we can dive into the small details. Who to cast, when, and what to say to them before and after a shoot guaranteeing the best reactions. I’m also going to make a note to write about post-match interviews; there are some great hacks to get these to be great.