Dr Strange's New Magic Show

I LOVE working for non-magicians. For so many wonderful reasons. Firstly, they’re so much more excited about magic. Secondly, they tend to be experts in their own area and that only ever heightens the magic. Finally, they always agree with my work ethic around methods.

You also get away with a lot in theatre, film and television. Magic doesn’t need to be presented as a challenge, you can lean into a story, and you can far more easily surprise and delight the audience. It might be odd to suddenly change the lighting in your magic show for a close-up trick, but it’s perfectly normal to change the lighting for a new scene in a play.

For those of you with my book, you’ll know my take on methods. Methods are meaningless. The best method is the first one that works. It’s that simple. I’d rather spend a week making the first method that works look amazing than rush everything after spending a week playing with different methods.

A surprising number of magicians want to perform totally new methods. They hate the idea of performing an existing method. I assume they’re trying to impress convention magicians. No viewer at home will care or notice if your coin bend trick uses a new method…

Disney’s new Avengers Campus just opened this week. Dr. Strange performs a magic show; let’s take a look. [SPOILERS]

You do not need to watch the video to read this newsletter, but you can below…

Strange does something I love. He takes a bunch of solid, reliable and great magic and gives it a new lick of paint. He makes unusual looking props feel normal with storytelling, and he makes them look normal by painting them to be like the surroundings.

There are important things to consider when consulting for a show like this. The tricks will need to reset easily and completely reliable with plenty of shows throughout the day. The tricks will need to be relatively easy to perform with an ever-changing cast of actors. They’ll need to look great in the daytime and the evening, have good angles and look like they fit within the Marvel cinematic universe.

Oh, and most importantly, the magic must help create a brilliant and engaging show that Disney visitors of all ages will love seeing live again and again.

The show begins with a pretty neat use of forced perspective. By positioning the illusion through a doorway, he’s restricting the eye line of the viewer. This is quite common in magic for anything kind of forced perspective. When I worked on a levitation one time, we positioned the lev at the end of a corridor, limiting the spectator’s opportunity to see the method.

In this example, performing this illusion behind the doorway enables them to have complete control of the lighting, even during daylight. The illusion looks much better in real life. These types of things never look the same when on camera.

Next up, there are some simple telekineses. Strange opens the cupboard doors and drawers with the power of his body popping. Something I spot here as a consultant, with I’m sure some of you will too, is that the cupboard is conveniently placed against the stage wall and that all the magic props start and end in there.

I can say with absolute confidence the crew will be able to access this from the back. Meaning that between shows, they can reset all the magic props.

Your classic “ring in napkin vanish.” It’s an interesting show to watch as a magic consultant because it feels very much like they started with the tricks and wrote everything else around them.

The ring is placed in a classic illusion prop with a new coat of paint. Suddenly the ring becomes flowers similar to the ones around them.

Floating mask illusion, once again with a new lick of paint. Personally, I think the zombie ball is better than the mask. This is not a trick I would have suggested simply because its success depends on the performer. I’d assume there are many actors, and the consultant inevitably won’t teach every cast member.

Oh yes. Jumbo broom appearance, with a Marvel twist. This is actually the only note I have for the entire show. I really wish they had a better switch for afterwards. The assistant walks off with it, then immediately back for no justified reason, and no time elapses.

If it were vital to take the pole completely off stage for the switch, I would ask the assistant to exit with the pole and the weird pint glass thing it appeared from. Then they return to the stage with just the pole. The audience can then assume they left the stage to put away the jug thing, and they’ll never suspect a pole switch. Hey, maybe this is overkill, but it’s the small things.

Oh, and an honorary mention to all the bells above the audience, which begin ringing at crucial parts of the show. Versions of this prop are also in magic shops.

Overall, I’m a fan of Dr Strange’s magic.

Lovely, fun magic show for the visitors, with lighting and sound-enhancing the entire sequence. Whilst it might not fool convention magicians, it’ll certainly entertain the family and get you suspending disbelief and giving in to the story.

I think the lesson here for magicians is prioritizing storytelling and not being afraid to perform tricks you’ve seen before. Give them a lick of paint and a new story, and they might feel totally new.

If you want me to break down magic found in other live, tv and film examples, let me know in the comments. If you enjoyed this post, give it a like below, so I know.

P.s. bonus points if you can tell me the name of every trick in the comments.