Important Questions for Every Magician

I’m writing this week for a TV show in the Netherlands. They sent over the scripts and names of celebrities booked on the show and want fresh thoughts and ideas.

Projects like this are nice because there’s low pressure. The task is simply ideas and angles. Have you thought of this? What about this? There’s the freedom to suggest ideas you know are not perfect because they might spark something else.

Jobs like this also be tricky because there’s low pressure. Without the goal of getting something right or fixing something, you can sometimes find it tricky to throw things at the wall. I write in my book that the blank pages are scary. That the hardest shows to work on are the ones who do not know what they want.

Luckily this is not one of those shows. They know exactly what they want. They even have their own terminology for a “magic trick” on the show. The first time they said it, my eyes lit up. Suddenly everything became exciting, and I knew exactly what they were going for. Creating your own terminology is a wise move.

A friend of mine is on AGT this season. When they called me for advice, I think they were surprised at just how many questions I had for them.

In my opinion, good consultants ask questions.

Imagine a doctor meeting with a patient, and without asking any questions, they begin throwing up a huge range of possible diagnoses.

Don’t do that. When magic consultant asks the right questions, they can help produce the best possible magic. Annoyingly, this is something I learned from comedy writers rather than magic consultants.

Here are some important questions I tend to ask when I arrive at a new magic project…

What’s the most important thing about your show?

You’d be surprised at how often the answer is not the magic. Or even the magic being fooling. More often than not, the most important thing about the show is to tell a certain story or be funny.

Sometimes they want tricks they can also perform in their live show. Maybe they’re trying to raise awareness for an important cause. Sometimes entire 20 million dollar project only needs to satisfy one person at the client company.

What’s the most financially important thing?

You gotta know this. Do they want a second season? Are they trying to sell tickets to their live tour? Do they want Instagram followers? Are they trying to move to a bigger channel? The friend on AGT sees magic as a hobby. The most important financial thing to them was that the performance did not hinder their main career.

One American show had three specific boxes they needed to tick. A Chinese show had several sponsors they had to satisfy with tricks using their mobile phones and cars. One U.K. show had a zero magic budget when I arrived, so all of the magic needed to be extremely low cost.

What’s the production schedule?

I’m asking this because I really want to know two things. Is there build time, and is there rehearsal time? Often, magicians are practising a trick for the first time on their way to a shoot. One particular season of a particular magic show had nothing but self-working tricks because the schedule was so tight.

I’m also relatively interested in their edit schedule. I worked on great magic shows like Magic For Humans, Dynamo and The Next Great Magician who all edit simultaneously. Well, there’s an overlap. Most production budgets cannot afford to keep consultants around for the edit. But if the edit is happening alongside the shooting, a consultant like myself can happily pop over to an edit suite at the end of the day to offer some notes.

They call it: Magic Eyes.

I call it: Try not to overreact when you see a method flash on the screen.

It’s harder than it sounds.

What’s the magic budget?

I usually need to ask this three or four times. Most magicians lie to production companies about how much magic actually costs to produce. Magic shows are expensive, more so than most genres of television. Disappointingly so, because if spent correctly, no one watching will realise how expensive the magic methods were to produce.

On at least four shows I have worked on, the magician sold the impossible, and then the production barely broke even. As a consultant, you need to be calm and honest when you tell them they do not have the budget for the show they sold to the channel. Underpromise and overdeliver.

For one U.K. show, the commissioner genuinely believed in magic. It was a huge issue when discussing the budget. They commissioned the show because they loved magic, so the production couldn’t exactly burst their bubble to explain exactly where the £200k had been spent.

My advice for magicians trying to sell a TV show is to be honest about the cost of bespoke magic because if you don’t, your magic show will quickly become a mind-reading show.

Do you treat magic like it’s real?

Weirdly important. Some talent wants the world to think they’re wizards. You gotta figure out quite quickly where they draw the line. Can the cameraman know the method? What about the channel’s commissioner? Do I need to pretend I do a different job? I’ve pretended to be a PA and a social media manager in the past.

Is there a casting producer?

I like to ask this early because I want there to be a casting producer. Remember when a production company produces their very first magic show—it’s a nightmare. They might believe you can approach people on the streets, and they’ll a. agree to be on camera and b. give a good reaction. Unless you have the production schedule of a Blaine special, you need a casting producer.

In the most basic cases, a casting producer on a street magic show will go into all of the nearby shops and get the numbers of people who want to be on TV and could give a good reaction. If we’re not getting what we want on the street, the casting producer will call one of the “cast” contributors to meet them, and on their way, they’ll walk past the magician.

A good argument for street casting is not everyone wants to be on TV, especially in London. On a show I assistant produced, a contributor actually asked out the talent on a date while being pranked. It was television gold. But the runner couldn’t get him to sign, and the researcher couldn’t either. In the ten minutes I spent searching for the guy, I got approval from the show’s producer to pay the guy up to £3k to sign. When I finally found the contributor in a nearby store, I noticed he was wearing a wedding ring. He didn’t sign.

Is there an art director?

Magic TV shows rarely have art directors, but they are a godsend. Usually, the magician has wrongly convinced the production company they only need magic builders, not an art director. The issue here is that magic builders do not have the experience of art directors, who work every week on TV shows in that area. A prop builder with a local workshop and lots of local contacts is better than flying in a magic builder… there, I said it.

Also, art directors have good taste and are collaborative.

What are your favourite tricks from previous seasons?

I like this question. Mostly because it gets the answerer all excited, but it gives you a good idea of the benchmarks you’re working towards.

Ask them why.

Then ask them why again.

There will be reasons you won’t expect. They’ll say that it worked every time. Or that it was meant to be shot at one location, but that location cancelled on them the day of the shoot, and luckily the magician could do the trick elsewhere. Perhaps they’ll say they liked the trick because the angles were great, or it gave them the freedom to be funny.

Who are the other consultants? What are they great at?

Nowadays, my role as a writer is pretty solidified. But it wasn’t always. It took a while for people to wrap their heads around my skill set and what I enjoy doing the most. In the early days, and occasionally now, I had to be a chameleon. I would struggle to build and source magic.

Magic teams are always assembled to complement one and other. Some are great builders, great writers, brilliant knowledge bases, and I was young and cheap. I’m not kidding; that’s genuinely a big reason I worked almost full time in my early twenties.

Figure out what other people bring to the room, and it’ll help you figure out what you can bring. Do this with your friends too. Figure out who you’re missing in your life and whether you can be that person. Is there space for someone funny or someone who knows every trick that’s ever been published? On two jobs, it was clear my role was to get shit done. I came in late to a show, and by the look on the showrunner’s face, it became clear they just needed shit done. I did very little magic producing and a hell of a lot of spreadsheets and emails.

Is there a location manager? What are the locations?

Location managers are actually quite rare for magic shows. Next Great Magician had one, and he was brilliant. Location managers are usually reserved for scripted television. We don’t usually associate location managers with magic shows that “just rock up and shoot anywhere.”

Your location manager is your best friend. Get them on your side and try your best to transfer some magical knowledge. Great location managers come back from recces with 100 images and videos. Close-ups of the different types of tables and windows. The fabric of the curtains. Great location managers will show you which doorways could easily be filled in to create fake walls for levitations. Brilliant location managers will find a backup for when the main location eventually cancels.

Locations change a lot. Be ready for that. It’s half of why I'm not too fond of location-specific magic. The over half of why is because I think doing bowling ball magic at a bowling place can sometimes feel a bit too good to be true.

Laura London did a brilliant job on Next Great Magician when the channel changed her location last minute to be a pub from a popular UK television show with celebrities on the same channel. Although I can’t remember if she knew the location changed, or simply the shoot date. It was all a bit hectic on the production side. Many locations changed on that show because some of the acts had to perform in the studio, and we were often collaborating with other ITV shows like TOWIE.

My tip for location-specific magic is to bring your own props. I did a hidden camera shoot at a restaurant that required a gimmicked tablecloth. For a long while, they did not book a location. Instead of waiting around to find out what tablecloth we’d need to gimmick, an older and wiser consultant ordered twenty tablecloths for the entire restaurant.

Often, magicians will get excited about the type of candle a certain restaurant has on their tables. They forget how easy it is to go out and find the absolute perfect candle for the trick and buy enough for every table. Nisbets in London is an incredible place to source such props. They supply every restaurant in the country.