When you first begin working with in-demand magic consultants, you cannot help but be amazed at their depth of magic knowledge.
David Britland knows so much about published magic that some refer to his wealth of knowledge as the Brinternet. Daniel Garcia has this canny ability to open his phone's camera roll and find a video that shows he’s already workshopped any given method before you can even finish describing the idea to him. Luke Jermay will reference the exact book that published any method he recommends, and he’ll even describe the book cover’s colour.
I’ll be honest, as a nineteen-year-old consultant sitting in rooms where lots of more experienced people would quietly nod in agreement with Luke, I often wondered if he’d just made up the colour of the book cover, if not the book’s title and author, too.
It certainly made people take his ideas more seriously.
You soon learn that the best methods are the ones that work. This applies not only to the hobbyist posting a negative review after discovering that the new trick they purchased involves a move that requires practice, but also to the well-known magicians.
For those well-known magicians, the best method is the one that works because they’re learning up to 300+ tricks per season, most of which they’re given to learn for the first time the night before a shoot. The bigger reason why the best method is the one that works is budget — with a magic team sometimes costing upwards of $5,000 per day, you don’t really want to waste time inventing anything totally new, and you also don’t want to risk wasting a $40,000 shoot day on a failed trick.
The point being that if you happen to be a wide-eyed 19-year-old in the room with consultants like Luke Jermay, Paul Kieve, and Andy Nyman, you race to learn “plug-and-play” reliable methods.
What’s remarkable is how few tools the best-paid consultants rely on. But the key thing with all of them is that they have mental grab bags of tools they can call on in most scenarios.
If you want to get good at this, try categorising your methods and naming them. Reflect on what they have in common with other tools you’ve used before.
Natural Misdirection
We’ve written in the past about natural misdirection for magicians and the power it holds with spectators. Much like how the best lies are the ones the spectator tells themselves (dumping the last few drops out of a bottle of water so the spectator tells themselves it’s empty, rather than the magician announcing it as such), the best misdirection is usually actioned by the spectators.
Here’s an example we previously discussed for when you need to perform a top change to switch your prediction card for a pairing card that matches the one your spectator chose.
You might usually look up from your hands, look them in the eyes, and even lean in and perform the top change during a bigger sweeping body movement.
But with natural misdirection, you might choose to get the spectator to place the card they chose somewhere secretive earlier in the routine. Now, when it comes time to misdirect, you can simply ask them to retrieve the card again, creating a natural moment of misdirection. The rest of the group will naturally look to the place where the card was hidden, such as a back pocket.
Applying terms and categories to your uses of misdirection enables you to think critically and approach your work from different angles.
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