SLANT

While our “Theme” discussion from last time may be incomplete, we have the core idea of “Heist” as our starting point. Later, we’ll look at the elements of a Heist (or perhaps a Heist Movie?) to find inspiration for the internal structure of the show, and we’ll take a look at what it may suggest for material/aesthetics/etc.

But for now, I think it’s important to (try to) identify something that goes hand-in-hand with our Theme: it’s Slant.

As with journalism, the Slant is an individual perspective on the (quite general) Theme. It would be easy to assemble a bunch of tricks that are – on their surface – related to the idea of a Heist. They could be linked with their props and their storylines, but the show as a whole (which is the final goal of what we’re doing here) would still be lacking. What it’s missing is the perspective of the artist.

I see this all the time with magicians (and others, but I’ll pick on magicians here because we can all use a bit of a critical eye). The “show” they put together is really more of a compilation of loosely related ideas. I hear regularly that a magician wants to make a “classy” or “elegant” or “fancy” parlor show. So they rent an expensive room, put together tricks that use (faux) heirlooms, “priceless” coins, “antique” cards, gilded objects or whatever the individual sees as “elegant.”

But the show never comes together because the artist shares no personal opinions on the content. They haven’t thought about what they want to say or what they’re trying to communicate, so the message defaults to “Hey! I like these things! Aren’t they cool?” Which is fine in an informal or short-form environment but simply doesn’t sustain an audience for a longer performance.

That’s where our Slant comes in. Our individual, unique viewpoint of a topic. The Slant should touch on why the Theme is important to us. What’s magical about it? What perspective do you bring that others haven’t explored. If I get stuck finding my Slant, I often try to fill in the sentence: ” _____(Theme)______ is magical because _______(Slant)_______.” Finding and element of the Theme that feels magical

Thinking about our Heist show, Heists feel like magic because so much planning and work goes in to creating something invisible that – if done correctly – no one ever sees. That needs some editing down, but it’s connecting with me as some sort of core concept for the show because it’s truthful from my point of view and it’s something most folks probably haven’t thought about before (because in most peoples’ work, they do a job and it’s transparent about who has taken which steps to accomplish which goals).

Other ideas to play with: A magician would pull off a heist by controlling attention.

RANDOM IDEAS

  • As I spent time thinking through the Theme/Slant/Frame relationship, I wonder if the Frame might be a Heist Movie, the Theme could be something more like ‘Jobs’ or ‘What we do for a living’ (because of the Slant which touches on the ties between doing magic and planning a heist).
    • Most of this is only visible on the back end, so it’s more a logical restructuring for me and my priorities so I’m focused in terms of presenting information to the audience.
  • Material Brainstorm Drop:
    • AKA: Aliases/code names
    • Card Transpo
    • Standing OOTW: Instincts
    • Total Coincidence:
    • T2P
    • Object to Impossible Location / Safe?
    • Ring Watch Wallet
    • Cards Across (moving objects secretly)
    • Gambling/NO combo Routine
  • Question to think about: The set could be primarily card-based. Should I push it to be entirely cards? What does that suggest or mean in the framework of the show? If there are card tricks and non card tricks, is there a logic to when to use one vs. the other?
  • Should probably end with the “perfect Heist” being pulled off, but then some sort of coda/kicker where the audience gets “taken” in some way
  • I should really use more “air quotes”