The Magician's Studio

Where Magicians Improve Their Craft

Tag: Heist

ShowCraft in Action: Part 10e

February 3, 2023 /

After a break (working on Mind of a Magician #12 among other projects), Here we go:

NO Poker

[Segue from 10d: OUT OF THIS WORLD] “And if we trust that this particular group is meaningful. And here for some interesting reason; that begs the question ‘What am I doing here’?”

“Any good heist needs someone to pull it off. A planner. A puppet master. Someone who can see the big picture while keeping in mind every minute detail. And not to toot my own horn here, but tonight that role will be played by me.”

“The skills someone needs to plan the perfect heist are not that distinct from the skills one needs to become an effective magician. A type A attention to detail and a type B ability to think out of the box. A careful understanding of human behaviors. And most importantly, the pointedness to control exactly what you need to happen. Down to the second.”

EVAN invites three audience members onto the stage

“In fact, I’d love to give you an example by playing a bit of a game. If you three would join me on stage at the table, I can show you how exacting a magician can be.

They come to the table, EVAN takes out a deck of cards and they play a round of poker. EVAN deals off 20 cards and begins shuffling the packet.

“Being a magician is actually quite simple. All you need to do is think of every possibility that can ever happen, and then convince the people in the same room to choose the possibility that looks most impossible. “

“Right now, if I were to deal out some hands of poker, giving myself a good hand might not be that impressive. I’ve been shuffling the cards, and maybe – I dunno – I could do something sneaky while I was dealing.”

“But these three seem much more trustworthy than me, so-

EVAN addresses someone in the first row

“- should player one, two, or three deal for us?”

Response. [offsets] EVAN hands the deck off to the named person.

“You got it! Person X will deal us all a hand of poker – 5 cards clockwise around the circle if you don’t mind. [to audience] Here’s where a magician’s skill set thrives. We present a challenging situation – like a poker game where the magician doesn’t even get to deal – and produce an impossible outcome.

EVAN asks the participants to show their cards and reveal their hands. They show various hands but nothing impressive. EVAN turns his cards around revealing a royal flush.

Thank you. But it doesn’t stop there, because there’s a problem. Magician’s take challenging circumstances and create something impossible. As strange as it sounds, that’s actually less difficult than what a thief can do. A real mastermind behind a perfect heist takes complete normal circumstances and does something unlikely. The catch 22 is that the wildly unlikely outcome is actually more difficult to predict and control than a magician’s impossibility. So let’s keep going with the deck of cards.

EVAN stands up and takes out a notebook, which he uses to make a prediction during the next segment.

“Magic has a problem. Well, it has many problems, but that’s a whole different show. The problem for the moment is that it’s too predictable. There’s no excitement or risk or possibility of defeat. Magician’s always win.”

“So I’d like to try something more challenging. I’m going to try to lose.”

EVAN writes the word “LOSE” in big letters on a pad of paper.

“We’ll play a number game, well, really it’s more of a decision game. You all [gesture to players] will make a series of decisions using your cards…

NOTE- This structure is driving me crazy, so in the spirit of moving forward with the draft, I’m going to move forward past it and fill in the details later. Here are the basic plot points:

  • EVAN gets a royal flush with someone else dealing
  • Something about setting up the idea of “winning and losing”
  • Write the word LOSE or the number 3507 [plain sight prediction]
  • All players choose one card at a time to create a multi-digit number that will all get added together
    • Is it more impressive here for me to be controlling a very specific outcome or for it to be hands off and somehow still aligns at the end?
  • At the end, the numbers are all added together, and they make 3507.
  • The plain sight prediction is turned either from word to number or vice versa.

Phew! Now I don’t have to think about this one for now.

ShowCraft In Action: Part 9a

March 17, 2022 /

EDIT: This section became wildly long, so I split it into two parts. This (part a) is “Act I” and part b will cover Act II and III.

SETLIST CONTINUED: A Conversation With The Audience

Here’s a bit of an experiment. Normally at this point (with so much concept work laid out), I’d usually start in on the script. I’m comfortable with longform writing so it feels natural for me to start filling in the blank spaces with the full “story” of the show.

But in an effort to dig into what my ShowCraft process truly entails, I thought I’d try something that’s been kicking around in my mind: thinking through the Setlist as though it were a conversation with the audience. Almost like an interview where the individual pieces respond to the natural next questions of the audience.

Our art is inherently audience-focused. We need people and their brains for magic to exist, so it behooves us to think through what they’re (probably) thinking throughout our show. If ShowCraft is intentionally choosing what to perform when, part of what can inform that decision is what questions and thoughts are in our audience’s minds. Using the Setlist from the last ShowCraft post, I’m going to flesh out the message of each trick, possibly do some re-organizing, and hopefully find the conversational thread that begins to unite disparate parts of the show.’

SHOW WALKTHROUGH

Welcome/Intro: Audience members enter a museum/gallery/warehouse feeling space. If it leans more ‘gallery,’ they can roam around, look at art on the walls featuring card imagery. If it’s more ‘warehouse,’ it feels minimalist – even empty – perhaps the space is filled with soundscape/music to set the mood? The mood is curious and excited, with the predominant question being “What’s about to happen?” At showtime, the lights go down to a full blackout, and after a few moments augmented by sound effects, flashlights begin to turn on, spotlighting a deck of cards and the magician.

Hotel 52: Adapted to an art heist, sets up the 52 cards as unique, priceless art works. Lean on dramatized story to get in medias res opening feeling. One card is selected, revealed at the top of the deck. Rest of the deck crumpled up. Box revealed to be destroyable/made of paint/etc. Effect sets up obviously that the show is about heists/theft, and the first questions are probably a response to me; Who am I? Why am I doing this show? What interests me about the topic?

Ring, Watch, Wallet: Possible elements to include: 1) Story about being stuck in Paris at the almost empty Louvre, thinking “I could steal that;” 2) Only ever considered (and my skills only qualify me for) a handful of jobs: Librarian, Magician, International Art Thief; 3) We so often define ourselves by our jobs to the point where it becomes the first thing we ask a person about (set up for a moment of transformation later on where the focus should really be not on what we do when someone is giving us money, but what we’d be doing when no one pays us for it at all); 4) Being a good magician requires skills inversely proportional to being a good person. This section needs to not only introduce me, but immediately establish trust because the nature of the material is such that twists/mistrust is rampant, and especially if I want to play with that towards the end for a “twist” of some kind, I need the audience on my side right away. This effect should be funny, somewhat self-deprecating, and relatable (use storytelling technique to find the relatable moments). Possible objects to include as part of the effect: Money (Material Value, Wealth), License (Identity), Watch (Time), Business Card (Identity – Becomes Calling Card Later?). Sort of a Thief vs. Magician presentation? Both… “creative problem solvers.” ***Set up the premise of the show at this point: That I think a smart magician could pull of the Perfect Heist*** This leads to a bunch of questions that need to be tackled in a targeted way: Why Magicians? What skills do they have? What would you steal? How would you do it? What would it look like? Generally, I want to save the “Demonstration” for Act III as a finale. Promise to show them exactly what it looks like (though they won’t be able to see it if everything works correctly).

Out Of This World: Refocus all the attention by putting the audience on display a bit. There are a lot of disparate questions happening which is good for interest but bad for controlling the show. Fauxcess of this piece is that audience can do things without always understanding how (Magician’s aren’t special/unique in doing things people don’t understand); I have information and they (apparently) don’t and I’m going to ask them to make decisions. But information is constantly being translated and communicated (SETUP FOR AKA LATER… Maybe incorporate “Pointing”), we just need to be aware of subtext. Flow of the effect should start conversational; maybe with a back and forth about jobs as a callback. As it goes along, I should react positively but subtly because I have the information they’re doing well and I should actively try to give them less information. “Don’t try to solve it, just trust that the information is already making its way to your brain.” Revelation should include the idea of this being the perfect audience (affirmation) for the show and once again tease the ending somehow. Questions will probably focus on “How did we do that?” At this point. I want to refocus that question (Because there’s not enough time to understand “How” of it all as it’s too broad) into “How did you make the ‘right’ decision?” Ask who felt unsure vs who felt sure of their choice. Bring up different representatives and have them hold onto that feeling at the moment of decision making. Afterthought: Set this routine up as being “out of my control” because all the decisions will be made by you and while most magicians wouldn’t give up that much control early on, this isn’t exactly a magic show.

NO Poker: We know why the audience is here (Need a better resolution of this idea in the previous routine); and now we need to know why I’m here. Magician’s are attuned to reading the subtext of a situation. Gleaning extra information and working in the barely-perceptible periphery (call back to the idea of information already being in the brain, just not being processed). And above all, subtly manipulating situations for their own preferred outcomes. This routine is all about manipulation (so I need to take the sting out). Phase 1: win at a hand of cards quickly. Phase 2: Set up the win/lose dichotomy so that I’m attempting to “lose” (fun wording). This routine activates the audience’s critical analysis, so play with that and then come back to a more enjoyable (while still active) mindset to appease critics. By controlling a series of decisions to a T, I can prove my own self-imposed challenge of why I’m leading the show, and I can bring a sort of resolution to “were my choices in OOTW fair/my own?” The answer(s) potentially being: 1) if they feel the same, does it matter? 2) The choices were completely fair in OOTW, but in NO, they made the exact series of decisions I wanted them to. Big takeaway is that THIS IS THE KEY: those two situations felt the same [This show probably needs to use the interactive/conversational moments to check in with participants who should be checking in with themselves]. By this point, folks should be wondering where the line is between what they can control themselves and what is being manipulated by me; I need them to trust me again, so address that and bring them back onto my team. That might happen by shifting the topic towards actual Heists (this Act I has been more general skills), OR the kicker word reveal (rather than “LOSE” could potentially be something related to the scripting transition from control/attention/etc. to heists and the kicker moment is what propels us into Act II.

ShowCraft In Action: Part 2

November 16, 2021 /

GOAL ANALYSIS

Welcome to the next piece of the record of my process. Let’s make a show!

We left off by setting a few goals (a lot of them, actually). After thinking about them overnight (and having them mulling around over the last several days), the ones that stick out are:

  1. Creative: Design a magic show that feels theatrical and immersive by focusing not only on the material but on the experience.
  2. Financial: Ensure that the show becomes sustainable by developing a model to bring in $500 (net) per week.
  3. Business: Be thoughtful and intentional about the full process – not just making the show but the promotion, documentation, and leveraging of assets into each other.

What will immediately become apparent about this whole process is that it relies on making decisions thoughtfully in a way that intentionally moves towards a single vision. For the Goals portion of the plan, that doesn’t stop simply by setting a few independent goals. It’s worth a bit of time working through the implications of those goals. Let’s infer what their impact will be on the show:

  1. Creating a theatrical and immersive-feeling show immediately has resource demands. It can often mean more expenses for props, set pieces, lighting, music or soundscapes and designers to carry those elements out. Carrying out It’s not the case 100% of the time, but fleshing out the experience (from ticket sales to pre-show to follow up) for an audience means more elements to think about and often higher costs. This ties directly into Goal number 2:
  2. A sustainable career in the arts requires finding those (rare) recurring income streams from sources that can remain relatively stable. While $500 per week is by no means a salary, my experience has shown me that – in my area – it’s definitely an achievable number and it will help me understand how many hours per week I can commit to the project over time to make it viable. The big challenge is that quickly reaching a profit in a theatrical endeavor is a challenge. I could easily slap together 10 tricks that I already do and call it “Evan’s Wicked Awesome Magic Show” to save on design costs, but that doesn’t serve my artistic goals. Knowing that I want to create a world and a setting and an exciting viewing experience for my audience means that I need to commit resources to the overall design. That means I need to be incredible careful with the type of theme and show I create to make sure it doesn’t require a heavy lift in terms of reworking a space. Crafting a show to fit into a cohesive preexisting space will cut down on overhead and make the show profitable faster without sacrificing the artistic integrity.
  3. Capturing the process means simultaneously creating social media content for promotion. It means thinking multiple steps ahead to get ahead of unexpected expenses. It means ending up with videos, a press kit, and a clear process to recreate the show so it becomes a resource I can continue to use into the future.

I haven’t forsaken my other goals, but I prioritized these ones because they’re currently the most important for me to explore. Plus, several of the others (focusing on primarily original material, developing my team, etc.) feel like they’ll happen somewhat naturally under the umbrella of these other goals.

Additional goals can pop up as the process arises! Everything is flexible, but having clear starting points gives me a matrix against which to judge if my actions are in line with where I want to get. So spending $2,000 on a lighting system might seem super fun for me personally, but if it doesn’t contribute to making the show sustainable, it’s probably not a good goal. Creating a show focused on props or themes that are consumable will mean that week-to-week overhead is going to be higher and will make the financial plan harder to carry out.

I’ll say again: Everything is flexible. We just need to start this whole process with places to begin. Those could be primarily creative if this isn’t your full time job. Maybe your goal is to design a competition act for a local magic contest. Your goals could be entirely focused on developing your material and your style, and creating a unique competition experience for a magician audience. And with a separate job funding it, the financials may be of minimal concern!

RANDOM IDEAS

  • This might be the same as the last post, but with the “HEIST” theme in mind, a warehouse, sketchy area, and non-theatrical feeling performance space might be a great fit for these goals.
  • In terms of “Frames” (more on that later), A heist movie could work. Also, a Salon came to mind and has that interactive feel I foresee this show moving towards.

ShowCraft In Action – part 1

November 15, 2021 /

An artist’s process is a personal exploration into how they best create the things they want to bring into the world. I have lots of thoughts on magic theory and why we do the things we do, but it’s important to me that most of those ideas have come out of practical performance and show creation.

As we get into the winter of 2021 and in-person shows remain infrequent, it’s a good time to look forward to the show(s) for next year I’d like to produce.

For me, that creative process almost always begins with goals. As I plan out the show, having clearly defined goals that are (mostly) within my control is my way of making sure I’m moving in the right direction.

Goals can be personal, professional, creative, artistic, financial, or anything else that’s important to you at this point in your life. Usually I try to limit myself to 3 or 4, but it always starts with brainstorming a whole bunch. Then I can weight them against each other and against the type of show I’m making to see what fits. For now, here’s what comes to mind:

GOALS

  • Design a show with minimal physical overhead that still feels like the space is curated, immersive, and unique
  • Create a recurring show that brings in (net) $500 per week
  • Feature a majority of my original material throughout the show
  • Plan a more thoughtful promotion and documentation approach in tandem with the performance itself
  • Develop my regular collaborative team
  • Make a show that communicates who I am and what I believe WITHOUT being an autobiographical show “about me.”

I’m going to let those goals marinate for a little bit to see what continues to be important or if others arise. Generally, the sense I’m getting from a lot of these goals touch on “sustainability” of a performing arts career (regular financial income, establishing systems that can translate across projects, etc.)

DISCLAIMER: As we move through the different steps in my process, the fact that it’s written might make it seem more linear or organized than it is. I’m organizing a bit more than I would normally to make it readable while still maintaining the integrity of the process.

To not dismiss the important fluid nature of the process, I’m going to include some sort of “random ideas” section at the end of each post that mentions some of the thoughts that popped up outside of the main topic. Like this:

RANDOM IDEAS:

  • Working through my process in real time reminded me of shows I developed before this process was more established. I’m curious about how I might approach those shows with my current views, so maybe I’ll revisit the Themes of: Storytelling, Puzzles, Heist, or Games.
    • As I was quickly revisiting past themes, the Heist concept show I did seemed like it had the audience appeal and a lot of the inherent assets that would logistically check off a few of my goals. Perhaps that will be the one to start with!
  • On the financial viability front, I should perhaps include a section (read: Rabbit Hole) on my budgeting template for shows over time to work through the financials of staging a theatrical endeavor.

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