Discourse in Magic

Today, we are talking about the three systems that every virtual magician needs in their business. A lot of people ask me, how is it that I can have a podcast, and a virtual magic business, and interview people, and coach magicians, and also post on social media everyday, how I do all of those things. And the answer is not that I wake up really early and drink a ginger root tea or have apple cider vinegar at 6AM, none of those things are true.  The reality is, I rely on systems to make sure that my business grows, even when I’m not putting in the work, and systems are critical for your business because having systems in place, having things in place that work, means that one unit of input doesn’t necessarily mean one unit of output. One unit of input could mean two or five or ten or twenty units of output.  A Lead Generating System For many of us, we do what’s called hope marketing, which is we cross our fingers and we hope that somebody inquires on our website or asks us about what we’re doing. And the reality is if we do not have a system to bring people into our business, then we don’t really have a business. We don’t really have something that regularly makes money. We only make money when other people want us to make money.  So we need to have a system to bring leads into our business. Now you’ve probably been in magic long enough to know that there’s not just one way to do this. It could be social media, you could do ads, you could do events, ticket events, live streams, email outreach, email newsletter, cold calling, referrals… there’s a million different systems that you can have, but just ask yourself right now, do you have a lead generating system? Is there something that if I said tomorrow, I need you to push the button that’s going to bring more leads into your business. Would you know what button to push? A Sales System If you do not have an organized system that takes an interested person to an inquiry, takes an inquiry to a phone call, takes a phone call to a pitch, and then a pitch to a close. Then what happens is you basically just cross your fingers every time that somebody asks you about an event. Because you’re hoping that they decide that it’s good for them. And obviously it’s a two way decision, you know, we’re not deciding if they should hire us, but certainly by having a system, you can be very, very sure about what needs to happen at each phase of the process, instead of hoping that they know what they want, how they want it, when they want it, you decide how it works. You tell them what you offer, what’s most popular, what they should get. You tell them that you schedule phone calls. You tell them how it works, because otherwise you are beholden to their buying process. If they want to buy later, if they don’t want to buy now, if they’re not interested, if they want this and not that you have to do whatever it is that they want. So instead build out your sales system. An Outsourcing System Maybe you’re wondering how it is that I can have a podcast episode every Thursday for the past four years and be a full-time magician and produce ticketed shows and run a coaching program and all of these different things. The answer is outsourcing. I hire out the things that I’m not so good at. There’s only important bits that I do. I write the posts, I say the podcast, but it’s critically important that I find incredibly talented people to put in positions where they do something better than I could ever do. It was cheaper for me because instead of me spending five hours, hours that I totally could have and should have spent doing way more important things, I spent those sitting in front of my computer editing. So ask yourself what processes in your virtual business right now are you doing that maybe you shouldn’t be doing. What pieces can you hand off to somebody else that you do not have to do. Upgrade Your Business These are the three systems that every virtual magician needs. I hope that this was helpful for you. If you want some help doing this, if you want some assistance, then send an e-mail to info@discourseinmagic.com with the word “Upgrade” and I’ll tell you a little more info about the private coaching that I run for virtual magicians. The post Appetizer #23: The Three Systems You Need For Your Virtual Magic Business appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Jonah is joined by Moritz Mueller where they discuss how to reach out to some of the biggest names in the magic world, different theories of magic and how it can practically apply your work, and how Moritz prepares and learns his own tricks. Moritz is an incredibly talented magician and, at twenty years old, he’s very young for someone with his expertise and skill. So what is he doing that other magicians aren’t? How has he accomplished in less than ten years of sleight of hand that other magicians haven’t been able to do in twenty or thirty? In this interview Jonah and Moritz talk about coin magic and card magic, how to bump elbows with the best of the best, and what it was like to appear on Ellen!  The Magic At Home Advantage Moritz had one major advantage over many other magicians in that his father was already a hobby magician. As Moritz was developing his own interest in magic his father would point out when a trick he was looking to purchase was worth his time or not. Having a magician in the family to help guide his early years meant bypassing a lot of the experimenting that other magicians have to face. By the time he was ready to start performing on his own he already had years of mentorship. What grabbed Moritz’s attention to magic was the small details. How a very small change in detail can have a major impact on a trick’s effectiveness. Those minute details captured Moritz’s ambitions; he would spend years just practicing and learning all the nuances he could and refining those small details. Eventually he drew the attention of others who invited him to attend conventions where he would meet some of the biggest names in the magic community and begin learning and befriending them. If you ask him how he’s ended up with so many big names as personal contacts he’ll happily point out that many of the people he’s met in the magic community are very open to being approached and contacted. As long as you approach them with respect and express your feelings and ask a question you might find that a lot of people are more willing to respond in kind than you might think.  The Man Who Has Practiced One Move 10,000 Times Rather than casting a wide net Moritz focused a very narrow beam early on. It can be very overwhelming thinking that you need to learn all of these many moves to be a successful magician and you can either end up burning out or never developing enough skill in any one move to really be successful. So, being inspired by a famous quote from Bruce Lee, Moritz focused on one thing at a time obsessing over the tiny changes he could do to a single move and it was in coin magic that he discovered was a great playground for him to practice in. Moritz has a lot to say about coin magic. It’s difficulty stems from how simple it is at its core. There are only so many effects possible and the methods are oftentimes equally simple. But there is a very steep learning curve and so much that needs to be done before it even begins to be deceptive and that is what Moritz finds so interesting. He attributes much of career success in magic to the time he invested in coin magic early on because there is so much work that needs to be done before you can even call it magic.  Walking Your Own Path Moritz knows that there’s no real “right” way to live your magic life and thinks that what it comes down to is reflection. How often do you stop along your path and actually think if this is the right thing? How often do you question why you are working on a certain routine or a certain move? What Moritz has always tried to do is realize wrong turns as soon as possible by stopping and questioning himself. Moritz’s advice to you is if you find yourself practicing a lot of things at once and you find yourself so scatterbrained that you can’t keep track of what you’re doing then that might be a sign to keep it simple and focus on one thing at a time. And also read more magic books instead of youtube videos. The theories found in those books will help you understand what you’re seeing in those videos so much more that your entire perspective on magic will shift. There’s not that many magic theory books out there and Jonah has a whole bookshelf of recommendations that you’ve likely heard mentioned dozens of times in the past on this podcast but Moritz can’t recommend “Expert Card Technique” enough. The theory part is so good that Moritz believes that it’s put so concisely that it’s a very good all rounder of magic theory.   Wrap-Up Endless Chain Jan Logemann – “He is just an amazing close up performer… you can’t really put him in a box, he just does great magic” What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Moritz likes that he’s seeing people use gimmicks in ways he hasn’t seen before, especially on Instagram. To an extent where the gimmick is being used in a way that can only work on Instagram. What Moritz doesn’t like is the overconfidence of new magicians who think that they don’t need to hear what you have to share.  Take home point What is the right amount of the characteristic that you have? What is the right amount of work? It’s really important to question yourself like that. And capture your own excitement point. That is the most important resource that you have for your magic, your own excitement. That thing that makes you giggle, that thing that gets your heart going, that thing that really inspires you, keep pursuing that and you will get closer and closer to what it is that you want.  Plugs You can follow Moritz on Instagram @moritzmueller00 The post Finding Your Path To Magic with Moritz Mueller appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This is not an episode. This is a thank you.  2020 was a really, really strange year for everybody. It was a strange year for me, and I assume it was a strange year for you too. A Year Of Firsts It was a year full of firsts. It was the first time we had our calendars wiped clean. It was the first time that we all did virtual magic shows. And it’s the first time that many of us rose to that occasion. For me, it was a lot of really crazy firsts. All in 2020, we released episodes with Juan Tamariz, Derren Brown, and Teller, which snuck out just before the end. Thank You! And the reason I’m recording this episode is to thank you. To thank you all so much for your support, not just your support in this year, not just your support in the last few episodes, but your support in the last few years. Your support in being a part of this from the start, you know, I know many of you have been listening to this since day one, and I know there’s so many different things that you could be doing with your time, so much different content you could be consuming. And I am so glad that you spend it all here with me. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much. New Year Resolutions In the past, I’ve done new year’s magic resolution episodes. I used to do them with Tyler. I used to do them with Ben and Jackie and Chris, but this year because of the quarantine, because of the pandemic, because of the, everything I want to say this. Last year, when we did the episode, one of the pieces of feedback that I got from everybody was that usually when I do episodes, I’m either doing an interview or I’m either giving out advice, but the new year’s magic resolution, I kind of give a peek behind the scenes as to what’s going on in my life. What’s going on in the Toronto magic company. And what my mindset is going into the new year. So instead of us doing an episode about all the things we had planned for 2020, and then how all of those plans went horribly wrong instead, Ben and I are going to be doing monthly Toronto magic company episodes here on the podcast. So we’re going to be tuning in once a month to share what we got planned, what’s going on. And if you’re interested in what we’re doing, how we’re handling virtual, if you want to see us doing virtual magic shows, we’re going to be talking about all that, all of our plans, Unconventional.Fun, all of that good stuff. Get More From Behind The Scenes In 2021 So this episode I’m recording because I want to say thank you.  Next episode will be back to interviews, but I just want you to know that over the next 12 months, basically, I’m going to be doing some more behind the scenes episodes to share with you what I’m doing, what I’m up to and what I’m thinking as well. Thanks so much for being here this year and the last five years of this podcast existing, you guys mean the world. I love you all so much. See you next Thursday, Peace! The post Thank You appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

In this episode, we are talking about if and why you should run your own ticketed virtual magic show and Jonah is going to give you five reasons why you may want to do your very first ticketed virtual magic show. #1: It Makes Money Let’s be honest, it makes money. Why do you think that people keep doing them? Because they’re profitable. They make money. There are dozens and dozens of people who know and love you, and they know that you do magic and they love your work. But they don’t get the opportunity all that often to support you. Maybe they don’t live in the same city as you, maybe they’ve got kids and they don’t get to leave their house all that often to go to your events. Maybe you don’t put on a lot of ticketed public events. So the first reason why you should do this is because there are so many people in your network who wants to come see you perform and they’ve just never been given the opportunity and this is a wonderful opportunity. #2: To Test Your Material The second reason why you may want to put on your own virtual magic show is because there is no better place for you to test material. Think about it, you’re inviting all of these people to come watch you and these are likely people, especially your first few shows, who know you. They like you. They trust you. These are people in your community. Maybe people on your newsletter, maybe these are people who are on your social media channels, who you’ve been friends with, who you’ve been communicating with. This is the safest environment for you to test out new material that is going to potentially make it into your professional or corporate level shows. #3: It’s Easy! The third reason is that it is easy. I’m going to be honest with you. I have produced ticketed events, both in-person and online, and the amount of moving parts that you need to put in place to do an in-person event is way harder than for an online event. When renting out a space and selling the tickets yourself, the costs associated with that are astronomical. The cost associated with doing it in virtual are very, very reasonable. It’s the cost of zoom. Which you already have, and then whatever processing fees for whatever software you use for the tickets, maybe it’s Eventbright, maybe it’s Well-Attended. And if you’re really savvy and you’ve done a few of them and you want to start experimenting into Facebook ads, then you can start spending some money there. But compared to in-person events, you’ve got to spend money on traveling there and back. You got to spend money on dry cleaning. You’ve got to maybe spend money on drinks or on food and on going out. There’s all these different things you have to spend money on. There’s different objects or items needed to bring to the venue, which are costly for you to bring. At home, you don’t have any of that. So if you ever dreamed of doing your own show and selling tickets or dreamed of having your own theater or dreamed of putting on your own show, this is basically the easiest least expensive way to ever, ever try it out and it’ll make you money. #4: Brings In New Bookings The fourth reason, and this is kind of sneaky too, is it is one of the best ways I have found in the world of virtual to bring in new bookings. When somebody goes and they see your virtual magic show, maybe they go to it for free, or they pay $10 or $20 or $50, whatever, they see your virtual magic show. And now they think, “Wow, that’s something I want to do for my friend!”, or, “Wow! That’s something that I want to do for my company!” Every single person who goes to see your show either works at a company or their husband or wife works at a company or their kids go to a school or their kids are having a birthday party. There are so many opportunities for an individual to want to hire a virtual magician that you putting on a ticketed show is more or less your audition to all of these people to tell them, “Hey, I am open for business and you can hire me if you’d like to, because I do virtual magic shows and they look. Epic.” #5: It’s Fun! I know that I’m going to sound a little bit like a sixth grade talent show, but the fifth reason why you should put on your own ticketed virtual magic show is it’s fun. It is fun. It is really, really, really fun. When you do a company show or you do a show for a big bank or whatever, 50-75% of the people there didn’t sign up to go to a magic show. For the most part, they didn’t even know that there was going to be a magic show! So then when you show up, you have to win them over. When somebody who is in your network, someone who’s known you in the past, buys a ticket to your show and then comes to the show, they’re going to have a good time. Because they like magic and they like you. They’ve already self-selected themselves. So your show is going to have better laughs, more fun, better thank-you’s and wonderful testimonials that come afterwards, just because you decided to step outside of the box and put on a virtual magic show of your own. Join The Upgrade Academy If you need help, if you need a little bit of assistance with putting on your own ticketed virtual magic show, then let me know, send me a message and I will tell you a little bit about some of the fun stuff that I do. Upgrade Academy, which is my private coaching group starting this January. If you want some help going crazy in the virtual space, let me know, I’d be pumped to help you. The post Appetizer #22: Ticketed Virtual Magic Shows appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Jonah is joined by none other than Teller himself to discuss his history in magic, the challenges of producing Fool Us during a global pandemic, and how he views a world where every magic secret can easily be researched online. Not Always The Silent Type Teller wasn’t always silent and he opens up about his early days struggling as a magician performing for fraternities that wouldn’t pay attention to him and would throw hard candy and cups of beer at him. As he got more silent in his routines he found that the audiences got drawn in and would pay more attention. As Teller puts it, he discovered he had an innate skill for lying with his body.  Before he was one half of the most famous magic duo in the world he was a public school teacher. Invited by Penn to a renaissance fair, he took a leave of absence to explore the possibility of working as a magician full time and never returned to his old job. But it would be years of performing in relative obscurity mixed with a dash of major financial losses from failed attempts before they would end up performing off Broadway in the 80’s and begin to change the magic business forever.  Magic For TV From their infamous appearances on David Letterman, to their mind warping presentation on Saturday Night Live, to producing Fool Us today, Teller has had a great deal of opportunity to consider how to create magic for a television audience. He and Penn learned quite early on that the best way to perform on camera was to perform towards someone, like David Letterman, and to use the stage as an opportunity to bring the audience backstage with them and become culpable in the acts, like on Saturday Night Live where the audience in the studio could see they were upside down long before the audience at home was aware of the illusion. All of those lessons they have learned have culminated into Fool Us where instead of performing for the camera the contestants on the show perform for Penn & Teller.  The Game of Magic Fool Us also breaks one of the other “rules” of magic and encourages the act of trying to figure out how the trick is done. Teller is honest about his feelings that for many people watching magic that’s a major part of the fun of magic. By framing their entire show around trying to guess how a trick is performed they’re also able to acknowledge and embrace how most people consume magic while still speaking in code to preserve secrets and not truly bring the audience backstage. While most people attending a magic show are trying to figure out how the trick is done, in reality they probably don’t really want to know how it’s done as Teller points out that most magic secrets are really very dull, boring, and usually involve grueling mundane tasks. The better the trick looks on the stage the more dull the trick is back stage. So for Teller it becomes a balancing act of finding out how much “backstage” to appear to let the audience in on while in reality preserving the fantastic qualities of what the audience thinks is really going on.  Wrap-Up Endless Chain Teller thinks we would have great fun with Piff The Magic Dragon and one magician that Teller finds absolutely fascinating is Bob Farmer What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Teller likes the proliferation of magic on the internet like being able to watch performances online that you otherwise wouldn’t see. Teller doesn’t find very satisfying magic that is just being done for the camera lens and doesn’t give him the fair chance to do the intellectual part. If it just looks impossible and is impossible then it doesn’t feel like the “game” part of magic is as fun.  Take home point “My definition of misdirection is the story you get the audience to tell itself. If you think about that for a while you may find it a very fruitful definition of misdirection. What you’re trying to do is to get the audience is to tell itself a story. You’re inducing them to tell that story to themselves. And what’s you start thinking of those terms, it’s a helpful concept”.  Plugs If you think you have what it takes to appear on Fool Us then you should e-mail FoolUsCasting@gmail.com and you will be invited to send a videotape of what you are proposing and Teller will never know about it. If you’ve never watched any of the zombie movies that Teller made with Ezekiel Zabrowski then you really should look into it. The post A Life of Magic with Teller appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This episode with Jonah is going to be ridiculously short because it’s not really an episode. But First, Congratulations Jonah wants to say two things. The first thing is to say congratulations. This year has been really strange. And for many of us, it kind of all accumulated to December, which was for many of us, our busiest virtual magic month ever, where 12 months ago, not one of us was doing virtual magic. So you owe yourself a pat on the back for an interesting, fun, and strange, and a little bit of a hopefully memorable year that you’re going to remember for the rest of your life. Give yourself a Pat on the back for some of the amazing stuff that you’ve done. And Now, For Something Completely Amazing The second reason for this episode is to tell you about next week’s episode. At the end of every Discourse in Magic podcast, Jonah asks each guest about the “Endless Chain”. In order to keep the podcast going on for eternity, each guest is asked to recommend another guest that would be perfect for the show. There are two reasons why Jonah does this. The first reason is to help introduce us to new people that we don’t know and help to keep the podcast go on forever. But the second reason is to get in contact with some very specific, very hard to reach people, who have a lot of important things to say in the world of magic. It is without exaggeration that we tell you that the episode coming out next week is one of the most exciting episodes that we have ever released. Not only is this someone who you know and love, but he over delivered on the episode and we are so excited to share it with you. We can’t say too much about who it is yet, but what we can say is, for those of you that get it, we hope this makes up for our April Fools prank a few years back… The post Teaser appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Jonah is joined by Eric Dittelman where they talk about performing on TV, the usefulness of having an agent, the challenges of the past year going virtual, and the importance of creating a space where you can be bad. Eric has competed on America’s Got Talent, appeared on Ellen, and performed on Penn & Teller Fool Us. He’s toured the United States performing at colleges and has produced shows in New York like the experimental magic and comedy show Amazeballs.  Doing His Own Thing Eric wasn’t even aware there were magic organizations or clubs until he was in college. Until then he cultivated his interest in magic by visiting random shops and pursuing his own hobby on his own terms, which he looks back on now as a strength having not been influenced by other people he was able to come into his own identity as a performer.  That independent streak led him to mentalism where the cross between improvisation and psychological studies really appealed to him. As he found books to read by people like Bannachek and Bob Cassidy he began seeking them out, if there was an event where one was hosting a discussion he would be there to meet them and make connections. Those connections would foster lifelong friendships and mentorships, which Eric notes was very important to have.   Stumbling Onto The Small Screen Eric is quick to point out that he stumbled into all his tv performances. If you have goals and you work towards them everyday they’ll eventually manifest and it’s just being ready and prepared for when those opportunities arise. After a producer saw one of Eric’s viral video gags he posted online he was encouraged to apply to America’s Got Talent, which lead to someone scouting him for Ellen, which opened doors later to appearing on Penn & Teller Fool Us. At first Eric kept his expectations low, at most he expected to be able to get a single clip from appearing on TV that he could use to compete for booking on the college circuit and he didn’t even tell anyone he was auditioning for America’s Got Talent. Eric shares his strategy on AGT and the risks he took at the end performing a trick for the judges that had only worked once before in rehearsal. Surviving In Virtual When the pandemic closed every live show in New York and across the country in March, Eric pulled back to take time to consider his next move. At first he was convinced that mentalism could not perform in the virtual space but after thinking about radio shows in the past and the shows he enjoyed listening to he decided to try a livestream show on Youtube with a “call in” line where viewers could join in via Zoom one at a time just like a radio call in show and have their minds read.  While sharing his story about setting up his virtual shows Eric expands on that to include his history in improv and the importance he’s learned in being able to create spaces where you can be bad in. You can’t be bad at a paying gig so you also can’t take the same risks or experiment with ideas you haven’t fully formed. But by creating a space, either with friends or colleagues, or a low-rent studio where the cost of failure isn’t going to harm you, you can push your creative limits and find new innovative ways to improve your performances. Never underestimate the power of letting yourself fail.  Wrap-Up Endless Chain Mat Franco or Michael Kent or Peter Boie or Colin Cloud or Vinnie Deponto (is that enough names?) What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Eric loves the moment of creativity where people find their own voice and find their own way Eric doesn’t like the arrogance in the magic community which he doesn’t think is necessary to be a good magician.  Take home point Create your own space and find a place to do your thing, and to actually DO the thing! “You do it because the doing of it is the thing. The doing is the thing. The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing.” ― Amy Poehler, Yes Please Plugs ericdittleman.com (try and find a misspelling of the domain that doesn’t work!)  Twitter – @EDittelman  And check out Mind Over Magic, his new podcast with Mat Franco!  The post Creating Your Own Space with Eric Dittelman appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah is joined by the dynamic duo of Kyle and Mistie Knight. Kyle & Mistie have been on tours with Disney Cruise, they’ve appeared on Penn and Teller Fool Us, and they even have the distinction of winning Wizard Wars! Today you’re going to learn all about how they got to where they are with Kyle’s background in working, building, and creating magic and Mistie’s incredible work on managing the business. Their lives, like everyone else’s, were turned upside down during the pandemic and after years spent living on the road they’ve had to reinvent their magic to work from their home in the virtual space while planning for whatever future lies ahead.  It Started With A Cruise Kyle and Mistie are celebrating eighteen years together and it all began when they met on a cruise. Kyle invited Mistie to see one of his magic performances and even though she never ended up seeing his show they kept in touch and a year later she cancelled her return ticket from Las Vegas while visiting Kyle and they’ve been partners ever since.   Initially Kyle and Mistie’s show was more illusion based with Mistie playing the role of the traditional assistant but after an agent failed to warn the duo that a show they were performing in Europe would be in front of an audience that only spoke spanish it was up to Mistie, who knew enough words to get by, to step up and take on a more featured role in the show. After experiencing how well audiences received seeing the pair share the stage equally it’s become their primary focus ever since.  If You Built It… Kyle also has a reputation as a magic builder with a strong background in behind the scenes support. Most of what he knows he’s had to teach himself, from adapting pieces to fit the shorter Mistie to creating lightweight tables that can easily be stored and deployed at conventions and touring shows, which have now seen a surge in popularity during the pandemic where magicians are searching for efficient constructions to incorporate into their work-from-home virtual setups.  From A Life At Sea to Locked Down At Home For a performing couple who make most of their business touring with cruise lines, to say that the pandemic shutdown of the cruise industry has turned their business and personal lives upside would be a massive understatement. Kyle and Mistie have a lot of positive things to say about working with cruise contracts, from the incredible amount of travelling they get to do, to being able to get feedback from having much closer contact with their audiences who remain with them for days at a time. Now they’ve had to reinvent how to do their business, from having to manage their own clients to constructing their own virtual business from the ground up. You might remember hearing Mistie in a previous episode of Discourse in Magic where she took part in a demo sales call with Jonah. Now, having completed Jonah’s workshop, she’s managing her own client calls and setting up new contracts and despite having lost all their business with the cruise lines this year they’ve managed to end the year earning more than they would have had their initial contracts not been cancelled.  Wrap-Up Endless Chain Naathan Phan and Mike Hammer What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Mistie is most excited about women in magic. In the last couple years we’ve seen real changes in how audiences view women in magic and how performers incorporate women into their show. Long gone is the days of women only being seen as the assistant on the stage.  Kyle loves how everything is exposed online and you can learn anything and what that is doing to force magic to evolve into something new. Kyle does not like the “seriousness” of magic with the sparkly jackets and serious mood lighting, even if Mistie disagrees and is adamant that there is an audience for every act.  Take home point Don’t be afraid to think outside of your own box. Try new things and take risks. If Kyle and Mistie had said no they would have missed so many opportunities. Say yes and make it work.  Plugs You can follow up with Kyle and Mistie by following them on instagram @kyleandmistie Check out their facebook page at kyleandmistie And visit their website knightmagic.com The post Reinventing Magic with Kyle and Mistie appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Today’s advice from Jonah is directed towards stage magicians who are transitioning from big stage or parlor shows to performing for the camera in virtual shows and he’s looking to the world of acting for the answers. Ready For Your Close Up You used to be a stage performer, or you used to be a parlor performer, and now you are a virtual magician. And one thing that you’ll notice in virtual magic is you’re a little bit closer to your audience than you would be before. You’re quite close to the camera. Sometimes actors have to transition from the world of theater acting to the world of camera acting. And one thing that happens when actors make that switch, is the directors often have to tell them over and over again, to play smaller. Do less. And here’s what that means. It means that they’re used to performing on a stage. That means that they talk with their hands. They express themselves with their whole body. If they’re sad, they’re not just sad with their face they’re sad with their shoulders so that the people sitting in the back row knows that the performer is feeling sad or looking sad.  But for an actor who is acting for a camera for television, they actually need to make their emotions very small. If they’re looking angry, it’s more about adding a little bit of anger to their face, to their facial expression than it is to adding a whole lot of anger to their body. Or maybe if they’re looking excited, it’s about raising their eyes up a little bit. So the viewers at home can really intuit that they’re feeling excited because they’re close up to their face. They don’t have to throw their arms in the air and get incredibly excited. Play Small, Do Less That is the exact same piece of advice that Jonah is going to share for those of you that are translating from the world of parlor magic to the world of virtual magic, which is kind of an alternate close-up magic. You should be playing smaller, not necessarily the magic, but your expressions about it should be playing smaller, especially if you’re positioned close to your camera. If you’re positioned close to your camera, it’s much more important what it is that your face is doing than it is what your arms and what your body’s doing, because your face probably takes up to 40% of the screen. So if we’re looking really bored on our face but we think that doing interesting stuff with our hands is going to really help. It’s not. People are going to see a boring face. If we look excited and overly excited with our face, people are going to think that we are completely out of our minds because they’re right up close to our face. So sometimes if you’re making that transition, from stage magic to the world of virtual magic, we’re going to take the advice that directors give to actors who are transitioning from theater to camera. And that is do less or play smaller. So not big with your arms, not big with your legs, not big with your body, but instead the small movements in your face, that express the way you’re feeling, your excitement, your anticipation. That might be a change that’s going to help you really connect with the people on the other side of the screen. Ask For More Help We hope this was helpful for you. Please let us know and leave a comment. We want to know if this is the kind of stuff that you want to know And if you need help with your virtual magic show, especially getting more bookings, getting higher paid bookings and systematizing the whole thing so it doesn’t drain your entire life, then send Jonah a message. Send an email titled “hello” to info@discourseandmagic.com and he will make sure to help you out. The post Appetizer #21: Play Small appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah is joined by Adrian Lacroix who has really popped onto the scene during the era of virtual shows with his videos and creations helping people to get into the business of virtual magic. Adrian Lacroix has worked in some of the most exclusive places in Buenos Aires and in the past year has embraced virtual magic and virtual magic effects releasing tricks through Penguin Magic. He’s also become a prolific participants in panels and discussions helping to rally the magic community around the new normal of virtual magic shows. You can hear him participating in one such panel from our very own UnConventional.fun Virtual Panel. Performing Miracles At Home Adrian’s introduction to magic wasn’t at a party or seeing magic performed in person, it was on a tv screen at 10pm at night when he was eight years old. David Copperfield was performing Misled, a pencil penetration trick, and that amazed Adrian to see a miracle being performed with elements you could find around your home.  That love of magic would stay with Adrian into his teens when he would once again come across another tv special, this time David Blaine’s street magic, and the way the crowds reacted to the street magic encouraged Adrian to try performing himself to see if he could get the same reactions, which of course he did. Reverse Engineering Magic Without anyone to play the role of mentor, Adrian is mostly self-taught. He turned to watching magic performances closely, attending shows multiple times to see how the performance changed with each iteration and tracking down each detail of every trick and people involved to study how to perform them himself. In the pre-internet and youtube era this meant buying every VHS and book he could get his hands on to figure out the process on his own. If you put a problem in front of Adrian to solve, he’s going to try to solve it.  Adrian admits he struggles with finding his inner motivation but if someone tries to prove him wrong his competitive side will kick in and he’ll be able to push himself to create and prove them wrong.  Accepting Change and Accepting Virtual It’s difficult to change, we are all creatures of habit and at the start of this year many accepted that they might not find work for a couple of months but wouldn’t have to drastically change the nature of their business. But now that we’re looking at possibly another year of pandemic related restrictions Adrian has some advice to share for magicians struggling to adapt to the changing landscape.  The first step is to accept that you can’t keep doing the same thing. Even if it means watching someone else and copying what they’re doing that’s working, as long as you’re changing things up and learning how to adapt you’ll fare a lot better than those who are rigidly sticking to their ways. We need to keep things moving forward. You also need to ask yourself why you are doing magic. Are you performing for the audience? Or are you performing for you own enjoyment? These different motivations may lead to different approaches. Then you need to be honest with the audience. Everyone is in the same level now. We’re all stuck in our homes and they are not expecting you to be in a place that you are not with forced background and heavy special effects. Accepting this will help us all find news ways to perform. “If we make them understand the impossibility of the conditions we are working in now and then we make the magic happen, the tricks for me are even stronger. Because you’ve removed the magician physically from the place where the magic is happening.” Wrap-Up Endless Chain Juan Esteban Varela, who performs magic in the dark for blind audiences. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Adrian loves the feeling when he performs and how audiences feel when he performs. He loves how easy it is to make new friends in this field. That you can travel anywhere in the world and visit a magic store and be invited to join a meeting. It’s like a big family. Adrian would like to see more diverse innovation and more original thought.  Take home point You should think about why you are doing this in the first place. Why have you chosen to do magic and chosen to perform? If you find this answer you won’t care if you’re doing it over zoom, or in close up, or the stage. Plugs Adrian’s creations can be found at Penguin Magic And you can visit Adrian’s website at adrianlacroix.com The post Creating Magic For Virtual with Adrian Lacroix appeared first on Discourse in Magic.