Discourse in Magic

This week Jonah connects with David Regal to discuss writing magic for television and the innovative ways that David approaches magic. David’s trick creation is incredible. And not only is his sleight of hand amazing but so is his writing. Among his multiple writing credits, David was also the head writer for The Carbonaro Effect. Interpreting Magic As much as David loves performing he especially loves the process. In theatre and film the concept of a screenwriter is much more common but not so in the world of magic but that’s where David talks a lot about with Jonah in his work helping to write for and develop magic.  David’s books, Approaching Magic and Interpreting Magic, are all about challenging the status quo in the magic world and encouraging the joy and innovation that can come when magicians embrace the interpretive nature of magic as an artform. Writing Magic For Television Among his many writing credits, David is also the head writer for The Carbonaro Effect. Starring Michael Carbonaro, the show sets up moments in the real world where the subject in the scene is unaware that magic is currently being performed around them. The titular effect is the belief that something is shattering their world view of what is possible. David opens up about what it was like writing for The Carbonaro Effect and how he had to explain to the show producers that what they were doing was not a magic show at all but was utilizing magic to create a very strange day for the “mark” on the show.   Developing Judgement Judgement is a rare thing and the reason, David believes, that a lot of performers are as good as they are is because they have exceptionally good judgement as to what makes a good effect. The really good performers either have this judgement or have a group of people around them who bring that judgement to the table with them. Without good judgement you won’t have good magic.  Wrap-Up Endless Chain Armando Lucero is such a strong performer and a very soulful guy. Just speak to him.  And Rocco Silano is a real thinker in magic. He does a dazzling stand up act and his persona is very… debonair. He’s a very thoughtful, almost philosophical, magician. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? David love’s Penn & Teller’s [Fool Us]. Magic is held back when the audience doesn’t even understand what good magic is and making the American audience understand that this is an interpretive art will go hand in hand with more artists interpreting it. David does not like the other side of interpretation though when magicians seek out the full proof perfect effect. What screws up interpretation is there are effects that if you just do them well are great tricks but if you find the greatest tricks that work every time then you’ll end up doing the exact same tricks as the other magician who has those same tricks.  Take home point “Make sure that when you’ve done all the other work… that you’re putting in an idea of your own into it. If it’s the tiniest thing, it can be a one word thing, but that’s really what it’s all about.  You’ll enjoy performing much more and the audience will always sense… your connection to the material”  Plugs You can follow up with David by visiting David Regal’s website at davidregal.com The post Approaching Magic With Innovation With David Regal appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Jonah welcomes you to the new year and new plans for Discourse in Magic in 2022. Whether you are using your magic to perform full-time, are just wanting to perform for friends, or get better at magic, the thing that’s in common between anybody listening to this podcast is we are trying to get better, trying to perform better, and trying to make better magic, trying to make more money, and trying to run a better business. So this year we wanted to update you on some of the projects that are coming your way.  Less Interviews, More Content Jonah has interviewed a LOT of people on Discourse in Magic and only has a handful of remaining people that he really, really needs to interview. But that doesn’t mean the podcast is going anywhere just yet and we do have some important people that we’re excited to share. This means you should expect less interviews than last year, probably about two a month. But that is because we are making room for growth and there’s going to be two main focuses. Growing Your Business The first is going to be about business. As you know, Jonah runs two different coaching programs. One for people who are getting their magic businesses started by trying to get to earning $3,000 to $5,000 a month. And another one for people who are trying to explode and scale their magic business, like six figures and beyond. And over the course of the past couple years, Jonah has learned a lot and he wants you to learn a ton too. So, every month you are going to get some education that comes right from the coaching programs and the ways that Jonah is helping magicians right now to make money.  And if you’re thinking that you’re not really into doing magic for the money and you just want to perform more, do more magic, and perform better then the good news is that we are so pumped to share with you that we are going to be doing that thanks to new content from Ben Train. Growing Your Magic Ben Train is going to also share with you a once a month education series for you on growing your magic performance. These clips will be coming from live training sessions that we are going to be doing, where you can ask questions and actually work on different parts of your magic. Such as getting prepared for shows, getting prepared to perform for good audiences, scripting your magic, making your magic better, working on the methods, and so on.  If that sounds exciting for you, then hit updates on this very site and sign up for the newsletter, because that is where you’re going to be invited to be a part of all of this fun and will be invited to be a part of these podcast episodes that are recorded and released later.  Stay Tuned For A Sample To whet your appetite for the new style of the podcast, Jonah also offers up two micro lessons in this episode to help you build on your magic business and magic performance. How do you price your shows? And what is the most important thing to focus on during your rehearsals? Make sure you listen to the end of this episode to hear Jonah’s tips for you. We are excited to have you all here, and happy 2022. And we hope you look forward to the next series of episodes this month and next which will help you with your magic business and to help you get performance ready and perform for more people more often. The post New Year, New Podcast appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah has a very short message for you going into the final week of the holiday season. Three simple things that can’t go unsaid before the year is out. Thing 1: This Is Our 300th Episode! This is our three-hundredth episode. Many of you have been listening since the beginning of the podcast. Maybe you started listening a week ago, or a year ago, or five years ago when this started, but this is the 300th episode. And all Jonah wants to say is, “Thank you”.  Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for tuning in. Thanks for being a part of this journey. It’s changed. It’s been strange. Jonah used to do it with his business partner, Tyler, and together they interviewed amazing magicians. He’s interviewed other incredible magicians since and started a coaching program. You’ve listened through the launch of the Toronto Magic Company and through the transition to virtual and so much more. Thanks for being here for 300 episodes. Thing 2: What’s Coming Up in 2022 Next year, Jonah is really leaning into making some awesome content for magicians. He will have regular content to help you grow your business and regular events that you can attend to help you make your magic better. Things to help you with your effect selection, with your scripting, with your performance, with your workshopping of your tricks and making them better. We have content scheduled for the entire year that you can be a part of.  This podcast is going to look a little bit different coming into 2022 with more fun things for you to be a part of. And if you know what’s good for you, sign up for the email list! That’s how you can actually be a part of these workshops and a part of these lectures and get some of the free stuff that is coming your way.  Thing 3: Take A Break, You’ve Earned It This was maybe a big year for you virtually or maybe not. It may be a big year for returning to in-person and then Omicron and the holidays and 2022 and all of that coming by. So make sure to take a little break this holiday season. That might mean a couple days off or that may mean a week off to spend with your family. And from us, everybody here at Discourse in Magic and the Toronto Magic Company, we want to thank you for being a part of all of the fun, strange journeys that have been going on in 2021. We wish you a happy new year, a happy holidays, and we are excited to see you and work together on making your magic and maybe your business better in 2022. The post Happy Holidays from Discourse in Magic appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah connects with John Graham who has just released his new book, “Stage by Stage”, which is all about transitioning to stage magic. Jonah goes behind the scenes with John and asks him every question he has about stage magic. The Magic Shop Of Solitude John was fortunate enough to grow up in Pennsylvania where Mel’s Magic City, which is still open today, was his place of solitude. The owner had the shop almost as a hobby so John would spend many weekends there by himself learning all he could and meet anyone he could meet who wanted to talk about magic. Even as a teenager he knew he loved magic and he saw lots of people who loved magic but also had other jobs and couldn’t devote more time to developing their own magic.This seemed like a travesty to John that they would only have a few hours in the day to work with their magic. That’s when John decided to make magic his career so that he could work on magic all the time.    Transitioning To The Stage John had been doing close up magic his whole life until he was 25 when he decided to do his first stage show. And it was hard. He made some disastrous routines that performed terribly. But all those trials helped him get better as he learned from them.  One example he shares with Jonah is a Sands of the Desert routine. He thought he had a great idea to change up the effect where he would have more than loadable and while he was pouring water from one hand he’d be filling water up with the other… the only problem is this process took forever and the routine went on and on and on and on. John could see him losing the interest of the audience and even when the effect happens it wouldn’t matter because it took so long to get there. He learned from that experience that you have to trust your material and you have to work on it and be realistic as you’re working on it, so that when you’re doing it on stage you can trust what you know and you can trust what you’ve rehearsed and do it the way you’ve planned so you don’t doubt yourself in the moment. The Opening and The Closing John and Jonah also break down the process of finding a good opening and how to develop a memorable closing.  For opening, John recommends one of his favourite effects. The Nielsen Bottle Vanish. It’s quick, it’s easy, it doesn’t require special clothing, and if you happen to arrive at your venue or event space and the set up is not as you were expecting you can still open with this effect and calm your nerves with a really effective trick that will jump you right into your show. For closings, John suggests that you say something at the beginning of your show, almost as a question. Something for the audience to ponder. Then, later, do your closing effect and the audience claps and they take their seats and when you’re thanking them you recap your show a little bit and go back to that question you asked and then reveal an answer or an opinion about it. Now that becomes your closer. So your closer is not necessarily an effect. There might be an effect but there is a closing that happens after it.       Wrap-Up Endless Chain Asi Wind, even though he’s already been on the show. He’s got his new book out “Before We Begin” and always has something new to talk about. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? John loves that more things are coming out for magicians where people are giving away their actual working routines and working acts because there is still so much work to be done. There’s a lot there if you’re ready to absorb it.  John does not like that there is a rush to judgement. It’s too easy to put a product down by people who have never really seen it or worked with it. Plugs John’s new book, “Stage by Stage”, is published by Vanishing Inc and is now available.  John’s website is JohnMagic.com and John’s instagram is @thejohngraham The post Transitioning To Stage Magic with John Graham appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah reveals to you what the best tool you can use to help grow your magic business. And it’s something you already own…   The tool that Jonah is talking about is the video recording app on your smart phone.Videoing your performances is the best thing you can do for your magic. If you have video footage of your performance, you can edit it and clip it out. You can find great moments and make promo videos. You can share your videos with your clients and you can post them on social media. The Highlight Reel You can attract the right people to your brand by just sharing the highlights of what you do. Proof of what you do is what every single client is actually looking for to have the conviction that they need to hire you for their events. So if you’re having trouble getting clients to pay you what you want, what you deserve, or even hire you for the events that you know you’re great at, then having some incredible video footage of that event is phenomenally useful.  Watch Your Footage There’s another thing you can do with your recordings and this is the thing that makes your magic better and that is watching it back. The only thing that is as good at making your magic better than performing for live audiences is watching back on footage of your performances for a live audience. The person who knows what your magic needs the most is you. The person who knows what you did wrong, what you did right, and what you need to do better, is you. A lot of the time, we avoid doing the things we need to do. Just watch the video of your performance and look at it. Sometimes it hurts, especially if you’re early in this. It hurts to watch the performance, especially if it doesn’t go the way that you want it to, but watch it, take notes, and be your own director. Even if you’re entertaining at the highest level, if you are hiring coaches and magic consultants to help make your magic better, the last thing that you want is to show them a video of your performance and have them tell you what you already know but you did not implement because you didn’t watch back the footage and see. So across the board, whether for your business growth or for your actual entertainment, the number one tool that you should be using all the time is the video recording app on your phone. We hope you learned something from this episode. And if you’re busy this December, we hope this was a little tiny reminder for you to record some of your performances, especially if you don’t have a great promo video. The post Magic Appetizer: The Best Magic Business Tool You Already Own appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah shares with you his top three picks for magic theory books that will make the biggest impact on your magic. The reason why this podcast even exists in the first place is because of magic theory books. This podcast is Jonah’s fight against the world of magic to help there be more resources about theory, about opinions, about ideas, and the way that things should and could be performed. Most importantly there are thoughts about how to structure a show, how to perform, how to say things, how to practice saying things, how to get a script from your idea to the paper and to the actual real world. There’s not that many resources to help us with all of those things. So these are Jonah’s top three favorite magic books about theory. The ones that he thinks would help make the biggest changes to your performance. Magic theory is all about figuring out how to perform and how to perform well. So in this episode, Jonah talks about his three top recommendations for magic theory books that are going to change the game for you and your magic Book One: Magic in Mind This first book is the broadest resource with the most options, the most authors, the most ideas, and it’s all free. This is the best resource on the planet. It is an e-book by Vanishing Ink called Magic in Mind. The author, Joshua Jay, has gathered and got permission from the most incredible magicians to take their top essays and their top ideas from their world famous books about magic theory and put it all together in one free e-book. Magic in Mind is an absolute buffet of magic theory. When you read it, it’s going to shake up what you think, because these are the most impactful essays. Don’t read the whole book like it’s a novel, read one essay at a time and try to internalize how a paragraph or how a chapter or how an essay really applies to your magic. If you start here and you don’t listen to anything else on the podcast, then this will be the beginning of an incredible magic theory rabbit hole that you’re going to love. Book Two: Designing Miracles This book is Jonah’s absolute favorite. When new magicians start learning magic, they want to start creating magic. And if you’ve ever seen somebody show you a trick, sometimes that trick doesn’t make any sense. There are rules to the world of magic and if you make something vanish and appear, when do you have to show it? And when should you not show it? If something is disappearing from one place and appearing to another, can those objects go close together or not? And Jonah can tell if a new mind to magic isn’t following these rules and it’s obvious that they haven’t read Designing Miracles yet. Designing Miracles by Darwin Ortiz is an absolutely incredible book and completely opposite to Magic in Mind. This is not a buffet. It’s almost a textbook about a very specific subject. This is the only magic theory book that is fully about structure. This is a book that is about the different rules of magic. If you like creating, making things, making tricks, or bringing ideas into the real world then this is a must read.  Book Three: The Magic Rainbow This may be the biggest magic theory book ever. And that is a Testament to how much brilliance is packed in it. This is Jonah’s favorite magic theory book of all time. The Magic Rainbow is an incredible book. It is well-researched and is filled with lessons about every style of magic and every situation. It’s about arranging routines, putting them in the right order in your show. It’s about performing, practicing, and scripting. It is about the pure love of the art of magic and the pure love of theory. Every question that comes to mind, it feels like the answer is in that book and it is huge because it’s packed full of brilliant knowledge.  Get In Touch If you go and check out one of these books and if one of these is new to you and you had never heard of them, send Jonah a message. He would love to know if you liked them and if you learned something. What would you recommend to him? Maybe there’s a favourite book that he’s never heard of that he should check out, he would love to know.  You can e-mail Jonah at info@discourseinmagic.com Links Magic in Mind – Joshua Jay https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/ebooks/magic-in-mind/ Designing Miracles – Darwin Ortiz https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/magic-theory/designing-miracles/ The Magic Rainbow – Stephen Minch and Juan Tamariz https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/magic-theory/tamariz-magic-rainbow/ The post Magic Appetizer: Top 3 Magic Theory Books appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah shares with you three tips on how to transform your five figure magic hustle into a six figure magic career. Twelve months ago, Jonah launched the Discourse in Magic six figure mastermind. Jonah launched the mastermind to help people grow their magic business from five to six figures. Now, he’s watching student after student hit the six figure mark. So in this short episode, he’s going to share with you the three biggest keys, the three biggest ideas and shifts of mindset that go from being a five figure magician to a six-figure magician Tip 1: Generate Leads  When you are starting to perform, the idea is, “where can I get a gig”? But once you get a handful of gigs, you start to realize that looking for gigs is only so good. What you really want to do is you want to look for leads. You want to look for where people might be inquiring with you. How do you do that? Well, instead of focusing on short term things like, messaging people or calling a friend, you start focusing on long-term things like SEO, referrals, running ads, email outreach, and hiring people to go and find leads for you. It’s a shift of mindset from saying, where do I find a gig to saying, how do I ensure that there are leads constantly going into my system. A shift from gig flow to lead flow.  Tip 2: Focus Your Sales When you’re getting into magic, you don’t want to say a price that’s so high that somebody says no. As a matter of fact, you want your price to be just low enough that they absolutely say yes. You want to perform? You need the photos, you need the testimonials, you need the videos, but to get from five figures to six figures, you can’t just charge the least amount you possibly can. You actually have to do the math and figure out how much you need to charge to actually make things work. You go from auditioning for your clients to them auditioning for you. You are the prize and they are hoping to get it. Tip 3: Systemization All this stuff feels like it takes 30 full-time jobs, but it doesn’t, it takes organization. It takes systematization. And it takes hiring talented people. A five figure magician can do every last bit of this alone. They can answer every email, send every inquiry, make all the graphics, make every video. You can do it alone, but a six-figure magician realizes that you don’t need to do every single last bit. You can hire people that are good at things and you can get software that makes things really easy for you. Now you can focus on what’s most important to you, performing.  You can go from scrambling to manage absolutely everything yourself to learning things like automation, systematization, and of course hiring and having a team of people so that you can rely on. This will help you take time off and focus on the things that you’re awesome at, which is performing magic.  Reach Out For More Help If you want a little bit more help going from five to six figures in your magic business in 2022, then send Jonah an e-mail with the word “Scale” to info@discourseinmagic.com and Jonah will send you all the info about working together in 2022. If you’re already doing five figures and you want to be doing six, send Jonah a message with the word “Scale”. The post Magic Appetizer: Grow Your Magic Business From Five To Six Figures appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Ben Train fills in for Jonah and offers up some tips on what he is doing to overcome his fear of returning to the stage after so much time away. Exciting, Scary, Times These are exciting times. After a year and a half of being able to do nothing but virtual shows, the public spaces around us are opening up. With theatres reopening, Ben is about to return the stage, along with Jonah and friends, who are doing the show for 150 people. For the past year and a half, he’s been in his house, working on ideas and playing with tricks that he wanted to eventually do. And now he gets to do them! But he’s also scared. It’s scary to do new material, it’s scary to hop up on stage because anything can happen, including tricks going wrong or worse. Or worse, the trick goes right but nobody gives a shit. If you have been working on new material and you’re both excited to share it, but you’re also kind of nervous, Ben thought he would share some tips on what he did to work on the material that he is excited and scared to do. Step One: Pick One Trick The first step is pick some material you want to work on. We have almost unlimited access to material now with downloads and streaming and books and DVDs and everything. Find a book or a video or whatever source you want and narrow it down to three tricks and then pick one trick to focus on. If you really want to, you can do all three, but pick one trick to focus on and start by focusing on just the mechanical steps. Step Two: Focus On The Mechanical Don’t worry about the scripting, don’t worry about adding additional props or audience engagement, or what kickers you can put into it first, just get the minimal viable product, just the working mechanics of it, so you can start doing it without. If you rush ahead and start thinking about the presentation and you’re still awkward, you’re going to make the trick look no good. Spend some time working on the mechanics, getting a feel for the routine. Once you have the mechanics down, then you get to get to play with the scripts and the other stuff. Step Three: Rehearsal Rehearsal is different than practice because now you’re not focusing on the little details like stopping and going to analyze where your fingers are going. Now you’re going from start to finish using the script, going through the routine. If you can do that and feel comfortable and start to engage with the imaginary audience while you’re rehearsing, it will be a lot easier to go up on stage and do these because you’ve thought about how you’re going to talk to the audience and how you’re getting in and out of the routine. Step Four: Perform Once you’ve gone through all that, you’ve picked the material, you’ve gotten the mechanics down, then you’ve rehearsed the tricks, you’ll feel confident. And once you have that confidence, it’s a lot easier to go up on stage and do things. So go out there and perform the magic. One last thought from Ben, and it’s something he heard in a talk a few years ago from a designer of one of his favorite games, Magic: The Gathering. He said, “Stop worrying about evoking a negative reaction and focus on evoking a strong reaction.“ The post Preparing For Your Magic Comeback with Ben Train appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Jonah and Ben are back for one more time to talk about the fifth, and final, UnCoventional.fun virtual 8-bit magic convention. They’ve been to a hotel lobby, to the Magic Land amusement park, and even to space. Now they’re taking the final Unconventional.fun event to the prehistoric past. Thanks right, DINOSAURS. The next, and final, Unconventional.fun takes place on November 27th and 28th. What To Expect This UnConventional.fun has been reorganized by Ben to put jamming front and centre with more spaces set aside for attendees to jam with other attendees and for headliner guests to jam as well. With another roster of amazing guests, this is going to be a must attend event to wrap up this series of virtual conventions. What? Why Is This The Last One? Ben and Jonah will explain more about why this is the last Unconventional.fun convention in this episode. They had always intended to reflect and take stock of the events by November and looking back they’re confident that they’ve accomplished what they set out to do. When Unconventional.fun started we were all in the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic that had us all stuck at our homes with no events to go to, which also provided an unprecedented opportunity to invite guests from around the world participate together in an event that could never have happened at any other time before. Now, as the world is returning to normal and in-person events resume, more and more would-be guests are no longer available to spend a weekend on their laptops as they are all, thankfully, busy and getting back to performing. So, reading the writing on the wall, Ben and Jonah have decided that this next Unconventional.fun on November 27th & 28th will be the last. Get Your Tickets Now! If you’ve never attended Unconventional.fun, don’t put it off. This is, literally, your last chance to go. You can still get your tickets at Unconventional.fun and we’ll see you there on November 27th & 28th in the prehistoric past. The post Magic Appetizer: Unconventional.fun 5 appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

This week Jonah connects with professor Richard Wiseman to discuss co-authoring his book with David Copperfield, debunking supernatural claims, and the ethical responsibilities that magicians have with their audiences. Go To The Library Richard’s introduction to magic was through his grandfather who, after performing a coin trick for him, told Richard to go to the library and find the answer to the magic himself. When Richard found the trick and taught himself he learned that his grandfather had been using a different method and had sent his grandson to the library to learn how the trick was properly performed.  Moral Responsibility Richard has a lot to say on the topic of the supernatural and it’s overlaps with the magic community and he believes that magicians do have a responsibility to call out other magicians who are faking being psychics and mediums when they are not trained counselors or psychotherapists. He shares an example of running a theatrical experience of a Victorian séance, and clearly stating the audience that this is a theatrical experience so as to leave no room for interpretation that this is not truly real. Because, as he states, people have their own beliefs about the after-life and a magician has no right to step on and exploit those beliefs. Evolution of Magic Richard shares his fascination with the evolution of magic. How there is no other artform that builds on itself and its history quite like magic does. In David Copperfield’s History of Magic, Richard worked to follow that thread from P.T. Selbit’s sawing a woman in half to David Copperfield’s Death Saw.  Wrap-Up What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Richard does not like the fast-paced eye candy social media magic that is catching on. He finds it meaningless, without a narrative or a story. Richard likes anyone who can surprise him. Anything new that combines magic with other performing arts but don’t show Richard something he has seen before. Plugs Stay up to date with Richard on twitter at @RichardWiseman David Copperfield’s History of Magic published by Simon & Schuster Canada, and co-authored by Richard, is now available wherever books are sold, and covers the history of twenty-eight of the world’s most groundbreaking magicians.  The post The History of Magic with Professor Richard Wiseman appeared first on Discourse in Magic.