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posted by janrinok on Sunday March 30 2014, @07:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the now-you-see-it dept.

The Burnaby Kid writes:

Figured I'd toss this out there, since SN was asking for interesting story submissions. I'm a professional magician working abroad, and I've been indulging in this incredibly geeky performing art for almost two decades. One problem that happens a lot when it comes to magic is that the nature of secrecy means that we don't get open dialogue with the muggles we perform for, and that leads to us getting into this weird sort of insular and incestuous discussion with other magicians, which ends up warping our minds to the extent that we start doing moronic things like... oh, I don't know... referring to our audience members as "muggles". We get into some pretty weird debates, and I've been trying my best to argue for raising the bar, such as by suggesting that we need to be more sensitive about what you guys like, such as by making sure that if we pull out a deck of cards, we've got something to perform that can compete with Card Through Window. And yet... Maybe I've got it wrong? What DO you guys like? If you like watching magicians perform, what do you like about it? If you don't, why not?

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Fnord666 on Sunday March 30 2014, @05:25PM

    by Fnord666 (652) on Sunday March 30 2014, @05:25PM (#23209) Homepage

    What I don't care for are illusions that depend on TV "tricks" or camera angles. I've performed both stage and closeup magic and while most depend on angles to a greater or lesser extent, I think a single POV illusion is disappointing.

    Knowing how an illusion is performed, and having possibly performed the same illusion myself, I feel like I can enjoy the showmanship, skill, and performance even more. When I know how an illusion is performed, know where the distraction will happen, know where to look and still be fooled is awesome.

  • (Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Sunday March 30 2014, @06:02PM

    by BasilBrush (3994) on Sunday March 30 2014, @06:02PM (#23219)

    Yeah. On UK TV there used to be an understanding between magicians and audiences that none of the magic was achieved with "camera tricks". I think David Nixon used to explicitly say so when he was the top TV magician, and others just followed. That doesn't seem to apply any more. And I think it was broken with the showing of David Blaine's Street Magic special.

    I guess there was never that understanding on US TV, as a lot of David Copperfield's TV illusions depended on camera tricks.

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