Gremlins Pacing

A few weeks ago I was traveling for a non-magic-related project. I was also working on a new trick. I was in a situation where I had a few minutes with a number of different people so I was getting the opportunity to try it out rather quickly. After the fourth time performing it, I was ready to give it a rest. It was getting good reactions, but “good” reactions doesn’t do it for me. At least not with a 2-3 minute trick. If it’s something quick and visual, then I’m fine with “good.” If it’s just meant to be a semi-weird oddity, then I’m fine with “good” too. But if it’s intended to be something I really want them to take an interest in and capture their imagination with in some way, then it really needs to be better than just “good,” in my opinion.

So, after abandoning the new trick, I went back to some old standards. Effects that I know are very strong and have used for a significant period of time.

But those were just getting “good” reactions too.

I wasn’t sure what was going on. Was I off my game? Was it something about the people in the part of the country I was in that they didn’t respond as intensely as I was used to?

I quickly processed the situation and realized what it was.

I was with these people for just a few minutes, and I was trying out some tricks on them that took just a few minutes from start to finish. And because of that, I was violating one of the precepts that had slowly evolved in my performing over the years.

Let me take a quick detour.

The other day I was watching the movie Gremlins. The movie is one hour and 47 minutes long. Do you know at what point the Gremlins actually appear?

An hour into the movie.

More than half the movie is build-up.

I’m convinced that this is the proportion of build-up you need to really get the most out of magic in a social situation. I feel you should have at least as much time leading up to the trick as the trick itself.

For the sake of the point I’m making, I’m not talking about quick/eye-candy style tricks. Nor am I talking about tricks that are presented as a straightforward card or coin trick, or something like that. I’m talking about if you’re presenting a trick where you’re trying to establish some mythos behind what’s happening.

This is the mistake I was making with the performances I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I had a three minute trick to show them and I was trying to squeeze that into three minutes. It threw off the pacing I believe you need to establish if you’re trying to get people to engage with your performance in a deeper way.

Think of it like this. If I tossed a photo down in front of you and said, “Look, I took a picture of an alien.” You’d say, “Oh, that’s cool. Is that a mask? Or is it that a doll or something?” You would make some assumptions that what you were seeing wasn’t really that interesting, because I hadn’t built it up in the manner people do with interesting things. I hadn’t given it any weight.

But if I sat you down and said, “Okay… remember how I went hiking last weekend? Well, I took a wrong turn on the trail and ended up in an area of the forest that I had never seen before. I was totally disoriented, but I saw a light in the distance and I started following it.” And I went on to tell you the story of stumbling across this creature and here was this photo I took of it. You still may think my photo is fake, but it’s going to capture your attention to some degree because it’s presented in a way that interesting, compelling, important things are presented.

You might feel you already do this. You might say, “When I read someone’s mind, it’s one minute of build-up followed by a couple seconds where I read their mind.” But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about the process of the trick itself. That doesn’t count as the build-up. That’s the performance time. So if it takes three minutes to perform the trick, then I think you need at least three minutes of build-up.

What would that look like?

Well, I’m not suggesting you do three-minutes of promotion like a carnival barker leading up to the trick. “Gather round everyone. In three minutes–three short minutes—I’m going to read your mind in the most amazing, the most incredible, the most unbelievable way you’ve ever seen in your life.” That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m saying you should at least plant the seed that will lead to the effect, a few minutes ahead of time.

For example. Let’s say you’re doing a mind reading trick.

No build-up — “I’m going to read your mind. I want you to write down a word on this card. Now I’m going to put it in my wallet.” Blah, blah.

Build-up (Direct) —“I’ve been looking into the subject of mind-reading recently. There’s no such thing, really. But there are some exercises you can do to build up synchronicity that can lead to something that looks like mind-reading.” You engage in these exercises for a couple minutes and then say, “Okay, let’s try it. I want you to write down a word on this card.”

Build-up (Indirect) — “Can I turn the lights down? My head hurts. I’ve been studying this book on mind-reading all weekend and my head is throbbing. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s got me thinking a lot or if it’s the actual process of practicing it that’s causing my head to hurt.” The seed is now planted. A little while later you say, “My head is a little better. Can I try something with you?”

Build-up (Long-term) — Via text: I can’t come out tonight, unfortunately. I’m going to this workshop on mind-reading. 😜 I’ll let you know how it goes. Later: Ok, that was weird as hell. I’m still not sure if it was a scam or not, but some strange stuff happened. Next time we hang out, I have something I want to try with you.

Regardless of how you present your effects (as psychic powers, as magic, as psychology, as examples of occult phenomena, or demonstrations of extreme skill, or whatever) you are almost certainly presenting them as something unusual, impossible, strange, or incredible in some way. And the way to present such things is with a slow-build before hand.

What I mean is, that’s how we present such things in the real world. So if you want to pull them in and make them feel like they’re about to see something special, then build to it as if it was.

Jumping right into the effect makes the whole thing seem rote and much less interesting. When I find myself doing it, it also feels apologetic and desperate. You might think slow-playing things would be dull. But I find it to be just the opposite. It takes confidence to not rush to the climax. And I think spectator’s sense this and get a feeling of, “Oh, this must be good.” And that colors their impression of what they see.

I’m not telling you to bore people with a five minute speech before getting to the trick. I’m just suggesting you give it the sort of build-up as you would anything of interest.

If you’re making a movie about puppies, then you introduce puppies in the first scene. Puppies are cute, but they’re also normal. If you’re making a movie about Gremlins, you wait an hour and ratchet up the tension and the interest until you unveil this weird/scary/strange thing.

Ideally, I think you want at least a 1:1 ratio of build-up to performance. That’s what I’ve found to be the minimum. But I will often start the build up in some subtle way weeks or even months in advance.

If you aren’t out there performing, you will undervalue how powerful this is. You will say, “I don’t see anyone else doing that. It can’t have that much of an effect.” The reason you don’t see anyone else doing it is because this sort of pacing doesn’t work on television, or youtube, or Instagram, or if you’re doing restaurant magic.

But if you’re showing people in your life some magic in the real world, then this type of pacing can significantly increase the overall power of your tricks.