A Story With No End
/I got a couple emails last week that were similar in tone. The first was about the PIcasso Pro app I mentioned last Thursday. I said I would probably get my own URL and forward it to the custom URL in the app, that way even if the actual URL for the effect was released, it couldn’t expose the effect if someone I performed it for ended up googling it.
The other email was about the 1900s cards I mentioned in last Friday’s post. I said that I wouldn’t use those cards as is because—while they look old—they feel brand new, which completely blows the illusion of an old deck if someone handles them.
Both emails I got suggested that I was worrying too much about these things. Not that the issues I mentioned weren’t potential issues. Yes, the URL for Picasso Pro might get exposed and therefore the trick might fall apart if someone googles it. And yes, the 1900s deck does feel new and if someone handled it they’d realize they’re not really old. But… so what? Their point was: Why go to a bunch of effort to plug every potential hole in an effect when the spectator’s already know they’re just tricks? Just be fun. Just be entertaining. It doesn’t matter if they realize the cards aren’t really old. Of if they find out the drawing website is part of a commercial magic effect. Magic is supposed to be entertainment. If they were entertained, you did your job.
I understand this point of view, but I disagree with it.
It often feels like there are two approaches to magic:
Let’s make our magic as convincing as possible to get people to really believe in the power of the performer.
Let’s make our magic as entertaining as possible and don’t worry too much about the more trivial details. They know it’s a trick anyway, so just make it an entertaining trick.
I don’t really agree with either of these approaches. I’m somewhere in the middle. Or off to the side. I believe you should try to make the most entertaining magic by attempting to generate conviction in something they know isn’t true. Now, that’s not a mindset that can really exist—at least not for long—but that’s the target I’m shooting for.
“But it’s just a trick. And they know it’s a trick.”
Yes. And a movie is just a movie, and you know it’s a movie. And yet… they will spend millions of dollars to create a believable special effect. Why? Why did Jurassic Park do all those CGI dinosaurs? Why not just use a puppet or a cut-out of a dinosaur from construction paper? They could have told the same story. People would have just had to use their imaginations more. And the producers would have saved a bunch of money.
Well, because they want it to feel as real as possible while you watch it.
If I pull out a deck and say it belonged to my grandfather and it looks really old and then you touch it and it’s as smooth and slippery as Joshua Jay’s bare white ass, then you’re being reminded of the fact this is just a prop, this is a fake story, this is a trick. But if I hand you the deck and it looks and feels and smells old, then you can still get lost in the story.
For a quick trick, I don’t get too worked up about things. But for a big, immersive effect—the Romantic Adventure style I’ve written about here—I have one overriding goal:
Don’t break the spell.
That’s the only way to get people truly caught up in an unbelievable premise.
Now, you might say, “Okay, I get that. While the trick is going on you should put all your effort into making it as pristine and fooling as possible. But who cares if afterwards they google something and realize that it’s just a trick you can buy? They’ve already experienced the trick and had fun and all of that.”
It’s a fair point. Watching a documentary on the making of Jurassic Park, doesn’t ruin the experience you had watching Jurassic Park. So why should a spectator googling a URL and having it lead them back to a magic website ruin the magic trick?
Well, because a movie begins and ends.
But a successful magic trick is a story with no end.
A magic trick is ongoing until the point where the spectator has an explanation that satisfies them. I’ve had people come up to me, 10 or 20 years after the fact, still amazed by something I showed them. For them, that trick is still going on. I mean that in the sense that they’re still living in the world where this thing happened and they have no clue how it happened. If, all those years later I say, “Oh yeah. I just switched the corner piece. So that restored card was a different card altogether.” That’s when the trick would be over for them because that’s the point where there’s no more mystery.
A movie exists on film. A novel is printed on the pages of a book. If everyone on earth died tomorrow, that movie or novel would still be there for an alien race to discover. A magic effect exists in someone’s mind. So the effect doesn’t end when the card is turned over. It goes on so long as their mind sees it as a magical experience. Once they have a satisfying explanation it’s over. And there’s no recapturing it. That’s why I strive to not let an effect be undermined even long after the machinations of the performance are over. The climax of a trick should be just the start of the magic.