Monday Mailbag #50
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I really like the way you give words and concrete examples to concepts that were under-explored or only understood intuitively. Since looking at my presentations in terms of “Imps” and “Buy-Ins” and so on, I’ve felt a much better understanding of how to craft a presentation and tweak it to get certain results. With that in mind, I’d really like you to expand on your Hitch concept from [last Monday’s] post. I feel like this could be a very useful way to examine effects and help decide which ones are worth putting the effort in to learn. —CB
The “Hitch” concept is in its early stages. So this will be the sort of thing that you’ll likely see evolve on this site over time, hopefully becoming more actionable, if possible. It came about after many years of breaking down tricks with non-magicians after having them watch a performance live or on video.
In theory, magic tricks should be pretty easy to judge. Does it fool people? Yes or no. How impossible is the purported effect? Very? Somewhat? Not very? Okay, so now I just need a “very impossible” effect that fools people, right?
What I found is that there are a lot impossible effects that fool people, that those people don’t seem to care about one way or the other. And before you say, “It’s all about presentation!” that’s not really what I’m talking about. You can remove the element of presentation altogether and you still see the phenomenon.
In testing, when talking to people about why they didn’t rate a trick highly, the answers aren’t usually, “It didn’t fool me,” or, “It wasn’t impossible enough.” The answers are things like, “I just thought it was weird when…,” or, “I just thought there was something funny about the box…,” or, “I didn’t understand why we had to…,” or, “I was unclear about….” Their issues rarely focused on some definitive, make-or-break, flaw in the routine. Instead they were focused on the moments that brought them out of flow of the trick.
Hitches are the moments that feel questionable, strange, unclear, odd, or suspicious. Any time the spectator’s mind feels one of these things, it’s a Hitch. For the purposes of connecting with an audience, you want your trick to have as few of these moments as possible.
Hitches can be in the actions of a trick: “Why did I write it down only for him to tear it up?”
Hitches can be in the props used: “That’s not what a real key looks like.”
Hitches can be in the patter: “What does it even mean to be the ‘leader ace’?”
Hitches can be in the premise of the effect: “Why would he make my card appear on an Oreo unless he had some trick way of making my card appear on an Oreo?”
That’s not all. Anything that takes the spectator’s mind off the journey of the trick is a Hitch.
“Wait… did I see the coin in his hand?”
”What is that thing supposed to even be?”
”Why do I have to write it down?”
”Why is his hand in that position?”
”Why can’t I choose any city?”
”Wait, what happened? I was looking at his other hand.”
”What does he mean this is ‘the most ambitious card’ in the deck?”
”Why do I have to add all these numbers together?”
These are all Hitch examples. None of these questions suggest a trick is ruined, or that it won’t fool people. But just assume that every questionable moment decreases a tricks impact by a certain percentage. You can prove this to yourself by just trying to picture the opposite. Can you imagine a magic trick with no questionable moments that wouldn’t be very strong?
That being said, it’s not really a worthwhile goal to think, “I’ll only do tricks with no Hitches!” because there aren’t really a ton of them that exist But it’s a good goal to try to limit them as much as possible, especially if your goal is to get a trick that worms its way into their mind long-term.
RE: CelebriKey (discussed in last Monday’s post)
Seems to me to be a lot of effort to make a trick that has such a small, unbelievable revelation. A trick where you have to peer closely at the end to understand it seems weak to me.
Why not have a box of Legos, put a handful into a container, have someone pick a superhero, and then shake the container? Dump out the Legos and they've formed into the superhero. —JH
Regarding your first point, I see where you’re coming from, but a small revelation isn’t necessarily a weak one (especially for a small audience). I’ve done a trick where the revelation was on a grain of rice, and that has gone over very well. But I do get what you mean, if the revelation is too small for the audience and they have to squint and say, “Oh yeah, that’s batman alright.” Then that is pretty weak. Which is probably why they chose to go with such an obvious molded Batman look on the end of the key. It makes the revelation a little more clear cut, but it also makes it a little confusing because it no longer looks like a key.
Regarding your second point, I think the question becomes “Why not” pretty much anything else. As I said in the original post, if you have a force of a superhero that can hold up to scrutiny, why would you use it to make that superhero appear on a key? (Unless, for some reason, the key was a component of the forcing procedure. Then you’d at least have a methodological reason for tying the two together.)
Toys, comic books, movies, video-games, a Diner Double Beef Batman Burger with Squeezy Cheesy Fries.
There are countless items with a more natural tie-in to Batman to use as a reveal. To play devil’s advocate, the people behind this trick would probably reply, “Yes, there are other options that make more sense, but how many of them can you carry around with you on your keyring?” (Well, a batman keychain for one.) But it’s a fair point, I just don’t see it as being a convincing enough argument to justify the trick.
If I had an excellent superhero force, my revelation would involve magically changing my underwear into Batman Underoos. Although it’s probably not a great idea for strolling work.
Another email about the CelbriKey effect.
Subject: CocKey
They really missed a trick there. Same gimmick, make it morph to a dick. I could sell a million. Most of them to you, I suspect. —RO
Good idea. But then you really need to update your keyhole with one of these…
