Two TV Recommendations

I mentioned earlier this week that today’s post was going to be a continuation on the feedback from last Friday’s post. However, after working on that for a couple days it has become a longer entry than I originally anticipated. So tomorrow I will give you a super-sized post where I respond to a half-dozen or so emails about the topic of clarifying conditions and using that to create more powerful magic.

For today’s post, I just want to give you two quick television recommendations. One of these you likely already watched a couple years ago, but if you were avoiding it like I was, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Recommendation #1

I could not be more late to the game on this, but I finally watched Magic for Humans on Netflix and enjoyed it quite a bit. Justin Wilman is legitimately funny. Not “funny for a magician” funny. And the magic is all well done.

As a magician, you’ll be annoyed because you’ll think, “Oh, come on. They’re cutting out some very important stuff. It doesn’t look like that in real life.” But once you can get past that, it’s an enjoyable watch.

One thing I realized while watching it is that cameras are reaction equalizers. You can take a below average trick and make a demo for it, and as long as there are cameras there, you’ll get some good reactions. But at the same time, if you perform a miracle for people, and there is a camera there, you will dull their reactions. Almost everything in Magic for Humans got a reaction between, like, a 7 and an 8. Stuff that would have been life-altering for people if it wasn’t being filmed for a tv show would instead just get a nice solid reaction. Now, that may be because they were seeing the full effect, and not just the edited version we see. But I think a lot of it is also because they know they’re being filmed for a show.

I regularly get much stronger reactions even though I’m performing much less “impossible” tricks. And I think the reason for that is because I’m performing in a way that is more intimate (and camera-less).

This is one of the clear benefits of performing as an amateur. When David Copperfield flies on stage, people are filled with joy and wonder. But they still just applaud at the end. If you were walking down a nature trail with a friend and flew up to the top of a tree, your friend wouldn’t clap. They would faint.

Not that your goal should be to make your friends faint. But if your goal is to provide moving, interesting, powerful experiences to people, don’t bemoan the fact that you don’t have the resources of a professional tv magician. Because along with those resources comes a layer of distance between the spectator and the effect which deadens the impact.

That being said, the show is a lot of fun. And inspired me to bring out some effects I hadn’t touched in a long.

Recommendation #2

The Rehearsal, which you can currently find streaming on HBO Max, is the most entertaining show currently on television. It has nothing directly to do with magic, although the writer and star of the show, Nathan Fielder, is an amateur magician. And, for me, it touches the same sort of nerve that a really fascinating trick does. It’s a “docu-comedy” series and it’s completely fascinating.

I don’t want to give too much away. It’s ostensibly about giving people the opportunity to “rehearse” important interactions in their life. But that’s just the start of it. Just trust me on this. I have reason to believe that if you like this site, there is a good chance you will like the show.