Mailbag #93
/
You asked for suggestions for the Virtual Focus Group.
I'd be kind of interested in how audiences perceive various sneak thief performances. I wholeheartedly agree with your analysis that while the standard stage and close up versions "fool" the spectators (in terms of them not seeing the peek) they fail to convince them (as looking back they rightly feel a peek was quite possible).
You already published a close up version (using a switch in the spectators hand) adressing the problem.
Question to be answered:
How much is the enjoyment and decptiveness of the plot increased when using a handling that seems to exclude the possibility of a peek?
(Personally I'm more interested in stage versions, as these tend to introduce more "props" like envelopes or clipboards and more "process", but close-up results are fine, too). —FH
While we haven’t specifically tested sneak thief, we have tested enough other peeks with peek wallets, business cards, and playing cards that I feel confident that the results would be similar.
There are three things that can happen with a peek:
The spectator catches you looking at the information.
The spectator doesn’t catch you looking at the information.
The spectator doesn’t catch you looking at the information and is convinced you couldn’t have seen the information.
Most magicians are happy with #2. But #2 is just about as useless as #1, in my opinion. To me, there’s not much difference in the spectator’s mind between, “I saw him look at the word I wrote down,” and, “He must have somehow seen the word I wrote down.”
It’s not enough that the spectator doesn’t see you look at the information. The spectator has to see that you couldn’t have looked at the information. When the item is being held in your hands, uncovered, the only way you can ensure they feel that you couldn’t have looked at the information is to put them on notice from the start to make sure you don’t get a peek at what they wrote. Only with that forewarning could they feel confident they knew what to look for enough to guard against it.
Could you give that warning and then still to do the sneak thief peek? Probably, and you’d likely still get away with it sometimes. Maybe the majority of the time. But at that point you’d just be hoping that they didn’t notice. Without some other layer of deception on top of the technique, I wouldn’t feel confident using it with the spectator specifically being on the lookout for a peek.
And while we haven’t looked at the sneak thief peek in particular, with every other peek, if the participant is specifically told to be vigilant that the performer doesn’t look at what they wrote down, this always gets higher ratings for enjoyment and impossibility than when that isn’t mentioned. So I don’t see any reason why that peek would be any different.
I loved your 5 Things to Make Vanish post. [See last Wednesday.] In the part about vanishing trash you said that once every couple of months a stranger will walk over to you and say “I’m sorry… what just happened to your cocktail napkin?”
So what do you say at that point? —BA
I’ve never really thought this out too much, but I generally do the same thing every time I vanish some little piece of trash—a napkin, a straw wrapper, a sugar packet—and someone comments on it.
Let’s say I vanish a cocktail napkin.
They say, “I’m sorry… what just happened to your cocktail napkin?”
Step One: Confusion
I don’t want them to feel like I was waiting for this response. So my first reaction is always confusion. I act as if I think they’re asking me for that object. “You need a napkin?” I respond, somewhat confusedly. Like, I don’t understand why they’d be asking me for a napkin.
Step Two: Clarification
After a beat, I understand that they’re talking about my napkin. Apparently they want my napkin for some reason? I look around for it as if I set it down somewhere. “I don’t think I have it actually.”
Step Three: Understanding
“Oh, wait. Did I do something with it? Did I make it go?” I don’t use the word “vanish” at this point. I still want it to sound like I’m not quite understanding what they’re saying.
Step Four: Explanation
“Yeah, that must have seemed weird. I used to have a big interest in magic years ago. And one of the ways I practiced was to make garbage vanish. I’ve done it ever since. It’s just like a muscle-memory reaction.”
Step Five: Obfuscation
That explanation sort of makes sense, but now I want to push it a little further. So I say something like, “At this point, it’s probably just laziness. It’s easier than getting up and throwing it out.” This makes it sound like the item is actually gone in some way, not just secreted out of view somehow. You can tell this kind of throws people off a little. If they ask, “Where did it go,” I will give one of two answers. I’ll either say, “Oh, it’s in the trash,” and point across the room at the trash can; or I’ll just sort of shake my head and shrug my shoulders and be like, “I have no idea.”
Obviously it doesn’t always play out this exact way, but that’s more or less the path in my head that I’m ready to go on. Sometimes, the interaction will end soon after this. But most of the time, the conversation continues. Either they used to be into magic, or they’ve always enjoyed magic, or they want to know if I still study it. If they’re the type of person who’s going to approach you after seeing something strange happen, then they’re usually the sort of person who wants to pursue this conversation.