Essential Magic Conference 2011 - Session 7 (Part 1)
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CreativityTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 And greetings.
00:15 My name is Max Maven, and you know who you are.
00:18 [APPLAUSE]
00:22 I was about to say good morning.
00:23 Now, it's actually afternoon here in Portugal.
00:25 But for me, it feels like morning,
00:27 because I didn't get up that long ago.
00:29 For you, it may be in the middle of the night,
00:32 maybe mid-afternoon.
00:34 We have people watching from how many countries, Marco?
00:36 Over 60, I believe.
00:37 62.
00:38 62 countries watching.
00:39 And yes, we will put the map up later.
00:41 [APPLAUSE]
00:43 It is my great pleasure to be the host for this first round
00:48 of today's three sessions.
00:49 We have a stellar lineup.
00:51 And rather than take your time with things I have to say,
00:54 let's get right to it.
00:55 The first person, we're going to start off
00:58 where most shows end.
00:59 We're going to start off with a gentleman who is literally
01:02 a living legend, one of my favorite thinkers
01:05 in all of magic, and a splendid human being.
01:08 And I don't know what else I can say except for two simple words.
01:12 David Burglas.
01:13 [APPLAUSE]
01:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:20 [INAUDIBLE]
01:23 I'm not going to try to talk.
01:25 I'm going to explain some of my things.
01:29 Over the years, people have wondered
01:31 why I can do something that I do,
01:34 which seemed to be opposite to the message
01:37 you've got of the people.
01:39 And everybody says to me, you take tremendous chances.
01:46 And I don't really, because for every effect that I do,
01:50 I have about 20 outs.
01:52 20?
01:53 50.
01:55 I'm not right on by that.
01:56 Unlimited.
01:57 So as far as I'm concerned, if something did go wrong,
02:04 which occasionally happens--
02:07 in fact, I can't remember the last time it happened.
02:10 We'll talk hypothetically.
02:12 Yeah.
02:13 The audience has never known, because what I finish with
02:18 looks like I planned it in the first place.
02:22 For instance, just to give you some illustration,
02:25 mention a card to me.
02:27 Any card?
02:28 The three of spades.
02:30 OK.
02:30 The thing is that, as Max has pointed out to you,
02:34 we've known each other a long time.
02:36 And it would be quite obvious for everybody here
02:38 to think, here and at home, of course,
02:41 to think that we arranged something.
02:43 I will promise you we did not arrange anything other than
02:46 that we would be sitting together.
02:48 And I certainly did not tell you what
02:50 card I was going to think of, because I actually
02:51 changed my mind when you asked me to name one.
02:54 Can you remember the first one you thought of?
02:57 The first one I thought of was the three of clubs.
02:59 Right.
03:01 If I wanted to find your card, either one.
03:05 You mentioned three of spades.
03:07 Yes.
03:07 Right.
03:08 This is a trick every magician knows.
03:11 It's one of the first things they learn.
03:13 You throw the cards down, and one card jumps out.
03:17 Right.
03:18 But in my case, it has to be the right one that you want.
03:21 I would hope.
03:21 So we do it like this.
03:23 One comes out of the center.
03:24 If you see how the--
03:25 No, no.
03:26 It has broken in the middle.
03:28 I'm not sure if the camera can pick it up.
03:30 And the card jumps out.
03:32 And that, of course, is the card that you thought of.
03:35 There it is.
03:35 [APPLAUSE]
03:39 There.
03:40 There.
03:42 There.
03:43 OK.
03:45 Good.
03:46 If you were to give me a number, just give me a number.
03:50 Not a big one, because we don't have much time.
03:52 14.
03:53 14.
03:56 What I will do is I will try and get your card
04:03 to be the 14th card.
04:07 I'm doing this first to show you a couple of examples.
04:12 And then I'll try and explain it.
04:14 OK.
04:14 So the second card you wanted was the--
04:23 Three of clubs.
04:24 I think.
04:25 Right.
04:27 If I play with the cards, it seems innocuous.
04:30 It doesn't seem important.
04:32 Right?
04:33 Not yet.
04:35 No, I mean, it's not.
04:36 But if I were to cut them somewhere like this,
04:48 I now have your card at the position you want.
04:51 You said 14.
04:52 I said 14.
04:53 I'll take a chance on this, because normally I would
04:56 be playing with the cards still.
04:59 But if we just count to the 14th card--
05:04 You go ahead.
05:05 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
05:11 There's the three of clubs.
05:13 Right.
05:14 Oops.
05:15 [APPLAUSE]
05:20 What I'd like you to do--
05:22 and I'm still demonstrating things.
05:24 I'll try and explain in a minute.
05:26 If you took the cards--
05:28 and these are normally their cards for magicians.
05:31 So obviously, their audience don't carry cards.
05:34 Take the cards and just look through them slowly from--
05:39 just run them from hand to hand.
05:41 All right.
05:42 Keep doing that.
05:42 And then think of one card and remember it.
05:47 I have done so.
05:49 You changed your mind once.
05:51 I did.
05:52 You want the first or the second card?
05:54 I want the second card.
05:55 OK.
05:56 Will you be honest if I tell you the first card as well?
05:59 I will be more than honest.
06:01 I will be impressed.
06:01 What was the first card?
06:02 The first card was the ace of clubs.
06:05 Look at the top card.
06:07 What is it?
06:09 It is the ace of clubs.
06:10 [APPLAUSE]
06:11 That's the first one.
06:14 And then you changed your mind.
06:16 I did change my mind.
06:17 What did you change your mind to?
06:18 I changed to the four of diamonds.
06:21 That was-- you didn't change your mind then,
06:25 because that was right next to--
06:27 Yeah, I jumped over one.
06:28 I see.
06:28 OK.
06:29 Because when I showed you the ace of clubs--
06:31 Right.
06:32 --you can see the four of diamonds--
06:32 There's the four of diamonds next to it.
06:34 --is right next to it.
06:34 Yeah.
06:35 So--
06:36 Do you want something more challenging?
06:38 No, no.
06:38 I don't mind.
06:39 I don't mind.
06:39 OK.
06:40 As long as I can find the card.
06:43 I do this until I actually have the person I'm working to take
06:50 the cards and go to the other side of the room.
06:53 And I say the same thing.
06:54 Look through the cards--
06:56 Right.
06:56 --and think of one.
06:59 And then it makes magicians very annoyed that I find the card.
07:05 I would think so.
07:07 So I'll ask you to do that.
07:09 I'm not going to ask you to go across the room,
07:11 but I'll just sit back and you turn your back so I can't.
07:15 See, just go through the cards.
07:16 All right.
07:17 And just think of one on the way.
07:19 I have done that.
07:20 And remember it.
07:21 I have done that.
07:23 Does it seem fair?
07:24 It seems extremely fair.
07:25 All right.
07:27 Obviously, I'll take a little bit of a chance,
07:29 but I think you looked through the cards
07:31 and you thought of that.
07:32 What card did you think of?
07:33 I thought of the six of hearts.
07:35 You sure?
07:36 Absolutely.
07:37 I absolutely saw it.
07:38 It'll take me a little while to find it this time.
07:42 Six of hearts.
07:44 Yeah.
07:44 Excuse me one second.
07:56 It is the six of hearts.
07:57 And finally, take the cards, put them in your hand,
08:06 and just mention a card to me.
08:08 Just name one.
08:10 The jack of clubs.
08:12 OK.
08:14 If I were to take the cards from you like this
08:18 and cut the cards about there.
08:23 We'll start again.
08:24 We'll just cut the cards about there.
08:28 Yeah.
08:28 And fan them like this.
08:35 And you can see they're all different.
08:41 You can see these are all different.
08:43 Yes.
08:43 Right.
08:45 And for me to find the card now will be difficult,
08:50 but I'll do it this way.
08:51 I'm a junior Leonard Green.
09:01 OK.
09:01 That's your card, I think.
09:10 It is absolutely my card.
09:12 And would you just get the cards together, please?
09:19 OK.
09:19 And when you've done that, you just cut the cards.
09:30 I'm going to try and explain some of this in a minute.
09:32 All right.
09:33 But what I want you to do is to cut the cards
09:36 and then open where you've cut.
09:39 Just make it a cut.
09:40 Go ahead.
09:41 Show me what you've cut to.
09:43 You've cut to the king of clubs.
09:45 Just before you cut, I cut my cards.
09:49 I didn't look at them.
09:50 I just cut.
09:52 You cut to the king of clubs.
09:53 Show it to the camera.
09:55 And believe it or not, I too cut to the king of clubs.
10:00 We'll do it one last time.
10:08 Close the cards.
10:10 Neat them out like that.
10:13 And this time, make two cuts and open the cards
10:15 so we can see them.
10:16 One with each hand?
10:17 Yeah, like that.
10:18 So we can see two cards.
10:20 All right.
10:22 And which one would you like me to find?
10:24 Oh, I will go for the 10 of diamonds.
10:27 10 of diamonds.
10:29 You could have said the six of cards.
10:31 I certainly could have.
10:32 If I wanted to find that card, let me just do this.
10:41 I've just played with the cards, right?
10:43 Yeah.
10:44 And I don't think it looks very suspicious what I've done.
10:46 Not yet.
10:47 Because they just seem to drop.
10:51 But if I open the card like this,
10:54 we find the one that you've chosen--
10:56 The one I chose was on top, yes.
10:58 That's the 10 of diamonds.
10:59 That's how I find it.
11:00 Right.
11:01 I'll try and give you a few explanations.
11:03 All right.
11:05 I never, ever say, take a card.
11:08 There's only two tricks that I know
11:11 where it's necessary for that.
11:13 It's for the rising cards.
11:16 I have three cards chosen in the traditional way.
11:19 Normally, I say, think of a card, mention a card,
11:22 or say a card.
11:24 Right.
11:26 And I make a specific fan, which I don't know why,
11:32 but magicians have always said, it's different.
11:34 It's not a pressure fan.
11:36 It's not a drag fan.
11:37 But it enables me to see all the cards.
11:40 Every one is visible.
11:42 I put some pressure with my thumb on it to get a curve.
11:46 Now, if I might interject, I know
11:50 this isn't your phrase for it.
11:52 But in the new and large book that Richard Kaufman has just
11:56 put out on your card work, he calls this a push fan.
11:59 Right.
11:59 Right?
12:00 Yeah.
12:00 OK.
12:01 So if you get the book, that's what to look for.
12:04 We never had a name for it.
12:06 But I twist my hand around like this,
12:10 and I spread the cards, rather like spreading paint.
12:15 Now, you can only go as far as that when you spread the cards.
12:20 It would stop there.
12:22 So I use these fingers to complete the fan.
12:25 So it's done instantaneously.
12:27 As they come up on this side, the other side
12:30 comes down, which gives me a complete fan.
12:31 So now the whole deck is a view.
12:33 I then put this pressure on to get the arc.
12:35 And I say, look at the cards and think of one.
12:38 Now, I don't actually look at the cards after that.
12:42 I know where you've looked.
12:44 And I divide the cards into zones.
12:47 So I'm not going to cut what I think is your zone.
12:51 Tell me the card you thought of.
12:52 The two of hearts.
12:53 I'm just going to tell you quite openly.
12:59 It's the second card.
13:00 In that case, you've seen me do this before.
13:03 I would say, if it's a top card, I
13:05 won't take the credit for it.
13:07 And it's not.
13:09 If it's a bottom card, I won't take the credit for it.
13:11 But I know the card is on top now.
13:13 So I'm very certain more than two cards are either way.
13:17 So with this gambit of it's not on top, it's not on the bottom,
13:21 you've now made it on top.
13:23 That's an out.
13:24 And now you have--
13:25 I've seen you do this.
13:26 You use a bit of time misdirection.
13:29 And then the card is suddenly on top.
13:31 Nine times out of 10, I cut to the card.
13:36 So when I close the cards after you've looked at them--
13:40 and I don't have to look at the cards.
13:42 I have to look at you.
13:45 And I've cut to the zone.
13:46 I'll do that again.
13:48 I make it a very sloppy close.
13:51 When I go like this, I haven't quite closed the fan properly.
13:57 If I show you, I'm actually looking at four cards.
14:00 If you look, I see those two, and I see those two at least.
14:04 What was the card you thought of?
14:05 Well, you've nailed me, because I
14:06 thought of the seven of spades.
14:08 Which is the top card now.
14:10 That's because I captured instinctively.
14:14 It's not a fantastic magical trick.
14:18 It's a psychological trick by watching a person.
14:21 Now, there's a simple out.
14:23 If I've missed it, if I'm not looking at the person properly,
14:29 these fans are better.
14:33 These were used before, so they don't transfer.
14:35 But when I show them to you, and I say, look at the card
14:40 and think of one, and you do that,
14:43 I then try and get the zone and cut to it.
14:50 And at that moment, if I missed you looking at the card,
14:56 I say, are you sure you saw it?
14:59 Is it there?
15:00 And of course, you look back.
15:00 Now I'm going to double check.
15:01 So by you looking back, I have a double check on that,
15:04 and then I cut to that card again.
15:08 As far as the other two things are concerned,
15:11 when I ask you to look through the cards like that,
15:14 people don't stop on the card, but there is the reaction.
15:18 And after they've thought of the card, they lose interest.
15:23 And you can see that by body movements,
15:25 whether the shoulders groove, they breathe differently.
15:29 So I say, look through the card, think of one,
15:32 and I watch what they're looking at.
15:34 And it's mostly the one I have to look at myself.
15:38 And then they lose interest, but they continue.
15:40 I said, have you got one?
15:41 They say yes, but they're not even looking at the others.
15:44 And the same thing, believe it or not,
15:46 can be done when they move to the other side of the room,
15:49 because again, you see body movement.
15:52 So in that case, you're estimating from, obviously,
15:54 not seeing the faces, but you're estimating the location.
15:56 I don't need to see the cards.
15:58 I just see the way the person's holding the card.
16:00 I don't have to see the cards, just your elbows, your shoulders.
16:04 So even if they're turned away, you have a sense of when they--
16:06 Everything.
16:07 And as I watch, I can guess the area they've done,
16:12 that they've looked at.
16:13 When they come back, I cut there without even
16:15 looking at the cards.
16:17 Now that I've cut, it's not very suspicious,
16:19 because they say, you couldn't possibly know the card.
16:22 I'm thinking of from over there.
16:23 Now I'm not doing a sloppy spread,
16:27 where I've got at least four or five cards in view.
16:30 And as you tell me what it is, I can take one card away,
16:32 put it at the bottom, and so on.
16:35 Any questions?
16:36 Well, yes, many.
16:39 But having read the new book, as well as the one
16:42 that David Bricklin wrote a number of years ago,
16:45 I can say, honestly, that most of the questions
16:49 that I would have to ask you here,
16:51 or that people watching at home would have,
16:54 are in those books, and for the card stuff,
16:56 particularly in the new book.
16:58 Because the amount of detail there is extraordinary.
17:01 Thank you.
17:02 It took a long time to do.
17:04 In fact, it took a lifetime to do.
17:06 And it took nearly another lifetime for somebody
17:09 to persuade me to put it in print,
17:11 not because I wanted to keep the secrets,
17:13 but because I didn't think it could be explained in print.
17:17 It's a very hard thing to explain.
17:19 I will say that I have read a lot of stuff
17:22 on this general type of work.
17:25 I don't think I've ever seen one person's journey through this
17:31 explored in such extraordinary detail.
17:34 I forget, is it something like 70,000 words on just--
17:38 on just the Burglass effect?
17:40 I think the Burglass says about 30,000.
17:42 OK.
17:43 It's a lot of text, but it's all good.
17:46 I mean, it all serves a purpose.
17:47 There's no padding in the book.
17:49 Most of the book is a philosophy of it,
17:51 and looking at yourself and starting afresh,
17:55 not based on other card tricks.
17:57 But you said you made a comment when you got the PDF file.
18:00 Right.
18:01 And you looked through it, and you said something
18:03 to Richard, which was really pleasing.
18:05 You said, you've explained something
18:07 that cannot be explained.
18:09 I have to say, it's a very impressive accomplishment.
18:13 Obviously, your part of the impressive accomplishment
18:15 is clear, but I'll give great credit
18:18 to also to Richard, because he discusses things that shouldn't
18:23 be explainable, and does so in part,
18:26 because this isn't his type of field.
18:28 Richard is used to explaining card slights or coin slights.
18:32 And for Richard to be exploring this with you,
18:35 he had to understand it himself, because it
18:37 was all new thinking to him.
18:39 And the result is a book that contains a wealth
18:41 of interesting information.
18:44 You know, he's a sort of man who has never
18:48 done any trick that requires thinking or patter.
18:55 For instance, he specializes in what
18:57 he calls an invisible pass.
18:59 I don't know whether he does it, or I've never seen it.
19:01 But he does that, and he says he's done it.
19:03 So I believe him.
19:04 But as far as I know, he does only things
19:09 that he's studied for years.
19:12 And he's never been involved in this free thinking.
19:15 No, this is-- I can tell you quite conclusively,
19:20 this is brand new territory for Richard.
19:22 But that's one of the things that has allowed him
19:25 to explain your work and your ideas to people
19:28 for whom it would also be new.
19:29 Well, what I was just going to say to you
19:31 is that when he goes to conventions
19:34 and has a stand for his magazine,
19:37 he's been demonstrating, think of a card,
19:40 exactly the same way of planning, say, think of a card.
19:43 And the fact that he can do it is proof that--
19:46 If Richard can do it, pretty much anybody can do it.
19:48 Anybody can do it.
19:51 David Berglas.
19:52 Yesterday during the online chat that was going on,
19:55 particularly around the time of the Chang Canasta footage,
19:59 there were people posting the question,
20:01 is risk a useful thing to put into one's magic?
20:05 And obviously, it isn't for everyone.
20:09 But it is for some of us.
20:11 And there's a guy who's not afraid to take risks,
20:13 David Berglas.
20:14 And if you're interested in the kind of thinking that goes on
20:17 behind David's work, in addition to the rather large book that
20:21 was written by David Britland a few years ago
20:24 about the magic of David Berglas,
20:26 there's a new book by Richard Kaufman which
20:28 is specific to David's card work and the kind of thinking
20:31 behind it that goes into an extraordinary amount of detail.
20:35 As we're setting for our next performer, let me mention,
20:37 we know that some of you are still
20:39 having trouble with lagging speeds and sync on watching
20:44 this in a live stream.
20:46 Some of this we can't do anything about,
20:48 because some of it has to do with your local connections.
20:51 And we can't control that.
20:53 What we can control is being dealt with.
20:56 Believe me, there are people who are behind the scenes
20:58 here working tirelessly to get that feed as clean and as
21:02 strong as possible so that you won't have any problems.
21:06 If problems do continue for some of you,
21:09 please know all of our resources are being put not only
21:13 to get them fixed, but also to post the sessions so that you
21:18 can go and watch anything you may have missed because it
21:20 didn't come through cleanly will be available and quickly.
21:24 All six of the sessions thus far, up until today,
21:27 are now available online for you to watch as a streaming
21:31 download.
21:32 And whereas last year it took days,
21:35 we're now doing it in hours.
21:37 So bear with us.
21:38 We're doing the best we can to bring this to you live.
21:41 And if there are any glitches, you
21:43 will get the chance to see it, in addition to the HD DVD sets
21:47 that will be delivered to your door at no additional charge.
21:50 So with that commercial message out of the way,
21:53 I think it's time to get an interesting talk
21:56 from a completely different background.
21:58 The gentleman I'm about to introduce
22:01 has recently moved indoors.
22:03 He now performs in corporate events and upscale
22:07 kind of circumstances.
22:08 But for more than a decade, he made his entire living
22:12 performing on the streets without TV cameras following
22:17 him around, actually getting people to stop, enjoy his magic,
22:22 and pay him money.
22:23 And he's going to talk about that experience
22:25 and bring it to us in a way that is going to be,
22:27 I am quite certain, revelatory.
22:30 So without further ado, the gentleman
22:31 who has the best closing line of any saltpore routine
22:34 I've ever seen, please welcome back from England, Peter Wardell.
22:38 [APPLAUSE]
22:41 Thank you, Max.
22:45 I'm going to make this very clear before I start.
22:47 I am not going to talk about street magic.
22:51 Not in the sense that you probably understand it.
22:53 I'm not going to talk about the kind of street magic
22:54 that involves running up to a group of people
22:56 with a friend carrying a mini camcorder,
22:58 showing them a quick card trick, and going, yeah,
23:00 and then disappearing.
23:02 That's not street magic.
23:03 That's performing magic on the street.
23:07 And I'm not going to talk about what I consider to be busking.
23:10 Now, busking for me is a performer
23:12 who sits at the side of a moving stream of traffic,
23:14 works to a continuous flow of people,
23:17 and relies on the fact that they're going to be generous
23:19 enough to donate as they pass by.
23:22 There's no defined pitch and no real structure to the show.
23:25 It's normally the realm of the musicians and the mimes.
23:29 Bless them.
23:31 What I am going to talk about is street performing.
23:34 This is the kind of performing that was described in a book
23:37 called "The Experience Economy," written by two guys,
23:39 Pine and Gilmore.
23:41 And they described street performers as people
23:43 who take an empty space on which they build a stage
23:45 to enact their selling performance.
23:48 That's right, a job description for a street performer.
23:52 That's what I want to talk about,
23:53 the kind of performance that has a beginning, a middle,
23:55 and an end.
23:56 It has form.
23:57 It has structure.
23:58 And in an environment like the street
24:00 where there isn't really any form or structure where you can
24:04 create some, you're going to create a focus.
24:08 So the first question I really want to ask,
24:11 and the questions I'm going to answer hopefully in this talk,
24:13 are why, where, and how.
24:16 I am not going to answer the question what.
24:19 I don't want to be seen to be too prescriptive about what
24:22 you should be doing in your show.
24:24 There's enough magic out there to create literally
24:27 endless perfect street shows.
24:30 So it's not my job to find that for you.
24:31 That's your job.
24:33 So I'm going to answer the questions why, where, and how.
24:37 So why?
24:38 Why would you want to pitch yourself
24:41 against Mother Nature and the great unwashed masses?
24:45 Why would you want to do that?
24:46 Well, I'll tell you why.
24:47 Because on a professional and a performance level,
24:50 the street provides you with an endless source of input.
24:54 You see, on the street, no one knows who you are.
24:56 No one cares.
24:57 It means you can perform 20 shows a day.
24:59 You can start off in the morning dressed in a tuxedo,
25:01 and end the day dressed as a chicken.
25:03 It doesn't matter.
25:04 No one knows, and no one cares.
25:05 And you're getting constant feedback during the day.
25:08 There's eyeballs and there's mouths.
25:10 And they will tell you with their feet
25:11 as well whether you're doing a good job or not.
25:14 So as a performer, that's a fantastic resource.
25:17 You're also surrounded by people from other performing
25:19 environments.
25:20 You're surrounded by dancers, musicians, mimes, jugglers.
25:25 And these people will, I guarantee you,
25:27 give you their opinion.
25:30 So that's a great reason why you want to perform on the street
25:32 on a personal and professional-- oh, sorry,
25:34 on a professional and performance level.
25:36 On another professional level, yes, you
25:38 can earn a bit of money.
25:39 But I'll talk about that in a minute.
25:40 On a personal level, though-- and this is the real reason
25:43 to become a street performer-- on a personal level,
25:46 you can travel the world.
25:48 You can perform in some of the most fantastic cities.
25:51 And you don't need to be booked.
25:53 And you can make friends.
25:54 Some of my best friends, the godparents to my children,
25:57 are street performers.
25:58 They don't stand a chance, I know.
26:00 But they're street performers.
26:02 But you can make great friends and huge, huge life
26:05 experiences that you won't get anywhere else other
26:08 than on the street.
26:11 So where?
26:11 Where can you perform on the street?
26:13 Well, Shakespeare put it best when he said,
26:14 all the world's a stage.
26:16 And if the police don't stop you, he's right.
26:18 As long as you stay within the local bylaws,
26:21 the world is just a fantastic place to perform.
26:23 You can perform anywhere you like, an empty space.
26:26 Turn it into theater place.
26:27 That's what street performing is all about.
26:30 And there's two types of pitch you can work.
26:31 You can work the established pitch.
26:33 Now, the established pitch is places like Covent Garden,
26:36 Circular Keys.
26:37 This is where shows constantly take place throughout the year.
26:40 Now, there, there's an expectation from the audience.
26:42 The audience are there because they want to see a show.
26:45 And it's a lot easier to work in this kind of environment.
26:48 There are, however, downsides.
26:50 You also have competition.
26:52 In Covent Garden, for example, when the, the,
26:54 in the height of the season during the summer,
26:57 the pitches are split into two pitches.
26:59 So you can be standing doing ambitious card routine
27:01 while a guy in a tartan mini skirt on a 12-foot unicycle
27:05 with tattoos all over his body is juggling fire.
27:08 That's competition.
27:10 It's a downside performing on the street in a,
27:12 in an established pitch.
27:14 The other downside is you will develop a performance style.
27:17 Most pitches generate a performance style
27:21 in the performers that work there.
27:22 And I always, there's an old expression
27:24 that you can take the performer out of Covent Garden,
27:25 but you can't take Covent Garden out of the performer.
27:28 I think I could see a Covent Garden performer
27:30 if I didn't know them, and I watched them work,
27:32 I would know they were from Covent Garden
27:34 because they'd be shouting a lot, generally.
27:36 Listen to me.
27:37 The other side of, type of pitch you can work
27:40 is the improvised pitch or the fly pitch.
27:41 This is a pitch that you set up.
27:43 The benefits of this is it's a fresh audience.
27:46 They haven't heard the same jokes that you're going to use.
27:48 They haven't been bled dry of all their money.
27:51 But the difficulty is they need to be educated.
27:54 You have to educate this kind of audience,
27:55 and this is a good thing.
27:57 You see, if you can educate them,
27:59 if you can control them, they become yours.
28:02 And you're more likely to get a better return
28:03 on your, in the investment of your time
28:05 if you work these kind of pitches.
28:07 But be careful.
28:08 When you're working a pitch that hasn't been worked before,
28:11 respect your surroundings.
28:12 You know, I said that all the world's a stage,
28:14 but stand in front of somebody's shop door
28:16 and they're going to come out with a broom
28:17 and smack you on the head.
28:18 You have to be careful.
28:19 You have to be careful of the other performers.
28:21 Maybe there are other guys performing,
28:23 statues, that kind of thing.
28:24 Be aware of what's going on around you
28:26 if you decide to fly pitch.
28:28 So I'm now going to talk about how.
28:31 How do you do a street show?
28:34 Well, the first time you ever stand on the cobbles
28:37 at Covent Garden, underneath the arches under the church,
28:41 and you look out at the pitch, and it's a big pitch,
28:44 and you look at the empty cobbles,
28:45 the first time you do that, it's terrifying.
28:49 It's like standing on the edge of a cliff
28:50 with a hang glider strapped to your back.
28:52 Now, you're either going to jump off and soar
28:55 and make this expanse your playground,
28:57 or you are going to nosedive into the ground.
29:00 It's a huge task.
29:02 So what you have to do is you have to break it down.
29:05 Now, for any of you out there who are interested
29:08 in marketing and business, and I'm fascinated by it,
29:10 and I think as performers we should be,
29:12 and there's been some great talks
29:13 that have covered that kind of,
29:14 those subjects, over the last few days.
29:17 In marketing, there's an expression, it's AIDA, A-I-D-A,
29:22 attention, interest, desire, and action,
29:25 and that's what a street show is,
29:26 and it was given to me in another way
29:29 by the late, great, and wonderful Jim Cellini,
29:33 who said to me, "Pete, what you have to do
29:34 "is make them stop, make them stay,
29:36 "make them watch, and make them pay."
29:39 That's the structure of a street show.
29:42 Break it down, make it easy on yourself.
29:45 Now, I'm not going to go against that advice,
29:46 but I am just going to give my interpretation of it.
29:49 The first thing I think you have to do
29:51 when you want to be a street performer,
29:52 when you go out to do a street show, is make a difference.
29:56 Now, this isn't about the content of your show,
29:58 it's about the intent of your show.
30:01 Your intention must be to create an experience,
30:05 and creating an experience is not about entertaining people,
30:07 it's about engaging them.
30:09 Experiences are wonderful, this is what we're trying to do.
30:14 Let me, I'll tell you what I mean.
30:15 You see, people see a show, they watch a show,
30:19 but they have an experience, and that's the difference.
30:22 When you give someone experience,
30:23 you're giving them something that they can take away.
30:26 When Lewis talked yesterday
30:27 about vanishing a spectator's car,
30:29 he talked about the comet effect,
30:31 I think they described it as,
30:32 where he turned an illusion into a memorable event.
30:34 Now, the key word there is memorable,
30:36 because it's having the memory that creates the experience.
30:41 So what you're trying to do is create an experience.
30:43 The people who come to you must leave
30:45 in a different frame of mind,
30:47 they must feel different emotionally,
30:48 or mentally, or physically,
30:49 something must change them for the better,
30:52 and then you've created an experience,
30:53 you've made a difference.
30:56 And there's really another good reason for this,
30:58 and this comes to the money thing.
30:59 If you create a show purely to make money,
31:02 or you do street shows purely to make money,
31:06 you are more likely to be disappointed and to fail,
31:10 because money isn't about you.
31:13 Creating an experience is very personal,
31:16 and it's a subjective way of looking at it.
31:21 If you keep it subjective,
31:22 then there's less chance of you getting disappointed
31:24 and failing.
31:25 All money will do, and focusing on money will do,
31:28 it will break your heart,
31:29 and it will also steal your art.
31:32 And by that I mean, form follows function.
31:35 If you intend to make money,
31:37 you'll end up creating a show that makes money.
31:39 But it might not be the show that you wanted to create.
31:43 It's a bit like the way cars are designed now,
31:45 they're all designed to become streamlined,
31:47 and so they all look the same.
31:49 Because they're all focusing towards the same goal,
31:51 don't focus on the money.
31:52 The second thing you have to do is get attention.
31:56 Now, I'm gonna disagree with the late Apollo,
32:00 with the late, he's not late, he's great,
32:01 Apollo Robbins, he's, we hope he's not late.
32:03 He is late, actually, he's not here.
32:05 When he said that getting attention was difficult,
32:08 I think getting attention is easy.
32:10 If you wanna get someone's attention on the street,
32:12 hide behind a bin, when they walk past,
32:14 jump out and go, "Ah!"
32:15 You'll get their attention.
32:17 Getting attention is simple,
32:18 what's really difficult though is keeping their attention.
32:21 Bit of physics, Newton's second law of motion
32:25 states that a body in motion will remain in motion
32:28 unless it's acted on by an external and unbalanced force.
32:32 As a street performer, you have to be unbalanced.
32:35 I know that kinda makes sense, doesn't it?
32:37 You have to be unbalanced, but internally and externally.
32:39 Internally, there has to be a personal drive,
32:41 something that will cause you to step over the fear barrier
32:45 and move towards the spectators.
32:48 I was given a great bit of advice by an old friend of mine,
32:50 a guy called Humph James,
32:51 who was a fantastic street performer,
32:53 and he was an old flatmate of mine.
32:54 And when I wasn't doing so well,
32:56 and I was down, and I was feeling a bit depressed,
32:58 he said, "What you have to do is leave the house
33:00 "with enough money for your bus ticket in
33:02 "and a cup of coffee."
33:04 So when you get into the pitch, you have to work.
33:08 Because if you don't work, you have to walk home.
33:11 Give yourself any motivation to do the work,
33:13 'cause it's easy to get to a pitch in the sunshine
33:16 and drink coffee all day.
33:17 But you also have to be unbalanced
33:20 with respect to your environment.
33:22 Cellini, again, he said,
33:25 he talked about color, sound, and motion
33:27 when he talked about street performing,
33:29 about using color, sound, and motion to get attention.
33:33 And when he talked about color, sound, and motion,
33:36 you could see people thinking,
33:37 "Color, sound, and motion,
33:38 "I'm gonna get really colorful, really loud,
33:40 "and move around a lot."
33:41 But if you do that,
33:42 all you become is a really annoying clown.
33:44 No one wants that.
33:46 It's a sliding scale.
33:48 Color, sound, and motion can be all the way up here,
33:50 or it can be all the way down there.
33:53 And if you are the annoying clown character,
33:55 the wild, crazy, loud, loud, loud,
33:57 and you're in an environment which is wild, crazy,
33:59 and loud, loud, loud, you won't stand out,
34:00 you'll blend in.
34:02 (audience laughing)
34:04 Think about the people you stop and watch on the street.
34:06 They have no sound, no motion, no color.
34:10 The human statues, or crate slugs,
34:12 as they're affectionately known,
34:14 the human statues stand still, no movement,
34:17 and they act almost like an attention vacuum.
34:20 They suck attention towards them.
34:22 So don't think loud, brash, big.
34:26 Think of it as a sliding scale of color, sound, and motion.
34:31 The problem with the statues, they're statues,
34:34 no, the problem with the statues
34:36 is they only take it so far.
34:38 They start working the kind of busking thing
34:40 that I was talking about, working to a transient audience.
34:42 There's no continuous engagement.
34:45 So that's what I want to talk about next.
34:48 Before I do, and I've just remembered an example
34:50 of a great magician I saw, a guy called Dante.
34:53 Now, I don't know Dante personally.
34:54 Some of the guys here might know him.
34:56 He used to stop his crowd by standing his feet together,
34:59 quietly, holding a silver dollar in his fingertips,
35:03 just waving it in the sunlight,
35:05 and he'd look around and he'd say, "Watch, watch."
35:09 Not everyone would watch, but when they did watch,
35:12 they saw a miracle, and he had them,
35:15 which brings me onto my next point.
35:17 Give them something.
35:19 You have to give people something.
35:21 You have to offer them a promise.
35:22 You have to give them a definite outcome.
35:25 It's a little bit like the Emerald City
35:28 in "The Wizard of Oz."
35:29 You know, we hear about this right at the beginning
35:31 of the film, and the rest of the film
35:33 is all about getting there,
35:34 and that's what a street show is.
35:35 You see, if you don't tell people where you're taking them,
35:37 how the hell are they going to know when they get there?
35:40 If they didn't tell us they were heading
35:41 towards the Emerald City,
35:42 I'd have got off in the poppy field.
35:44 Yeah?
35:45 You have to tell them where you're taking them,
35:47 otherwise you might satisfy a certain curiosity
35:50 and they'll leave.
35:51 Another great magician, another example of this,
35:54 there's a guy called Kenny Lightfoot,
35:55 who I had the pleasure of working with
35:56 a couple of summers ago.
35:57 And Kenny would start his show by saying,
36:00 "At the end of this show, I'm going to take this playing card
36:01 "and I'm going to scale it over the building over there."
36:04 And people would say, he didn't talk like that,
36:05 but, you know, acting, two years.
36:08 He didn't, and at the end of his show,
36:09 he would scale a card over the building,
36:11 but people would wait for that to happen.
36:13 He would offer them an impossibility, a promise.
36:15 People would wait for that to happen.
36:17 So that's what you need to do.
36:18 Give them a definite end,
36:19 and then take them on a journey to get there.
36:22 Take them through the enchanted forest,
36:23 through the poppy fields.
36:25 And when you do, always refer forward
36:27 to what's going to happen,
36:28 so people know something's coming.
36:31 The other example, the guys with straitjackets.
36:32 Straitjackets go on the ground
36:34 before they get into the straitjacket.
36:35 Unicyclists, jugglers, bring out the unicycle
36:37 at the beginning of the show.
36:38 This is the promise.
36:39 This is what people want.
36:41 And they stay to watch it.
36:43 And now you have them.
36:44 So the second thing, the next thing you have to do
36:46 is you have to invite them in.
36:49 You see, people want to be controlled
36:51 in this kind of environment
36:52 where there is no real structure.
36:53 They will easily accept the structure you offer them.
36:56 So invite the people into your show.
36:59 When you invite them in, when they step forward
37:03 up to the rope that you've laid down on the floor
37:05 or the chalk line that you've drawn down,
37:06 when they step forward, they're committing to you.
37:09 And that's what you want from them.
37:11 These people, this starting edge,
37:13 become your biggest fan.
37:15 They become the engine that drives your show forward.
37:19 You have to use them.
37:20 Invite them forward and integrate them into the show.
37:23 Because they also create a wall,
37:25 a wall around you that prevents people
37:26 who are walking past stopping to see what's going on.
37:29 This creates curiosity,
37:30 and they'll help you gather more people.
37:32 People gather people.
37:34 So draw them forward, draw them up to the line.
37:39 Keep them tight.
37:39 Close up all the gaps.
37:41 The worst thing that can happen to you in a show
37:42 is that your front edge will rupture,
37:44 and people will leave.
37:45 And that rupture is like bursting a balloon.
37:47 It creates an energy gap,
37:48 and the energy just flows out of it.
37:50 So if a gap occurs in the front of your show,
37:52 close that gap as quickly as you possibly can.
37:55 So invite them into your world.
37:58 The last thing you have to do,
38:00 and probably the most important thing
38:01 you have to do in a street show,
38:03 is a call to action.
38:04 This is real marketing stuff.
38:06 This is sales.
38:07 You have to give them a call to action.
38:09 This is the bottling speech.
38:10 This is the bit where you ask for money.
38:13 And you have to be really firm.
38:15 You have to be really specific.
38:17 If you don't tell them what to give you,
38:19 they're gonna decide what to give you,
38:21 and it's not gonna be what you want.
38:23 Tell them exactly what you want them to pay you.
38:26 Be really specific.
38:28 And do it before you've got to the Emerald City.
38:30 Do it before you've got to the end of the show.
38:32 Don't give them the opportunity to go,
38:34 "We're in the Emerald City, let's go!"
38:36 No, do it before you get there.
38:38 Tell them when you get to the Emerald City,
38:39 you're gonna pay.
38:40 And do it by breaking out of character.
38:42 Create a break in the rhythm of the show.
38:45 Slow down.
38:46 Step out of character.
38:48 Deliver the bottling speech as you,
38:50 not as the character you're portraying.
38:51 Don't let them think it's a big joke.
38:53 It's the most serious part of your show.
38:56 So there's my sort of take on the street magic state of mind.
39:02 Make a difference.
39:03 Attract attention.
39:05 Give them something.
39:06 Invite them in.
39:07 Call to action.
39:08 M-A-G-I-C.
39:11 Magic.
39:12 That's what it's all about.
39:13 Thank you for your time,
39:14 and have a lovely time at A&C.
39:16 (audience applauds)
39:18 - Peter Wardell.
39:19 (audience applauds)
39:22 Terrific and useful advice.
39:25 One of the great things about this event
39:27 is it brings together a lot of different people
39:30 from very different backgrounds,
39:31 different generations, different cultural backgrounds,
39:34 different experience backgrounds.
39:35 And yesterday, there were a lot of comments
39:37 about all of the talks,
39:38 but particularly I thought about the conversations
39:41 having to do with kid show magic,
39:43 because I think a lot of people,
39:44 at least based on your chat,
39:46 were very surprised to find out
39:48 that some of the ideas expressed by David Kaye and others
39:51 about kid shows was very applicable to doing magic
39:54 in very different situations for very different audiences.
39:57 Exactly the same thing I think that we've just seen here,
39:59 where Peter's advice,
40:00 although drawn from his experience working the streets,
40:04 can apply to all sorts of different situations,
40:06 and as such, it has great value.
40:08 Speaking of great value,
40:10 our next performer has great value to me and to you.
40:14 You know that because you've seen him talk already
40:16 at this convention,
40:17 if you watched last year's event,
40:19 you've also had the chance to experience his performing.
40:22 Now you're gonna get a wee taste more.
40:25 So if you would,
40:25 all the way from Colorado in the United States,
40:27 please welcome the one and only Eric Mead.
40:30 (audience applauding)
40:31 Hey, Max.
40:32 How delightful that was.
40:35 Good afternoon, good evening, good morning.
40:38 As we've said all over the world, it's a different time.
40:40 I'm Eric.
40:41 For me, it's the afternoon.
40:45 And the afternoon is when I like to do coin tricks.
40:48 Evening time, as Danny will tell you,
40:51 I like to do card tricks, but it's the afternoon.
40:53 So coin trick for you.
40:55 So neoclassic, I would call this.
40:58 So a trick with three coins,
41:00 a neoclassic because it's not that old of a plot,
41:03 and yet you see a lot of versions of this.
41:05 I'm going to ask, can you follow me over here?
41:08 Three coins, Bill,
41:09 and you can just sort of check them out for us.
41:11 I don't know that the home audience would trust you,
41:13 but you can bite them,
41:14 you can bounce them on the table there,
41:16 and just make sure they are in fact solid silver dollars.
41:20 Kind of important for this piece
41:22 that they get looked at before we do anything with them.
41:24 One, two, three coins.
41:27 And I'm just gonna stand front and center.
41:29 Which camera should I lean to?
41:31 This camera here?
41:33 Okay, one, two, three.
41:34 Three coins, this camera, okay.
41:37 Here's what's going to happen.
41:38 One by one, I'm going to make the three coins disappear.
41:41 Let me get my sleeves back out of the way.
41:43 One by one, I'm going to make the three coins disappear,
41:46 and they'll fly through the air invisibly,
41:48 and they'll appear at my other fingertips.
41:50 And when it happens, it looks like that.
41:53 Normally there's a, yeah, a little bit.
41:57 I could use some help in the room, you know,
41:58 to just make it feel a little bit like a real show
42:02 would be nice, thank you guys.
42:04 It happens so fast the first time
42:05 that usually you're not quite ready for it.
42:07 So I'm gonna do it again, and don't blink, right?
42:09 Two and one.
42:11 And I'll move my hands just a little further apart.
42:14 Whoa, see?
42:16 (audience applauding)
42:19 My time, I have extra time, don't I?
42:22 Yeah, so I'll tell you what, I'm going to do that again.
42:24 I'll put one back, and we'll start over again.
42:27 So from this side over to here.
42:30 I'll do one slow, watch the upper one.
42:34 In fact, let's isolate it like this.
42:35 You can only see that one.
42:37 And really slowly, slow motion.
42:40 Makes its way across.
42:42 That's the real difference between doing magic
42:45 for a room of magicians and laymen.
42:46 That's normally a big laugh.
42:47 So watch that last one go.
42:50 Disappears, and there it is.
42:52 That's one, that's two, that's three.
42:55 (audience applauding)
42:56 And that's me, thank you.
42:58 - Eric Mead.
43:00 That's a pretty piece.
43:04 I'm going to take one moment to inform you
43:07 that one of the things we've asked from you,
43:09 and we'd like to continue asking
43:11 and get better and more results,
43:12 we want to see what you're doing.
43:14 In other words, we want you to send us
43:15 digital photographs of yourselves
43:17 watching and participating in EMC.
43:20 Because later, we will put together a whole bunch of them
43:22 and show them back to everyone else.
43:25 And that helps to bring the whole
43:26 international community together.
43:28 So with that in mind, send them to info@essentialmagicconference.com
43:33 and we will be delighted to have you.
43:35 Now, speaking of delighted to have,
43:37 we are going to present a person
43:39 who is going to talk on the topic
43:40 of making first impressions.
43:42 She has already made not one,
43:44 but multiple first impressions and later impressions
43:46 because she keeps getting called on as an assistant
43:49 for various people's card tricks and such.
43:51 She is, however, a performer in her own right.
43:54 And so rather than calling on her to assist in something,
43:58 we're going to enjoy seeing her actually
44:00 be the focus of attention she deserves to be
44:02 as she talks about this very interesting
44:04 and important topic based on her own experience
44:07 doing of all things, walk around mentalism.
44:10 So with that body of knowledge and that set of ideas,
44:13 please welcome Ava Do.
44:15 (audience applauding)
44:19 - Stereotype, a set of inaccurate simplistic generalizations
44:27 about a group that allows others to categorize them
44:30 and treat them accordingly.
44:32 (audience laughing)
44:35 Hello, my name's Ava and I am a magician's assistant.
44:43 Well, at least that's what they think
44:48 when the audience first sees me.
44:50 Maybe that's because I don't really match
44:54 their stereotype of a magician.
44:56 When you look at David Copperfield,
44:59 David Blaine, Chris Angel, it's the little Asian girl
45:03 that's going in the box.
45:05 But either way, it's easier to kind of keep me in the box
45:08 than to adjust the stereotype.
45:10 But that's okay because knowing this
45:13 has really helped my performance.
45:15 If you know what is your audience first impression of you,
45:20 you can use it to your advantage.
45:22 Whether or not you actually fit their thinking,
45:26 often the audience will use a stereotype
45:28 to form their first impression of you
45:30 and then treat you accordingly.
45:32 That stereotype can be formed depending on your appearance
45:36 as well as your actions.
45:38 For instance, if you take out a deck of cards
45:41 and say, pick a card, the audience may respond with,
45:46 eh, I've seen that one before.
45:49 Even though they have no idea that you're gonna perform
45:51 your latest version of Red Hot Mama.
45:54 These types of false assumptions can be pretty frustrating
45:57 because it implies that they find you predictable.
46:00 You need to interrupt the pattern of thinking
46:03 and do something unexpected.
46:05 One good example of this that I find
46:08 is Paul Harris' Screw Deck.
46:10 In the effect, you take out two halves of a box of cards
46:14 and screw them together, kind of like a pool cue.
46:17 And then you open the box and take out
46:20 a regular deck of cards.
46:22 In this case, you've identified their stereotype
46:25 of a deck of cards and reacted to that stereotype
46:28 with an unexpected action.
46:30 It's one way to undo their false assumptions
46:32 and engage their interest.
46:34 On the other hand, you could take advantage
46:38 of the false assumptions.
46:40 Think of this scenario.
46:42 You're performing environment is a restaurant
46:44 and you're dressed in a suit.
46:46 Not a bright, colorful suit, just business-type suit.
46:50 You walk up to a table and you ask them,
46:52 how's your meal going?
46:54 They're probably gonna falsely assume
46:56 that you're the restaurant manager.
46:58 Then you go on to ask them,
47:00 have you seen any of the magicians?
47:02 And besides telling you whether or not they have,
47:07 they may also make remarks like,
47:10 oh, there's a magician, does he do card tricks?
47:12 Does he levitate like David Blaine?
47:14 And the way that they respond
47:17 will let you measure their interest.
47:20 I once tried a similar approach to this by accident.
47:24 I was doing strolling entertainment mentalism
47:27 with a few male magicians for a banquet dinner.
47:30 I walked up to a table and I asked them
47:32 if they've seen the magic, and many of them replied yes.
47:36 Then they went on to tell me whether they liked it or not.
47:40 Then I realized that they didn't think of me
47:44 as one of the magicians, and this could be a good thing.
47:48 They told me a lot of information
47:50 they wouldn't normally tell you guys
47:53 about what they like and didn't like.
47:57 And this really helped me in choosing my material.
48:00 That night, I learned a really valuable lesson
48:03 about the difference between stage magic and close-up magic.
48:07 With stage magic, you have a set act
48:11 with a predetermined beginning, middle, and end.
48:15 In close-up, you have the flexibility of making adjustments
48:20 depending on the feedback of your audience.
48:23 Think of it in terms of preparing a meal.
48:26 A stage magician prepares a prefix five-course dinner,
48:31 whereas a close-up magician can give the audience
48:34 sample appetizers before he or she commits
48:38 to his or her menu.
48:39 You monitor to see what they're eating
48:42 and what catches their interest.
48:44 Then with this knowledge, you can now serve them
48:47 a custom-tailored dinner to match this specific taste.
48:52 Of course, this may mean that you need
48:53 a more fully-stocked kitchen, or with what we do,
48:57 you need a more diverse repertoire of magic effects.
49:01 I think all of us are aware of the Robert Houdon quote,
49:06 "Magicians are actors playing parts of magicians."
49:10 However, actors don't really need to change their approach.
49:14 It's because maybe the script is fixed,
49:18 the environment is fixed, and the audience is,
49:22 to some extent, somewhat fixed.
49:25 If the play works on Broadway,
49:27 it will probably work anywhere.
49:29 That's not really true for magic.
49:32 It seems to follow the general rule
49:34 that audiences can be different.
49:36 In close-up entertainment, which is what I know most,
49:40 the environment is also different.
49:42 One day, I'm performing for a networking hour
49:44 where people are standing around tall cocktail tables,
49:47 and then the next day, I'm working a formal dinner
49:50 and people are sitting down eating,
49:53 and I'm only supposed to perform in between the courses.
49:56 Sometimes I get asked to perform
49:58 in a nightclub or a street festival,
50:01 and by far, the nightclub is my least favorite.
50:04 Don't tell anyone.
50:06 And the audiences in these environments
50:08 can differ a lot depending on age group,
50:11 temperaments, and personalities.
50:14 Because of these variations,
50:15 you can be incredible one day and suck the next day
50:19 if you don't have the flexibility to make adjustments.
50:23 For example, on Friday night,
50:25 you perform a lie detection routine for a sales executive
50:29 that's also a poker enthusiast.
50:32 Your presentation is well-paced, it's polished,
50:35 it goes over very well.
50:37 The executive is a little skeptical,
50:40 but he's amazed that you can read him like a book.
50:44 Then on Sunday afternoon, you perform the same routine
50:46 for a woman who's the senior partner at her law firm.
50:50 Same routine, well-paced, polished, but it bombs.
50:55 If you had asked discovery questions,
50:56 you may have learned that every Wednesday,
50:59 this woman goes to see a psychic.
51:02 Your ability to guess which hand the coin is in
51:05 and whether or not she's lying
51:07 is really trivial in comparison to the predictions
51:11 that her psychic's been giving her.
51:14 In retrospect, it may have been better
51:16 to do a cold reading routine
51:18 that focuses on her personally.
51:21 Now, I find that gambling routines are, for me,
51:25 a helpful tool for getting intel from my audience.
51:29 The competitive nature of something like the three-shot game
51:32 or the fast and lose really brings out
51:34 the personalities in the group
51:36 and sometimes even shows the social hierarchy.
51:40 Who are the VIPs, who are the fun people,
51:43 the reserved ones, and who I should pay
51:46 a little extra attention to.
51:48 These kinds of routines are a good barometer
51:51 that can help you custom design your close-up performance.
51:55 There are other things to consider
51:57 besides choosing the appropriate material
51:59 for different audiences.
52:01 Here's another one of my experiences.
52:04 One time, I worked for a company's annual dinner.
52:07 The night seems to go really well.
52:10 I receive a lot of applause and a lot of compliments,
52:13 and at the end of the night, people came up
52:15 and told me that they wanted to bring me back
52:17 for the company's events throughout the year.
52:20 So I wait, and nothing ever came up.
52:23 They never called.
52:24 I didn't really know exactly what happened
52:26 until I talked to my agent,
52:29 who told me that the woman in the company
52:32 found me to be a great magician,
52:35 but that they thought I was too provocative,
52:38 and they didn't really feel comfortable to have me around.
52:42 So now, I have another problem.
52:45 They may have been impressed by me,
52:47 but they didn't want to bring me back.
52:51 I could have fixed this if I had gotten out of my head
52:54 and noticed the nonverbal cues
52:56 they were giving me that night.
52:57 I could have modified my behavior as well as my material.
53:02 The clues were there, but I was not really paying attention.
53:05 There were disapproving side glances,
53:08 the laughter was insincere,
53:10 and some of them were kind of tugging their husband's elbows.
53:13 Somehow, they had come to perceive me
53:18 as a provocative performer
53:20 who stole the attention of their husbands.
53:23 And don't get me wrong, I'm still a girl
53:25 who likes to get compliments,
53:27 but this is not gonna get me re-booked.
53:30 So I needed to modify my behavior.
53:32 I needed to become someone a little more likable
53:35 and a little less threatening.
53:37 I'm sure this is a challenge that doesn't face only me.
53:41 As a magician, you're in a really powerful position.
53:44 You capture the attention of the entire room or the table,
53:48 and as men, you can run the risk
53:51 of challenging the alpha male in the group.
53:55 If they think that you're stealing their wives' attention,
53:57 you can also offend them that way.
53:59 With all the handsome and charming magicians in the room,
54:02 I'm sure that's an easy thing that happens.
54:05 Here's a couple of solutions that work for me.
54:07 It includes the use of humor and flattery.
54:11 In my case, flattery is definitely the easiest way in,
54:16 especially when I approach a couple.
54:18 I almost always pay compliments to the ladies,
54:21 especially regarding her shoes or her jewelry.
54:24 But it's also important that I kind of have to make sure
54:30 the man is listening and he has to agree with me,
54:33 because I want him to stay involved.
54:36 I don't want him to think that I'm playing favorites,
54:39 because then he feel left out,
54:41 and then he stops paying attention,
54:43 and it hinders my ability to build a bigger crowd later on.
54:48 I have to maintain a balancing act a little bit.
54:52 Self-deprecating humor is another approach for me.
54:55 It may not work for you,
54:56 and I know a lot of magicians don't approve of it,
55:00 but for me, a lot of people just find it really surprising
55:05 when a woman dress in an evening gown
55:08 and wearing stilettos to make fun of herself.
55:11 They don't expect it.
55:13 When I do it, it breaks their stereotype of me,
55:16 and it makes me more approachable.
55:20 So it allows me to capture their attention a little bit,
55:24 because I'm now less pretentious.
55:26 So whether your appearance is that
55:29 of an intense Criss Angel type,
55:31 or maybe a serious card shop,
55:33 maybe self-deprecating humor can work for you as well.
55:36 Before I say goodbye,
55:39 I'd like you to consider one last scenario.
55:42 You've just finished your closing routine.
55:45 It may be the same lie detection routine
55:48 that I mentioned earlier.
55:49 I'm not saying that it's mine.
55:51 You claim to be able to tell whether they're lying
55:54 by using a combination of pseudoscience,
55:58 like reading microexpressions,
56:00 and body language expertise, true Paul Ekman style.
56:05 The audience is really amazed.
56:06 They really believe that you're a deception expert.
56:10 As you're about to leave,
56:11 they ask you what you thought about the Casey Anthony trial.
56:15 Do you really believe that the mother
56:18 who was being tried for her daughter's murder was innocent?
56:21 And what do you think of her microexpressions
56:25 and body language in court?
56:27 Scenarios like these are the reason you need to be an expert
56:31 in the subjects related to your performance.
56:34 These post-performance conversations
56:36 can be more important than the show.
56:39 If you've gained their respect,
56:40 they will want to ask for your perspectives.
56:43 At this point, you've gone past first impressions,
56:47 and your clients want to take your interaction
56:50 to the next level.
56:52 The question is,
56:53 do you want to have a long-term relationship?
56:56 Or do you want a one-night stand?
56:58 But you know, there are, of course,
57:02 stereotypes associated with one-night stands.
57:06 Thank you, and please enjoy the rest of EMC.
57:09 (audience applauding)
57:10 - Ava Do.
57:14 - Well, once again, some really, really useful
57:17 real-world information,
57:19 and this time delivered from perspectives
57:21 that few of us, at least,
57:23 have had the opportunity to see things from.
57:26 We know there are some women in the audience watching this.
57:29 We wish there were more.
57:30 We wish there were more women involved in EMC here,
57:33 and hopefully with each year, we'll add to that,
57:36 because the more diversity we have from this end of things,
57:38 the more we represent you,
57:40 the diversity that's going out in the internet universe.