What is the best way to distract someones attention in magic tricks?
FrankyG asked:
I do magic tricks and frequently need to misdirect someones attention from my hands. are there any magicians or anyone who knows of a great method to misdirect someone?
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I do magic tricks and frequently need to misdirect someones attention from my hands. are there any magicians or anyone who knows of a great method to misdirect someone?
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easy just keep talking it really works for the best of them
A hot assistant. I saw one magic show where Pamela Anderson was the magician’s assistant. I’m told that he did some magic tricks, but I wouldn’t really know.
One way is to take the audiences attention away from the trick.
This is why most magic tricks involve some sort of story. If doing the trick silently, the audience can focus their complete attention on the trick and spot your trick. But if you catch their attention mentally with a story – or even tell them that you are doing something (but actually doing another) they aren’t able to focus completely on the trick and it gives you a chance to pull a fast one.
Traditional magicians/illusionists like David Copperfield are very subtle. They tend to do things that look overly complex to help disorient you – while the trick itself is actually very simple.
For instance – the trick where David Copperfield “flies” – he tells is helpers to pass large rings around him. To make it look even more intense – he has them rotate the rings as the go over him – but while you would think that this would complicate it – it actually allows the rings to pass around his body without actually hitting the wires. It’s hard to explain with words – their are surely some videos out there that can show you what I’m talking about.
The Amazing Johnathon, for instance, uses comedy to help mask his tricks (when he does an actual trick).
There isn’t one “be all end all” diversion that will work. It depends upon the trick itself and what is involved.
Yeah, I’m a magician.
The best way I think is to ask them a question. If they’re burning your hands (ie staring without looking away) your best bet is to ask them a question that makes them look up and think for a second. Just don’t make it obvious that you’re trying to misdirect them. For example, “So, I placed your card in the middle of the deck. Do you remember what your card was?” or “So, do you come down here often?”
A joke, as long as its not too corny, will get them off your back. Act relaxed, because if you’re too tense they’ll suspect something. It also helps to gesture towards them with one hand, if you can.
Another cool little trick I’ve found for, say, on the street, is to look behind you for a second, or over their shoulder, as if you’ve heard a strange noise or spotted something. Most of the time, they’ll look too
Good luck!
You should lie to them that you want to use a certain card and they will prepare defeating that card you will fool them.
1. Large action covers your smaller “dirty” action. French drop for example. your dirty action is your left hand thumb releasing the coin into its palm. Your big action is your right hand comes your left hand, pretends to grab the coin, and move away. Do not do the french drop with both hand so close because your right hand won’t be moving much. Start with the hands far apart, and move your right hand away from your left hand before vanishing the coin.
People’s attention are always on your larger movement. One more example is card sleight Classic Pass. One good cover is to move your hand from left to right, covering the small movement of doing the pass.
2. Focus on where you want your audience to focus on. Your audience will look at where you’re looking at. For example, if you’re doing the coin lapping. Do not look at your hand when you drop the coin because your audience will pay attention to your hands.
One more addition, if you are pretending to hold a coin in your hand (which is not there), make sure you act like its really there, for example, take a quick glance at your hand.
3. Your audience is relax when you are relax. They won’t be relax if you’re not. When you show some tense, your audience will start to anticipate what is going on or what will be going on.
Take stage magic for example. When a magician wants to vanish someone behind a curtain, he will stand there with a cool pose, look as if he’s prepare to take the curtains off, then sure enough, he pulls it off and the person is gone.
well, the person is long gone before the magician builds up the tense. You do not build up your tense when you’re doing your dirty work. Only once you’ve done your dirty work, then you can build up some tense and so your audience will start to guess that something is going to happen at that point, and they will always be wrong because all your dirty work has been done before that.
4. Logical setting, actions, a reason for your movement. For example, the coin lapping again. You cover the coin, push it to the edge and pick it up, which you actually drop it off the edge. Now why must you move the coin to the edge?
Here, you need a hard surface table, because only on a hard surface table that it makes sense for you to move the coin to the edge before you pick it up. If you do it on a bed for example, you can just pick it up like that because the surface is soft. If you still move the coin to the edge, you are going to raise suspicion
Make sure all your setting, and actions are logical from the audience point of view.
1. Smokescreens
2. Fash bombs
3. Swift groin kicks
4. Say something like “Look, Jimmy Hoffa!” while pointing finger in a random direction.
5. Be sure to perform during an earthquake…you may want to have a seismologist on the payroll for this one.