Theory, Articles & Reviews in Magic & Conjuring: page 1

Whether you spend an hour a day, or a few hours before your performance this ebook helps you get the most out of the time spent.

The materials in this ebook help you identify dead spots, problems with angles, poor manipulation and other elements that directly impact your performance. Materials are included that help you prepare for the unexpected. The performance factor rests entirely on the audience. This ebook helps sharpen your performance skills.

• What is rehearsal
• Tools
• Evaluation
• Documentation
• Sample documentation forms
• Trick/Routine form
• Train wreck rehearsal
• Wrapping it...

"I used to do that trick many years ago. I just cannot remember how it went but the audience loved it." Have you heard that before? Everyone has files. We keep records of bill payments, taxes, bank statements and a bunch of other important information. Why would your magic be any different?

This ebook identifies the importance of keeping back up information on your magic. It offers suggestions on a file system that includes text, binders and DVD sources. Armed with this system you could bring back any magic that you have done in the past. Use your files to determine what has changed, what...

From the Preface:

A primer to help organize clusters of magic into a professional show. Rate your magic in terms of entertainment factor and establish a flow that moves your performance from show opening to close. Learn the reasons larger and smaller magic are blended into a performance. Then learn how to use these various waves to slowly build your audience to that big "wow" finish successful magicians close with.

• Show Components
• Mechanics
• Inventory
• Flow
• Music
• Produce Your Show
• Specialty Shows
• Documentation/Backup
• Wrapping It Up

1st edition 2016, 27 pages.

Bringing on an assistant to work with you does not have to be expensive. But it does need to be planned out. From adding the employee, to work costumes and through performance this ebook sets the foundation to get started. Begin with the magic you already own and with increased marketing watch your shows evolve to larger venues/audiences.

• Selection
• Payroll
• Sources
• Appearance
• Performance
• After the Show
• Train Wreck Performance
• Wrapping it Up

1st edition 2016, 23 pages.

Now for my next trick..... Ladies and gentlemen watch as I take this silk...... And now, right before your eyes I will...... For my next trick......

Announcing each and every trick you do during your show gets boring to the audience. Nothing makes you sound more generic then constant repetition. For that reason, magicians have come up with methods to create flow through their performance. The methods they use between their magic is referred to as transitions.

The three basic transition tools are: announce, lead and connect. This text identifies the three transitions and helps you use...

A primer for working with a partner. This text addresses such questions as: why work with a partner, what do look for in a magician you want to work with, documents that both partners need to consider, the basics of putting a performance together and other information.

• Why a partnership
• What to look for In partner
• The partner agreement
• Partnered performance
• Transitioning
• Accent the positive
• Wrapping it up

1st edition 2016, 21 pages.

Two magicians do a show. At the end one audience leaves the show walking out like students changing classes at high school. The other comes out excited, talking about some of the "WOW" moments of the show. The difference between the two magicians is the entertainment factor.

You can have the best equipment, do the latest/greatest magic and still fail. The true unit of measure for magicians is the entertainment factor. That factor is controlled entirely by the audience. This text identifies elements that impact the entertainment factor.

• The Entertainment Factor
• Entertainment Factor Impacts ...

A major portion of the audience's experience involves the environment. Their enjoyment can be pleasurable or highly distracted by the area they are given to watch you. This text covers the importance of the performing environment from both the stage and audience perspectives. It goes into details that need to be discussed before the room is set up. It covers many areas most magicians take for granted.

• Seating
• Staff
• Performance Area
• Sound
• Flow Path
• Emergencies
• Get Ahead of Set Up
• Meet and Greet
• Wrapping it Up

1st edition 2016, 20 pages.

A call comes in and their magician cancelled. They need a magic show in the next half hour. Can you be packed and ready to go? Maybe you are at an event and one of the sponsors comes up to you and says they need to fill a thirty-minute gap in their schedule. Are you ready to step on stage and go to work? The answer rests in what this text refers to as a tool box show. When the phone rings, if the money is right, all you need to do is grab your tool box and go to work. This ebook will help you take advantage of those "short notice" performance opportunities.

• Real world
• Tool box show purpose ...

Magicians do the same basic show over and over. This text will help you prepare for a second, third or fourth show that same day. It covers the need to decompress from the first performance, relax, and reset. Then it identifies ways to pump yourself back up.

Every time you step on stage the audience should feel they are experiencing a premier performance. They don't care if we have done the same magic 100 times already. They want to see a fresh, energetic show each and every time.

This text will cover some of the things professionals do between shows. They follow steps that help them...

The paperwork associated with being a magician.

We may think the world is going paperless and in a few industries it is. But we still have a document close by to print as needed. Many times, receipts have been printed out to correct charges on statements. People do not hire maintenance work to be done without some form of contract. The magic industry is the same.

This text covers the basic documents used. These documents range from a simple query letter to proposals/quotes and contracts. Nestled within this ebook are the basics used to form the paper trail of our performances. Though...

If you believe that either somebody is creative or not and that there is nothing you can do to increase your creativity then this is not an ebook you want to read. However, if you do believe that you can improve your creativity, or if you are at least curious of how one would go about doing that, then I highly recommend you read this ebook by Brian Richards.

This ebook is not a generic self-help book. It directly addresses the magician and the specific needs and questions a magician has. It is also a very honest and down to earth book. Brian does not promise you that by simply reading it...

"A splendid lecture which delves into the psychology of tricks and the thought behind them." -Central Connecticut Magicians' Association

"Brian elevates our art to a very high standard." -Ken Maynard, S.A.M. Assembly 16

"Very creative and informative." -C. Parker Swan III, Magic Historian

The unexamined routine is not worth performing.

Brian Miller has performed extensively for colleges, high schools, comedy clubs and theaters with his unique integration of stand-up comedy and magic to consistent adoring critical praise. In addition to his packed performing schedule, he currently...

Detailed explanation of the method to build a creative act and the techniques of impact on the audience used by Boris (including a whole chapter on how to create standing ovations).

For the very first time, a full-time French professional performer unveils all the secrets that will allow you to develop and strengthen the impact of your magic on the audience: thinking and process of creation, techniques of working, presentation, interaction with the audience, body language, psychological subtleties...

Boris even explains the method he developed to build his FISM award winning act. A method...

There is no argument about the dilemma faced by many newcomers to mentalism. Are mental effects best presented as natural phenomena of the mind, or as examples of rare paranormal or supernatural abilities?

Most of today's mentalists use the "mental skill" as opposed to the "psychic gift" approach, but only rarely are they particularly consistent about it. Even Joseph Dunninger, the pre-eminent mentalist of the twentieth century, sometimes made conflicting claims. While he stated that his thought reading skills were "scientific" and not those of a fortune-teller or psychic, his promotional materials often...

My oh my is this a great ebook! If you intend to earn a living doing magic or if you simply want to make your performances more professional then do yourself a favor and read and study this ebook. There are decades of experience bottled up in its wisdom. And on top of this it is fun to read.

The ebook starts with a superb introduction by Kirk Charles reproduced with kind permission of the Linking Ring. The ebook is edited and illustrated by David Britland with extra illustrations by JAT. And Martin Breese was the publisher. It was also Martin who recorded on tape Billy's recollections from which this book was largely...

Dr. Bill Nagler is a psychologist and he provides a psychologist's in depth view of the world of magic. The information is radical and instructive.Why do top magicians rarely earn the sums of money that top stars in other entertainment fields earn? Why do some people hate magic so much? What is basically wrong with most people's approach to magic?

Find out for yourself and be prepared to be startled and perhaps end up changed in your attitude to magic. Bill includes his full close up act which helped him to pay his way through medical school. You'll see that he is not just a theorist! ...

In this book about all of Dr. John Nicholls Booth's (1912 - 2009) books the reader is treated to find information on many topics of interest written between 1929 and 2009 - 80 years! Ben Robinson and Dr. Booth worked on four books together from 1985 to 2009. Robinson indexed the first twenty-five years of Booth's celebrated Memoirs (the index published in 1990). The John Booth Reader gives a wonderful insight into Booth's multifaceted life of Unitarianism, preaching, stage and close-up magic, mountaineering, adventuring, filmmaking and travel to one hundred and forty six countries. The personalities...

This is a new edition of the famous and unique magic dictionary by Bart Whaley. Bart has continued to correct entries in this dictionary until the present. We have converted everything to PDF and added bookmarks for each entry in the dictionary as well as inserted thousands of hyperlinked cross-references to make browsing and using this dictionary as convenient as possible.

There is simply no other such encyclopedia. Some have tried but nobody has achieved what Bart Whaley has. The depth and breadth is mind boggling. Almost 4000 terms are described. This is the absolute must have magic desk...

This subject and the information covered is vital to every performer. That is if you want to improve. If you think you're already the best in the world then stop reading this now. But if you want to know more about how to stand on any stage with more presence, personality, and professionalism then don't miss this recording. This could be the best you spend this year to improve your professionalism and show. But more than that it will prove that you really want to improve your talent and not just sit on the sideline.

1. Introduction
2. Open Up
3. Open strong or die fast
4. Climbing the show mountain ...

Another great book from Arthur Buckley. He discusses some theoretical aspects of magic and then goes into detailed instructions of moves and routines with coins, cards, and billiard balls. I can highly recommend this book.

1st edition, 1948, Arthur Buckley; original 222 pages; PDF 185 pages.

• CHAPTER ONE
  3. Photograph of the Author
  9. Dedication
  10. Introduction by Theo Bamberg (Okito)
  11. Foreword by the Author
  22. The Principles of Magic
  25. Manipulation
  25. Substitution
  25. Duplication
  26. Camouflage
  26. Imitation
  26. False Partition
  26. Concealed Mechanism
  26. Falsification
  27. Arrangement
  27. Preparation
  27. Misdirection
  28. Concealment ...

This article makes an effort to analyze the different processes by which sleight-of-hand illusions are produced in the mind of spectators. Different causes are identified by studying various illusions and observing performing magicians in the lab.

1st edition 1894, 17 pages; PDF 15 pages.

Two volumes and amongst the most valuable to the young performer who wants really practical professional advice right from the start. Alan Alan is one of the world's most highly paid escapologists and without revealing his very closest secrets he explains how the simplest stunt or effect can be built up into a great money-making act.

An extract from Alan Alan's death defying escape from a burning rope hanging over a cage of fierce lions is also included and completely analysed detail by detail by Alan Alan. Slightly muffled sound quality but the content is worth its weight in gold for anyone...