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Aired last Tuesday, May 19, 2009. TSC's mentalist comes home from the US and appears on ABS' morning show Ruffa and Ai.
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Thursday, May 21, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Make Better Magic Videos
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Make Better Magic Videos!
The all knowing internet has been a double edged sword when it came to promoting and mainstreaming the magic industry. It’s great that more people are aware of the art form and are now getting into it (although a lot of conservative magicians I know strongly object to this) and it’s also greater news that creative minds are getting discovered/acknowledged without the limits of geographical locations. There’s a “however” coming in here in a while but right now, exposure isn’t something I’d like to bring attention to... for now.
The TSC Video Gallery is flooded with personal performances from TSC members on a weekly basis (if not daily). While this is good news since it gives a sense of “activeness” of the members of the TSC community, the quality of the materials being uploaded are hardly the stuff to post on our TSC blog to be proud about.
Even without YouTube exposures, the crafty magicians are almost always capable of figuring out the methods to home-made magic videos online. But here’s one downside of learning reverse-engineering magic from YouTube (or other streaming video websites). When people start to make their own amateur magic video, they rarely put any effort into making a good one. It’s the same thing over and over again – like someone started a bad trend on making videos. You see a magician’s hand doing card tricks – no face, no spectator and worse, no patter. Just background music that most of the time doesn’t even fit the routine being performed.
Somehow, someone needs to start a new trend on making better home-made magic videos and as a full time cinematographer and director, here are a few hot tips on making one and why other videos are successful.
No Patter = No Magic
Magic is about presentation – whether in person or via the web. Whoever started the idea of making a card magic video without live patter is a) an idiot, b) someone too lazy to speak, c) someone who’s just showing off sleights, d) someone just looking to entertain himself or his friends who seem to think he’s the greatest there is. Flourishes, XCMs and Card Manipulation acts on stage are a few exceptions – as long as the background music isn’t “Superman”.
Subtitles aren’t going to make it. Most subtitles go like “Magician puts card inside deck” or something more obvious which is breaking a cardinal rule in good live patter. I mean, you don’t tell your spectators “now I’ll shuffle the cards” or “now I’ll cut the deck”, you need to come up with good patter as motivations behind your actions!
Gambling and sleight of hand routines are also exceptions since the intention is to demonstrate the techniques and the applications so it doesn’t count as magic really.
Lousy Video/Webcam is NOT an Excuse
We get apologies like this almost every time. “Sorry it’s dark” or “Sorry it’s not so clear” are excusable only when you’re uploading live performances wherein there’s likely no time to get a Sony FX1 or proper lighting. Otherwise, if you’re just showing your hands performing for the camera viewer, then take the time and effort to make your video watchable. Most digital still cameras can shoot video as well as audio so it won’t hurt move a few lamps here and there and maybe to invest on a cheap tripod or mic for clear patter.
Make More Live Performances
If you want to show off your magic, then there’s nothing that can prove it more than a live performance. It doesn’t matter if the camera won’t be able to follow all your moves, the important thing here is the audience reaction. You can always talk to your camera guy and plan on your camera angles for improvement.
Dress Up
If you’re not performing something impromptu, meaning you had the intent of recording an amateur magic video, then it won’t hurt if you dress up a bit.
Stop Learning from YouTube
Ok, so maybe we can’t stop people from doing this but I hope I’ve made my point that we can always do better than the stuff we see online. It just needs some effort and creativity.
Upload for Critique at Magic Video Depot
You’ll have to face it sooner or later. It’s possible that you’re the best magician ONLY in your own small town. This means what your friends may think as “great” or “mind-bloggling” can be “lame” or “unoriginal” for other territories or professionals.
Try uploading videos at magicvideodepot.com and you’ll get a rude awakening that you may not be as good as you want yourself to believe. And on MVD (magic video depot), patter is almost always a must. I learned this the hard way myself. From then on, I only uploaded live performances since I know I suck at performing for the camera only.
Quit the Special Effects
As if their camera performances weren’t bad enough, some people somehow get brilliant ideas to put in special effects filters on their magic videos to make them perhaps “interesting”. I’ve seen videos with negative colors, others feel like they look good posterized or solarized and there are a few who feel like showing off some video-editing skills along with their magic talent. Almost a hundred percent of the time, the ones that suck at magic are the ones who feel they have to decorate their video with special effects.
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So there. I can go on making a part II of this article discussing about video technicalities and hardware if I get requests for it but so far, regardless of what type of camera and lighting equipment you have, there’s always a way to make entertaining magic videos. A lot of the live crash videos I posted of Nomer and Carlo (chaoserver) were taken with my Nokia so there are no excuses for lame footages, there’s always the option to exert more effort.
--
Discuss this topic in the forums:
http://d281675.u44.wsiph2.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5608&PN=1&TPN=1
--
Make Better Magic Videos!
The all knowing internet has been a double edged sword when it came to promoting and mainstreaming the magic industry. It’s great that more people are aware of the art form and are now getting into it (although a lot of conservative magicians I know strongly object to this) and it’s also greater news that creative minds are getting discovered/acknowledged without the limits of geographical locations. There’s a “however” coming in here in a while but right now, exposure isn’t something I’d like to bring attention to... for now.
The TSC Video Gallery is flooded with personal performances from TSC members on a weekly basis (if not daily). While this is good news since it gives a sense of “activeness” of the members of the TSC community, the quality of the materials being uploaded are hardly the stuff to post on our TSC blog to be proud about.
Even without YouTube exposures, the crafty magicians are almost always capable of figuring out the methods to home-made magic videos online. But here’s one downside of learning reverse-engineering magic from YouTube (or other streaming video websites). When people start to make their own amateur magic video, they rarely put any effort into making a good one. It’s the same thing over and over again – like someone started a bad trend on making videos. You see a magician’s hand doing card tricks – no face, no spectator and worse, no patter. Just background music that most of the time doesn’t even fit the routine being performed.
Somehow, someone needs to start a new trend on making better home-made magic videos and as a full time cinematographer and director, here are a few hot tips on making one and why other videos are successful.
No Patter = No Magic
Magic is about presentation – whether in person or via the web. Whoever started the idea of making a card magic video without live patter is a) an idiot, b) someone too lazy to speak, c) someone who’s just showing off sleights, d) someone just looking to entertain himself or his friends who seem to think he’s the greatest there is. Flourishes, XCMs and Card Manipulation acts on stage are a few exceptions – as long as the background music isn’t “Superman”.
Subtitles aren’t going to make it. Most subtitles go like “Magician puts card inside deck” or something more obvious which is breaking a cardinal rule in good live patter. I mean, you don’t tell your spectators “now I’ll shuffle the cards” or “now I’ll cut the deck”, you need to come up with good patter as motivations behind your actions!
Gambling and sleight of hand routines are also exceptions since the intention is to demonstrate the techniques and the applications so it doesn’t count as magic really.
Lousy Video/Webcam is NOT an Excuse
We get apologies like this almost every time. “Sorry it’s dark” or “Sorry it’s not so clear” are excusable only when you’re uploading live performances wherein there’s likely no time to get a Sony FX1 or proper lighting. Otherwise, if you’re just showing your hands performing for the camera viewer, then take the time and effort to make your video watchable. Most digital still cameras can shoot video as well as audio so it won’t hurt move a few lamps here and there and maybe to invest on a cheap tripod or mic for clear patter.
Make More Live Performances
If you want to show off your magic, then there’s nothing that can prove it more than a live performance. It doesn’t matter if the camera won’t be able to follow all your moves, the important thing here is the audience reaction. You can always talk to your camera guy and plan on your camera angles for improvement.
Dress Up
If you’re not performing something impromptu, meaning you had the intent of recording an amateur magic video, then it won’t hurt if you dress up a bit.
Stop Learning from YouTube
Ok, so maybe we can’t stop people from doing this but I hope I’ve made my point that we can always do better than the stuff we see online. It just needs some effort and creativity.
Upload for Critique at Magic Video Depot
You’ll have to face it sooner or later. It’s possible that you’re the best magician ONLY in your own small town. This means what your friends may think as “great” or “mind-bloggling” can be “lame” or “unoriginal” for other territories or professionals.
Try uploading videos at magicvideodepot.com and you’ll get a rude awakening that you may not be as good as you want yourself to believe. And on MVD (magic video depot), patter is almost always a must. I learned this the hard way myself. From then on, I only uploaded live performances since I know I suck at performing for the camera only.
Quit the Special Effects
As if their camera performances weren’t bad enough, some people somehow get brilliant ideas to put in special effects filters on their magic videos to make them perhaps “interesting”. I’ve seen videos with negative colors, others feel like they look good posterized or solarized and there are a few who feel like showing off some video-editing skills along with their magic talent. Almost a hundred percent of the time, the ones that suck at magic are the ones who feel they have to decorate their video with special effects.
--
So there. I can go on making a part II of this article discussing about video technicalities and hardware if I get requests for it but so far, regardless of what type of camera and lighting equipment you have, there’s always a way to make entertaining magic videos. A lot of the live crash videos I posted of Nomer and Carlo (chaoserver) were taken with my Nokia so there are no excuses for lame footages, there’s always the option to exert more effort.
--
Discuss this topic in the forums:
http://d281675.u44.wsiph2.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5608&PN=1&TPN=1
--
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