putting together a mentalist act

[firecoins]

Since someone brought up mentalism, i thought we should start a thread about putting together a mentalist act. This is something I am doing.

RIght now I have 3 effects whihc I am scripting and working out. I have performed them at comedy open mikes.

I am doing 2 memorized deck effects and a trick I got off a Max Maven DVD. 1 effect is the Chan Canasta 2 cards in pocket revelation and card calling.

I have seen ayou tube of Derren Brown doing the effect I got from Max Maven's DVDs. There are 5 rocks in a bag, 1 is off color and your able to figure out who has the off color effect. This one is weak but its my presentation. I am reworking it.

[Brown]

Let me offer the following suggestion.

Perform a drawing duplication effect using the gimmicked pad technique "exposed" by the so-called Masked Magician.

Then show the audience how the effect is done. Explain how they can fool their friends.

Then perform the effect again, but this time let the spectator keep the pad. Mention that if the spectator continues to hold onto the pad, there is no way you could possibly duplicate his drawing.... And yet you do! (There are a lot of ways to do this, and one of the simplest techniques takes advantage of the fact thst the audience thinks it knows the secret.)

[firecoins]

Ahhhhh the Penn and Teller ploy as I like to call it. Yes James Randi probably uses such a ploy but P&T are more famous. Not nearly as famous as T&A but Vegas is more know for T&A than P&T.

Its not bad idea actually. I did not see the method exposed by the masked magician. Is there a you tube?

[Bob Klase]

Originally Posted by Brown

Perform a drawing duplication effect using the gimmicked pad technique "exposed" by the so-called Masked Magician.

Then show the audience how the effect is done. Explain how they can fool their friends

There are a few differences between a magic show and a 'mentalist' (or mentalism) show. One of the bigger differences is that virtually all normal intelligent people leave a magic show knowing that it's not 'real' while many of those same people leave a mentalism show not sure if it was 'real'.

If you start using that type of sucker/exposure trick, it's no longer a mentalist show. Nothing wrong with that, and many magicians doing magic shows include 'mentalist ' effects. But they're still magic shows and not mentalist shows.

[firecoins]

that is true to an extent. If you portray yourself as psychic but expose 1 method and repeat the effect using a different method, you could portray the 2nd method as actual psychic powers. I wouldn't do that but its all in how you frame it.

[Brown]

Originally Posted by firecoins

Ahhhhh the Penn and Teller ploy as I like to call it. Yes James Randi probably uses such a ploy but P&T are more famous. Not nearly as famous as T&A but Vegas is more know for T&A than P&T.

Its not bad idea actually. I did not see the method exposed by the masked magician. Is there a you tube?

I don't know about YouTube, but I expect the show will be rerun over the summer.

I won't disclose all of the details of the method, but it involved a gimmicked notepad with carbon paper, and the secret required the performer to take back the notepad from the spectator.

You can do what the Masked Schmuck did, showing the gimmick. Then repeat the trick by giving the spectator another notepad (or ripping the gimmick out of the original pad) and having the spectator make another drawing. The spectator can check the notepad for gimmicks and keeps the pad after making the second drawing.

Naturally, you explain while casually scribbling something on a clipboard, the spectator can foul things up by using an "honest" notepad AND by hanging on to the notepad.

Who could dIsagree with that?

Yet when the spectator reveals his drawing and you show what you scribbled on your clipboard, you will have accomplished a mental miracle.

[firecoins]

I want to do a book test with the Origin of Species in front of an audience. Is there a way to pass out an ungimmkicked book into the audience and get the word? Is there a way to force one of several pages?

[Brown]

Originally Posted by firecoins

I want to do a book test with the Origin of Species in front of an audience. Is there a way to pass out an ungimmkicked book into the audience and get the word? Is there a way to force one of several pages?

There are LOTS of ways to do this. The Hoy book test is a good way, and it involves no gimmicks except another ungimmicked book. I've seen some performers use a planted dollar bill or a Svengali deck to force a page. There is a book force with a gimmicked envelope shown in the Mark Wilson book, I believe. Richard Osterlind's videos show many techiques, one of which entails considerable preparation in that the TEXT isn't gimmicked, but the COVER is.

[firecoins]

doesn't the hoy book test need the audience member to come up on stage?

[Brown]

Originally Posted by firecoins

doesn't the hoy book test need the audience member to come up on stage?

Not necessarily, but (if memory serves) some sort of audience participation is really helpful to sell the effect.

If you do the effect without audience participation, it will work, but the audience will smell a rat. A little audience participation provides all the psychological cover you will need.

Richard Osterlind does a version in which he uses one or two audience members as proxies for the entire audience (which is, as you know, a standard mentalist technique). The effect could be done off the stage by, for example, distributing one book to a one of the further-back rows and using the front row audience members as proxies. The benefit of using the audience members as proxies is that the rest of the audience thinks the whole bit is fair, when in fact, the dirty work is performed right in front of the proxy but the proxy never suspects it. You don't have to hoodwink the whole audience, you only have to hoodwink the proxy, and Osterlind shows that hoodwinking the proxy is very easy to do.

The audience assumes that the proxy is satisfied that the test is fair, and therefore the audience assumes that the test actually is fair.

By the way, I checked and confirmed that Mark Wilson does indeed describe the gimmicked envelope technique, but he does not do it in the mentalism section of his book. Instead, he describes it in a trick pertaining to "Genie cards."