dont you hate it when you do a levitation effect and people say this? anyone have this happen before?

no, I dont do levitations because levitations suck. They just dont look good in the real world, that include IT work, it just doesnt look good, if the trick can be explained by string or by not having a good enough view (most body levitations) then its not a convincing illusion. My rule is that if people are not 100% satisfied with an effect, then I dont do it or I change it until it works better

I disagree. SIMPLE IT tricks rock. Like having a card rise out of you spec's hand. I actually use it in my ACR sometimes to demonstrate what "happens"

I'd only expect a "so what" response if I had originally said to the spectator "watch this" or "watch what I can do". If you say or imply that you can do something that the spectator can not, they may feel like they want to get even by saying that there is someone who can do something that you can't do.

If you do do that you may want to change your patter. Say something along the lines of "I don't get this. I woke up this morning and I found I could do this [levitate something]". Then if someone "so what"s you you can just say, "oh nothing I just thought it was cool". Walk off and you're cool.

If on the other hand the spectator challenged you to float something in the first place and then says "so what", I'd say, "What? You asked me to float this rose and I did. What's he problem?" in a non-threatening way.

Or if you find that your spectator's aren't impressed don't perform for them.


I've gotten a lot of "this guy can do it - why can't you"s. Those annoy me. People expect that if you're a magician you can do anything. I guess I weasel my way out of that by saying I'm not a wizzard - I'm an entertainer.

I agree with Magicdude84. I simply don’t do levitation effects because they aren’t that great in my opinion. Also they play into what your audience is expecting, and why do magic that they are going to expect. Go with a mentalist effects like a watch routine (Mind Mysteries Volume 1) or Pyro Perception. Odds are, if they say "do that thing that I saw that guy do on TV," they are going to scrutinize every aspect of the trick, why, because they have seen it before and now they want to know how its done. Then when you attempt to do a levitation, like the Balduci (sp?,) and you say "stand right here," they are going to slowly put the pieces together and figure the effect out.

The magician should always be a few steps ahead of the audience and I don’t think that a lot of levitations help in that.

I just do something else and if they insist "I saw a guy on TV float 15 feet into the air." I simply reply "do you believe everything you have seen on TV?" or "Yeah I have also seen puppets make crank phone calls on TV as well," or "yeah you give me a TV show and I will levitate whatever the edited you want." If they still are asking for you to do a levitation tell them they can levitate or fly by themselves. All they have to do is throw themselves at the ground, and miss.

-Craig

PS- This is really a post about body levitations and not things like "Spun" or "The Real Floating Card"

"Unless someone pays well for it, it's not worth the time, effort and money." That's what I'd say. I won't bash another performer unless that performer is REALLY awful.

Just say stuff like

"Cool! But you know what? YOU can't rise an INCH!

I'm sorry but that is most certianly NOT a good method of handling a spectator.

Another alternative to what I said in my post above is to say, "Wow, did you see what this David Blaine guy did? He levitated, like, a foot off the ground!You know I've been reading into his book and it teaches you about your inner energy and stuff. Look, I've been reading it for a week and now I can do this."

Then you use some invisible elastic loops and make something that is small and light move a bit on the table. With the right presentation it can look really good (don't forget that pushing objects with the mind is hard to make an effort out or it). Then, you can try and make it balance in an impossible way, and finally, if you're bold enough, make it float entirely a few inches off the table, and only for a few seconds.

Finally, look exhausted about the whole thing and take a lie down for a while (actually you just go off to your room and read a bit of AoA or something).

What you have done is implied that you don't expect yourself to be as good as David Blaine, but at least you're something. People hould respect that, provided they don't discover the secret and realise you're a phoney.

And leave it there. Don't even try the Balducci. The thing is about mind magic, especially PK and levitation is that to sell the illusion, the audience must believe that the magician had practised for several years (most likely involving travelling to some eastern country where he was taught about the art). If a young child performs the trick, that idea is out of the window. That leaves the idea that you are cheating. If people think you cheat then you're done for.

tell them it's TV, and tell them to not belive anything from Criss Angel, camera editing and stooges.

Sorry, I only say stuff like that to heckler friends around me and they don't take it that serious... I will never say that kind of stuff to people that I'm not close to...

I understand.


oztheozzie, this isn't a battle of "He's better than you/I'm better than him"s; those arguments are stupid. If an audience member says that you're not as good as someone else, that's immediately saying that they have more respect for them than they do for you, in a magic context. If you start criticising someone somebody respects then their respect for you will drop even lower.

It's much better to say that of course he's going to be much better since he's had decades of practice. That way you haven't got into an agrument and then it doesn't matter if you can't levitate as far.

Don't forget that the full body levitation is pretty much considered as David Blaine's trick, since he was the one who made it so famous (and Chriss Angel's to a lesser extent). If you try doing it without so much as a reference to David Blaine (read my previous post - second paragraph) people are going to refer to him for you.

magicdude84, if you have nothing helpful to add why are you posting?

Anyway, tell them that you saw that guy and he has been doing it longer than you, so he has more magic stored up.

I do the Balducci all the time and when people ask me how I do it I tell them that I have been practicing for years to levitate that high.

People often assume that you cn levitate a small object easily then. I tell them that levitating other things is even harder than levitating one's self. I have control over myself, but I don't know how the object will react to the magic.

If you have flash paper or something like it, you can do a "failed levitation". This is where you try to levitate a piece of paper or a bill or whatever, and the object bursts into flame instead (apparently overwhelmed by your energy). This works well with phychic effcts of any sort.

Woa. Magicdude84 was just giving his opinion regarding the versatility of levitations in general. What's the issue?

Part of the fun about reading the forums is coming across things you may not agree with. In fact, Democracy itself is based on, among other things, a free-flow of diverse ideas. I support your rights to comment, just saying you need a major prescription of chill pills.

We need to work on being nicer to each other. I'll start: I'm sorry.

Gallina,

Many, many, people post questions on penguin. They check and re-check the forum to find an answer to their question, but there never is one. Why? Because people who have nothing useful to add want to speak.

Can you help me with a levitation question?

No. I think levitations are stupid.

He should have just not posted. It's of no help. And if he doesn't perform levitation effects why is he in a forum about levitation effects?

The same thing happens over and over in the ITR threads. People write in to ask how to fix their reel. What do they get as a resonse?
"Mine's broken to. They suck."
Is the writer's ITR still broken?
Yes.
Has this brought him any closer to fixing it?
No.

If you don't have something useful to say keep your mouth shut.

You know what? You're right. Thank goodness YOU are there to always make sure everyone's comments are useful. What would we do without you or all YOUR useful comments?

This forum is incredibly helpful and I always enjoy visiting it. I just wish some people would loosen up the magic wands they are sitting on. Might make for more interesting conversations.