I respect all TV and Mass preforming Stage magicians as wonderful preformers, actors, and people. I do not think however, that i would go so far as to call what they have become today magicians. They certainly started out that way, great magicians with a love of magic and the challenge of getting people to beleive it. Somthing happened along the way and these "magicians" became seduced by the fame and fortune they encountered in their lives. Almost every single trick they do relies on plants, lies and apparatuses. I do agree that all magicians need these things to become great but i do not agree to the amount of these things these people have come to rely upon.

The shows made by David Blaine and Chris Angel are only a few examples.

I am refering not only to these people, but to many others who are trying to pass themselves off as magicians but are in reality only actors who as great as they are rely upon assistants, selfworking apparatuses and Lies.

In my opinion the term magician should refer to those who can preform magic relying only upon themselves to do it. i am talking about the great magicians of the past. the ones all of you refer to while handing out advice to beginners. No body has heard their names before except for magicians themselves and still they are refered to as great illusionists. Why? because they did not rely upon what todays magicians have come to rely upon. They took what they had, usually not more than a deck of cards and transformed those simple objects into magic.

A good magician is not a magician who is famous. A good magician is one who knows that magic can only come from the challenge of preforming magic.

The Magicians who rely upon plants and apparatuses do not know the challenge of preforming magic, they only know the challenge of preforming and they let the magic come from boxes and money.

Joel

I agree that you should not completely rely on stooges as "apparatuses", but a magicians purpose is to entertain through seemingly impossible effects. And, regardless of "cheating", as some people would call it, this is what they do. I don't respect them any less for it, but I don't agree with their methods.

I know I posted this in the other topic, but it seemed more appropriate here, since this is the right forum.

mfi- I think you are being a little hard. First to go on Criss Angel and David Blaine. I don't care much for either. But they are magicians, and they do have skill. David Blaine is quite adept at close-up magic. What you see on tv from him, is only a little of what he does. Criss Angel, on the other hand, is alright with stage magic. What you see on tv, doesn't portray his ability on stage. Yes, he does use way too many stooges, and camera tricks, but that's because he isn't that good at close-up magic. He's more of a stage magician. Which he has been a hit with. Point, both are magicians, and you can't judge them by what you see on tv.

Now, another big name in magic is Derren Brown. He is a great magician with cards, and is amazing with mentalism. I'm not sure if he uses stooges or not, but it is clear that he is very good at what he does. He is a magician.

The other big names in magic, that come to my mind as people who the general public would know more about are David Copperfield, Lance Burton, Jeff McBride, and Siegfried and Roy. They are all great magicians, who are doing mass performances, and I believe they have all, at one point or another, have done a tv special.

Then there are Penn and Teller. Teller is a very good magician. Penn, not so much, but he can hold his own. They have a tv show, and done multiple magic specials, had a movie out, and have written books. They are magicians.

So, I really don't get the point of your essay. You are blowing things way out of proportion.

I see your point and i agree with you on most of it. i only used those names as examples, i did not mean for my essay to be about them. if you read it again relize i said "the shows made by" not "the magicians David ect.."

You also brought up another good point. we can only judge by what we see, why dont those magicians you mentioned actually preform what they are good at on tv, because that is what the public is going to think they are. And since there are only a few magicians on tv that is what the public is going to think of all magicians.

i mean no disrespect on the magicians that i mentioned i only meant to use them as examples that everybody would know. i personally think they are fantastic. but my friends don't they can always attribute the magic they do to some sort of machine. and so they think that all magic is done by machines.
in my mind there are three ways to solve this problem, first cancle the tv shows, second revise the tv shows to show more of the magic that we do, and third call those magicians something else so that all magicians dont get the name of conmen. i just chose the third for the topic of this essay and i apologize to everyperson i have offended.

as for the point of my essay, i only intended to get across to the magic community (especially the ameteurs) that there is more to magic than boxes.

Yes, there is more than magic than boxes. But not all of it plays well to the masses, thus the need for boxes.

Just because magic is more than boxes doesn't mean boxes can't be considered magic.

I think you can judge Angel and Blaine and any other magician by what they show on television because magic looks way better on television than in real life, and you get more choice as to what you want to perform. So any magician on television can perform whatever they like, and/or what they're best at, and it will look even better than live in person. So why shouldn't they be judged on that?

this is true but that wasnt my point my point was that magic is more than boxes, meaning that some magic uses boxes but that is not the only kind of magic there is.

And it seems to me that you are not getting the point of my essay this is most likely my fault for not being clear, so i appologize.

let me try to explain again.

The magic that people see on tv really is the only magic that they will see their entire life. and if this is the only magic they will see what does that say about magic to them. it says that all magic is just a lot of hocus pocus that involves some machine. they do not see the skill of slieght of hand in real life. so the point i was trying to make is that the tv shows and mass stage productions really dont portray magic like it is supposed to be. a way to think of it is if you see a tv show made by a magician in todays style you can come away with only two answers.

1) The guy is a wizard and can do magic
2) The whole thing is a hoax made by the camera and paid actors.

that is not good for the magic community, The way the preformance of magic should leave people is with so many possibilities to consider that they know it wasnt real magic but they also come away knowing it wasnt a hoax either.

The point of my essay is not to discourage tv magic because there have been many good magicians who have been on tv. prime examples of this are Penn and Teller. They are both fantastic magicians who know magic well enough to do a tv show without resorting to any sort of elaborate hoaxes or camera tricks. or if they did they desguised them so cleverly that they went unoticable.

The point i am trying to make is that the really well known tv magicians and stage preformers (im talking about the magicians known to the kings of lay people) are focusing more attention on apperatuses then they are to magic, they are more interested in becoming famous then they are about showing magic at its best.

http://www.leirpoll.com/appearing_on_tv.htm Here is an essay written by Gary Ouellet. It discusses why tv magic is the way that it is. Tv magic is not the same thing that we woud perform out in front of people. Even when I film magic, I stay away from stuff that could be easy to figure out if they slow down the film, and play it over and over again. Somethings simply don't work on tv, because of that.

Untrue- magic does not look better on television. Ask somebody which they find more magical, a man levitating on tv or a card transforming in their hand.

You do not get more choice as to what you perform on tv, you have to be very careful. Not everything will play well, you don't want anything to be revealed by rewinding and watching slowly, you can't do any of the long and complex close-up routines because the audience interaction is lost and people watching on tv get bored more quickly. Then you have to get permission for all the marketed effects you were going to perform, and tone down you presentation so as to appeal to as many people as possible without offending anyone.

It is a lot harder to entertain people through a tv set than in person. A few guys in an editing room can help there, but only so much.

Yes I realize that, but when you said:

you excluded a major portion of magic performing and I wanted to help you clarify your position, which you did. Mission accomplished.

Meaning...?

All magicians 'rely on themselves'; the only other option is hiring someone else to perform for you.

Your implication is that only pure sleight-of-hand performers are truly 'magicians.' That's a very narrow-minded and snobbish viewpoint.

By that definition, the creations of Bautier DeKolta, Jean Robert-Houdin, John N. Maskelyne, P.T. Selbit, Servais LeRoy, Horace Goldin and Robert Harbin are 'so much un-magical garbage.'

What about contact mentalists, fakir performers, escape artists, human magnets, memory masters, fire resistors, sword swallowers and stage hypnotists? They use skills, but not necessarily sleight-of-hand.

Open your mind; magic covers a wide territory.