Card Act

[Guest]

My question is:

How long is too long for a card manip act?
After video taping a dry run of mine, realized it was 4:00 + :o

[Guest]

It's relative. If you're charming and the audience likes you, four minutes will slip by quickly. If you're boring and dull the four minutes will seem like a week.

The amount of time is far less important than how well you connect with your audience.

[Guest]

Great answer!

[Guest]

David Alexander makes great anser.And I think the great Tommy Wonder say smthink like that:''-In one magic act is verry inportant to have a conflict.''And in all his acts he has conflicts.Why the cart routine of Cardini was so great?Becouse all the time he has conflict with cards.I am not so sure but his card act was more than 4 minutes , but he doesnt make the public bored.If you make your routine with the energy and the conflict that is in your stile you can make 8-10 minutes.
Best luck with the cards! :)

[David Fletcher]

If you are bored, your audience is bored. If you are alive and amazed and convey this to the audience, they will be, too.

I saw the great Professor Irwin Corey enter a ballroom stage, come down to the apron and not say a word for eight minutes. The audience was rolling in the aisles. All he did was look at the audience, but he know how to look at them.

Suggestion - get someone to act as "director" for this routine.

[Adrian Kuiper]

Paraphrasing a Professor Irwin Corey bit.

"People ask my Why Do I Do This."

I answer: That's a two part question. The first part is "WHY"....a question men have been asking since time immemorial. The second part is "Do I do this." The answer is YES!

Funny man!!!

Adrian

[Bill Mullins]

Originally posted by David Fletcher:
I saw the great Professor Irwin Corey enter a ballroom stage, come down to the apron and not say a word for eight minutes. The audience was rolling in the aisles. All he did was look at the audience, but he know how to look at them.

You might find THIS interesting . . .

[David Alexander]

Originally posted by David Fletcher:
If you are bored, your audience is bored. If you are alive and amazed and convey this to the audience, they will be, too.

I saw the great Professor Irwin Corey enter a ballroom stage, come down to the apron and not say a word for eight minutes. The audience was rolling in the aisles. All he did was look at the audience, but he know how to look at them.

Suggestion - get someone to act as "director" for this routine.

Advice from a director is good, IF the director knows what he's doing...and that means he has knowledge of how to present magic. I've seen directors who didn't know squat about magic give bad advice to eager believers, sending them in the wrong direction.

I once saw a PhD in theater lecture to a magic group. In the first few minutes of his lecture he demonstrated that he didn't know anything about walking on a stage, grabbing the audience's interest and entertaining them. I was standing in the back with a good friend, a very famous magician. We looked at each other and said simultaneously, "This guy doesn't know [censored]." We turned as one and walked out.

Be very careful of who you take advice from.