Artwo talks about Patter
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Loading ...Posted on: July 20, 2007
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Recently I’ve noticed it more, but its always been a personal gripe of mine. And it is the question of patter.
Why, as a generation of magicians, is it dying out?
Or is it not?
I shall elaborate. Commonly I see videos of tricks, posted by skilled or rubbish people on various forums, mostly with cards, where there is no patter at all. There is simply music.
I see this as a problem. And although Brian Tudor doesn’t, judging from his DVDs, I’m still going to fight the cause because he isn’t here to shoot me down.
Why is it a problem? It is a problem because it means I am not engaged with the effect. I don’t care what’s going on. Often, I don’t KNOW what is going on. And quite frankly, if you don’t want to help your spectators to understand the magical effect/illusion you are presenting, how can you expect someone to understand and react accordingly?
OK so you might say, its only a video. And I dearly hope that means that in REAL LIFE (there is a life outside the world wide web apparantly, although I’ve never been there) you use wonderful, rich, witty patter. But if it is ONLY a VIDEO for us to watch and rate, then what you have is a bad video, so why should we watch it if you won’t tell us over the internet what is happening.
Some people choose to use text as patter in tricks. Now this can SOMETIMES work I admit, but it’s not GOOD. It can mean that I know what’s going on, and perhaps I realise that the kings are going on the table or whatever, but do I particularly care? Nah not really. It’s very impersonal and unstimulating being addressed by text.
OK so thats the no-patter videos dealt with, what about the videos with bad patter.
Bad patter is one of the most awkwardly dreary and painful thing to watch/listen to in a magic performance. When someone has not thought their patter through before shooting a video, it makes the video awful. It sucks all life from the trick and makes it less exciting and therefore the performance as a whole is less magical.
So what is bad patter? There are several types.
- The undecided mumbling patter. Goes along the lines of “OK a card is taken and… *mumble*.. put it back in…. *mumble* aces *mumble* and its there.” This patter is awful because you seem bored, and therefore your spectator or video will be bored. Its not interesting to look at, so people will burn your hands in boredom hoping to catch you out. In addition, the plot of the trick is not clear. And it looks like some sad bloke/blokette fiddling with cards in an unclear fashion.
- The pausing patter. This one sounds like “Alright great I’ll show you an experiment with ESP. If you just give my card back and I’ll put it in the deck and… *pause* …err… cut it in. Right and now…..etc etc” This is very common in videos, and is also a very hard problem to avoid when you don’t know a trick’s mechanics perfectly. It is when someone pauses in patter because they are executing a secret sleight and it takes extra concentration. This is a problem because it is suspicious, and the lull in an otherwise smooth piece of patter will attract the spectator to the oddly pointless and mysterious “double undercut” you are doing.
- Blaine patter. “Watch… watch… watch… watch… watch… watch…” Just… no
- Over explained and unbelievable patter. This is an odd one because it is sort of the opposite end of the spectrum. It is when someone talks too much, and tries to justify things TOO much and it just gets annoying and takes an momentum and pace out of the trick. This CAN be used for time misdirection or if there are some specific instructions, but otherwise its best to steer clear. This could be something like “Now what happens here is the molecular and genetic structure of this card is being changed because the command I have over the cosmos can take the pips and change their colour thanks to tiiiiny pockets of air pressed into the finish…. blah blah blah” In this case, a justification for the colour change is a good thing, such as saying ink has run in “Oil and Water” but ultimately the spectator knows its story, and doesn’t want to hear a whole dissertation on the fookin’ subject!!!
I therefore think that everyone should really think carefully about the patter in their tricks and their videos and work on a decent story, or magical theory, or something that isn’t just “look at this… it changed.”
Why, WHY I hear you cry? WHY bother with patter. Well aside from misdirection, flow, justification and the aiding of the UNDERSTANDING of the magical effect, it is an integral part of your presentation as a magician, or a card guy, or whatever you call yourself. It makes your spectator warm to you, and makes you more entertaining and NUMEROUS other reasons besides these.
Sleights and patter must go hand in hand for magic to succeed.
Now at this point I’d like to make it clear that I realise that in some NOISY places, patter IS impossible. But this is an entirely different ball park. In fact, Jeff McBride talks about this sort of magic in his “Art of Card Manipulation” DVD set. I am merely talking good quiet conditions, as I am sure you encounter when you are filming a trick.
THANK YOU so much for reading all of that, if you did. If you didn’t then I’m surprised you chose this paragraph out of all of them, but thanks for trying anyway.
I am not trying to offend anyone, or force my opinion. I simply want to promote discussion around the subject.
And therefore, without more ado, I throw the floor open to responses, discussion, arguments and death-threats.
If you don’t have anything to say, I hope this little essay thing moved some cogs your brain and got you thinking about your magic performance.
EVERYONE CAN BE GOOD AT PATTER! LETS ERADICATE CRAP PATTER!
Thanks a lot
Arthur
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July 20th, 2007 at 5:33 am
I totaly agree with this post. I see it as a structure for making a good patter in tricks :) I will use this list when making the patter for my next video on the web. Thank you for posting this!
Morphweasel (aka Daniël)
July 20th, 2007 at 6:32 am
you are welcome! can we see some of your videos Daniël?
July 20th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Heh.. I will upload them soon to YouTube. I will contact you (PM) when they are uploaded (First I have to wait for a friend of mine, who is on holiday now in the USA (He will buy The Trilogy there :D). When he is back, he will help me with the videos) Thanks for your intrest :)
July 21st, 2007 at 7:27 am
Great post.