Influence: The Fleeting Reframe

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The first reframe I want to talk about for effects with an influence reveal is the Fleeting Reframe.

To understand this, let’s consider another effect that could theoretically make a spectator feel “less than” for a moment: the No-Tear paper trick.

Imagine this series of events. I hand you a piece of paper and say, “You’re too weak to rip paper.” You try to rip it but can’t. So you think, Oh, I guess this is some special kind of paper that’s hard to rip or something.

That’s the only thing anyone would think (unless they got a wayward javelin through their skull as a child and it pierced the part of their brain responsible for logical thought).

But if you use the no-tear paper in a routine where they are temporarily zapped of their strength, then it becomes a more conceptually interesting moment for them. They may come to the same conclusion (special paper). But the more layers you add to the effect, the less certain they’ll be that’s what’s going on.

We can do the same thing with influence effects. We can couch those effects in a presentation where we do something to temporarily make someone susceptible to influence.

Here’s an example of how that might look… Perhaps you get some of this popcorn-scented spray. Dump it into a small glass bottle so it doesn’t look like something you picked up off Amazon. Have someone smell it. Not just once, but like 10 deep inhales (assuming that wouldn’t kill them—I don’t know what’s in this spray).

Now go through your effect and before the influence reveal you say, “You’re probably wondering what the deal was with the popcorn scent. It’s interesting… that artificial popcorn smell was created in the 1950s. Actually, the popcorn smell might be older than that, but it was added to another compound in the 1950s to mask the smell of that chemical. And the reason they did this is because they were pumping this into the air vents in movie theaters back then. Why put artificial popcorn scent in a movie theater that already smelled like popcorn? Well, because the original chemical compound—the one the popcorn smell was masking—had been determined to affect the brain in such a way that subliminal advertising was 700% more effective. It made subtle brief cues stick in the mind at a much greater rate. So before they made subliminal messaging in films illegal, this was part of that whole scheme to implant certain ideas into people’s heads. It’s not dangerous. The effects are only temporary, but it does seem to work fairly well. For example, you thought of Tom Hanks pretty freely, yes?”

And that’s how such an Imp could be used with Show Reel. (Although it doesn’t have to be used with a movie-based effect. It just works particularly well with that one.)

The believability of the story doesn’t really matter. (Personally, I don’t want someone to actually believe these things.) The goal is just to create an experience for the spectator beyond the ones I identified in the original post this month:

  1. You’re easy to influence

    OR

  2. People are easy to influence.

This story—that there is some sort of way to affect people’s minds in such a manner that they briefly become susceptible to influence—is much more compelling. And all you need is to come up with some Imp that supposedly puts them in this fleeting state.

Influence: The Bombardment Principle

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Influence took off as a presentational premise over 20 years ago when David Copperfield influenced that Tornado of Fire not to burn him.

Okay, that’s probably not completely accurate. It’s more likely that the influence premise really took hold with Derren Brown, perhaps most notably in these two performances…

The fun thing about both of those performances is that there is, of course, no actual influence being used here. I crossed out “of course” because, despite the fact that these tricks are 100% reliable and work in a purely mechanical fashion, there were plenty of magicians, maybe a majority, that thought these were genuine demonstrations of influence/mind control. That was always crazy to me. You study magic. You should know better. You think you can make someone think they wanted a BMX bike by putting some bicycle imagery in the room and using some sound-alike words? That’s how you think the human mind works? Do you go to the dentist and subconsciously absorb all the dental imagery on the walls and think, “You know what I want for Christmas? A molar!”

While these performances aren’t good examples of actual influence, they are good examples of how to present an influence-based effect.

If you’re going to go with a premise that is strictly “You were influenced to do X,” then the influence needs to appear substantial. It should come off as if you were bombarding them with influence from every direction.

The reveal of how they were influenced is where the enjoyment of this type of effect lies.

Imagine a mystery novel where the detective said at the end, “And I know the killer was the butler because… we found his fingerprints on the knife.”

That wouldn’t be a good story because, with a mystery, you want to see a bunch of pieces come together. You don’t just want one thing to explain the whole story.

Think of influence reveals like that. They should have multiple parts that come together. Not just one “thing” that supposedly influenced the person.

You can see this in action on a smaller scale in the trick I wrote up in this post way back in 2015.

I had Sebastian Calbry’s effect Offset (which looks to be unavailable now), which allows you to make ink appear on a card box. Done openly (which is not how you do it), it looks like this…

My idea was to use a type of dual reality on one person by filming the trick with a cell phone. You can read all the details in that post. Essentially the trick is that my friend “sees” a word that was never actually written down (according to the video record of the effect). And then I reveal that she was “influenced” to see that word by about 8 different types of cues from our interactions going back a week that were designed to embed that word in her head.

Last Wednesday, I said that standard “influence” effect leads to one of two conclusions for the spectator:

  1. What I just experienced happened because I am particularly easy to influence.

    OR

  2. What I just experienced happened because humans are easy to influence. This works on everyone.

By bombarding them with influence cues, you create a new interpretation for them:

“If someone goes to a lot of trouble they can invisibly implant a thought or action in my mind.”

That’s a much more enjoyable story than one where they were influenced by some simple cue that they saw or heard briefly.

It’s more enjoyable because the subtext of that story from the spectator’s perspective is: I’m someone who’s worth going to a lot of trouble for in order to create a unique experience.

This is a way to make someone feel good with an influence effect. Rather than just making them feel like they’re completely impressionable and lack control over their thoughts and actions.

In fact, when I do an effect with an influence reveal, I make a point to tell them that I had to go to all these lengths to make this work. I’ll say something like, “I tried something similar with you about 6 months ago but I couldn’t get it to work at all. You’re so strong-willed I knew if I was going to try it again I had to really overwhelm you with subtle cues if I was going to be able to affect your thoughts in some way.”

Are all my friends really strong-willed? Not necessarily. But people like to feel they are, so why not reinforce that?

The Bombardment Principle with influence effects is simply that there is a direct relationship between the number of hidden cues you can reveal (within reason) and a spectator’s enjoyment and willingness to embrace being “influenced.”

I like to have at least half a dozen things I can point to as being part of the process. That way the reveal has a real feeling of one thing after another—it’s like a barrage of punches to the gut.

I would say you want your reveals to build in “obviousness.” There is a temptation to reveal them in order of how clever they are. But I’ve had better luck with revealing the subtle cues first and building to the most obvious ones.

If I can’t bombard them with cues for an influence-based effect, then I will reframe that premise. I’ll discuss three of those reframes in future posts over the next couple of weeks.

Mailbag #82

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I guess I’m just dumb but I’m having a hell of a time trying to figure out the patter/timing for the TimedOut app. For instance, for Dicebot 5000, how do you handle the gap between placing the phone down and turning it over to show the outcome? 

Thanks!
Moron in Mississippi 

[He gave himself that name.]

Well, first, there shouldn’t really be that much time to kill with the TimedOut app. Depending on the settings you have for it, you should only have to kill 10-15 seconds at most, I would think.

Whenever you have a trick where you might need to kill some time, you don’t really need to script out patter. All you need is to know what subject you’re going to talk about if need be.

So with the first phase of Dicebot, you will either have no time to kill, a little time to kill, or 10-15 seconds to kill.

No time: “Okay, turn over the phone.”

A little time: “Okay… that was fair right? It seemed to roll like a normal die? Well, turn over the phone.”

More time: “Alright, I’m going to be embarrassed if these turn out not to be the sort of dice that I thought they were. But I swear they look just like them. Let’s check. Turn over the phone.”

In the second phase, you’re turning over the phone yourself (at least as I do it), so you’ll likely feel more comfortable and in control then.

For the second phase:

No time to kill: Just turn over the phone.

A little time: Take a deep breath, as if you’re building up anticipation for the moment, then turn over the phone.

More time: “This is the part where the technology has me completely lost. I can sort of understand how it can control the role of an individual die. But you stacked them any way you wanted, and yet look a this…"

Again, I’m not saying I’d memorize this stuff. I’d just have it in my head. For the first phase, if I need to kill some time, I’ll talk about how I might be mistaken about what these dice are. And for the second phase, I’ll talk about how I can’t understand the technology involved in this part.

You might be more comfortable planning to talk about these things regardless if you need the time or not and then just waiting for the out you need to loop around again, or cutting yourself off.

Being comfortable bullshitting is an essential skill for the social performer. A good way to practice is to use a random word generator to give you a word and then record yourself as you talk about that subject off the cuff for a minute. Go back and listen and see if you sound natural. Most likely you’re rushing, try to slow it down.

On a tangential note, I’ve had the chance to use Dicebot 5000 a few times since I originally wrote up that post (once at a friend’s house, once at a board-game meetup, and once at a place called The Board and Brew in Philadelphia) which is a fun board game cafe—and it’s been getting really great reactions. Especially the second phase. After the first phase they’re sort of wondering if it was just luck or something. The second phase is completely inexplicable to people.

This trick, Transporter Card by Rizki Nanda, recently came up on Penguin. We all know exactly how this is done. I have no interest in doing it, but I could easily replicate it myself if I wanted to. But should anyone do it without paying for it? I feel the same way for Nicholas Lawrence’s On/Off or Penguin’s The Pinky Thing. Tricks like this that involve only your body feel like they are the equivalent to paying someone to teach you “Got Your Nose.” If you had to do this, would you buy it or just do it without shame? —CJR

The only thing that matters to me is whether I like it enough to want to do the trick. If so, then I buy it.

My reasoning is this:

  1. I’m bound to get more than just the basic idea when I purchase something. I should be getting valuable thoughts from the person who created it and has many more reps under their belt with it than I do.

  2. I can figure out most tricks. I don’t really care about that. There’s an old line in magic that you’re paying for the secret. I don’t think that way. I think you’re paying for the idea. Tricks with your body are no different than a card trick or a mentalism trick that I can figure out by watching it a few times. If I didn’t think of the trick—and the only reason I now have the concept and a potential method in my head is because someone else put that idea out into the world—then it makes sense to me to pay for it.

  3. I want to encourage people to release their ideas. Supporting them by buying the things they release—especially when I like the idea enough to want to do it myself—is the most direct way to do that.

On a grander scale, I’ve found the best way to bring more positive things, people, and energy into my life is to constantly be trying to balance the karmic scales. When I was younger and in the mindset of trying to find out what I could get away with and how I could game the system, I was usually just scraping by. When I went from being a taker to a giver, the universe rewarded me.

On a smaller scale, that means if someone comes out with a trick where you can vanish the middle of your finger and I think to myself, “Shit! I want to do that trick where I can vanish the middle of my finger!” Then I just go ahead and happily pay the $20 for the trick where I can vanish the middle of my finger, even if I think I have it figured out. The universe brought that trick into my life. I want the universe to see me as grateful. We happily give to those who seem the most grateful. I don’t think the universe is any different.

Dustings #80

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For those of you who ever do some version of the Multiple Universe Selection trick, the ISO app could be used as another bit of “evidence” that you have shifted into a different timeline. For example, a picture of the card your spectator places in their pocket could be taken. And then at the end not only does the card in their pocket change but the picture that was taken changes.

Or really any element from the night can be altered.

I wouldn’t recommend using ISO for a trick that is only about a picture changing, but in this case, this is just one of many details that change—putting less focus on the “how” of that particular detail.

Help me out here… Is there a Rubik’s Cube matching effect that ends with two examinable cubes? If so, drop me an email and let me know about it. I have a presentational idea I want to try out, but it won’t really work unless the trick ends in this manner.

It seems unlikely that such a thing could exist without maybe another cube in play, but I figured I’d ask.

[Update: I think by now I’ve heard about every Rubik’s matching effect there is. Thanks to everyone who wrote in. If you have a really obscure one I might not have heard about, still feel free to let me know.]

My crowning achievement in magic has gone viral again.

An update on my first post of this year where I listed some of my goals for 2023.

Book #6 - Is being written as I type this. Well… no…this blog post is being written as I type this. I just mean the book is being written in this same general time frame. We are on schedule for the October release date.

Trick #1 - Once the book is finished and sent to the printer, this will be the next priority. So that will be happening this summer.

Amateur at the Kitchen Table hardcover reprint - I thought this was going to be the easiest project, but it’s ended up being more complicated. My intention was to re-release the original version with additional content from some related posts I’ve written during the run of this site. But the “expanded” version was ballooning up to somewhere between 500-600 pages. It was just becoming too much and I didn’t want to lose the focus of the original book. So now the plan is to release a hardcover version that is essentially the same as the softcover version with only some minor changes in content (so there’s no need to purchase it if you already have the original).

The other material that was going to be added to the book will instead be part of a series of books that will collect anything from this site that is both useful and timeless and that doesn’t appear in any other books of mine. There is a small group of people who really want a hard copy version release of the content here. So for them, I’ll probably do a multi-volume set that collects that material starting next year. While there will be some minor re-writing, updates, and reformatting to the material, there won’t be anything really new in those books that would warrant buying them unless you are someone who wants the hardcopy version for your library. Otherwise, you can still read the material here for free.

WWWWW

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At the end of February, I had something happen to me twice that I don’t remember ever happening before. I dreamt of a new magic trick. I spend a lot of my waking hours thinking about magic, but it rarely creeps into my subconscious. The interesting thing is that these tricks were not terrible.

One of the tricks was a Shuffle-Bored presentation that I’m going to try out and report back on in some form.

The other was the trick that follows. I’ll be honest, it’s not a good trick. It’s just not a terrible trick.

In the dream, I was performing for Tiffani-Amber Thiessen…

We were on a bridge high above the clouds…

There was also something having to do with Russia and filming a practical joke TV show. But I don’t quite remember those details.

Dream

In the dream, I brought out an envelope. There were 5 Ws written on the back of the envelope.

I pulled out two cards from the envelope. The King of Spades and the 8 of Hearts.

“I’ve been playing this game with someone every day for the past few days. I never lose. And when I win, I add another ‘W’ to the back of the envelope.”

I explained how the game is played. It’s a best-of-seven contest. I will put the two cards behind my back and bring one of them out face-down. Tiffani has to try and guess the card that’s behind my back. If she gets it wrong, I win that round. If she gets it right, I lose that round.

We play the game and I win the first round.

Then I lose the second round and the third.

I pause to recap. “So I won the first round but lost the second and third. So I’m down 2 to 1.”

I win round four and round five.

I pause again. “So it went Win-Lose-Lose-Win-Win, yes? 3-2 me. I’m just one win away from winning the best-of-seven contest.”

Unfortunately, I lose the next round.

It’s all tied up and comes to the final round. Which I lose.

I recap. I lost the match 4-3. I won the first round, lost the next two, won the next two, and then lost the final two. W-L-L-W-W-L-L

“I told you, I never lose!” I tell Tiffani.

“What are you talking about? You just lost.”

“What… that? The guessing part? Oh, that’s not how you win the game.” I turn the envelope around and on the other side it says,

You win the game by correctly predicting the outcome of each round.

“That’s what I did,” I tell her. “I predicted I’d win the first round, then lose two. Then I’d come back to take the lead by winning the next two rounds. Then I’d lose the final two. Win-Lose-Lose-Win-Win-Lose-Lose.”

“Where did you predict this?” she asked.

“What are you talking about? I showed it to you before we started. You were looking at it the whole time.”

I turn the envelope back around and show her the 5 Ws on the other side.

When you look at them, two of them aren’t quite Ws. The lines aren’t connected. They’re two crooked Ls.

W-L-L-W-W-L-L

Win-Lose-Lose-Win-Win-Lose-Lose

I pull out a Sharpie and add another W to the back of the envelope.

Method

Look, for a trick from a dream, it’s not that bad. I’ve seen dumber shit in magic magazines.

Although I admit I don’t know how powerful an effect that is predicated on a missing half-millimeter of ink is.

I think if I was to actually do this I would reiterate the prediction on a piece of paper inside the envelope. So if they seemed dubious that the back of my envelope was really my “prediction,” I could have them reach into the envelope and remove a prediction that said clearly.

I will make you win 4-3 in the following manner.

1st Round - I win
2nd Round - I lose
3rd Round - I lose
4th Round - I win
5th Round - I win
6th Round - I lose
7th Round - I lose

Similar to the brilliant trick, Silver Linings, by Jack Curtis from his Distorted Visions release. (If you need some strong, easy, straightforward mentalism effects, buy Distorted Visions.)

How do you force the outcome of the game?

With a trick I bought on my first ever trick to a magic shop: Two Card Monte (the original version, not the Blaine one). A double-backer and a double facer are held together in your hand. You turn your wrist to show two different cards while sliding the cards across each other. It’s a discrepant display, but it usually flies.

You place them behind your back and bring out the double-backer. Then you pull out the double-facer in the correct orientation to make them win or lose.

Of course, you could do the same thing with any simple trick where you can force the outcome.

I don’t know that I’ll ever actually try this out other than in my dream. I can see it being sort of amusing and it’s simple enough to carry it around with you in your wallet if you’re so inclined. If any of you give it a shot, let me know how it goes.

Also, if you know of any trick that uses the W - Two Ls lookalike thing, let me know. I’m curious if my dream mind pulled it from something I read somewhere or if it actually came from my subconscious.

Influence Month

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There are a couple good “influence” effects that have come out recently. One which I mentioned in a previous post is Picture Consequences. And Michael Murray’s new effect Show Reel is also a really well-thought-out effect (as all of Michael’s effects are).

[NOTE: Both of those effects can be presented as influence. But it’s not necessary with either one. For the sake of discussion I’ll be talking about the choice to perform them—or any other trick—with an influence premise.]

My friend performed Show Reel for me last week and I liked it a lot. I had some ideas of what was going on, but not all the intricacies.

In the trick, a page from an in-flight magazine is displayed. The article is about movies and on one side of the page there are a couple dozen movie posters and a list of names of actors and actresses. The person you’re performing for thinks of one of the movies they’re familiar with, and then they choose one of the actors/actresses from the list who was in that movie. You’re able to tell them the person they’re thinking of and then show them how they were influenced to think of that person.

I saw him perform the trick a few times over the course of a couple days and the reactions were good. But the “here’s how you were influenced part” seemed to have the impact he was hoping for. It would get a sort of, “Ohhh… interesting” type of reaction. They were either buying it or pretending to buy it. I couldn’t really tell. And I didn’t want to step on my friend’s toes by asking them too many questions about how they perceived what they just watched.

Later, my friend did confirm to me that he was getting stronger reactions to the trick from people with a magic background.

This is something I’ve noticed with a lot of tricks I’ve performed with an “influence” type of presentation. Magicians love it, spectators…a bit less so.

I think it’s because “influence” is a very un-romantic premise. If a trick’s premise is that we’re traveling through time, or jumping across dimensions, or testing an ancient ritual, or harnessing sexual energy… these are all grand, fascinating topics. They’re romantic notions.

But if the premise of the trick is, “You put the cards down in the order of Red, Green, and Yellow, because these dots on the card case are in the order of Red, Green, and Yellow.”

What reaction can we expect to that information other than, “Oh… okay.”

Do we expect people to think, “Oh, how wonderful! I was just… influenced!”

I just don’t see that type of reaction from non-magicians.

As magicians, we’re all on the same page. So when we perform for other magicians, we all know the influence is fake (or we should know it). So the “influence” aspect comes off more as a kicker prediction in a lot of these tricks. But I don’t think it plays that way for laypeople.

In some personal testing of the influence premise I did pre-Covid, the impression I got from people is that they either believed it was genuine, or they knew it was fake and were somewhat turned off by it. Why was I trying to convince them that they were so easily influenced? People see being easily-influenced as a weakness.

When I tell people something is happening because we’re stuck in a time loop, they know it’s fake, but they understand why I’m saying it: because it’s a fun/fascinating concept. But “you’re easily influenced” isn’t really that fun or fascinating. It’s often just a lazy presentational idea.

Why are magicians drawn to it as a premise? As I once wrote:

Magicians like it because it makes them look powerful, but seemingly not delusional. “Oh, no, no, no. I’m not one of those charlatans who claims to have magic powers. I just influenced you to cut to the aces.”

I think it’s worth asking, what is the “gift” you’re giving someone when you’re presenting them with an influence-based effect? The smarmiest, most ego-centric magician is at least giving people the gift of showing them something impossible (or highly improbable). But when you say, “You were influenced to make this choice,” you’re saying one of two things:

  1. What you just experienced happened because you are someone that is particularly easy to influence.

    OR

  2. What you just experienced happened because humans are easy to influence. This works on everyone.

Do you see how either interpretation lessens the specialness of the experience for the participant?

Perhaps for a larger audience it can be interesting to see how the primary participant was influenced. But as someone who is usually performing one-on-one, or for just a handful of people, I think it tends to diminish the moment.

In order to not undermine the moment, I think there needs to be another element to the presentation beyond just “you were influenced.”

Throughout this month, on and off, I’m going to be writing about the “influence” premise. I’ve been testing some different ideas since last summer on how to strengthen, reframe, or re-romanticize influence effects. It’s still not a plot I love, but it’s now one that’s in my regular rotation after avoiding it for a while. Ideally what I want to do is be able to perform an influence effect without the spectator possibly thinking, “Wait… am I some dumb, malleable, dipshit?” (Regardless of whether they are or not.)

Until March...

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Today is the last post in February. New posts begin Wednesday, March 1st. Supporters will receive the next issue of the newsletter that day as well.

We’re going to be doing a round of magic testing at the end of March and we’re looking for someone 70 or older to help us as a performer. We’re looking for a friendly grandfather type. They don’t need to be a great magician. In fact, for this particular test, it’s better if they’re not. They would need to be available for probably two days—the exact dates aren’t set yet. They should be in the NYC area. And they will be paid. If you know of someone, send me an email with their information. [Update: It looks like we have someone to help with this. Thanks to those of you who reached out.]

Do any of the companies who produce magic ebooks create left-handed editions, swapping left-right designations and including alternate flipped illustrations? That seems like something that could be done easily enough. But maybe there aren’t enough left-handers to make it worthwhile. Or, as a left-hander, are you so used to flipping left/right in your head that reading an accurate version would be even more confusing?

I’m reminded of a reader who once sent me this picture of what he does when he has to learn a complex sleight.

Being a left-handed magicians seems like a nightmare.

Marc Kerstein’s app ISO is going up in price at the end of this month. I think the app has a lot of potential and I’ll be covering it in the next newsletter. If you’re considering it though, I would take the plunge now before the price goes up to $60 on March 1st.

You can take some comfort when you buy one of Marc’s apps. As I write in the next newsletter…

The good thing about Marc’s apps is that he always keeps them up-to-date. If history is a guide, you don’t have to worry about him abandoning this app and leaving it to wither away. It seems like he actually likes working on the apps. Other app developers treat their app like a kid they had after a drunken one-night stand with an Applebees hostess. They seem angry when anyone is like, “You gonna check in on that kid ever again?” 

They’re like, “Goddammit, what now? I didn’t ask for this!”

You can’t just put an app out into the world and support it for the first couple of months to get as many sales as possible. You have to raise that thing. And Marc is a good app-daddy.

Did everyone have fun at Blackpool?

Right before every well-attended magic convention takes place, I get a half dozen emails or so from people saying something like, “Hey, if you’re going to be there, let me know and I’ll buy you a beer.” I often consider pairing these people up and seeing what happens. Like I would tell one guy, “Meet me in the bar at 7:30. Sit in the seat all the way at the end. I’m a little nervous, so please just stare forward and don’t look directly at me until I say it’s okay.”

Then I’d tell the other guy, “I’ll be in the bar at 7:30, sitting in the seat all the way at the end. I’m a little nervous so I might not look at you at first. If you could caress my inner thigh gently that would loosen me up and get me ready to talk to you.”

If I plan it right, I think I could choreograph a full on sexual encounter between two people. Hell, if I really gave it some thought I think I could orchestrate a proper orgy. I’ll let you know how it goes.

See you all in March! When we all get ready to celebrate… uhm… St. Patrick’s Day, of course. And… well… Employee Apprecation Day? Look, it’s not that exciting a month. But we’ll be back here anyway. See you then.