Influence Month
/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:
What you just experienced happened because you are someone that is particularly easy to influence.
OR
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.)