"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
-Oscar Wilde
Look at that quote. Really think about it for a minute. In the last few years, the magic market has become saturated with products. Single tricks, DVDs, books, ebooks, gimmicks. And they tend to run the gamut from astounding (Ladybug by Paul Harris) to trash (iFloat). A common complaint I hear is from magicians who despise the one-trick DVD trend, or sometimes even buying individual effects if they're not large-scale illusions. The logic is always that the price is too high when you could get way more from a copy of Mark Wilson's or Modern Coin Magic.
Those of you who know me are aware how quick I am to recommend fundamental texts before DVDs. For the beginner, they're a bargain. Lots of material for little money. And that brings me to the point. Before we simply write off a product as too expensive for the quantity of content, try judging how much it's worth to you.
Some people would call me crazy to have spent the money I did on Docc Hilford's System 88. But the system has been good to me. I made my money back and then some. There are people who have bought and performed material that I wouldn't touch, but they make it work whereas it would have just looked awful coming from me.
Value is relative. It changes from one circumstance to another. Prices are fixed by the market based on supply, demand, and the cost of manufacturing and distribution. They are influenced by value, yes, but value is something separate. Warren Buffet once said that his skill set in business and investment is disproportionately rewarded in the modern US, but if you were plunk him down in Peru, he admits that he wouldn't be doing so hot. People in the States value what he does, but an agrarian economy... not so much.
The same is true of you and the material you learn. Whether or not a book or DVD is worth the money depends on you, your act, your character, your style, and the sorts of shows you do. So before saying, "That's way too expensive for a single trick!" consider instead the content and what you personally would get out of it. Yeah, there are some really terrible products out there, cobbled together as obvious cash grabs with slipshod methods that could only fool a drunken toddler... But maybe not as many as you think.
Showing posts with label character. Show all posts
Showing posts with label character. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2012
Friday, November 25, 2011
Too Cool to Be Cool
This is something I've had on my mind for a while now. A while back when I was auditioning for agents, I received a comment, "You're not like other magicians." I asked how so. Feedback is always appreciated. The answer was disheartening however. I was different in this person's mind not by virtue of anything unique I had done, but by what I wasn't. And while that's certainly not a bad way to approach building a character, it was the fact that this person considered magicians to be cornball, oily windbags with bad puns, stupid pickup lines and a sense of coolness about 50 years out of date.
I started watching more performances from both the old guard and the new guard and realized she was right. Most magicians come across as a stereotypical used car salesman. Most likely because that sort of corny act worked at one point in history. But not anymore. Times have changed. What was fashionable then is nothing more than an embarrassing novelty now.
There is a way for such things to continue existing however. They belong in the realm of ironic camp. People don't like it when magicians in real life tell their stupid jokes, but they still laugh when Gob did it on Arrested Development. Why? Because it was made abundantly clear on the show that Gob is not someone we're supposed to like as a person. The other characters' reactions to his obnoxious behavior mirror our own. Gob becomes cool by being interminably uncool.
Yet despite this very obvious lesson, magicians still persist in hokey, outdated one-liners and personae, totally oblivious to the fact that no one under the age of 60 finds this sort of thing funny anymore. They take themselves seriously. Too seriously in fact. They really do expect us to laugh at puns and pickup lines that are about as funny as prostate cancer. They think their cornball pseudo-Vaudeville antics that wouldn't make the cut in a Looney Tunes cartoon are endearing. They're trying so hard to be cool and command the spotlight that you can practically see the veins popping out of their necks under the strain and no one is fooled. It's the polar opposite of a lovable loser.
If they took themselves less seriously and didn't expect us to like them because of their campy image, they'd get a lot further. But they don't. And so here we are.
If you're going to try to be cool, you have to do it gracefully and with a sense of restraint. Or if you think you can be ironically entertaining, knock yourself out. But for the love of all that is sacred in this world, please stop aping the magicians of yesteryear and expecting people to like it and take you seriously because you're just going to end up looking like a tool.
I started watching more performances from both the old guard and the new guard and realized she was right. Most magicians come across as a stereotypical used car salesman. Most likely because that sort of corny act worked at one point in history. But not anymore. Times have changed. What was fashionable then is nothing more than an embarrassing novelty now.
There is a way for such things to continue existing however. They belong in the realm of ironic camp. People don't like it when magicians in real life tell their stupid jokes, but they still laugh when Gob did it on Arrested Development. Why? Because it was made abundantly clear on the show that Gob is not someone we're supposed to like as a person. The other characters' reactions to his obnoxious behavior mirror our own. Gob becomes cool by being interminably uncool.
Yet despite this very obvious lesson, magicians still persist in hokey, outdated one-liners and personae, totally oblivious to the fact that no one under the age of 60 finds this sort of thing funny anymore. They take themselves seriously. Too seriously in fact. They really do expect us to laugh at puns and pickup lines that are about as funny as prostate cancer. They think their cornball pseudo-Vaudeville antics that wouldn't make the cut in a Looney Tunes cartoon are endearing. They're trying so hard to be cool and command the spotlight that you can practically see the veins popping out of their necks under the strain and no one is fooled. It's the polar opposite of a lovable loser.
If they took themselves less seriously and didn't expect us to like them because of their campy image, they'd get a lot further. But they don't. And so here we are.
If you're going to try to be cool, you have to do it gracefully and with a sense of restraint. Or if you think you can be ironically entertaining, knock yourself out. But for the love of all that is sacred in this world, please stop aping the magicians of yesteryear and expecting people to like it and take you seriously because you're just going to end up looking like a tool.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
More Visual Characters
In a previous article, I talked about how visual design says something about a character, or rather that it should say something. Mystery Men is and always will be one of my top examples, but it is by no means the only one. I asked for contributions for other examples of this concept, but sadly came up short. So I scoured my own collection and came up with a few examples to elaborate on this concept.
Agent 47
The protagonist of the Hitman games is an example of very good, elegant design. Black suit, white shirt, red tie. An appearance of professionalism appropriate to the character. The lack of hair anywhere on his body, even eyebrows, gives him the look of both a fighter and something slightly alien. It's a subtle wrongness. That menace is complimented by the black gloves. This is a man who will kill you because it's his job and he will feel nothing.
Captain Marvel (Shazam)
Long story short, there are two Captain Marvels, one owned by DC and the other by Marvel. Marvel owns the copyright on the name, so DC has to market their Captain Marvel under the Shazam moniker. Look it up if you're really curious. Anyway, striking red, white, and gold color scheme that conveys a sense of regality and authority. Chiseled looks giving the image of a clean-cut good guy. The overly muscled physique also implies the power he wields and not just physically. The cape and double-breasted shirt give an old-fashioned military apperance while the sash suggests a touch of the exotic, anachronistic, even mystical. That mystic angle is enhanced by the embroidery on the cape and the lightning emblem on his chest. Archetypal Golden Age superhero with a mystical background. He is easily identifiable as a good guy and the color scheme and silhouette make him instantly recognizable as soon as you seem him in a comic panel.
Kikuchiyo
From Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Toshiro Mifune's character is a farmer impersonating a samurai. It soon becomes apparent to everyone. His perpetually hunched gait implies a life of manual labor in the fields. His top knot is sloppy and poorly grown. He's always dirty and itchy, obviously not bothered by getting his hands dirty with farm work. He carries a sword as almost no soldier would and possesses little if any combat experience. He clearly has no idea what he's doing and this quest to save a village from bandits has put him in way over his head.
Agent 47
The protagonist of the Hitman games is an example of very good, elegant design. Black suit, white shirt, red tie. An appearance of professionalism appropriate to the character. The lack of hair anywhere on his body, even eyebrows, gives him the look of both a fighter and something slightly alien. It's a subtle wrongness. That menace is complimented by the black gloves. This is a man who will kill you because it's his job and he will feel nothing.
Captain Marvel (Shazam)
Long story short, there are two Captain Marvels, one owned by DC and the other by Marvel. Marvel owns the copyright on the name, so DC has to market their Captain Marvel under the Shazam moniker. Look it up if you're really curious. Anyway, striking red, white, and gold color scheme that conveys a sense of regality and authority. Chiseled looks giving the image of a clean-cut good guy. The overly muscled physique also implies the power he wields and not just physically. The cape and double-breasted shirt give an old-fashioned military apperance while the sash suggests a touch of the exotic, anachronistic, even mystical. That mystic angle is enhanced by the embroidery on the cape and the lightning emblem on his chest. Archetypal Golden Age superhero with a mystical background. He is easily identifiable as a good guy and the color scheme and silhouette make him instantly recognizable as soon as you seem him in a comic panel.
Kikuchiyo
From Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Toshiro Mifune's character is a farmer impersonating a samurai. It soon becomes apparent to everyone. His perpetually hunched gait implies a life of manual labor in the fields. His top knot is sloppy and poorly grown. He's always dirty and itchy, obviously not bothered by getting his hands dirty with farm work. He carries a sword as almost no soldier would and possesses little if any combat experience. He clearly has no idea what he's doing and this quest to save a village from bandits has put him in way over his head.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Horror and Vulnerability
I stumbled across an old blog I used to read but lost track of sometime a year ago. Jack Monahan's blog on game design specifically. He does little "reboots" of games, trying to point out flaws in the design and illustrating suggestions for how to fix them. Even if you're not a game designer, it's interesting to read to learn more about aesthetics and practical considerations in media. Anyway, here's a link to the article he posted that got me thinking today in which he talks about a design reboot of Clive Barker's Jericho:
Gaussworks
And this quote in particular got my eye when he described the characters in the game:
Stop and think about that for a second. Could there be a problem of contrast in your own performances? Especially if you're doing bizarre magic. Just let that stew for a while and ask yourself honestly if you really have the right look for what you're doing.
Gaussworks
And this quote in particular got my eye when he described the characters in the game:
What's horrifying about these gothic sulks having to deal with the end of the world, aren't all their own apartments furnished in the same style as the oozing rivers of blood and hellscape they now traverse? In other words, the team seems to be lacking dramatic contrast to their environment. Far from being put out and suggesting fear and terror as appropriate responses, they seem at home.
Stop and think about that for a second. Could there be a problem of contrast in your own performances? Especially if you're doing bizarre magic. Just let that stew for a while and ask yourself honestly if you really have the right look for what you're doing.
Friday, May 20, 2011
The Visual Characters of Mystery Men
I recently sat down for a relaxing weekend with friends and some movies. One of the movies was the cult film Mystery Men, a movie about loser superheros. It always baffled me why the film never really took off. It actually seemed a bit ahead of its time. But I'm not here to give you a review, I'm here to tell you to check it out because it provides a great example of characterization through visuals. One thing that often gets neglected be performers is the understanding that appearances do matter. They say something about you.
Mystery Men had a distinctive and unique aesthetic that created a near-future reality where multiple cultures, styles, and period fashions blended seamlessly together. The aerial views of Champion City were reminiscent of Blade Runner while the suburbs were very Tim Burton-esque. There was a strong Gothic influence to the villain's mansion while the insane asylum was like Alcatraz filmed by Stanley Kubrick. As you can imagine, the characters themselves were equally diverse and visually interesting. Through the first and second acts, the protagonists wore cheap, patchwork costumes. In the third act, they went into the final battle sporting new, much more impressive costumes. Let's take a look at the initial three heroes and their scruffy, wannabe costumes.
Mr. Furious
Ben Stiller plays Roy, a.k.a. Mr. Furious. His whole thing is that he screams a lot and claims that his rage gives him super strength and fighting prowess, though it's pretty clear early on he has no idea what he's doing. His outfit is solid black and a rough pastiche of leather biker clothes. He has a few bits of scrap metal most likely from wrecked cars and motorcycle stuck to his armbands and wears a leather trench coat. His sideburns are sculpted to form sharp angles and his eyebrows have been plucked in a way that creates the impression of a permanent sneer. He also has a perpetual 5 o'clock shadow throughout the film. The outfit is dingy and has obviously seen better days. It all creates the effect of a guy who's trying way too hard to be intimidating.
The Blue Rajah
Hank Azaria plays Jeff, The Blue Rajah. He is the "Master of Silverware" who flings forks with great accuracy and speaks in a very thick limey British accent. His costume has a lot of color to it, but no blue. The whole thing seems to be plundered from someone's grandma, which turns out to be mostly true. The cape is green with a floral print. He wears corduroy pants with a white shirt and brown jacket with Converse Chuck Taylors. His turban seems to be made out of curtains. Here is a man who has very little money and has to work with found objects. He's also rather pretentious as even though the name, costume elements, and accent make sense in context, this is not immediately obvious and he instead looks like a jumbled mess of non sequiturs and anachronisms.
The Shoveler
Billy Macy is Eddy, The Shoveler. He uses a shovel for a weapon. That's his power. He's dressed in the clothes one would expect of a highway construction worker but with the addition a child's catcher's vest as body armor. This hints at his home life as a family man with a wife and kids. It also establishes him as the earthy, wise, father figure of the group by playing on the old "homespun wisdom" trope.
These are characters you can look at and immediately know something about them. And the whole movie is like this. The Spleen's anachronistic 60's/70's patchwork outfit makes him look more like a misfit with no cohesive identity. Casanova Frankenstein's look blends 70's fashion with a strong Gothic influence and long, wild hair to create an "evil genius" vibe. Captain Amazing's streamlined outfit covered in corporate logos makes it clear from the start that he's a sellout. Seriously, go watch the movie. Now.
This is a topic I'd like to go into more depth about, so list any movies, performers, video games or whatever you can think of that shows a smart visual aesthetic that also tells us something about the character(s). I'll take the best and feature them in a follow-up article in the near future.
Mystery Men had a distinctive and unique aesthetic that created a near-future reality where multiple cultures, styles, and period fashions blended seamlessly together. The aerial views of Champion City were reminiscent of Blade Runner while the suburbs were very Tim Burton-esque. There was a strong Gothic influence to the villain's mansion while the insane asylum was like Alcatraz filmed by Stanley Kubrick. As you can imagine, the characters themselves were equally diverse and visually interesting. Through the first and second acts, the protagonists wore cheap, patchwork costumes. In the third act, they went into the final battle sporting new, much more impressive costumes. Let's take a look at the initial three heroes and their scruffy, wannabe costumes.
Mr. Furious
Ben Stiller plays Roy, a.k.a. Mr. Furious. His whole thing is that he screams a lot and claims that his rage gives him super strength and fighting prowess, though it's pretty clear early on he has no idea what he's doing. His outfit is solid black and a rough pastiche of leather biker clothes. He has a few bits of scrap metal most likely from wrecked cars and motorcycle stuck to his armbands and wears a leather trench coat. His sideburns are sculpted to form sharp angles and his eyebrows have been plucked in a way that creates the impression of a permanent sneer. He also has a perpetual 5 o'clock shadow throughout the film. The outfit is dingy and has obviously seen better days. It all creates the effect of a guy who's trying way too hard to be intimidating.
The Blue Rajah
Hank Azaria plays Jeff, The Blue Rajah. He is the "Master of Silverware" who flings forks with great accuracy and speaks in a very thick limey British accent. His costume has a lot of color to it, but no blue. The whole thing seems to be plundered from someone's grandma, which turns out to be mostly true. The cape is green with a floral print. He wears corduroy pants with a white shirt and brown jacket with Converse Chuck Taylors. His turban seems to be made out of curtains. Here is a man who has very little money and has to work with found objects. He's also rather pretentious as even though the name, costume elements, and accent make sense in context, this is not immediately obvious and he instead looks like a jumbled mess of non sequiturs and anachronisms.
The Shoveler
Billy Macy is Eddy, The Shoveler. He uses a shovel for a weapon. That's his power. He's dressed in the clothes one would expect of a highway construction worker but with the addition a child's catcher's vest as body armor. This hints at his home life as a family man with a wife and kids. It also establishes him as the earthy, wise, father figure of the group by playing on the old "homespun wisdom" trope.
These are characters you can look at and immediately know something about them. And the whole movie is like this. The Spleen's anachronistic 60's/70's patchwork outfit makes him look more like a misfit with no cohesive identity. Casanova Frankenstein's look blends 70's fashion with a strong Gothic influence and long, wild hair to create an "evil genius" vibe. Captain Amazing's streamlined outfit covered in corporate logos makes it clear from the start that he's a sellout. Seriously, go watch the movie. Now.
This is a topic I'd like to go into more depth about, so list any movies, performers, video games or whatever you can think of that shows a smart visual aesthetic that also tells us something about the character(s). I'll take the best and feature them in a follow-up article in the near future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
