New Article

A new article that I wrote recently has just been published on the Magicians Directory website. It's titled, "The Real Secret to Performing Powerful Magic", and you can read it HERE.

Great Teleseminar!

A great big huge thank you goes out to Jack Turk with the Magic Marketing Center.  On Wednesday night he hosted me on a live teleseminar which we called "Secrets to Building a Killer Act that Audiences Will Rave About!" It was great fun talking with Jack and sharing my ideas on how to create a great magic act.  Jack has also generously offered to feature my Act Building Toolkit as one of his products on the Magic Marketing Center site.

And Jack even recorded our call together and will be sharing it with me so that I can make it available to you!  I'm going to try to get it up so that you can listen to it sometime in the next couple of days.  I'll make an announcement here when it's ready.

Updates for Email List

Yesterday I sent out an email to everyone on my old mailing list to update their subscription.  I also included a special, mind blowing, amazing, money saving offer on my Act Building Toolkit for Magicians, that's only good through this Sunday night.  If you were on my email list for the Art of Magic Series, check your mail.  If you're not on the list and would like to be included, send me an email.

Updated Link Page

I've just updated the links page on the ART of Magic Series site.  (Finally!  I think it's been a couple years since I've checked it.)

Of note is a new featured link to my friend Norm Barnhart's site.  Norm has some great resources for entertainers.

Enjoy!

Updated Toolkit Now Available

Well it's been a strange summer for me, with several odd crises and unexpected difficulties that took my time and attention.  So I'm breathing a sigh of relief that I've finally finished everything for the release of the newly updated version of my Act Building Toolkit for Magicians.  I'd expected this to be out in late May or early June, but as they say, the best laid plans...

Anyway, I'm really excited about offering this valuable resource once more to the magic community in it's newly improved and updated format.

If you're on my mailing list, look for an email soon with a special limited time money saving offer on the Toolkit.

New Toolkit Coming Soon

Just an update on the release of the new version of my Act Building Toolkit for Magicians.  We're now in the process of putting the final touches on editing the video.  Stay tuned for the latest on when I'll be launching the new product.

Levels of Character

On my recent trip to St. Paul during my preparation for taping my new video, I got the chance to have some great conversations with Norm B. (see previous post) about some of the subtleties of approaching magic as an art form. One thing that came up, in terms of developing your character, is that just as there are two levels of motivation as applied to magic, for our purposes, there are also two levels of your character.

The first is the external or more superficial aspects of your character, and the second is the internal or more personal aspects of your character. The external character you could think of as a "classification" of who you are. And the internal character has more to do with your own unique personality traits. The external aspects of your character have to do with things like race, gender, nationality, social status, etc., etc. But the internal aspects have more to do with your emotional range and how you express yourself.

For example, Shimada could be classified as a "samurai magician". That's the external description. But it's his power, presence and charisma that brought that character to life and made it captivating and dynamic.

A cowboy might be an external description of a character, but Clint Eastwood and Jim Carrey could both play cowboys in a movie, and yet how they played those roles would be vastly different. Many performers in magic give thought to developing a character, but they often stop with mainly the external character traits and never go much deeper than that. But it is those internal, distinct personality traits that will allow you to express more of your unique individuality and make you more appealing and interesting as a character, and in turn make your magic much more than just a few cool tricks.

Actors understand this. We should definitely take a page from their book! It's one of the keys to making magic a true performing art.