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.

On Motivation in Magic

If you've followed much of my work and discussions on magic as an art form, you'll know that I talk a lot about the importance of building motivation into your magic routines. In theatrical terms, "motivation" is, of course, the reason why you do... whatever you do, as a character.

To take this a little deeper than I have in previous writings, in magic, for our purposes, there are actually two types of motivation. The first, which I would call thematic or character motivation, is the same as in acting. In terms of who you are as a character, why do you do whatever you do? What is it that drives your character? This is closely related to what I discussed in my last post on "attitude".

The other type of motivation is what I would call situational or technical motivation. This is motivation in a more specific, "applied to each situation" kind of way. It answers more specific "why" questions that are related to the technical aspects of achieving specific magic effects. In a nutshell, you come up with a reason, in terms of what you are communicating openly, for doing whatever you need to do technically to make the magic happen. In this case, "communicating openly" may apply to what you say, or to more subtle elements of communications, such as body language.

A simple example: in a card trick you do a double undercut to bring a selected card to the top. The technical motivation, or the openly communicated (apparent) reason for doing the cut is to further mix the deck. The hidden reason is that it accomplishes the act of controlling the card to the top of the deck. But the apparent reason is mixing the deck. That's the "technical motivation".

Whereas the character motivation would answer the question, why do you (as a character) choose to do a card trick in the first place?

Character motivation is not absolutely necessary in a performance of magic, but it adds depth and makes your character more well rounded and believable. Whereas, technical motivation is absolutely essential to magic, if you want your magic to appear to be magic, and not just some lame trick.

Character motivation helps draw your audience into your world and makes that world magical, and multifaceted, and helps to create the overall world of fantasy... to weave your spell. Technical motivation makes the specific magical elements within that world seem natural and real.