Practice Makes Perfect

Practice until it's perfect. Rehearse until you curse.
A big part of our job is rehearsing new material. Or rehearsing old material to make it stronger. It is one of the most stressful, frustrating, and fun parts of our job. Working with my husband definitely has it's perks. We're best friends so we always make things interesting. Such as tonight I rehearsed in a mermaid clamshell bra. Anyone judging me? I thought not.

Right now we are working on a mostly new show for the Sea Mist resort that we will be performing at this summer. Finally I have a lot of speaking lines. Which means we are having to walk through the script line by line right now. And with that comes laughing. If there is any point that either one of us can reference a movie, book, or tv show from one of our lines we definitely do. Especially SpongeBob, when all else fails, quote SpongeBob. Or Frozen. Or just Disney in general.
One of our new magic effects will be a mentalism routine; I will be reading people's minds. Of course to convince people I'm not cheating I have to wear a blindfold. Reading a new script while blindfolded is not the easiest task.
While I've always loved rehearsing the illusions the most, I've come to really enjoy some of our new interaction pieces. Interacting with Brandon or an audience member can always be challenging but it makes for a more interesting show. Of course the "volunteers" that Brandon and I pretend to be for each other would never be that odd. We always give them interesting names and voices or make them as difficult to deal with as possible.
I honestly think if people can't have fun while working together as a team then it's not worth it. Making faces or dancing at random moments always keeps everything light. Or atleast we try to. Somedays aren't so easy. Some of the more physically challenging illusions could hurt one of us and put us in a bad mood or if we're just mad at each other (because we are a couple after all) that also definitely effects how rehearsal goes. Somedays I really get fed up with picking up playing cards.

That's part of the act though. The mess is enough to drive my OCD up the wall. We had a maintenance guy come in earlier and he had to deal with something in our magic room, I totally forgot we didn't clean it up after rehearsal last night. I'm sure he thought we were slobs. It's a jumbo rainbow of a mess.
I definitely know all the hours we put into our show pays off though. My new solo routine is coming along nicely and I can't wait to see how the mind reading is received. If you're in the Myrtle Beach area this summer you will have to come stay at the Sea Mist and see our show! Until then, it's back to rehearsal!

"Amateurs practice until they get it right; Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong" 

Miss Direction

When a magician waves his hand and says, "This is where the magic is happening." The real trick is happening somewhere else. Misdirection.

The quote above is from the movie Now You See Me. While watching it the other day for the first time since it was in the theaters, I finally got to really take in the movie. One of it's main themes is misdirection. The key to magic. Without it, well there wouldn't be "magic".
Now we assistants are usually blamed for all misdirection. Most people say oh sure, put any girl in a skimpy outfit and the magician can sneak an elephant onstage. While this could be true, I guess, that's definitely not how we do it in our show. I don't need to rely on my body to change where someone is looking.
There are a million different ways to keep attention away from what's really going on. Everyone knows that something sneaky has to happen, they just don't know where or when. And it's my job to see that it stays that way. Now that's not to say that I do all of it, Brandon does it too of course. But it is easier to rely on each other to cover for one another than to do it all alone.
Misdirection is a skill. I don't care what anyone has to say opposing that. The beauty of misdirection is you should never see it. It should be invisible. If you noticed a magician or assistant trying to make you look somewhere else, then obviously they failed. As a performer if you accomplish this, it's one of the satisfying feelings in the world. But on the opposing end, if they fooled you, it's one of the most frustrating things in the world. I'll never forget how many times during seeing Penn & Teller's show out in Vegas that I was just like holy crap, when did I look the wrong way? Or in their case, the right way.

As humans, we can't help it. We like order. So we naturally do what we're told. Whether it is someone actually "speaking" to us or not. The way that we misdirect could be a number of different things. But of course, all are natural. Our body language, facial expressions, a wave of the hand. All of things can cause redirection and misdirection. Where I look, you look. It's only natural. I look so fascinated by what Brandon is doing, you automatically want to see what I see. You want to feel what I am feeling. It's all part of the experience.
I'm not gonna lie, it's one of the harder parts of doing magic. Trying to concentrate enough on what you're doing, while not looking like you're doing what you're doing is extremely difficult. I'm working on my first silent solo magic piece and I have to do what magicians call "stealing". So obviously I have to use misdirection. And it's not easy. I can't check it or watch my hands. It's all about using a bigger motion to cover a smaller motion. Or just being gutsy. That can work too.

"It's so overt it's covert" -Robert Downey Jr, Sherlock Holmes

I'm not trying to give away some big secret here, I'm pretty sure everyone knows something sneaky is happening. It is magic after all. You watch it to be fooled, something has to hide the action of the trick so it can be magic. My misdirection has definitely improved over the years, maybe one day we can work up to full elephant status.

 

Outside Inspiration

Recently, well March 27th to be exact, I celebrated my magiversary. Four years I have been doing this! Absolutely crazy! As I think back over my time in magic, I think about how I have developed as a performer and who/what helped me with that.
Inspiration can come from really crazy places. Movies, books, pictures, art, music. Whatever helps you discover what you need to be or do. Being a magic assistant I often do a lot of dance, but also acting. Not necessarily talking, but often the facial expressions can speak louder than words.
In one routine in particular, I have to looked scared. I had the hardest time trying to figure out the right expression. I am a visual learner. I've never been super creative with coming up with my own stuff. That's why Brandon has to show me choreography so then I can copy him. Same with facial expressions. I needed to look scared so where did I go to for inspiration? Kristen Stewart. Yes, haters gonna hate, I know a lot of people don't like her but I do. She is perfect to look at for a scared face. Or a face in pain. I mean let's be honest, those are her best. Whether you like her or not, that was the perfect place for me to look. I've gotten a lot of compliments about my facial expressions for that routine so I think it was worth it!

Of course there are a million movies out there they give me little things to help like the way I flick my wrist or hold a pose. Then there's super awesome movies like Now You See Me that really helps my character develop.
TV shows can also help. So You Think You Can Dance is the most amazing thing ever to look at for beautiful dance technique and being fluid on stage. Even The Walking Dead has inspired a few things.
Then there's the subject of music. Honestly who doesn't get inspired by it? And sometimes I just use it as a confidence booster. Everybody has those couple of songs where they are just like heck yes this is me. It puts you in such an awesome mood and you feel on top of the world like you could do anything. I freaking jam out to "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark" by Fall Out Boy. I seriously feel like I could take over the world with that song. Although that's probably not a good idea.
Brandon's inspiration is Michael Jackson. Honestly he was and always will be one of the greatest performers of all time. He wasn't just a singer or a dancer, he was an entertainer. That's always been our goal with our magic. We don't want to be just magicians or illusionists, we want to be entertainers first and foremost.
Everyday little things inspire us, change us, make us better people. It will always be that way. I hope to continue growing as a person and an entertainer for years to come. Then one day, hopefully I can inspire someone too.

Missing My Other Half

Yes, I do get sawn in half but that isn't what I am referring to.
Friday I had the opportunity to do something I don't always get to do. Assist another magician. Which actually is one of the most nerve wracking things for me ever. Not because I only get a little bit of time to learn brand new illusions before we perform, but because I don't have Brandon. My other half. He's my rock onstage and nothing is weirder than seeing him in the audience. I get so nervous performing for him!
I've done little things here and there to assist other magicians but I guess technically I have only ever really done legit illusion performances with other magicians only 3 times. Twice with one magician and then the other day with our good friend Russell.
My favorite thing about helping out others is definitely getting to play with the illusions that are new to me. Every illusion has it's challenges and especially with me being as short as I am, some things are a stretch for me. I keep a list of all the illusions I have got to be in/play in/perform in and I always love adding to the list.

After that show the other night I was talking to Brandon about how hard it is for me to adjust with a new magician when I'm so used to him and I realized that it's actually normal for magic assistants to not really have a set magician. Which I now see is true but for the most part I have always studied couples in magic so they always work together like we do, but that isn't normal. Most magic assistants are just available to whoever needs the help. And I'm no exception to that.
It's very different when working with another if you don't know them well enough. If something goes wrong, I don't know their "oops" face or "we need to cut this trick" face. I can't judge them as well. So I have to be watching for little things that say "I need help".

Another really cool thing about assisting a different magician is I get to be a different assistant. My character has to fit to what his character is. My costume has to compliment them. My movement and dancing needs to fit their style. Every magician is different so I have to customize to that. I am always me but just a little different version according to the situation.
While I haven't officially been "borrowed" by other magicians a lot, I definitely hope it's something I can continue in the future. I have a different experience every time and it always gives me new stories to tell!

Country Conditions & Disney Discoveries

Weird title right? I'm going to discuss two different topics in this blog.
First is "Country Conditions".This is referring to the big show we had on January 18th in Augusta, GA. It was for 4600 people and it was at a bull riding fundraiser. Yes, you read that right. We performed in an arena on an 8 x 8 ft platform where bulls had just been bucking around. This meant lots of not so awesome smells and lots of cow patties. Which to me was kind of normal. I grew up around the rodeo so I am as country as it gets. I loved it. My sweet city boy husband magician guy struggled a little. He stepped in a cow patty and didn't find it nearly as funny as we did. That night was insane, but such a blast. We even had to wear country outfits. It was awesome!

So after we finished up with that show, we headed to Columbia for a short break before our anniversary trip to Disney World. It was my first trip there and to be honest I wouldn't have thought much about work would have come up. Or atleast that was the plan. No Brandon didn't do magic for anyone and we really didn't talk about it for the most part. But one particular night an interesting topic came up that sparked an idea for this.

We were eating at Coral Reef in Epcot (you may have seen it on an episode of Full House) across from a very loud family, but like I said, an interesting conversation came up. Yay for eavesdropping. This mom was going off on a fit about how some princesses were ruder than others. I know at first I was like well duh. But then as we listened more she really went into depth about it. She talked about how Cinderella wasn't as nice as the others. Then the more she thought about it she decided well maybe she had a bad day or something. They don't know what might be going on in her life right now.

This thought amazed me. Of course these poor princesses go through some of the same stuff we do. No matter what, everyone expects you to be super happy bubbly awesome mood when you first meet them. I couldn't count all the days when I have been having a rough time and sometimes it's just hard to keep a smile on your face. But fans don't think through stuff like that. And it's part of our job to not show if something is wrong. I actually had gotten kind of offended by how some of the characters acted but once the lady said that, it all clicked and I took it all back. 

Princess Ariel, Rapunzel, Snow White, & Cinderella

While it really is hard somedays just to keep it together, there is still nothing in the world like someone wanting to take a photo with you or getting an autograph from you. I was so excited about meeting all the princesses. Especially Ariel of course. I felt like a little kid, it was just an awesome experience. And it's funny to think how some people do that with us. Not usually me necessarily. But I see the way that little boys look up to Brandon. He does magic. They just think it's the coolest thing ever. Seeing them smile like that is just one of the best things in the world!

"When you are hugging a child, always be the last one to let go. You never know how long they need it."

- Words from a retired Snow White