Recording days are filled with a lot of emotion. Usually that emotion begins the nite before when I'm trying to condense weeks worth of hopes and goals into a few workable routines. Each time I'm looking to push myself a bit further than I did last time.
Luckily I've been getting a lot of shows here which means that I've been practicing pretty non stop.
I've gotten over a lot of my performance anxiety, which is really helpful when wanting to record magic on the street for strangers. I've also come to the point where I know WHY I'm recording magic for YouTube, etc. I don't need to capture every moment or every effect I ever perform, but I just need to give people an idea of what I do so that they want to see it in person. I don't need to be "the next Criss Angel" and record an entire dvd, but just get out and perform for people. It's a lot more enjoyable that way.
It is still a very daunting task to go up to someone (especially with a camera person) and potentially interrupt their day in order to perform something that will "most likely work."
Today was a good day though. I did start to stretch my performance muscles by performing some pretty heavy duty mind reading, though my nervousness shown through by getting easily sidetracked and making jokes. Most people wouldn't notice it because they didn't know what to expect, but I knew. I have been known to be very hard on myself. Luckily I have been able to take a much more balanced approach lately in evaluating my performances.
The day got off to a slow start practicing some routines with my camera man that we hoped to record. We practiced the same effect over and over because there really is no telling what is going to happend during some magic effects, especially when dealing with mind reading and hypnosis.
After listening to a local girl covering Adele songs while we ordered some Pot Belly's we got started.
It didn't take long for my camera man to mention a group walking past us. I stopped them and performed a quick trick. There was no need to start recording right away as we were looking to build early successes. The great thing about this first group was that it caused a small scene and allowed me to scout out possible spectators.
A few groups stopped and tried to see what was going on, but only one group stuck around long enough for me to ask them over once the effect was done.
After recording some fun stuff (and a lot of wild conversations) we moved on to find another group. This is usually a pretty strange moment. If you don't find a group immediately afterwards it can often be an hour or more until you find a group that seems open to seeing something crazy. After a lot of walking we decide that we should find one last group in order to end on a high note.
I point out a group so large that my camera man gets nervous!
That last sentence makes me feel very excited for how far I've come along in my performance. A huge thank you to all the people that participated in the recordings and I hope you see your video up in the Steve TV section soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment