How do you find that perfect sleight? That perfect move that makes kids cry and hot women say “so… why should I give a fuck?” Here is something I recommend any magician to think about when they ask themselves on how good an effect is.
Lets go back to yesterday’s example about the simple effect of a card changing into the selected card.
Once again imagine how the effect would be done if you had magical powers. How clean would this effect be? pretty damn clean. How clear is the effect? do you even need the deck anymore?
My idea of the perfect effect is this. You bring out one joker. You ask them to think of any card, don’t say the card, just think of it. You ask them to stare at the joker. With a shake, the joker magically changes into their thought of card. You give it to the spectator as a souvenir.
Now of course there is presentation envolved, but we are just talking about the method now. This is my “perfect” effect, you may have one that is even better. But once you have it, your job is to emulate it as closely as possible with sleight of hand. How close can you get to that ideal effect?
The idea of magic is to give the illusion of the perfect effect. So the next time you perform an effect ask yourself is this the best it can be?
