through the film , the movie turned off because the plane was about to land . Even though the movie was pretty lame , I still felt this unresolved tension from not knowing the outcome . Even though I know the good guy will win ( because that ’ s how all action movies end ) I needed to know how the good guy would win . I wanted to see how the villain would react . I wanted to know how all of this conflict began . In other words , what was the motivation for the bad guy to do this ? You know how the villain always fesses up right at the very end of the movie ? I wanted that moment … even though it was a bad movie .
Well , days went by and I kept thinking about this movie . Another week went by and I searched for the movie on Amazon Prime . Ugh , it was 8 bucks to rent the movie . I thought , “ No way , that movie sucked and I saw almost all of it .” … After a few minutes I gave in . I needed closure . Finally I got all the things I wanted and I knew how the movie ended . It sucked just as bad as I thought but at least the story was finished . Now , why am I telling you all of this ?
Now , you have their full attention so be sure that the ending is rewarding . It must be clever , amazing , logical , and powerful . Then you have a great story and a great effect .
I ’ m not saying every effect needs a big story with a hero and a villain . I ’ m also not saying you need to talk for 45 minutes in each trick . Just think about creating a bit of context . Create a villain , make people dislike him , create conflict , build tension , resolve it with amazing and smart use of magic . My version of Triumph follows this formula and the effect is only four and a half minutes long . This is one of my favorite effects to perform . After I establish the conflict with my villain , who in my audience could walk away from that story without knowing how it ends ? No one . The audience reactions tell me that they enjoyed how the conflict was resolved .
Conflict creates tension and we as humans love to feel the resolve . I use story effects that create tension all of the time . In every effect I do I create tension . However , some are paired with a story . For example , in Ladanye ’ s Ultimate Triumph I tell a story about my brother and his three friends that try their hardest to screw up a simple card trick . In Royal Exchange , I tell a story about a poker player that challenges me to play his cards rather than mine . In The Player , I talk about what happened when I got carried away performing for a guy ’ s girlfriend and he tore up the playing card during the trick . All of these stories have conflict and that guarantees interest from your audience . They want to stick around to see how it will turn out .
76 VANISH Magazine www . VanishMagazine . com