There's usually a lot to be impressed about a magician. His skillful manipulation, his dexterity, his showmanship and many times their eloquence.
But the very best magicians impress with their character, personality and dedication.
Michael Ammar is among the last few who studied under Dai Veron; the man who fooled houdini.
He has been known internationally for his work in magic and holds a Gold Medal in Close-Up Sleight-of-Hand from F.I.S.M. (the most prestigious competition in magic, often referred to as the Olympics of the art.)
But among his many accomplishments, being crowned as the undisputed "Best" lecturer of all time is probably the reason for this compliation. Michael's words of wisdom often trancends the realm of magic, and it is reflected in his performances. As he has published more work on videos than in writing, this is an attempt at compling what he has often shared in public domains that's worth the weight in gold.
On practicing magic
"Enjoy the process of thinking about little little steps. Tiny things add up. It's just the little touches that make it better through the years."
Become content with the incremental changes. Little Incremental improvements end up adding together. There has been people who hasn't seen me perform in 10 years, they see it again and say that i changed the routine alot. Actually no. It's the same routine, but i just added little touches here and there. The next thing you know it feels like a different routine, when really it's just tiny tiny little touches that develop over time.
How to be a better magician
"Perform alot. But don't just perform. Before you perform, think about what you are going to do, how you want it to go. After you perform, always think about what worked, what didn't work. What suprised you, what can you do better. what can you do next time.
You can get 30 years of experience in 5 years if you take every performance and squeeze as much out of it as you can."
"Perform as much as possible. One performance is as good as a week of practice, or a month of thinking about it. You learn from real performances. After every show, think about what you did right, what you did wrong and what you can do better."
"Perform a lot and think about it."
People have a tendancy to find something that works and they don't mess with it anymore. It works, so why bother thinking about it.
But if you are willing to come back to it, and ask how can this be better, and clearer and these things evlove over time.
On Choosing Effects
There are certain effects where the simplicity and the directness for it are just hard to beat. Something like the ambitious card. The things that tend to work best for me are things that have a very clear cut effect. The strucutre of it is such that it's clear when the effect is done.
Michael Skinner said something to me years ago. That he always learns his trick in sets of trick. That way everytime I remember one trick, I really remember 3 tricks. So I always do something like that where at least 2 effects are put together as a set. If not 3 effects.
On crafting an effect
Theres a process to effect ratio. How much have i got to go through in order to get to the effect. On way to make the effect more interesting is either to shorten the process or you build up the effect. It's like a pain to glory ratio. How much do they have to sit to watch before something interesting happen. The process to effect or the pain to glory ratio for the ambitious card is as good as it gets.
On routining
In the ambitious card. it seems like the same thing happens over and over again, the challenge is to have a clear cut conclusion to why this is the final thing. Either the card on ceiling or the pop up move.
In routining something like that you want to have it seem clear that everyone understand which part is the end.
The challenge is to struture a trick so that it seems like the effect is progressing in a logicial way without being too repitious. Strucutre in a logical and interesting way and ends in a way that everyone understands that's an ending.
On handling Hecklers or Tricks going wrong
(On Letterman TV appearance)
"At that point, it's just - keep moving forward. Don't address it in anyway. Just keep moving forward."
(In General)
People that perform socially and for free, you have to deal with people interjecting or interupting. But once you start charging a lot of money for your performance, people want to see what happens. So you don't experience hecklers. You also learn to perform in a non threatening and non challenging way so you avoid those confrontation kind of set up.
"Sometimes an audience has a personality, and think that it's their job to figure it out. And I don't see it as often as you would think"
"I think a lot of times (the audience) they sense, are you here to take something or here to give something. "
Tricks do go wrong. Things still happen. But as a professional you learn to just deal with it and keep moving forward. Many many times the audience don't have any idea that that's not it's suppose to have gone. Even if you didn't find the card and you do something else. It seems like that's how it was planned.
There are other times where there's just no where to run, no where to hide. In one show, I didn't catch my bottle and it broke into a thousand pieces. And I was pretty horrified.
But you can't show all of that on your face. You can't be embrassed in front of them because they will be embrassed for you. So have to make it clear that you're still moving forward, this is fine.
(Michael handled it by telling the audience how lucky they are, and the concept of wabi sabi - the elegant flaw that distingushes a live performance from one where everything went perfect. That's the show that becomes memorable and distingushed because you are the lucky people that got to see the only time that bottle collapse into a thousand pieces.)
As a performer you really have the responsibility not to lay your issues on them, or your embrassment or disappointment on them. Because they feel for you. It's much better that you can somehow make it seem like this is good. This is special. This is something you will be thinking about for a long time and I would too. That illustrate that even your worst flaw can't be something that stops the show. You have to recover in a way that doesn't burn the audience.
Advice on performing magic on TV
"Create the set and work backwards from the setting. Rather than taking your repotire and see what will work on television, look at the host, look at the setting and say what would be interesting in the situaiton, and develop something for that is the way to go.
On Managing Nervousness
(Context of TV appearance)
"Most of the material by the time you get to the point of performance, the die is cast. One more practice isn't going to do it. If you're not ready in your head before you get there, you shouldn't be there. I just tell myself, I'm ready for this, this is no different than a thousand times I've done it somewhere else."
(General)
"Generally speaking in terms of getting nervous when performing magic, when i felt like the important thing is to fool people and to get the trick right, that's when I'll get nervous. But once I realize that being amaze, being astonish is an intellectual delicacy. You're giving somebody a gift. It truly is. You're not taking anything from somebody when performing. You're there to give something.
"Should santa claus be nervous? You think he would be nervous about going down the chimey? And that's the same thing as a magician."
On Card Tricks / Having a Variety / Texture
I learnt that it all blurs together in their head when you do two or three card tricks, and they can't remember what you did. And I really would like people to be able to describe the effect. So it needs to be a simple plot, not cluttered by a bunch of other stuff.
I think it's really difficult to specialize in cards and have people vividly remember it at the end. I rarely do more than 2 or 3 card set in one show. Because I want them to be able to remember what happens.
When you think in terms of what do audience percieve card magic to be about, for laymen 90% think that they pick a card and you find it. So all effects that doesn't involve them picking a card isn't a "prime" effect.
(Ammar tend to do his pick a card trick in an interesting way quickly, then suprise them with a more memorable card effect or revelation like card in ceiling or card to balloon. And I try to handle the cards as little as I can)
On Struturing a Set
I like a circle as a theatrical tool. Whatever you are doing in the beginning somehow you come around to that at the end. So it seems like a circular structure.
Takeaway from Dai Vernon
Be natural.
Use Your Head.
Confusion is Not Magic.
On Scripting
We tend to over write when we sit down and write. It became more effective to get an idea of what to say and find a way to perform it in an approiate venue for learning and see what else to write to fill in the gaps and emphasize certain points. It almost always turns out to be too much when you sit down and think of all the relevant things for the script. But even when a script is twice as long as it felt comfortable saying, it was good to have more to say to eliminate the extra words after performing in front of an actual performance.
What I end up doing is basically figuring out how I'm going to go into it. Whats the sentance to bring the effect into play. (e.g. have you ever had a deck of card where cards went missing? I know where they go). And that's the sentance that gets you into it. The thing that wraps it up. And a little bit in between and I find a chance to perform and see how much more I need to add to it to make sense. I do an outline with a few key words in it than to script the whole thing out because I know I script too much and write too many words.
It should be too obvious that you are using patter. The more they can tell you have scripted something, the less authentic it seems in the moment. Because it becomes you say these things no matter who you you are doing this for. Even if I wasn't here you would be saying these lines than communicating on a personal level.
I really try to have it not seem like I'm using patter or telling stories whether they are there or not. I want them to feel like I'm in the moment, they are in the moment, what we are saying now has to do with us, and what we are experiencing and it's not overly processed. It's not like a cookie cutter experience, it's more spontenous and authentic for us. The challenge is to have it feel that way even if this is a trick you've done a thousand times for a thousand people. Because there's empathy in the performance and connection to the people which is more improtant to them than you saying funny things or that you have written an interesting script.
When it comes to scripting the one thing that's really important is that it doesn't become so important to you that it dominates the presentation and makes it clear to the audience that you decide exactly what to say whether the audience is around or not. For that reason I get outlines, find a chance to perform it and see what else do i need to say that's interesting and meaningful without it seeming like an overly scripted presentation.
"Audience as a Bank Account Principle"
"I see an audience like a bank account. I don't want to try to take anything out of it until before I put a lot of stuff into it. When i come out for a show, first thing I do is to hand stuff out. And all that is deposits. I do things with my own stuff before I ask for something."
"Magic as a Gift Concept"
"..being amaze, being astonish is an intellectual delicacy. You're giving somebody a gift. It truly is. You're not taking anything from somebody when performing. You're there to give something.
"Should santa claus be nervous? You think he would be nervous about going down the chimey? And that's the same thing as a magician."
"Flight Time Concept"
"You can get 30 years of experience in 5 years if you take every performance and squeeze as much out of it as you can. One performance is as good as a week of practice, or a month of thinking about it."
"The "So What" Concept"
"Just imagine the audience has a sign on their forehead that they can light up and the sign says "so what". I always imagine the audience are just on the verge of pushing that "so what" button on their forehead. So i don't want to give them much time to do that. I try to be very concise and not spend too much time saying extra stuff. Leaning on the curse of this "so what" experience really help make a performance concise and make everything meaningful.
"1% Concept"
"The 1% rule. If you can make something 1% better 100 times, you become twice as good. But always start with 1% and be content with that."
"Comic Gap Concept"
"I always felt like visual was really important the more visual the better. It is a visual art. Yet over the years I've grown to appreciate the cerebal side of it. One of the books I read that was influential to me was by scott mcloud understanding comics.
In a comic book, the typical format is these block of images that move a storyline forward. But he makes a point that the real magic in a comic books doesn't happen in those frames, but in the space between them because in the space between those blocks is a gap that the readers have to fill with their imagination. Good comic artist and writer understand the nature of those gaps and use them ina way that make the stories a collabrative effort. It's a combination between what they show, and what you imagine. Typically what you imagine is the most interesting part. Thats why anyone who read the comic or the book before they see the movie always feel like the comic was better or the cook was better. The reason it was better is because it was a collaborative result.
There's participation and there's a collabrative nature in a performance with the audience. Working together to create an experience. I try to give them opporutnitioes to use their imagination more, to put some pauses in, to invite and leave room for their imagination then follow up with the most powerful visuals I can come up with. "
"Emulation Board Concept"
Have an Emulation Board. What if you could sit down with your heroes and imagine what you would say to them, and what they would say to you. Meet with these guys in your imagination and try to learn to think like they would think on a given problem. Because each of these guys approach things in a different way. It trains you to think in different ways. Approach a problem like they would approach. You don't need to be born next to these guys or be near these guys to benefit from the way they approach something.
Show your heros and mentors that you take their advice to heart, show initiative, spend time with their advice and show willingness to beyond the way a work is published.
I started out where I had no access to all these stuff (magic) but was able to just with my imagination participate with the minds that inspired me inside magic. And it does not matter where you are, you can do everything you want to do in magic and you can really benefit from all the knowledge that has been accumlated in our art form over the years. Even if you don't have direct access to the people that inspired you, you can still learn to think like they do and have their approach influence what you do.