It’s a core part of magic performance and a one word answer that laymen who think that they’re not laymen like to throw around as the explanation to magic – misdirection. Today, I’m going to be looking at the psychology of misdirection and several creative ways of misdirecting an audience.
What Is Misdirection And How Does It Work?
Close-up magic has been described in a very technical way as “eye line management” – the performer directs the attention of the audience by influencing where they look and when. Grand scale illusion uses the same techniques but on a larger scale.
A definition to start: Misdirection is the act of purposely attempting to cause the attention of your audience to be spent on something meaningless, while you pull of something rather tricky and obvious elsewhere. And there are several ways to do it.
A deeper definition of misdirection involves having your audience think their way down a certain logical path which appears on the surface to make sense, while their efforts are wasted because you’ve purposely laid this trap to prevent them figuring out the trick.
Misdirection works by taking advantage of certain survival mechanisms that are the results of the way that our brain has naturally evolved. These mechanisms have helped us survive as a species. Many of them are involuntary so they work on even the best of us.
Creative Ways To Misdirect
1. Sudden Movements
It’s one of the most primitive parts of our survival instinct. We pay attention to sudden and/or large movements. They are to some degree threatening. So all it takes is a sudden movement in one place to grab a spectator’s attention so that you can do your business with the other hand.
2. Quick Maths
Have you ever noticed how people look up when they’re trying to do mental arithmetic or remember something? Why not try working a quick bit of mental arithmetic into your routine to divert your spectator’s eyes for a few seconds while you do the most obvious false shuffle ever.
3. Interaction
Give them something to do. This has nothing to do without primative psychology. It’s a pretty obvious way to occupy the attention of somebody. In magic, a card box to hold or a coin to flip. This helps make the trick less of a one man show by getting the spectator involved all with the added bonus of directing the spectator’s attention where you want it.
4. Humour
If you tell a joke that’s funny enough, it’s natural the people reorient their heads when they laugh. They look up. And if they’re looking up, they’ve taken their eyes off your deck of cards. Often humour will have to be natural sounding though. You can’t realistically tell a canned knock knock joke and expect it to sound natural or even funny enough to make this technique work. Unless you are a naturally funny person, this technique will probably involve scripting, which we’ll discuss in a later article.
So there are just some general methods of misdirection that can be worked into almost any routine. If you have any other misdirection techniques that you’d like to share, post them in the comments section below.
