Show Creation Fundamentals 6 Week Course

Are you ready to transform a series of tricks into a refined and polished show? It seems a daunting task and the truth is, the community has no real sources to assist in taking the first steps.  I want to change that with Show Creation Fundamentals.

In this special 6 session series of live lectures I will share six powerful teaching sessions filled with answers and techniques that when combined will provide you with the foundational tools to creating your own mentalism and magic shows.  

These techniques are practical, real world and tested.  This is not ‘high theory’ for artists and dreamers.  These techniques are designed to serve professional performers who aim to consistently produce new work, year after year in order to return to audiences that have previously enjoyed their work.  They are simple, intuitive and most importantly repeatable.  

Being able to constantly produce new work, with a distinct style and changing material allows the professional performer to return to audiences, rather than constantly searching for new ones. It has been a core of my own work for as long as I have been a performer.  

Session 1: What is the power?

As a mentalist this is the single most important question to ask.  Answering it, will unlock the entire show.  Once it is answered, you will no longer need to search for tricks and routines.  Instead the answer will allow a perpetual energy to drive forward the creation of new performance material that supports your character, claim and heightens the theatrical quality of your work.    

Session 2: What is the progression?

Will you go forwards, backwards, sideways or maybe you might like to travel in a spiral?  The progression of the show will bring order and a natural and driving build to the material.  This is the secret to ordering material to produce a feeling in the audience of an inevitable climax and brings them to honest and genuine reactions at the conclusion of the performance.  

Session 3: What is the Structure?

The show structure!  Without this, there is no show.  If there is one thing that can instantly improve any show, it is ensuring that it has been structured in the proper way.  Applying a tested show structure can allow many benefits before organisation!  For the audience the structure is the invisible but very present difference between a polished and refined professional experience and a chaotic series of events.  

Session 4: What is the tone and style?

This will allow your show, to express your personality.  It is never discussed in the magic and mentalism community.  Without it, you are just another one of those guys doing that thing.  With it, you are a distinct voice with a distinct vision and a distinct offering as a performing artist.

Session 5: What is the visual identity?

From big to small.  The visual identity wraps all of the hard work up in a pretty package.  You might think of this as ‘theatrical direction” but its no where near as scary as that might sound.  Simple, proven approaches to staging material, dressing the show and even creating compelling and consistent marking materials such as video, imagery and sales text that all work together to produce a consistent and strong identity all your own.

Session 6: What is the pay off? 

Why are they watching you, here, now?  What is the pay off?  What is the message?  What is the point?  This changes a trickster into something more powerful.  

Each session is a formal Zoom lecture lasting 45-55 minutes, followed by a 30 minute open discussion with live attendees about each of the sessions.  The sessions will be made available for download for those who cannot attend live. The Sessions begin on February 1 and continue weekly for 6 weeks at 7.30pm UK time.