Magic Mark-Up Language
Alvo Stockman, a thoughtful magician, has released a free e-book detailing ‘Magic Mark-Up Language’ – which is a method for analysing tricks in order to try to assess their interactivity and impact. Whether he will achieve his aim of a ‘universal standard’ for comparing effects, I admire his desire to be more analytical about his magic. I hope it is of interest to many others. The booklet is available at http://alvo.typepad.com/MML/MML-1.0.pdf .
If you are interested in thinking more analytically about your close-up magic, have a look at our Magic Books page for details of Strong Magic.
[...] Parade was a classic and direct effect. I personally found it a regular worker. But it was rather a trick without a premise. Entourage provides an appealing premise, and an extra level of interaction with the spectator eliminating the other ‘queens’ too. But does this make the effect more confusing? Twisted Sisters has a very clever premise and in some ways the ‘doubling up’ of the method makes the effect seem even more astounding. Perhaps this is a case for some magical markup analysis?! [...]
The evolution of an effect « VirtualMagicWords
August 20, 2008