Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Stuff based on Stuff

Let me give you two plots in magic that have not been explored to the full extent.

Here is a nice card plot. The survivor plot. "Imagine there is zombie apocalypse. Hordes of zombies roam the land and only a few people are in shelters desperately trying to make the next day. One of those shelters has run out of food. Food needs to be organized. So a group of three people is set up and goes outside." The deck is separated into reds and black. "The red cards representing the survivors and the black cards the zombies." The red pile is in a sheltered, that means a spectator holds on to them. "Three of the red cards go out and look for food. Unfortunately they run into a group of zombies and are surrounded." The three red cards are sandwiched into four black cards... "suddenly the zombies leave, leaving the survivors alone. Why? Well turns out they have evolved... and have a plan. In fact one of the group is infected." One of the three cards has become black... "but nobody knows... on the way back to the shelter the other two become infected as well." All three black cards are then pushed into half the deck the spectator is holding... "can you imagine the horror?" When the spectator turns over the cards in his hands, they all have become black.

I'm not gonna talk you through a possible handling. Check out Walton for that.

And here is a nice plot that can be taken from close up to stage. The phantom hands. "Imagine a set of invisible hands, right next to my own hands. They do whatever my real hands do." You show a cup and a stamp. You let the stamp fall into the cup. Then both hands mime taking out the stamp, claiming that the phantom hands actually take out the stamp. You mime tearing the stamp into fours pieces and then dropping them back in the cup. When the cup is turned over the stamp in there is torn into four pieces. Method: There is a torn stamp in the cup to begin with. You show a regular stamp and false transfer it to the other hand which pretends to put it in the cup. You ditch the real stamp and the rest is just presentation. There is not much to this... but let's elevate this into a creepy stage piece....

"You know the sensation of being stared at? Well think about being touched with nobody around." Think PK Touches with just one person. Suddenly everything gets a theatrical veil, the veil of mystery.

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