Over 25 years experience in the
business of Magic.
Frank Paris
is a nationally and internationally well known performing magician, lecturer,
and magic dealer based in the New York City
area.
Stage Shows .
Comedy magic . Close-up magic
. Illusions . Escapes . Mentalist . Walk around Magic .
Hospitality . Suites Entertaining Séances . Corporate Functions . Private
Parties . Trade Shows. Cruise Ships Children's Programs Magic Lessons for
Adults And Children
We take pride in offering our
audiences the newest and most cutting edge mystifying effects in magic you
will not see the same old same old.
Go Beyond The Edge.
Magic, Mystery, And So Much More.
Believing Is One
Thing, Knowing Is Another.
Find out for
yourselves.
Book Frank Paris
For Your Next Engagement..
Make
this
an event your guests will
never forget!
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Store
Frank has a Segment in his show called "The Séance", Wherein Bells Ring, keys And Spoons Bend in
the spectators hands. There are spirit knocks on doors and more.
With the
Children Shows Casper the Friendly Ghost makes an appearance with his good
friend Tinkerbell by ringing bells and bending keys and spoons and making
puffs of smoke.
Everyone enjoys a good ghost story.
Most never get a chance to be
in
one. Frank's Goal is
to provide an evening of mysterious, yet
thrilling, entertainment for you and your guests you will be amazed
and spooked at what you see.
Frank's Séance items were actually
owned and used by
key people who performed séances in the 19th century. These
Séance props
will be used to re-create the
classic "things that go bump in the night" Séance experience. Frank will
attempt to call
forth no "real" ghosts in the program but your guests will leave
with the
sensation that they've experienced briefly agenuine
Victorian-era Spirit Séance.
The (Electric
Séance) concept was inspired by the
discovery that many early pioneers and inventors of electrical apparatus and
radio phonic equipment believed that they could use their inventions to contact
‘the other side because, many sounds have never been heard—by humans: some
sound waves you don’t hear—but they reach you.
Left) The stage magician and
illusionist William Marriott thoroughly debunked the Edwardian craze for
séances, Spiritualism and "materializations" in a series of articles
published in 1910 under the title 'On the Edge of the Unknown'. He was
indignant and saddened that so many people took what happened in the
séance room at face value, often to the detriment of their finances or
sanity, so he set out to demonstrate how easy it is to make it seem that
supernatural forces are at work.
In this photograph he is surrounded
by "spirit hands", all in fact produced and controlled by him despite
the fact that he appears to be tied to a chair. The "spirit forms" he
materialized in his own séances were paper Mache glove puppets wrapped
in white sheets, but this didn't prevent séance-goers from swearing they
had been visited by spirits Some of the visual and auditable
effects that will be created by
Frank
Paris in his show will make you believe that there really are
spirits.
With Frank Paris providing your Magical Entertainment, You Will…
Reach Your
Customers, Stop Traffic,
Gather More Qualified Leads,
Educate Your Clients, Maximize Your Visibility,
Blow Your Competition Out Of The Water!
Corporate Entertainment
From intimate corporate meetings, conventions and banquets, to
the showrooms of Las Vegas, Frank Paris provides professional and dynamic
performances that are guaranteed to transform any event into a memorable and
inspirational experience.
Private Gatherings And Parties
Frank’s unique style of strolling or close-up
magic allows your audience to experience magic on an intimate level. This is
done while he walks from audience to audience, ranging in size from one
individual to small groups of ten or so, performing miracles using cards,
coins, ropes, ‘borrowed’ watches, rings, and whatever other items he can get
his hands on. Most of the illusions occur in the hands of the participants
and allow the audiences to take part in the art of magic as they never have
before.
Magical Comedian (magician + comedian)
Frank Paris is "America's Magical
Funnyman" a creative
comedy entertainer who blends OFF-BEAT visual magic effects and UNBELIEVABLE
stunts with CLEAN comedy, and HILARIOUS audience participation to create an
interactive show that gets audiences involved. Whether you want an evening of
corporate comedy entertainment
and fun for your
convention event,
Frank's award-winning comedy magic performance can be easily adapted to
fulfill your entertainment goals...and fill your room with laughter and
applause.
With a successful track record, Frank is THE
ENTERTAINER TO CHOOSE when your
entertainment decision
is important.
AT&T, IT&T, GE, Dime Savings Bank, Disney World, IBM, HP,
Long Island Cradle Of Aviation, Exxon, Ford Motor Company,
Wal-Mart Grand Openings
Some Of The TV
Shows Appearances & consultant To:
The Magician
TV series Starring Bill Bixby,
The Mike Douglas Show
Doug Henning's The Magic Show On Broadway
Sesame Street Theater
Portrait Of America With Hal Holbrook.
Amazing Stories Mr. Magic Episode Sid Caesar
Believing Is One
Thing Knowing Is Another.
Go Beyond The
Edge,
Find out for
yourselves.
Book Frank Paris
For Your Next Engagement.
Call: 516 826 3806
We Accept Credit Cards Thru
Also Checks and money orders Are Welcome.
Magicians and Magic history
Magic, also known as prestidigitation and conjuring, is the art of
entertaining an audience by performing illusions that entertain, baffle and
amaze, often by giving the impression that something impossible has been
achieved. Yet, this illusion of magic is created entirely by natural means.
The practitioners of this mystery art may be called magicians, table
magicians, close up magicians, conjurors, illusionists or prestidigitators.
Artists in other media such as theatre, cinema, dance and the visual arts
increasingly work using similar means but regard their magical techniques as
of secondary importance to the goal of creating a complex cultural
performance.
Magicians
Performances we would recognize as conjuring have probably been practiced
throughout history. The same ingenuity behind ancient deceptions such as the
Trojan horse would have been used for entertainment, or at least for cheating
in gambling games, since time immemorial. However, the respectable profession
of the illusionist gained strength during the eighteenth century, and has
enjoyed several popular vogues.
Modern entertainment magic owes much of its origins to Jean Eugene Robert-Houdini
(1805-1871), originally a clockmaker, who opened a magic theatre in Paris in
the 1840s. His specialty was the construction of mechanical automata which
appeared to move and act as if they were alive. The British performer J N
Maskelyne and his partner Cooke established their own theatre, the Egyptian
Hall in London's Piccadilly, in 1873. They presented stage magic, exploiting
the potential of the stage for hidden mechanisms and assistants, and the
control it offers over the audience's point of view. The greatest celebrity
magician of the nineteenth century, Harry Houdini (real name Erich Weiss, 1874
- 1926), took his stage name from Robert-Houdini and developed a range of stage
magic tricks, many of them based on escapology (though that word was not used
until after Houdini's death). The son of a Hungarian rabbi, Houdini was
genuinely highly skilled in techniques such as lock picking and escaping
straitjackets, but also made full use of the whole range of conjuring
techniques. Houdini's show business savvy was as great as his performing
skill. In addition to expanding the range of magic hardware, showmanship and
deceptive technique, these performers established the modern relationship
between the performer and the audience.
In this relationship, there is an unspoken agreement between the magicians and
the audience about what is going on. Unlike in the past, almost no performers
today actually claim to possess supernatural powers. It is understood by
everyone that the effects in the performance are accomplished through sleight
of hand (also called legerdemain), misdirection, deception, collusion with a
member of the audience, apparatus with secret mechanisms, mirrors, and other
trickery (hence the illusions are commonly referred to as "tricks"). The
performer seeks to present an effect so clever and skilful that the audience
cannot believe their eyes, and cannot think of the explanation. The sense of
bafflement is part of the entertainment. In turn, the audience play a role in
which they agree to be entertained by something they know to be a deception.
This is one of the few situations in which people willingly allow themselves
to be lied to, and the audience trusts the performer not to exploit this, for
example by cheating them out of money. Houdini strengthened this trust by
using his knowledge of illusions to debunk charlatans, a tradition continued
by magicians such as James Randi, P.C. Sorcery, and Penn and Teller.
Today (2006), the art is enjoying a vogue driven by a number of highly
successful performers that specialize as either stage, TV or close up
magicians. The mid twentieth century saw magic transform in different aspects:
some performers preferred to renovate the craft on stage - such as The
Mentalizer Show in Times Square which dared to combine spirituality and the
ancient wisdom of kabbalah with the art of magic - others successfully made
the transition to TV, which opens up new opportunities for deceptions. A
widely accepted code has developed, in which TV magicians can use all the
traditional forms of deception, but should not resort to camera tricks,
editing the videotape, or other TV special effects - this makes deception too
"easy", in the popular mind. Most TV magicians are shown performing before a
live audience, who provide the remote viewer with a reassurance that the
effect is not obtained by camera tricks.
Categories of illusions
Although there is much discussion among magicians as to how an effect is to be
categorized, and in fact, disagreements as to what categories actually exist
-- for instance, some magicians consider "penetrations" to be a separate
category, others consider penetrations a form of restoration -- it is
generally agreed that there are very few different types of illusions.
Perhaps because it is considered a magic number, it has often been said that
there are only seven types of illusion:
Production
The magician pulls a rabbit from an empty hat; a fan of cards from 'thin air';
a shower of coins from an empty bucket; or appears in a puff of smoke on an
empty stage-- all of these effects are productions, the magician produces
"something from nothing".
Vanish
The magician snaps their fingers and a coin disappears; places a dove in a
cage, and the bird vanishes, puts a silk into his fist and opens his hands
revealing nothing, or waves a magic wand and the Statue of Liberty has
magically gone. A vanish, being the reverse of a production, sometimes uses a
similar technique, in reverse.
Transformation
The magician has a volunteer pick a card, from a deck, and with a flourish,
shows the wrong card, then the magician magically changes the card to the
correct card chosen.
Or, a dog is placed in a cage, the cage is covered with a cloth, which is
immediately whisked from the cage, and the dog has become a tiger. A bowl of
fire may become a dove. Transformations change one thing into another. Or,
into several others.
Restoration
The cut-and-restored rope is a restoration: a rope is cut into two pieces, the
two pieces are tied together, the knot vanishes, leaving one piece of rope. A
newspaper is torn to bits. The magician rubs the pieces together and the
newspaper becomes whole. A woman is sawn into two separate parts (an apparent
hemicorporectomy), and then magically rejoined. A card is torn in fourths and
then restored piece by piece to a normal state. Restorations put something
back into the state it once was.
Teleportation
A teleportation transfers an object from one place to another. something is
vanished, then later found inside a tightly bound bag, which is inside a box
that is tied shut, inside another box, which is in a locked box... all of
which were across the stage.
The magician locks their assistant in a cage, then locks them self in another.
Both cages are uncovered and the pair have magically exchanged places. This is
a transposition, a simultaneous, double teleportation.
The magician climbs on a motorcycle, rides it into a crate, the crate is
hoisted in the air. The motorcycle instantly appears, engine roaring, in the
middle of the audience, 80 feet away, with the magician astride it. In a
teleportation, something magically moves from one place to another.
Levitation
The magician "puts his assistant into a trance" and then floats her up into
the air, passing a ring around her body to show that there are 'no wires'
supporting her. A close-up magician folds up a borrowed note, and then floats
it in the air. A playing card hovers over a deck of cards. A silk scarf dances
in a sealed bottle. Levitations are illusions where the conjurer magically
raises something -- possibly including the magician him or herself -- into the
air.
Penetration
In which one solid object passes through another. The magician links two solid
steel rings, or the cup and balls trick in which the foam balls pass through
the cup are penetration illusions.
Secrecy
The purpose of a magic trick is to entertain, amuse and create a feeling of
wonder; the audience is generally aware that the magic is performed using
trickery, and derives enjoyment from the magician's skill. Usually, magicians
will refuse to reveal their methods to the audience. The reasons for these
include:
Exposure is claimed to "kill" magic as an art form and transforms it into mere
intellectual puzzles and riddles. It is argued that once the secret of a trick
is revealed to a person, he or she can no longer fully enjoy subsequent
performances of the trick, as the amazement is missing.
Some magicians have taken the controversial position that revealing the
methods used in certain tricks can enhance the appreciation of the audience
for how clever the trick is. Some frequently perform tricks using transparent
props to reveal how it is done, although they almost always include additional
unexplained tricks at the end that are made even more astonishing by the
revealing props being used.
Often what seems to be a revelation of a magical secret is merely another form
of misdirection. For instance, a magician may explain to an audience member
that the linking rings "have a hole in them" and hand the volunteer two
unlinked rings, which the volunteer finds to have become linked as soon as he
handles them. At this point the magician may make a gesture at the open space
in the center of the ring as he jokingly says “theres the hole in the centre”.
Types of magic performance
Magic performances fall into three broad genres:
Close-up magic, also known as table magic or close up table magic, is
performed with the audience close to the magician, possibly in physical
contact. Close up magicians usually makes use of everyday items as props, such
as cards and coins. Close-up magic is a form of magical entertainment that
happens right in front of you, magic you can not only see but feel and touch.
This intimacy is what makes it so different from other types of magic. And it
is this that has probably made it the most popular type of magic performed
today. An expert close-up magician will involve and interact with the audience
far more than a stage or platform magician.
Platform magic, in which the magician stands while performing and is
seen by more people simultaneously than the close-up performer.
Stage magic, which is performed for large audiences, typically within
an auditorium. This type of magic is distinguished by elaborate, large-scale
props.
Other specialties or niches have been created:
Bizarre magic, which uses metaphysical, horror, fantasy and other
similar themes in performance. Bizarre magic is typically performed in a
close-up venue, although some performers have effectively presented it in a
stage setting.
Mentalism, which creates the impression in the minds of the audience
that the performer possesses special powers to read thoughts, predict events,
control other minds.
Shock magic is a genre of magic that shocks the audience, hence the
name. Sometimes referred to as "geek magic", it takes its roots from circus
sideshows, in which "freakish" performances were shown to audiences. Common
shock magic or geek magic effects include knife-through-arm and
pen-through-tongue.
Techniques
Close up magic relies mostly on sleight of hand in which skilful manipulation
of cards, coins and other props enables an effect to be created. For example,
the appearance that an item has vanished (or been produced) can be achieved by
a sleight.. There is a wide range of sleights for vanishing, producing, and
switching items.
Sleights require a good deal of practice to perform convincingly, and so many
beginners are attracted to close up tricks based on hardware gimmicks.
However, most shop-bought gimmicks are usually obvious to the audience for
what they are, even if the exact mechanism is not understood. Some
professional magicians do use hardware gimmicks, but tend to base their acts
on skill with sleight of hand as the main foundation. Some magicians see
gimmicks and sleight of hand as a means to an end, and use a combination of
both.
One principle that underlies virtually all magic tricks is misdirection, which
is the act of drawing the audience's attention to one location while, in
another location, the magician performs a crucial manipulation undetected. An
experienced performer can force the audience to look, however briefly, in a
certain direction, and use this as cover for what the other hand is doing.
This is the basic idea of misdirection, although it can become very
sophisticated and subtle for an advanced magician. These are based on the
natural instincts of a human being, relating to psychology.
Misdirection, manual dexterity with sleight of hand. along with theatrical
acting abilities and also NLP can help to improve how the magic is perceive by
the audience, These elements show the difference between an experienced
magician and a beginner, even if they were to perform the same effect
