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Prop-less Drawing Duplication. By Fraser Parker. The following prop-less drawing duplication is based on the limited restriction field of commonly thought of drawings as well as the idea to distinguish between drawings via questions about it's real life counterpart's characteristics, found in Proteus by Phedon Bilek. However, my method does not require an anagramming process utilizing letters from the name of the drawing. I have also eliminated the need to ask multiple questions about the qualities of the real life counterpart or object thought of. Instead, I harvest this information in a much more indirect way which fits and is hidden via the routine and the performance of the effect, itself. I am pleased to say that I have the full backing and blessing from Phedon to release – in his words – “my different AND similar variation” on the prop-less drawing duplication plot. It is worth mentioning that the following routine only utilizes the basic amount of outs of potential drawings made by your spectator as the original Proteus system and Phedon has since expanded those outs to cover 27 possible drawings in his extended version. Although my method allows for further outs to be included I prefer
not to do so – adding a few outs, at the most – to ensure I do not sacrifice the streamlined nature of the effect. I would prefer to miss occasionally instead of adding too much additional process to the method. The shift that was required was to get the spectator to try to guess a drawing you are merely thinking of, first. Of course, the way I handle this is important, so that I am able to secretly obtain information about their drawing along the way. The inspiration for this method as well as obviously coming from the Proteus Drawing Duplication came from the way I would get which half of the year the spectator was born during my star sign guess Miriaj, which involves the spectator guessing the star sign of the performer and during this process the performer secretly obtains the star sign of the spectator. I would ask my spectator the following.
“If you were to take a guess at my star sign what do you feel is more likely – that we will have completely opposite signs to each other or that we will share the exact same star sign?” They would then of course, answer with the word “opposite” which
means we can then say.
“Okay, so this means we will also more than likely be born at opposing ends of the year. So with this in mind – do you feel I was born in the first or second half of the year?” And they will then answer in a way that tips to you which half of the year they were born – as they will now be answering in a way that is always opposite to whichever half of the year they were born. All you have to do is remember the opposite to whatever answer they give. Thanks go to Peter Turner for first posing such a question in order to elicit a specific response from the spectator, in my other star sign guess Seeing Signs. This is just the first part of one of my star sign guesses and I hit upon this whilst trying to achieve something else. It was only after finishing the star sign guess that my good friend Ross Tayler reminded me where the basic idea had come from; using opposites within the context of a spectator guessing information about the performer to secretly tip information about the spectator, was first conceived by Ross in the early stages of his star sign guess that was later released in our limited edition book Second Coming.
I feel each of our star sign guess are different enough to warrant both being published and the handling of this question about which half of the year they feel I was born, is a nice linguistic use of this basic idea that did not feature in any of the previous attempts at working out a use for this general concept. But why do we need to know all of this? I hear you ask. Well, the reason is the following method believe it or not was born out of these thoughts. I first started with a statement about my thought of drawing and the spectator's not likely matching but instead having opposite characteristics, in order to receive answers that were opposite to the thought of drawing of the spectator. I then realised this was too overt and was too much like giving directions that would make back-tracking easier and the method more obvious, so I decided to change what I was doing by simplifying it. This made the effect and method work together in a way that was beautifully deceptive and perfect theatrically – it looking exactly as it should, in terms of outward appearance of effect – with the use of opposites now applied to effect as opposed to being applied directly to the method.
The way I shifted everything was to actually get the spectator to give similar characteristics to their thought of drawing without is seeming like I was asking directly for them to do this. What is really nice, is the line I use to do this is later disregarded as unimportant and it's meaning is re-framed naturally by the performance itself which means the method can not easily be backtracked by audience members. Props should go to Ross here for first applying the idea of reframing to method itself – it has since become such an important part of my thinking, it is hard to imagine modern mentalism and the genre of prop-less existing without it. The overall appearance of the effect creates a false logic that makes everything appear entirely fair and the fact the method exists in words and disappears after it is spoken means all that your audience will be left with is the appearance of what seemingly took place; that of real mind reading. The combination of method and effect combine to create something bigger than the sum of it's parts. So what does it look like and feel like? Here is the script I use.
“I want you to imagine you are back at school around 12-13 years old, sat at your desk and are bored so you decide to create a simple drawing on your notebook like a Clock with hands, a Mountain or a Bicycle. Please avoid those as I have just mentioned them and also avoid only drawing simple shapes such as Hearts or Stars but instead draw something we would recognize as an actual object”. This is similar to the script Phedon uses to ensure the spectator draws something that will likely fit into our limited selection of commonly thought of simple drawings. Note: Luke Jermay was the first to use a restrictive field that was not seemingly restrictive. Morgan Strebler has also used the idea of getting the spectator to imagine they were back at school to restrict their drawing to one out of a few simple drawings they could be thinking of. We have eliminated a Mountain or something like a Mountain such as a Volcano and a Bicycle from likely being chosen just by mentioning them ala. Psychological Subtleties 1 by Banachek. So now they will likely be thinking of one of the following, commonly thought of drawings when given these restrictions.
The list I work with is:
MOON SUN TREE CAR BOAT AEROPLANE STICK-MAN HOUSE TABLE CHAIR GLASS PEN PENCIL BALL FISH FLOWER CAT DOG These are from the restrictive field discovered to work well by Phedon.
Of course, I have also mentioned the Heart and Star shapes and have therefore eliminated them from my system. The reason for this is so that each of the possible drawings conform to two basic properties: Man made and natural objects and objects that can or can not be held in your hand. Art Vandelay was first to use such distinctions in his work using Anagrams to successfully divine objects thought of by a spectator and should therefore get credit. The reason we need these distinctions will become clear in a moment, each of which come from Phedon's method as a way of distinguishing between certain possible choices of drawing. These distinctions are something Peter Turner has also played with in the past when dealing with thought of objects. Now I say the following.
“Before I try to guess what it is you've drawn I want you to try to guess the drawing I have in my mind”. It is this next line that underpins the entire method and makes it
work. I casually say,
“It would be interesting if we had both drawn the same image”. Peter Turner employs a slightly different script here which some may prefer, as it makes what you are doing appear that much more casual. He would begin the effect with,
“I want you to imagine you are back at school... [apply the usual script here] whilst you were drawing your image I did the same and it will be interesting if we both coincidentally drew the exact same image”. We both then continue with the following questions about our drawing.
“So with this in mind, do you feel my drawing is Natural or Man Made?” Say they answer with,
“Natural”. Performer: “Okay, do you feel it is something you can hold in your hands?” “No”. What your previous comment about both of your drawings potentially being the same does, is create an expectation in the spectator's mind that they will be the same and this causes the spectator to give you answers about your drawing that also pertain to theirs. All you have to do is listen to their answer and this gives you the properties of their own drawing! This would be obvious if it weren't for what comes next. After they have answered I dismiss their answers as being incorrect but get them to think that this is their idea using the following piece of scripting from my good friend Peter Turner.
“So do you think it is more likely we have drawn the exact same image or that these are different?” They will usually say that they feel it is more likely we have different
images due to the odds involved. This helps to disconnect their answers about your drawing from theirs. Whether they say they think the drawings are the same or not I always inform them that they were wrong on both characteristics and tell them my drawing has opposite characteristics to what they say. What this does is dismisses their guess as unimportant. It seemingly doesn't help them to guess your object because they were wrong and the answers they gave are therefore, thrown away in both theirs and everyone else's mind, who is watching. This also means that any potential method is also discarded by anyone trying to back-track, later on. There is a weird logic at play that subtly implies if they are wrong then what you said previously about the drawings potentially matching must also be incorrect and any set up that may have taken place or connection that may exist with the answers they give is also irrelevant and of no use. Of course, this isn't the case at all. The answers they have already given in fact, tip the two qualities of their drawing to you. This is happening in an indirect way as they try to guess your
drawing, so everything flies right past everyone. The spectator and everyone watching are focusing on the effect of the spectator trying to guess your drawing and you guessing the spectator's drawing has seemingly not even begun yet, so everything appears fair and as it should.
“So just trust your intuition and try to get what this is”. They settle on a drawing and I always just say whatever they name is wrong and give them another object that matches the characteristics I have already specified. Here I would say an object that isn't commonly thought of to help suggest they literally could have thought of anything – as suggested by Peter Turner. The reason I choose to say they are wrong is so that I can say the next line.
“That's okay, it just shows you how hard it is to guess the drawing someone else is thinking of – even when you have been given certain clues about it”. This line will make the subsequent guess of their drawing appear that much more difficult and will therefore make the reveal that much more powerful.
It also suggests that you gave them clues about your drawing and not the other way around. Not only this, it also sets you up for the following convincer.
“Okay, I am going to try to guess your drawing but I don't want you to give me any clues whatsoever”. This line cements the notion that you don't know anything about their drawing which of course, isn't the case – why would you not want them to give you any clues about their drawing, if they already have? You wouldn't. Therefore, they have to assume you are not aware that their first answers gave you any information. This also helps change the meaning of your comment about the drawings matching at the start to that of a simple curiosity which has already apparently been proven as a false impression. Pete prefers to say that they are correct on their final guess and uses the following script as a convincer.
“That's it! You may think that I am just agreeing with whatever you say but if that was the case I wouldn't have told you that you were wrong previously. The only way I can prove this would be for me to now try to guess your drawing without you giving me any clues whatsoever”.
This wraps everything up beautifully and creates a nice logic that makes everything appear congruent. Now you can use the information secretly obtained as well as the length of the word or name for their drawing to nail their exact thought of drawing. Here I simply get them to focus on the drawing as a word (for example, House) and have them focus on the amount of letters in this word. Those who know Cups by Michael Murray can apply it here. His ingenious work on diving the amount of letters in a word to know which word a spectator is thinking of can be found in his breakthough book A Piece of My Mind found on his website: www.mindfx.co.uk. If not then simply throw out an amount of letters and get the spectator to tell you the amount of letters if you don't get a reaction. This is such a small piece of information asking for it doesn't seem to lessen the impact of the final reveal. In fact, here is where I would apply Ross Tayler's Context Shift principle, first conceived and used by Peter Turner on his Devil in Disguise DVD and throw away the process with the following scripting.
“Actually, forget the word as this is the wrong way to
think about a drawing, so instead just focus on the actual image for me”. It appears as if the amount of letters and the word are irrelevant and are being ignored and this in turn, cancels out any possible method and the notion that their previous answer helps you to guess their drawing. If you examine the list of possible drawings you will see that now you are in a very good position to correctly reveal their thought of drawing 9 times out of 10. They are separated into the following categories. If they are focusing on a natural object they can not hold in their hands then it will likely be one of these objects:
MOON. SUN. TREE. If it is man made and too large to hold in their hands (or they can't hold it in their hands because it is not an actual thing such as a stick-man):
CAR. BOAT. AEROPLANE. STICK-MAN. HOUSE. TABLE. CHAIR.
Note: if they take a while to think of the amount of letters in their word then you can usually be sure they are thinking of an aeroplane or a stick-man at this point and dismiss the process early without getting an exact amount of letters. Then it is a simple matter of using a fishing statement to distinguish between the two potential drawings (as described below). If it is natural and can be held in their hands it might be one of these objects:
FISH. FLOWER. CAT. DOG. And for man made objects that can be held in their hands:
GLASS. PEN. PENCIL. BALL. The only drawings that might cause you problems when you know the exact amount of letters in their word are HOUSE and TABLE and MOON and TREE – with more becoming a problem if you decide to add more outs to each category of potential drawings. A simple way around this problem is to apply a hanging statement where you make a statement about one of the two potential drawings you are down to and if you don't get a reaction then instantly correct yourself ala Peter Turner.
This will simply look as if you are getting a feel for what it is they have drawn and are simply trying to work it out from the impressions you are receiving and will in no way look like fishing, if performed correctly. For example, if you are left with HOUSE and TABLE as potential drawings, you may say the following statement:
“This is something you go inside? NO. I think this is actually inside one of these”. Now I would write TABLE/ CHAIR as my prediction to cover yet another potentially commonly thought of drawing. CAT/ DOG would also work well for this type of written out. This will still seem to be a “hit” no matter which item the spectator was focusing on, as these objects would usually be thought of as going together. If they are focusing on the two possibilities of MOON and TREE then a distinguishing statement you might want to use would be.
“I feel this is something you would look up at and can touch? NO infact, it is something you would reach out and touch if you could”.
I will leave it to you to expand on the amount of potential drawings you want to cover and to combine the basic method with your favourite verbal/ physical outs. You could also just apply more than one hanging statement to nail down on the exact drawing, without using any form of out. I prefer to not complicate the method further but instead use this as taught and find a 90% chance of success adequate for my needs. Naturally, you could present this in the classical way and have the spectator actually draw what they are focusing on then draw it yourself and have both drawings turned around at the same time to show they match. I will leave it to you how you decide to perform it. Enjoy! Fraser
