Keep Making Magic! — Shaun Jay
Michael Jackson is no stranger to the world of illusion. Besides being an incredibly talented musician, he was a master stage entertainer and would often support other magicians by seeing their shows and even consulted with them to add unique illusions and effects to his own stage productions. One of the most notable and frequent magical collaborators was a good friend of Jeff. His name is Franz Harary. (See video link at end of article).
Because Michael was a perfectionist, he was always looking for ways to create the right. “look” for his music videos and stage productions. Costuming certainly wasn’t left out of the equation here because what I’m about to share as a very fine detail built into his costume for the “smooth criminal “music video that many of you may not have known existed until now. I was very surprised when I found this video just a few months ago. After sharing this with Jeff, he suggested I share it with you all in the secret art journal and here we are!
This small costume detail perfectly translates over to silk magic. I’m not sure if he got this idea from another magician or reading a book on silk magic but my guess is he probably just thought of it out of practicality and necessity.
During one of the scenes where Michael and other dancers were in a dark warehouse, Michael can be seen wearing a tie as a part of his costume. This was around the same time of the video sequence where he does the now famous “lean”, seemingly defying gravity.
At one point in his movement, he is spinning quickly and then stops or he whips his head to one side and turns his body very quickly. During that turn, he wanted his tie to have some bit of weight in it so it would lag behind and then when he stopped moving there would be left over swing almost swinging like a pendulum, emphasizing his movements. Normally, a silk tie wouldn’t move that way on your body, but he requested a very simple modification to his tie which was to sew a quarter into the back of it to give it a little weight so it could swing with some momentum when his body would twist and turn. (See video link at end of article).
This immediately made me think of something I did with a long rainbow streamer back when I was 13 in a stage show. It was one of those streamers about 6 to 8 inches wide by let’s say 6 feet or so. I was pulling a streamer out of some type of production device and throwing it up in the air and having it sail out into the distance, but of course a regular streamer is so lightweight that it really doesn’t go anywhere if you were to yank it out and toss it forward it just floats there and slowly flutters to the ground… This is where adding some type of weight really helps. At first, I too used a coin like a half dollar and placed it at one end of the streamer and folded a piece over the coin, then sewed that area shut, keeping the coin in the silk pocket (See images 1-8 for a simple visual explanation).
It made an immediate difference, and the weight and momentum of the coin itself, pulls the lightweight silk along for the ride.
Later, I discovered after losing the coin because the pocket was so loose from my poor hand sewing skills, the quarter fell out and I ended up inserting one of those pink school erasers instead! You know the rectangular pink erasers? I used to use one in school all the time back when we used actual books and notepads (remember those?). Before everything went online.
That eraser had more weight than a coin and stayed inside the silk easier because of its tackiness, and it didn’t slide out of my super loose DIY pocket that I made. As a special bonus, it didn’t hurt as much when it hit me on top of the head when I was practicing! 😉
After sharing this with Jeff, he mentioned how he also used coins as weights to his advantage by having them sewn in the four corners of his zombie foulard in order to keep the corners being pulled in a downward direction and not flying away in the wind, especially when performing outside. He also mentioned another good tip, which was to actually wet the foulard being used I’m assuming to give it more tackiness to adhere to the ball or to just give it more weight in general. Doing these things are crucial if you ever desired or attempted to perform any kind of zombie effect outdoors with the wind as one of your uncontrollable variables.
For me, it was honestly just something I discovered while playing with throwing silks and trying to emulate that kabuki silk streamer vibe without having to buy and replace rice paper streamers all the time so I figured maybe there’s some way that I could do it with the silk streamer that I already have and it can be reusable… I’m pleased to say that it works very well!
You can toss a silk streamer up and it can have a very big parabolic arc that can be very pretty depending on what effect you’re trying to create… Just bunch up the silk like an accordion sprinkling confetti in there along the way and have it clipped somehow whether it be a bulldog clip a paper clip or any other of your favorite silk clips once it is stolen and you release it just like a kabuki streamer, holding onto one end and letting the other end fly or simply by pulling it out of a change bag or any other production device just grab the end with the coin or that eraser or whatever weight you decide to put on the end and and chuck it forward up and out, of course, being mindful of not letting that weighted and hit anyone on the head, of course…
This is something cheap and extremely effective to do to enhance your silk production effects.
I’m sure they’re are many more little subtle secrets we can discover by studying great performers like Michael Jackson that we can add either to our repertoire or our tool kit and I hope you found this useful and perhaps could be something you could use in your performances!
For your reference, I’ve included links to videos that will embellish what I’ve mentioned here in this journal entry along with other links to keep your creative gears turning.
Enjoy and keep making magic!
Shaun Jay
REFERENCE LINKS:
MICHAEL JACKSON QUARTER BEHIND TIE:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJkJv6aSVz2/?igsh=ZDdqNzI5ODNjcm8x
FRANZ HARARY’S SPIKER ILLUSION USED IN MICHAEL JACKSON’S SHOW:
https://youtu.be/j7eApeNkR5c?si=lhj2oX7nGlajk0KE
FOR FURTHER CREATIVE INSPIRATION CHECK OUT MY PODCAST SHOW, “THE MAKING MAGIC PODCAST”:
AUDIO PLAYLIST:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-magic-with-shaun-jay/id1567396550
YOUTUBE VIDEO PLAYLIST:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRNzAWYLU_NBVvZbNcKiuBKoI3j0Eg8ec&si=BF7puhZ3XXlMJg00
FRANZ HARARY’S EPISODE:
https://youtu.be/RuXrexDrMV8?si=Pkf32VSVGZGo3tAI
JEFF MCBRIDE’S EPISODE:
https://youtu.be/gweB3BNwdXk?si=ZPJtun8DvK9mtZQT
HAVE AN IDEA FOR A MAGIC EFFECT, PROP, OR INVENTION? CHECK OUT MY 3D DESIGN AND PRINTING COMPANY: https://raleigh3ddesign.com
