August 15, 2025 • 46 mins
By demystifying the craft, exposing its secrets, and reducing complex tricks to bite-sized content, has the foundation of all magic – mystery – been eroded?
Joining us to delve into this world is Cosentino, Australia’s most successful magician, illusionist and escape artist - known to audiences around the world as ‘The Grand Illusionist’.
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https://www.tiktok.com/@thecosentino
00:00 The Journey to Becoming The Grand Illusionist
04:07 The Impact of Technology on Magic
07:37 The Evolution of Performance Styles
12:05 Navigating Fame and Social Media
17:06 Balancing Secrets and Exposure in Magic
22:47 The Evolution of Magic in the Digital Age
27:45 The Impact of Technology on Magic Performance
31:46 The Art of Creating Wonder
37:13 Leveraging Technology for Magic
41:20 Advice for Aspiring Magicians
Let us know what else you’d like us to look into, or just say hello at https://www.ruinedbytheinternet.com/
magic, illusion, Cosentino, performance, technology, social media, emotional connection, advice for magicians, live shows, digital age
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Ruined by the Internet.
I'm Gareth King. Today we're asking, has the
Internet ruined magic and illusion?
By demystifying the craft, exposing its secrets and
reducing complex tricks to bite sized content, has the
foundation of all magic mystery been eroded?
Joining us to delve into this world is Cosentino, Australia's
most successful magician, illusionist and escape artist,
(00:23):
known to audiences around the world as the Grand Illusionist.
Cosantino, thank you so much forjoining us today and welcome to
the show. My absolute pleasure.
Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Before we begin, can you tell usabout your journey from just
starting out to becoming the Grand Illusionist?
(00:45):
Oh wow. I started Magic when I was very,
very young. When I was 12.
I was very shy kid, very introverted, low self esteem.
This is all due to the fact thatI had a lot of learning
difficulties. I didn't learn to read till I
was 12 and it was challenging. My mother was a school principal
and she was going mad and they were taking me to all these
specialist classes and they weresaying, you know, he can't, he
(01:07):
can't see properly. So they took me to the
optometrist and they would say read out the letters and I
couldn't read them. So they gave me glasses which I
could see, I could see perfectlywell.
I just couldn't read the letters.
And then I'd basically fallen through the cracks.
And my mother, like I said, she was going absolutely mad.
And one day she take took me to the library, which of course is
(01:28):
the last place a kid who can't read wants to be.
And I'm there forced to look through books.
And I came across a beautiful book that had these old
vaudevillian posters of these famous magicians from the late
18, early 1900s. And they look like comic books.
They, they predate comic books, but they, they're hand
illustrated and they're originally designed to do
massive posters to be stuck on the walls outside theatres to
(01:51):
attract an audience and bring them in.
And basically it drew me in. And I remember seeing this
poster of this guy with with allthese handcuffs up his wrist and
he was like kind of staring downthe barrel of the camera.
And I said to my mother, who, who is this guy?
And she said, that's Houdini. And she went on to explain who
he was and what he did and how he would jump off bridges
handcuffed and chained. And he would do these incredible
(02:12):
things. He'd be locked up in gaol cells
all across the globe and somehowgot out of them.
People thought he melted and dematerialized through them.
And I thought, wow, this is awesome.
He's like a superhero. And my mother said, well, no,
he's not make believe. He's not even a comic book.
He's a real guy. He really did this.
That is what fascinated me. And so we borrowed this
particular book and in the back of it, it had magic tricks
(02:33):
designed for adults. And so my mother would patiently
sit with me. She would read the tricks to me,
the description of how it would look to an audience and then the
method or the secret. And it's quite complicated.
And it would have these little illustrations and you'd have to
like, read each word, analyse it, then kind of go, oh, OK, so
I've got to put the pack of cards in my left hand and I've
got to put my, my right pinky onthis.
(02:53):
So you have to, you know, reallydissect everything.
And that process with her patience led to me understanding
what I was reading as opposed tojust listening.
And quite complicated, too, for a kid that was 12.
And, you know, metamorphosis andtransposition and all these
words, like, I couldn't even read.
Like, these are big words for a kid.
And I, I learned some magic tricks.
(03:14):
And through this process, I was so fascinated.
There was no Internet. You couldn't learn magic through
any other means. You had to go to a library,
borrow a book. And I became obsessed.
And I, I learned to read. And of course, reading is linked
to writing and spelling, but more importantly, it was linked
to my confidence. And so I could finally read and
this weight was lifted and I gained a very unique skill.
So that's how it all started. I didn't see a magician on TV or
(03:36):
the Internet or anything like that and thought, oh, that's
cool, let's do that. I just learnt a little skill
that made me feel special and unique from a kid who was coming
from a place where they were very crippled.
Like, I mean, I'll be at the back of the classroom with my
head down, avoid being asked a question.
You know, I'd get so embarrassedif the teacher said read out
loud, obviously because I couldn't read.
(03:56):
So I was disguising all these disabilities.
And then magic kind of really enhanced me and my personality.
And that's why I think I love itso much.
I'm still passionate about it, you know, over 2 decades later.
Having been in the game for sucha long time now, what would you
say are the biggest changes you've seen in in Magic that
have been born out of the Internet and technology?
When I grew up watching Magic inthe 90s, it was very theatrical,
(04:19):
so you had people like David Copperfield and Sigfred and Roy.
Before that, in the the 70s, there was a guy called Doug, but
I would go back and watch his VHS tape.
So very, very much based on theatre and everything you saw
was kind of the stage show but filmed for television.
Tell you what also changed in the beginning, how you would
discover magic tricks. You didn't just go into a magic,
(04:40):
they started to to kind of dwindle away.
So you'd read a description online about a trick and then
you would kind of purchase that trick or get the rights to that
trick. Instead of going to a library to
read a book and learn a trick, you would kind of purchase one
off off a website that could be from anywhere around the world.
Very often you would get something that was absolute
trash, but that was the first change to me.
(05:02):
Yeah. So that's almost almost a
different kind of accessibility even before we get into, you
know, watching step by What would you say the biggest
challenge for someone like yourself?
(05:24):
Who's who? Does you know big stage
illusions when you're in competition for attention
against someone who primarily does small TikTok type videos?
And does someone who can master both have an obvious advantage?
It's really interesting because as magicians even from in
Australia that have massive TikTok followings or social
(05:45):
media followings, but it doesn'tnecessarily mean that following
translates to a life scenario. Like so in magic, there's close
up magic. Close up magic could be done in
a restaurant or be done in a party.
Then you've got St magic, which is a bit more like busking.
Then you've got theatre stage illusions.
Then you've got kind of a parlour setting, which is more
like stand up kind of comedy magic.
So there's all these different genres and then within that
(06:05):
there's like escapes, there's grand illusions, there's
mentalism. So you know, creating the
illusion that you're reading people's minds or predicting the
future. So there's all these sub genres
as well. And now there's different ways
to present it could be on TV, could be live, could be all on
social media platforms. So because of the literal 90
seconds to 3 minutes that you have, the tricks that people are
(06:27):
presenting now seem to be, in myopinion, less theatrical and
more about the actual just a trick because you kind of have
no choice. Now.
I come from a world where you build up the theatrics.
So for example, if I was going to do some kind of escape,
instead of just doing the escape, I want to prove that I'm
using real locks, that I'm really holding my breath, that
(06:47):
there's no way for me to escape from the water tank.
That in itself takes 3 minutes just to prove all that to the
audience. So in order for me to tackle
that, when I present online, it's completely different to how
I do a stage show or even a television show.
Even in television, you can takea little more time, and that to
me makes the magic more potent and that adds to the drama of
(07:13):
what you're about to do. So for me, presentation is, I
mean, I know people would argue against me, but from my
perspective, presentation is lost.
So I don't know. I, I think it's challenging for
me because I've got to keep switching in like, OK, and I'm
doing this for social media. So it's going to look like this.
I'm doing this for stage. It looks like that.
But I, I, I think now I'm reallygetting a handle on how to
(07:34):
tackle each one. But if you were to say to me,
what do I prefer doing even overlike my own television?
I've done so much TV. I, I, I prefer live, which is so
much harder to do, but it allowsa little breathing room and,
and, and, and seeing magic live.I, I, I think nobody would argue
against me on this. Seeing it live is far more
spectacular than seeing it, whether it's on TV or on social
(07:55):
media. That's, you know, such an
interesting, interesting point because obviously you have had
that huge success in the live environment and in the TV
environment. And as you said, also down to
say, the social media environment, the live
experience, even if it is being broadcast directly through ATV
screen, you're still only getting one tiny piece of the
(08:17):
puzzle. But that said, can you just
quickly tell us a few of your favourite performances that
you've done? Wow.
I've done. I'll tell you what, we really
was very, very special to me. My hero growing up in the 90s
was David Copperfield. And, and just still to this day,
I think it's hard to argue against how spectacular he was
and, and how much he changed my art form.
(08:40):
So I still think he's, he's the GOAT.
And I saw him as a teenager at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne
and I was in the 2nd row and I made sure that I got the best
tickets possible. And I, I remember sitting next
to his parents. I knew who his parents were.
I was a big, big fan of him. And I was sitting right next to
his parents. I actually gave his parents a
(09:00):
letter that they gave to ended up giving to David Copperfield.
And he ended up writing me a letter and they're giving me a
sign. PO It was lovely.
It was lovely. Anyway, so the point is I'm at
the Regent Theatre, I'm in the 2nd row and I'm watching David
Copperfield and it's just spectacular.
And that would have been in 1998or 99.
And then in 2011, when I auditioned for Australia's Got
(09:21):
Talent, I had to walk out on stage on the Regent Theatre and
I thought, Oh my gosh, this is where David Copperfield
performed. I'm incredible.
And here I was now being in front of a live audience and
being judged. It was very overwhelming.
And then exactly a year later, after Australia's Got Talent,
Dara was again at the Regent Theatre filming my own
television special and being thefirst Australian ever have their
(09:44):
own TV special on the same stage.
And it was like this really fullcircle moment for me.
So it's not one particular piece, but I guess it, those
three pieces together in that same venue hold a very special
place in in my heart. You know, seeing my hero
auditioning on this show and then doing my own show and being
the first to ever do it very, very so that that that was very,
(10:04):
very special. But in many moments when I'm
performing in Singapore, Marina Bay Sands is incredible,
performing in Vietnam, being on the streets of the Philippines,
performing like I have so many fond memories and I'm really
look, it's not easy what I do, man, Everyone, everyone says
it's probably about the job, butit but it's very rewarding.
You spoke about something there,which was that first audition on
(10:27):
Australia's Got Talent of yours.Obviously you've been at it for
for a while before that moment from that audition, which you
just talked about to becoming like this global name was a very
rapid, right? For any young magician out there
that might be thinking this is something I'm going to do as
well. What might they face today that
you didn't have to face at that point?
(10:49):
I had done 15 years prior to Australia's Got Talent of work.
And when I mean work, I mean proper work, like working on
cruise ships, putting on shows in shopping centres, you know,
10 shows a week, doing school incursions, putting on my own
theatre shows, creating my own posters, working out how to, you
know, take a photo, no iPhones, no iPhones.
So working how to work with a photographer and pose and then
(11:12):
going to a graphic designer, I happened to be a cousin work,
sitting with them, working out how to use, you know, Photoshop
and they're doing all that and there's no camera, there was no
like quick video and all that stuff.
So I had to learn all these things.
So 15 years to get to Australia's Got Talent.
And then you kind of see that quick progression, but not
really quick. From my perspective, I was ready
(11:32):
for it and it kind of turbocharged everything.
Actually, it took three years for me to agree to do the show,
but I was doing my own shows. I agreed to do their show.
I didn't even think too much about it.
In actual fact, I couldn't even make my second audition because
I was in some regional town doing my own show.
And I said, oh guys, I can't make it.
It's all good, don't worry aboutit.
And they were like, no, no, no, no, no, we'll get you there.
And they kind of worked around my schedule to get me there.
(11:53):
So I was doing my own thing shows and then that turbocharged
everything and all those shows sold out.
And it was a lot of work to get to that that point and then let
it kind of skyrocket. And I guess the second part of
your question was what would be the difference now?
I think everything is now online.
And this is interesting. Actually.
When we did Australia's Got Talent, they said to us, you're
not allowed to post on Facebook or Instagram about your
(12:15):
performances. That sounds like madness now,
doesn't it? Yeah, I have heard actually
similar things around say, reality shows these days.
I guess the people on the shows,we'll call them the stars, you
know, have their accounts kind of embargoed and and managed by
the networks. So it's interesting to hear that
that was happening all the way back then before there was so
(12:36):
much that we've learnt around the impact of social media and
the way that people operate online since then.
But on that point, there's 2 twothings I want to touch on as
well. You know, we know that if you
were a young a young person trying to get into it now,
you've obviously got the abilityto build a following and kind of
(12:57):
create your own pathways which which weren't available to say
someone like your yourself. But back to the notion around
performance and, you know, theatrics, which is quite a big
part of what you do in the current digital world that we're
in, which elements of magic and illusion have become more
important than ever. Is it that theatrics and
(13:19):
performance and even kind of personality?
Look, I'm always going to lean towards that because that's how
I kind of grew up. That's what I grew up watching.
You know, my my heroes were GeneKelly and Fred Astaire and
Michael Jackson and Madonna and Prince and very theatrical
performers. So I'm always going to lean that
way. I kind of think now with social
media, I believe people are veryfixated on the actual trick,
(13:39):
like getting the trick out. You've got 90 seconds, get the
trick out, make it be a really good trick.
Now there is personality involved in it, like the way
people speak or how they might present it or film it or light
it. I think everything, I think
what's really worthy of success in magic is presentation.
It's just challenging to do thatin in such a short time span.
Has the the move towards social media and people kind of
(14:03):
building a following via short clips, is that almost detracted
from the amount of people wanting to do the big
performances or is it, you know,is there still the same
aspiration amongst? People no, I think it's the same
aspiration because I see people with social media following,
building up their, their, their following their database of
(14:26):
people and then always trying todo theatre show.
You seem to see, you actually see it a lot too with with
comedians who might be really hot online then all of a sudden
like they're doing a stand up tour show or whatever it may be.
So I do think it always comes back to the live show no matter
what happens. For some reason it still seems
to come back to that. Yeah, it does feel that what you
(14:46):
do is so I mean at least to me anyway, it feels like so much
more special in in a live kind of let's call it analogue for
just the the purposes of this versus digital where you might
be looking at it through a screen.
I mean you're not getting much of the vibe or anything through
through screen. But how do performers today
(15:06):
balance protecting the secrets of those live performances
amongst the realities of of an interconnected digital world
where people are trying to expose those tricks?
How much we consider is that when you're preparing or
planning or performing and is ita big hurdle to anything that
you do? Yeah, I mean, you can get bogged
(15:26):
down in overthinking, like, OK, so if I if I put like a snippet
of this particular piece online,then does it give too much away
of the show? Kind of like when you're moving,
there's a trailer that comes outand everyone goes all the best
parts, we're in the trailer, youknow?
So yeah, I'm quite conscious of that and not giving too much
away and keeping a lot of surprise, the element of
surprise for the live show. And then there's another aspect
(15:48):
of like people going to try and debunk all of this if it's put
online and, and, and what's you know, what's that?
But but you can get, honestly, you can get so caught up in all
of that that you forget why you're doing what you're doing
in the 1st place. All the secrets of how
everything is done is readily available now.
So we come back now again to howis it presented?
(16:09):
How are you wrapping it up? How are you packaging it?
Is it entertaining if it's too much about the trick again,
which is again, which is interesting because online it's
to me, it's all about the trick.But if it's too much about the
trick, then you've lost a huge part of that connection you make
with the audience. And I'll give you an example.
I do a piece in the show. It's the linking rings.
(16:29):
Everyone knows what it is. Everyone's seen it for years.
It's nothing spectacular. And I do the ACT because I talk
about it being the first routinethat I learned as a little boy
that I performed for my mother, who obviously taught me how to
read and taught me magic. And she was really blown away by
it. And I performed it to music.
It was very theatrical. And she said, oh, it's so
beautiful. And you know, I love it so much.
(16:51):
Make sure when you grow up, you never, you never lose that.
So I tell this story and it's quite emotional and mothers
connect with it. And then I performed the linking
ring routine, which is only withtwo rings.
It's nothing spectacular. I'm being honest about it.
But the reason why we keep it isbecause of the story.
And that story connects. Yeah, yeah.
And. And that makes that PE, you
know, here I am hanging upside down from burning ropes, jumping
(17:13):
in and out of water tanks, making people appear and
disappear and teleport and levitate.
And I remember that. So that tells you it's about an
emotional connection that kind of transforms the experience,
which again in the digital worldis is a little more challenging
to do than than as we said in the analogue world.
Yeah, of course. And I think you raised a good
(17:35):
point there that I want to go into now as well.
If everyone's kind of only got avery short window of time to
communicate something like a highlight reel online, does that
change your approach of producing stuff for online or is
it still you're still trying to give it as much of A sell as you
can? No, no, no, online you're very
(17:56):
conscious and you're also conscious because you can tell
if you do like a three minute, 4minute video, it doesn't get
anywhere near the same kind of attention than if you did a, a
32nd video or a 92nd video. So yes, I'm, I'm actually
conscious of sometimes I don't care.
It's just like, well, I'm just gonna do it, whatever.
But yeah, you do think about ego.
Geez, I can't really put a 6 minute piece up.
You do it definitely changes theapproach.
(18:17):
And again, some people kind of they're in that genre.
So instead of them being a closeup magician or a stage magician,
they're like, you know, an online magician, which is
totally fine. It's just a very different
approach. And maybe they shouldn't be
compared. Like maybe we we shouldn't be
saying, oh, people who do it online aren't as good as people
who do it live or vice versa. Like maybe that's not that's not
(18:39):
a thing. But it's kind of like a
recording artist being able to record in a studio and then you
hear them live and you go, oh, OK, what happened there?
Because I could record my trick,you know, a dozen times to get
it right. I mean, you could you end up
being a recorded magician to some degree.
Again, that's a I'm not, no, butyou know, magicians, if they
hear this, it just is what it is.
(19:00):
It's a different way to to to kind of get it out there.
Yeah, OK. And I think on, on that point,
you know, like Once Upon a time,as, as you mentioned, it was all
very in person, you know, kind of that's where the, all the
mesmerising is, is happening. And people would have to try and
figure, figure it out. Like what wow, how did they do
that? As opposed to, OK, I'm going to
(19:22):
find out how they did that, where you try and find the, the
link of all the steps that kind of breakdown the trick.
So there's, there's online, you know, a lot of people that kind
of produce that content, which is breaking stuff down and
revealing the secrets. What's, what's generally the
feeling about that stuff? Is it kind, is it a good thing
(19:43):
to be like, Hey, people are people are interested in what
I'm doing? This is great.
It's more eyeballs on on the artform.
Or is it something you try and stay one step ahead of?
Like I've got to, I've got to make something that can't be
figured out by people just looking for, you know, clicks
and likes by revealing my secrets.
Look, I think exposing magic forthe purpose of teaching so
(20:05):
people can learn the art form and get involved, I think that's
OK. But exposing for the sake of
exposing for likes, I'm not a huge fan.
It reminds me of like when I wasa child growing up and the mass
magician was on TV and he'd reveal a lot of tricks.
And the problem was that he didn't even give you all the
steps. He only gave you the steps that
were interesting, so you couldn't even do the tricks.
(20:25):
That was a whole other problem because it became very
misogynistic and it was very, itkind of belittled the art form.
It simplified it too much and itsaid that was a huge problem,
but we got over that. But yeah, you, I think what
happens is people fall into thistrap.
They're performing magic online and then maybe they show how
tricky he's done and that gets the most attention.
So then all of a sudden they go,oh, oh, okay, that's
(20:47):
interesting. Then they do another trick
online, and then they do anothertrick where they expose it
online. It gets more attention again.
They go, wow, So what's gaining the likes or the attention is
when I reveal the trick or turn the camera from behind.
So they see you performing to someone.
But the audience, which would bethe people online watching, they
can see how the trick is done. When they realise that that gets
the most attention, their focus switches to that.
(21:09):
I think that's what happens. You blend, you know, that
traditional kind of big performance stuff with some
technology within within what you're doing.
Are all performers embracing technology is kind of a choice?
Are they forced to, or is there almost a segment that prefers
doing things, you know, for lackof a better word, that kind of
(21:30):
artisanal way? I can only look at it from
outside perspective as a magician though.
In general, magicians are very quick to adapt.
Example would be when the pandemic hit, straight away
magicians jumped online, realised that now they're
working within this frame. There's certain limitations but
there's certain advantages. Like I did so many shows online
(21:52):
with Zoom and there's advantagesto, to being online too.
Honestly, magicians were jumpingonline, putting on live shows or
online before anybody. I mean, I saw some comedians try
and do it and it was very interesting that it didn't quite
have the same effect. And the comedians really needed
that laughter feedback. Whereas the magician, I can work
(22:13):
with you interactively through the screen, you know, think of a
number, think of a colour. Wow, here it is.
So magicians are really clever with technology in in my show,
there's a lot of tech being usedthat you're unaware of.
So yeah. Please, please don't tell me.
Tell me what it is. So.
So we've adapted So. Much and and and that's one, if
(22:36):
I'm being honest, that's one of the major positives I can see
that technology has allowed us to do things that seemed
impossible like five years ago. And again, being disguised
though so it looks very basic, like you might just be using, I
don't know, a piece of paper anda pen or whatever it may be but
but you know, there's a lot going on.
Magicians are adapt like they'veadapted and they've been using
(22:58):
it a lot. Yeah, cool.
It's interesting. Yeah, no, that's, that's a,
that's a really good point. And I'd like to explore that a
little bit more now. So you've mentioned that you
incorporate it in all these waysthat that no one will even know.
And let's, let's keep, let's keep it that way for now.
What other ways, you know, people within the industry kind
of using it to, to help their careers along or, or help get
(23:22):
them started? We know in music, a lot of
youngsters might produce music, say in their bedroom and, and
then they can just put it onlineand, and get a start that way.
And it just kind of breaks down all those what were previously
large barriers to entry for, forpeople to getting into
different, you know, creative pursuits.
Yes. Is this the same within the
(23:43):
world of of magic and illusion? And how is that playing out?
Yeah, absolutely. Cause 'cause I remember being a,
a kid and having to, I hired A venue, put on a show, no
audience, pretended there was anaudience, filmed it all.
Had to hire camera crew. You know, had to budget for all
of this, save up all my money, you know, put on a show, then
had to have someone edit it for me.
(24:04):
And then we had to package it onVHS tapes, put little stickers
on and then had to get a database list of agents,
managers, promoters, physically send out the VHS tape, call him.
Did you watch it? No, you know, write a letter.
It was just so much harder and, and and costly to get like this
tape into people's hands and they had to physically get the
tape, pull up, you know, put it in push play, spend the time to
(24:27):
watch it. So now you can just film
yourself and it's acceptable. You could film yourself just
sitting where I am right now presenting the magic.
And that can straight away be emailed to an agent or a manager
taking photographs where you gotyou can do it on your phone.
Now you have to bring in a professional photographer and
filming yourself, editing yourself.
All of that's now done in house.So it it, it is lowered the
(24:49):
entry barrier, which is a great thing.
It's then when you go to the next level that there's still
kind of this, this kind of this gap between everyone that's kind
of gets interested in it and gets involved in it online.
And then whether it becomes liketheir profession and, and what's
happening, what's happening next.
But I think that's a good thing about magic and it's exposed
more people to it because of that.
(25:13):
So yes, if I, if you would ask me, what would would I, what
would I have preferred? Yeah, I would have preferred to
be able to have done it in person here, not having to hire
a venue and, and, and hire a camera crew or anything like
that. Just hire my, my friend who
loves filming, you know, or whatever it may be or film
myself. Like I don't think young people
know how how lucky they are in that regard and how you can get
(25:37):
your video into someone else's as his hands.
Does having so many more people able to kind of access and and
get into the world and try theirown luck essentially, does that
lift the overall quality by challenging everyone to almost
compete against each other to push themselves?
Does you know the saying a rising tide lift all boats apply
(25:58):
to your industry? Yeah, I think it does.
I think having more people involved in it from coming from
different, different worlds likethis mixing pot brings new ideas
to it, which I've, I've definitely seen an elevation in,
in, in the quality of what people are doing.
(26:19):
And like anything, it's like, you know, I remember in
Australia, we always used to have this thing about like, oh,
we don't have a really good soccer team and we know we're
not very good at soccer, but that's because we didn't really
have training programmes to get young people involved.
And so you, you got to be able to nurture that.
So I think, I definitely think by that, that entry barrier
being lower, I think it brings more people in.
(26:40):
Whereas in the past there was a lot of the shut doors, like if,
if you, if you wanted to learn magic, you really had to kind of
seek it out, go to the library, borrow a book, spend the time,
analyse it, try and work out what's going on, go to a magic
shop, join a magic club. Like all of a sudden there's
here, there's a lot more involved already than just being
on YouTube. The magic magic shop, from my
(27:02):
experience would be like, no, you're not really ready to learn
that or they wouldn't let you learn that.
Like they would go keep it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. It was pretty like part of that
sucked. Like, I'm being honest, part of
that was a bit like, well, why? You know who who are you to tell
me that? But then part of me is also
like, it's also like, you know, when you see kids, I did some
like break dance classes when I was a kid and all the kids
(27:24):
wanted to do is learn how to do backflips.
But you, you, they, you have to learn like you have to, they all
want to do the cool tricks, but the teacher would be like, no,
you got to learn this first, or you got to understand this
foundation or you could hurt yourself or, you know, there's
no point just learning big tricks.
But some kids just wanted to learn big tricks because really
what they wanted to do was show so off show the big tricks.
I think that's a little bit thatcan happen in magic too.
(27:45):
So, but I do think in general that that more people are being
involved and more thinking lifts, yeah, lifts, lifts the
entire art form I do. And I think that one of the
things that you know, everybody would be aware of is that that
can now come very easily from anywhere around the world.
And you can see what people are doing all over the globe.
(28:06):
Rather than kind of your local shop, where as you said, you
might get gate kept out of accessing a, a certain trick,
which is which is cool. But does, you know, with so many
people kind of tuning in online,does that demand for content
mean that people can get burnt out trying to keep up with that
demand? Or do you really just focus on,
(28:28):
you know, your own thing? And if it translates down into a
piece of content, that's wicked.If it doesn't, OK, cool.
The bigger, the bigger performance and the bigger
illusion. That's the real goal.
For me, you've described me 100%.
My goal is, you know, I do television, I do live shows, and
then socials are secondary. Not because I don't like it,
(28:49):
just because to put a whole theatrical stage show together
and any magician or any performer knows this, it's very,
very challenging to actually do a 2 hour show and do it properly
and seamless and cast and crew and lighting and sound and AV
and everything. Question.
So you know, that's what I do primarily.
So that's my first focus and my first love.
But I think other people, their focus would be, I just want to
(29:12):
do the content online and or no,I'm getting results from the
content online and therefore alltheir focus and energy is on
that, which makes sense because that's where the results are
coming from. But but you can tell online
magicians, pretty much their focus is is is.
Online, you know, makes sense that it would be a bit difficult
to translate something that you've purposely focused on a
(29:33):
creator to be viewed through such a tiny device into a world
where it is just so much more wondrous and, and big.
And, you know, for me personally, like that's where
the wow factor comes from. And, you know, I'm somebody that
doesn't actually want to know how it's done.
I would, I would rather keep, you know, some magic in the
(29:54):
world, like if you're a kid and Santa's coming or you know,
Easter Bunny or whatever it is. So I don't really want to know
the the secrets behind what you do, but there is a lot of people
that do. And obviously there's there's
that demand for that kind of content, knowing that that world
exists where there's a an entiresubsection of the audience that
exists to literally just peek behind the curtain and know how
(30:17):
it's done. Does that mean that when you
create this genuine sense of wonder and disbelief in an
audience, is that even more rewarding these days?
Yeah. Absolutely.
And some degree of the live audience, everyone's got access
at their fingertips to, to, to how things are done.
And so when you manage to amaze and baffle and not fool, it's
(30:39):
not about ha ha, I'm really, really clever.
You're not that. That is never the way that I
approach it. But to bring that sense of
astonishment is a beautiful thing.
And yes, now in today's age, it feels even more special to some
degree. And this is something you learn
very, very quickly as a magician.
You think it's all about you. In the beginning, like I got
(31:00):
into magic because I was shy, I was introverted, and I learned
how to eat fire, and then I learned how to take a $5 note
and change it to A10. It's all about me, Me, me, me,
me, me, me, me, me. It's a very selfish endeavour.
You practise in your bedroom by yourself in front of a mirror,
watching yourself, videotaping yourself, Self, self, self,
self, self. I'm the grand illusionist.
And then you realise it's not about me at all.
(31:20):
It's actually, and I don't know if all magicians realise that,
but I definitely realise that it's not about me, it's actually
about the audience. How does the audience feel?
Again, when I did that linky wing routine, how did I make
them feel? I have to share a part of myself
in order to move them, in order to touch their souls.
And so it's not about me and, and, and I think that's an
interesting growth that you go through in the beginning, but I
(31:44):
forgot what your first, what theactual question was.
I mean, you, you've covered it that, that it's more rewarding
delivering that you know you areessentially, even though what
you know you're doing is as a magician, you are delivering
that feeling that magic exists in the world.
You could draw a connection between it and say that world of
of professional wrestling where if you kind of suspend disbelief
(32:08):
just to enjoy it for what it is,you can get it.
Although I think you know what you do is is on another level
compared to say professional wrestling, but there is
parallels there. Yeah, there is, there's
parallels. For sure between, yes, I am a
fully grown adult, I know that it is, it is a trick or it is
kind of rehearsed or something. But yeah, being able to just
(32:29):
kind of compartmentalise that and enjoy it for what it is
almost comes full circle all theway back to, you know, 100 years
ago where people were forced to just enjoy it for what it was,
which was that entertainment, which is, which is a very ironic
thing that, you know, as technology and access to digital
(32:50):
means has just permeated througheverything, It almost generates
that traditional wonderment backagain by the nature of everyone
being so used to seeing things that are as they seem online.
So when you're right, right, youknow, you're seeing it in the
world, you're like, Oh my God, you know, magic does exist.
And yes. Yeah, and it becomes quite.
(33:10):
It's very powerful, especially live, because again, I go back
to online or on television and I'm very conscious of this.
You can sometimes justify it. Like you'd say, that's an actor
that's set up, that's not real. If I was there, I would know how
it's done. Then you come and watch the live
show and you go, huh, well, thatperson's not set up because
(33:32):
that's my brother. So that's not set up.
How did he know that? Or I can't see any strings.
I thought they levitated with strings.
I don't see any strings. Do you see any strings?
I don't see any strings. So all of a sudden you start
getting sucked into it the same way when you go watch a concert
or a sporting match. It's great watching it on TV.
To some degree on TV it's better.
Like you can see the commentators explaining
everything about the sporting match and you can see everything
really clearly. But what a difference when
(33:54):
you're in the actual event and there's that that energy around
you. So the magic show is 100% works
on that. And I going back to what you
said earlier, I'll just never understand the idea.
But by exposing magic for the sake of exposing it, as he said,
because it's like running aroundkind of saying, hey, Christmas
is coming up, guys. And guess what?
(34:14):
You know, Santa's not real. Like, what does that do for you?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Like, I'm not really sure what, like all you've done is kind of
like killed some fucking kids. Like, you know, they decide, oh,
really? Like they'll find that in their
own time. You know, where the Santa is
real or not real. And you know what?
What a beautiful thing to imagine.
Like, like, you know, when you first fanned out.
(34:37):
I hope there's not too many children like watching this.
You know, when you first found out you were kind of weren't you
disappointed? I know I was.
I was, of course. Oh, really?
I remember that. Sucks.
Some kid told me I was in like grade 2 and, and I didn't want
to believe it. You know, I was just like, I
held on for, you know, a couple of days longer.
And then I think someone else told me and, and then I probably
(34:59):
asked my parents. And so, you know, like
destroying someone's belief in something just to do it and, and
show how clever you are. Yeah.
And, and I'll tell you somethingelse that's interesting too.
I, from my own experience, and again, other people may have a
different experience. I have found that when I, I'm
not trying to insult anyone, when I have performed for highly
(35:21):
intellectual people, I always find, I always used to think, oh
man, they're going to dissect it, they're going to debunk it,
They're going to try. And, and this has happened.
And I, I performed at conferences with, with surgeons
and I thought, this is going to be a tough gig.
This is going to be really, really challenging.
And they're the ones that are the most kind of immersed in it.
(35:43):
And they see every nuance and they go, wow, Now how you said
this and how you said that, and I don't know, maybe it's because
they're more, maybe they can just see it more clearly as
opposed to sometimes performing for an audience that maybe they
don't have that same outlook. They're not, not as maybe
they're as worldly. I'm not sure what it is.
Then they're the ones that seem to feel like you are attacked,
(36:03):
attacking their intelligence. And therefore, yes, and
therefore they kind of go, well,I I know how you did that.
That's that stuff like this. Yeah.
Most of the times they're wrong,to be honest.
That's a. Really interesting point there
that they are feeling that, yes,it's a magic trick, but maybe
they're seeing it as you tricking them like they're a
(36:23):
fool as opposed to, you know, the sleight of hand or wow, how
did they did that? Yeah, that's, that's
interesting. And I think that that's
obviously the people with that focus and that approach to, to
being an audience or an observeris obviously one of the, the
downsides that's much more prevalent through, you know,
(36:43):
the, the, the proliferation of, of digital access and, and the
Internet through the industry. But everything that you've said
as well, it sounds like there's so many positives that have
seen, you know, the craft, you know the industry itself and and
you know, the whole world of magic and illusion grow and
expand into new and exciting ways, which is obviously
(37:04):
fantastic. That said, what would you say
the biggest positive of technology and and magic
colliding has been? OK, so from my perspective,
there'd be two things. It would be like the other day I
had, I had someone in Vegas email me and say, Hey, we're
looking at doing this particulargig.
Can you do AB And CI was like, Yep, cool.
(37:26):
Boom, send them the video straight away.
Done. Like it's just that quick.
And they go, wow, yes, you made a helicopter appear.
You did this, you did that. And like the, the, the, the
communication is just so quick and it's so like, and they can
see what you do straight away. And so things move much more
quickly. Another thing that's really
interesting pictures, like when I do international TV pictures,
(37:48):
local pictures, but Interstate, we do it like this.
And, and so it's kind of, I usedto have to get on an aeroplane,
fly to Sydney, going to the studio, sit down at the board,
you know, like it was, it was, it was very, you know, it was
cumbersome. It was, there was a lot
involved. So little things.
I just think of other things like little things like that.
You know, the international TV shows have aired in 22
(38:08):
countries. I can talk to all those
different countries, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, like
this. Yeah, yeah.
All that work and promotion is like a benefit to me.
Then there's obviously the technological side that works to
make magic more, more magical isthe best way to put it.
And the other thing that I love is in my show, we incorporate a
lot of AV content and screens. So what I do now is I have a
(38:31):
roving camera. I've been doing this for a long,
long time, but I have a roving camera with me the whole time.
Not like in a concert where you know you're seeing the
performances from so far away that they're on the screen so
you can watch them sing. No, no, no.
What I mean is like, I want to show you a particular apparatus.
I say I bring the camera in, have a look at the trunk, have a
look inside. It's completely empty.
Yes. Is it solid?
Look, I'll show you that it's solid.
(38:51):
Great. So I'm proving to the audience
that this is real. I'm about to do this crazy death
defying escape. You know, look at the tank.
It's a Perspex tank. It's solid.
Look at the glass lid, that's solid.
Look at the steel bars. Look, they're solid.
So the audience, even though they're sitting there, they
really get brought in and you get to prove everything.
That to me has enhanced the magic and I've I've really
(39:13):
embraced that because using thatkind of technology, I don't
know, just it, it just makes it more immersive.
It's probably the word I'm looking for, not just so like
I'm sitting there and that's. The show, yeah, that's, that's
quite insightful that point there around involving that
technology and giving people that close up look like once
(39:35):
they can see actually there is where are the hidden wires or
where, I don't know, I don't know the kind of things they're
expecting to see. But once they can see that it's
not there through getting that close up view, it almost turns
the magic back up rather than, you know, letting them peek
behind the curtains. So to see, oh, OK, how it's
(39:57):
done, that's not something that I'd I'd thought about.
So that's very interesting to hear that giving people access
through technology can almost baffle and bewilder them even
more. And.
And what we also do is before a big escape, I have a pre filmed
content that I explain, this is the escape.
(40:17):
These are the locks, these are the handcuffs, these are the
chains. And all of that is like a little
kind of build up to what I'm about to do again, to prove that
what I'm doing is real. So without it, I then
traditionally have to do it on stage, bring somebody up and it,
it can kind of slow the pace a little bit.
So by having it in a video packaged up quite neat and tidy
(40:39):
it, it kind of sets the audienceup for now.
This, this thing that's about tohappen.
Instead of watching the screens,the curtains shut and then the
video finishes. They now know what's going to
happen. They know.
They know what the challenge is.The kernel flies out and we're
ready to go. So it's just working out ways to
incorporate it to enhance what we're doing as opposed to taking
taking away. And that's, that's, I think a
(41:01):
perfect summation there, the kind of workflow.
And you said something a couple of minutes ago around you're
able to leverage technology to instantly pitch ideas all over
the world and, and communicate like that, which I would imagine
frees up so much more time to focus on developing the
entertainment as well. What's one piece of advice you
(41:22):
would give to anybody interestedin in getting involved and, you
know, thinking they, they don't know where to start.
They're intrigued by what they've perhaps seen online and
want to learn how that they can,you know, start performing for
themselves. What's one piece of advice that
you would? Give that.
Let me see. Oh, there's so much that I
(41:42):
would. Let's say 3 pieces then.
OK, I look, I think it's really good to learn magic online
because you can visually watch it and you can mimic, and that
makes the process of learning much easier.
But then there's a point where Ithink you should try and get a
book and learn from the book. Because once you understand
(42:04):
magic a little bit and the mechanics and how things are
supposed to be, learning from a book forces you to really
analyse what the trick is about,where all the little mistakes
can kind of happen. And then you're forced to take
what's on the page and go, OK, so I've got this card trick.
What do I do with it now? What do I do?
(42:24):
I do. I tell a story.
Do I talk about my grandfather giving me this deck of cards?
Is it? Did I learn it from a famous
magician? You start thinking, like, all of
a sudden you got to start thinking.
When you watch it online, you just go, oh, cool.
OK, so there you just end up copying it.
And So what you end up with is many of the same people kind of
doing the same effect, the same way with the same personality.
(42:46):
And so if you're quite sincere about being a magician, then at
some point you'll you're going to want to learn to develop your
own kind of style and your own approach.
And you can only do that by almost shutting off what
everybody else is doing. That's definitely what I did
(43:07):
when I was growing up. I was influenced by lots of
people and said, you're kind of afraid to see all these
wonderful people. David Copperfield Houdini.
But then there's a point where you kind of got to shuttle that
away and try and find your own style.
And now it's just so much harderonline because you're just
constantly watching how other people do it, other people do
it. And so you kind of just, well,
that's the way you do it and, and you'll do it well.
(43:27):
But if you learn it from a book,you'll then be forced to do it
to an audience. Let's say you do it to your
parents and you go, oh, that didn't work, Mum didn't respond.
Then all of a sudden you think about it, why didn't mum
respond? And you start to analyse the
effect more. It ends up being a little more
challenging and you have to put more time into it.
If you really are interested in pursuing the art form, if you
just want to learn a trick, I think it's just good to, you
(43:48):
know, it's great to do it onlineor learn from a video.
It just depends where you want to go with it or what you want
to do. So my advice, I guess, is learn
your trick online and then at some point learn from books.
Like honestly, really learn frombooks.
The trick is only one aspect, the storytelling, the
presentation, the showmanship isanother.
That would be my, my, my advice.And I would say if you want to
(44:08):
be a great magician, you have tolove the process of practise and
rehearsal. If you don't, I don't know, you
can be that good. So you can't just love.
You can't just love that result.Yeah, it makes a lot of sense
that like everything, you know, you get out of it kind of what
you put in. And you, you said something
there too, which is exactly whatI was thinking, that developing
(44:31):
your own storytelling to build that, as you mentioned earlier,
emotional connection is what really is going to make someone
kind of stand out on on their own.
But Speaking of storytelling, tell us what you've got coming
up, and then how can people follow what you're up to?
Yes, I've got a brand new tour. We've called it tricked.
Why? Because it's a bit of a play on,
(44:52):
you know, people always think you you're coming out there to
try and trick them. And obviously the way my
approach is that I'm not really there.
I'm not trying to fool you. I'm not trying to prove that I'm
so much more intelligent than you are.
That's not the idea at all. And it's a brand new tour, new
illusions, new escapes, new close ups, slide of hammaging, a
lot of technology involved all this AV content, LED screen.
(45:13):
So we can explain, you know, do what I was explaining to you
earlier, like show things on camera, lots of close up work,
lots of interaction with the audience, very immersive.
And I'm touring, it's starting to tour all around the country.
So people can find out by going to my website
cosentino.com.eusoitscosentino.comdot AU all all my socials, which
(45:34):
is the Cosentino on all platforms.
Awesome, Cosantino, thank you somuch for joining us.
My pleasure, thank you for having me.
For more info on what we've discussed today, check out the
show notes. If you enjoyed this one, you can
subscribe to Ruined by the Internet on your favourite
podcast app and help spread the word by sharing this episode or
leaving a review. I'm Gareth King, see you next
(45:55):
time.
Welcome to Ruined by the Internet.
I'm Gareth King. Today we're asking, has the
Internet ruined magic and illusion?
By demystifying the craft, exposing its secrets and
reducing complex tricks to bite sized content, has the
foundation of all magic mystery been eroded?
Joining us to delve into this world is Cosentino, Australia's
most successful magician, illusionist and escape artist,
(00:23):
known to audiences around the world as the Grand Illusionist.
Cosantino, thank you so much forjoining us today and welcome to
the show. My absolute pleasure.
Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Before we begin, can you tell usabout your journey from just
starting out to becoming the Grand Illusionist?
(00:45):
Oh wow. I started Magic when I was very,
very young. When I was 12.
I was very shy kid, very introverted, low self esteem.
This is all due to the fact thatI had a lot of learning
difficulties. I didn't learn to read till I
was 12 and it was challenging. My mother was a school principal
and she was going mad and they were taking me to all these
specialist classes and they weresaying, you know, he can't, he
(01:07):
can't see properly. So they took me to the
optometrist and they would say read out the letters and I
couldn't read them. So they gave me glasses which I
could see, I could see perfectlywell.
I just couldn't read the letters.
And then I'd basically fallen through the cracks.
And my mother, like I said, she was going absolutely mad.
And one day she take took me to the library, which of course is
(01:28):
the last place a kid who can't read wants to be.
And I'm there forced to look through books.
And I came across a beautiful book that had these old
vaudevillian posters of these famous magicians from the late
18, early 1900s. And they look like comic books.
They, they predate comic books, but they, they're hand
illustrated and they're originally designed to do
massive posters to be stuck on the walls outside theatres to
(01:51):
attract an audience and bring them in.
And basically it drew me in. And I remember seeing this
poster of this guy with with allthese handcuffs up his wrist and
he was like kind of staring downthe barrel of the camera.
And I said to my mother, who, who is this guy?
And she said, that's Houdini. And she went on to explain who
he was and what he did and how he would jump off bridges
handcuffed and chained. And he would do these incredible
(02:12):
things. He'd be locked up in gaol cells
all across the globe and somehowgot out of them.
People thought he melted and dematerialized through them.
And I thought, wow, this is awesome.
He's like a superhero. And my mother said, well, no,
he's not make believe. He's not even a comic book.
He's a real guy. He really did this.
That is what fascinated me. And so we borrowed this
particular book and in the back of it, it had magic tricks
(02:33):
designed for adults. And so my mother would patiently
sit with me. She would read the tricks to me,
the description of how it would look to an audience and then the
method or the secret. And it's quite complicated.
And it would have these little illustrations and you'd have to
like, read each word, analyse it, then kind of go, oh, OK, so
I've got to put the pack of cards in my left hand and I've
got to put my, my right pinky onthis.
(02:53):
So you have to, you know, reallydissect everything.
And that process with her patience led to me understanding
what I was reading as opposed tojust listening.
And quite complicated, too, for a kid that was 12.
And, you know, metamorphosis andtransposition and all these
words, like, I couldn't even read.
Like, these are big words for a kid.
And I, I learned some magic tricks.
(03:14):
And through this process, I was so fascinated.
There was no Internet. You couldn't learn magic through
any other means. You had to go to a library,
borrow a book. And I became obsessed.
And I, I learned to read. And of course, reading is linked
to writing and spelling, but more importantly, it was linked
to my confidence. And so I could finally read and
this weight was lifted and I gained a very unique skill.
So that's how it all started. I didn't see a magician on TV or
(03:36):
the Internet or anything like that and thought, oh, that's
cool, let's do that. I just learnt a little skill
that made me feel special and unique from a kid who was coming
from a place where they were very crippled.
Like, I mean, I'll be at the back of the classroom with my
head down, avoid being asked a question.
You know, I'd get so embarrassedif the teacher said read out
loud, obviously because I couldn't read.
(03:56):
So I was disguising all these disabilities.
And then magic kind of really enhanced me and my personality.
And that's why I think I love itso much.
I'm still passionate about it, you know, over 2 decades later.
Having been in the game for sucha long time now, what would you
say are the biggest changes you've seen in in Magic that
have been born out of the Internet and technology?
When I grew up watching Magic inthe 90s, it was very theatrical,
(04:19):
so you had people like David Copperfield and Sigfred and Roy.
Before that, in the the 70s, there was a guy called Doug, but
I would go back and watch his VHS tape.
So very, very much based on theatre and everything you saw
was kind of the stage show but filmed for television.
Tell you what also changed in the beginning, how you would
discover magic tricks. You didn't just go into a magic,
(04:40):
they started to to kind of dwindle away.
So you'd read a description online about a trick and then
you would kind of purchase that trick or get the rights to that
trick. Instead of going to a library to
read a book and learn a trick, you would kind of purchase one
off off a website that could be from anywhere around the world.
Very often you would get something that was absolute
trash, but that was the first change to me.
(05:02):
Yeah. So that's almost almost a
different kind of accessibility even before we get into, you
know, watching step by What would you say the biggest
challenge for someone like yourself?
(05:24):
Who's who? Does you know big stage
illusions when you're in competition for attention
against someone who primarily does small TikTok type videos?
And does someone who can master both have an obvious advantage?
It's really interesting because as magicians even from in
Australia that have massive TikTok followings or social
(05:45):
media followings, but it doesn'tnecessarily mean that following
translates to a life scenario. Like so in magic, there's close
up magic. Close up magic could be done in
a restaurant or be done in a party.
Then you've got St magic, which is a bit more like busking.
Then you've got theatre stage illusions.
Then you've got kind of a parlour setting, which is more
like stand up kind of comedy magic.
So there's all these different genres and then within that
(06:05):
there's like escapes, there's grand illusions, there's
mentalism. So you know, creating the
illusion that you're reading people's minds or predicting the
future. So there's all these sub genres
as well. And now there's different ways
to present it could be on TV, could be live, could be all on
social media platforms. So because of the literal 90
seconds to 3 minutes that you have, the tricks that people are
(06:27):
presenting now seem to be, in myopinion, less theatrical and
more about the actual just a trick because you kind of have
no choice. Now.
I come from a world where you build up the theatrics.
So for example, if I was going to do some kind of escape,
instead of just doing the escape, I want to prove that I'm
using real locks, that I'm really holding my breath, that
(06:47):
there's no way for me to escape from the water tank.
That in itself takes 3 minutes just to prove all that to the
audience. So in order for me to tackle
that, when I present online, it's completely different to how
I do a stage show or even a television show.
Even in television, you can takea little more time, and that to
me makes the magic more potent and that adds to the drama of
(07:13):
what you're about to do. So for me, presentation is, I
mean, I know people would argue against me, but from my
perspective, presentation is lost.
So I don't know. I, I think it's challenging for
me because I've got to keep switching in like, OK, and I'm
doing this for social media. So it's going to look like this.
I'm doing this for stage. It looks like that.
But I, I, I think now I'm reallygetting a handle on how to
(07:34):
tackle each one. But if you were to say to me,
what do I prefer doing even overlike my own television?
I've done so much TV. I, I, I prefer live, which is so
much harder to do, but it allowsa little breathing room and,
and, and, and seeing magic live.I, I, I think nobody would argue
against me on this. Seeing it live is far more
spectacular than seeing it, whether it's on TV or on social
(07:55):
media. That's, you know, such an
interesting, interesting point because obviously you have had
that huge success in the live environment and in the TV
environment. And as you said, also down to
say, the social media environment, the live
experience, even if it is being broadcast directly through ATV
screen, you're still only getting one tiny piece of the
(08:17):
puzzle. But that said, can you just
quickly tell us a few of your favourite performances that
you've done? Wow.
I've done. I'll tell you what, we really
was very, very special to me. My hero growing up in the 90s
was David Copperfield. And, and just still to this day,
I think it's hard to argue against how spectacular he was
and, and how much he changed my art form.
(08:40):
So I still think he's, he's the GOAT.
And I saw him as a teenager at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne
and I was in the 2nd row and I made sure that I got the best
tickets possible. And I, I remember sitting next
to his parents. I knew who his parents were.
I was a big, big fan of him. And I was sitting right next to
his parents. I actually gave his parents a
(09:00):
letter that they gave to ended up giving to David Copperfield.
And he ended up writing me a letter and they're giving me a
sign. PO It was lovely.
It was lovely. Anyway, so the point is I'm at
the Regent Theatre, I'm in the 2nd row and I'm watching David
Copperfield and it's just spectacular.
And that would have been in 1998or 99.
And then in 2011, when I auditioned for Australia's Got
(09:21):
Talent, I had to walk out on stage on the Regent Theatre and
I thought, Oh my gosh, this is where David Copperfield
performed. I'm incredible.
And here I was now being in front of a live audience and
being judged. It was very overwhelming.
And then exactly a year later, after Australia's Got Talent,
Dara was again at the Regent Theatre filming my own
television special and being thefirst Australian ever have their
(09:44):
own TV special on the same stage.
And it was like this really fullcircle moment for me.
So it's not one particular piece, but I guess it, those
three pieces together in that same venue hold a very special
place in in my heart. You know, seeing my hero
auditioning on this show and then doing my own show and being
the first to ever do it very, very so that that that was very,
(10:04):
very special. But in many moments when I'm
performing in Singapore, Marina Bay Sands is incredible,
performing in Vietnam, being on the streets of the Philippines,
performing like I have so many fond memories and I'm really
look, it's not easy what I do, man, Everyone, everyone says
it's probably about the job, butit but it's very rewarding.
You spoke about something there,which was that first audition on
(10:27):
Australia's Got Talent of yours.Obviously you've been at it for
for a while before that moment from that audition, which you
just talked about to becoming like this global name was a very
rapid, right? For any young magician out there
that might be thinking this is something I'm going to do as
well. What might they face today that
you didn't have to face at that point?
(10:49):
I had done 15 years prior to Australia's Got Talent of work.
And when I mean work, I mean proper work, like working on
cruise ships, putting on shows in shopping centres, you know,
10 shows a week, doing school incursions, putting on my own
theatre shows, creating my own posters, working out how to, you
know, take a photo, no iPhones, no iPhones.
So working how to work with a photographer and pose and then
(11:12):
going to a graphic designer, I happened to be a cousin work,
sitting with them, working out how to use, you know, Photoshop
and they're doing all that and there's no camera, there was no
like quick video and all that stuff.
So I had to learn all these things.
So 15 years to get to Australia's Got Talent.
And then you kind of see that quick progression, but not
really quick. From my perspective, I was ready
(11:32):
for it and it kind of turbocharged everything.
Actually, it took three years for me to agree to do the show,
but I was doing my own shows. I agreed to do their show.
I didn't even think too much about it.
In actual fact, I couldn't even make my second audition because
I was in some regional town doing my own show.
And I said, oh guys, I can't make it.
It's all good, don't worry aboutit.
And they were like, no, no, no, no, no, we'll get you there.
And they kind of worked around my schedule to get me there.
(11:53):
So I was doing my own thing shows and then that turbocharged
everything and all those shows sold out.
And it was a lot of work to get to that that point and then let
it kind of skyrocket. And I guess the second part of
your question was what would be the difference now?
I think everything is now online.
And this is interesting. Actually.
When we did Australia's Got Talent, they said to us, you're
not allowed to post on Facebook or Instagram about your
(12:15):
performances. That sounds like madness now,
doesn't it? Yeah, I have heard actually
similar things around say, reality shows these days.
I guess the people on the shows,we'll call them the stars, you
know, have their accounts kind of embargoed and and managed by
the networks. So it's interesting to hear that
that was happening all the way back then before there was so
(12:36):
much that we've learnt around the impact of social media and
the way that people operate online since then.
But on that point, there's 2 twothings I want to touch on as
well. You know, we know that if you
were a young a young person trying to get into it now,
you've obviously got the abilityto build a following and kind of
(12:57):
create your own pathways which which weren't available to say
someone like your yourself. But back to the notion around
performance and, you know, theatrics, which is quite a big
part of what you do in the current digital world that we're
in, which elements of magic and illusion have become more
important than ever. Is it that theatrics and
(13:19):
performance and even kind of personality?
Look, I'm always going to lean towards that because that's how
I kind of grew up. That's what I grew up watching.
You know, my my heroes were GeneKelly and Fred Astaire and
Michael Jackson and Madonna and Prince and very theatrical
performers. So I'm always going to lean that
way. I kind of think now with social
media, I believe people are veryfixated on the actual trick,
(13:39):
like getting the trick out. You've got 90 seconds, get the
trick out, make it be a really good trick.
Now there is personality involved in it, like the way
people speak or how they might present it or film it or light
it. I think everything, I think
what's really worthy of success in magic is presentation.
It's just challenging to do thatin in such a short time span.
Has the the move towards social media and people kind of
(14:03):
building a following via short clips, is that almost detracted
from the amount of people wanting to do the big
performances or is it, you know,is there still the same
aspiration amongst? People no, I think it's the same
aspiration because I see people with social media following,
building up their, their, their following their database of
(14:26):
people and then always trying todo theatre show.
You seem to see, you actually see it a lot too with with
comedians who might be really hot online then all of a sudden
like they're doing a stand up tour show or whatever it may be.
So I do think it always comes back to the live show no matter
what happens. For some reason it still seems
to come back to that. Yeah, it does feel that what you
(14:46):
do is so I mean at least to me anyway, it feels like so much
more special in in a live kind of let's call it analogue for
just the the purposes of this versus digital where you might
be looking at it through a screen.
I mean you're not getting much of the vibe or anything through
through screen. But how do performers today
(15:06):
balance protecting the secrets of those live performances
amongst the realities of of an interconnected digital world
where people are trying to expose those tricks?
How much we consider is that when you're preparing or
planning or performing and is ita big hurdle to anything that
you do? Yeah, I mean, you can get bogged
(15:26):
down in overthinking, like, OK, so if I if I put like a snippet
of this particular piece online,then does it give too much away
of the show? Kind of like when you're moving,
there's a trailer that comes outand everyone goes all the best
parts, we're in the trailer, youknow?
So yeah, I'm quite conscious of that and not giving too much
away and keeping a lot of surprise, the element of
surprise for the live show. And then there's another aspect
(15:48):
of like people going to try and debunk all of this if it's put
online and, and, and what's you know, what's that?
But but you can get, honestly, you can get so caught up in all
of that that you forget why you're doing what you're doing
in the 1st place. All the secrets of how
everything is done is readily available now.
So we come back now again to howis it presented?
(16:09):
How are you wrapping it up? How are you packaging it?
Is it entertaining if it's too much about the trick again,
which is again, which is interesting because online it's
to me, it's all about the trick.But if it's too much about the
trick, then you've lost a huge part of that connection you make
with the audience. And I'll give you an example.
I do a piece in the show. It's the linking rings.
(16:29):
Everyone knows what it is. Everyone's seen it for years.
It's nothing spectacular. And I do the ACT because I talk
about it being the first routinethat I learned as a little boy
that I performed for my mother, who obviously taught me how to
read and taught me magic. And she was really blown away by
it. And I performed it to music.
It was very theatrical. And she said, oh, it's so
beautiful. And you know, I love it so much.
(16:51):
Make sure when you grow up, you never, you never lose that.
So I tell this story and it's quite emotional and mothers
connect with it. And then I performed the linking
ring routine, which is only withtwo rings.
It's nothing spectacular. I'm being honest about it.
But the reason why we keep it isbecause of the story.
And that story connects. Yeah, yeah.
And. And that makes that PE, you
know, here I am hanging upside down from burning ropes, jumping
(17:13):
in and out of water tanks, making people appear and
disappear and teleport and levitate.
And I remember that. So that tells you it's about an
emotional connection that kind of transforms the experience,
which again in the digital worldis is a little more challenging
to do than than as we said in the analogue world.
Yeah, of course. And I think you raised a good
(17:35):
point there that I want to go into now as well.
If everyone's kind of only got avery short window of time to
communicate something like a highlight reel online, does that
change your approach of producing stuff for online or is
it still you're still trying to give it as much of A sell as you
can? No, no, no, online you're very
(17:56):
conscious and you're also conscious because you can tell
if you do like a three minute, 4minute video, it doesn't get
anywhere near the same kind of attention than if you did a, a
32nd video or a 92nd video. So yes, I'm, I'm actually
conscious of sometimes I don't care.
It's just like, well, I'm just gonna do it, whatever.
But yeah, you do think about ego.
Geez, I can't really put a 6 minute piece up.
You do it definitely changes theapproach.
(18:17):
And again, some people kind of they're in that genre.
So instead of them being a closeup magician or a stage magician,
they're like, you know, an online magician, which is
totally fine. It's just a very different
approach. And maybe they shouldn't be
compared. Like maybe we we shouldn't be
saying, oh, people who do it online aren't as good as people
who do it live or vice versa. Like maybe that's not that's not
(18:39):
a thing. But it's kind of like a
recording artist being able to record in a studio and then you
hear them live and you go, oh, OK, what happened there?
Because I could record my trick,you know, a dozen times to get
it right. I mean, you could you end up
being a recorded magician to some degree.
Again, that's a I'm not, no, butyou know, magicians, if they
hear this, it just is what it is.
(19:00):
It's a different way to to to kind of get it out there.
Yeah, OK. And I think on, on that point,
you know, like Once Upon a time,as, as you mentioned, it was all
very in person, you know, kind of that's where the, all the
mesmerising is, is happening. And people would have to try and
figure, figure it out. Like what wow, how did they do
that? As opposed to, OK, I'm going to
(19:22):
find out how they did that, where you try and find the, the
link of all the steps that kind of breakdown the trick.
So there's, there's online, you know, a lot of people that kind
of produce that content, which is breaking stuff down and
revealing the secrets. What's, what's generally the
feeling about that stuff? Is it kind, is it a good thing
(19:43):
to be like, Hey, people are people are interested in what
I'm doing? This is great.
It's more eyeballs on on the artform.
Or is it something you try and stay one step ahead of?
Like I've got to, I've got to make something that can't be
figured out by people just looking for, you know, clicks
and likes by revealing my secrets.
Look, I think exposing magic forthe purpose of teaching so
(20:05):
people can learn the art form and get involved, I think that's
OK. But exposing for the sake of
exposing for likes, I'm not a huge fan.
It reminds me of like when I wasa child growing up and the mass
magician was on TV and he'd reveal a lot of tricks.
And the problem was that he didn't even give you all the
steps. He only gave you the steps that
were interesting, so you couldn't even do the tricks.
(20:25):
That was a whole other problem because it became very
misogynistic and it was very, itkind of belittled the art form.
It simplified it too much and itsaid that was a huge problem,
but we got over that. But yeah, you, I think what
happens is people fall into thistrap.
They're performing magic online and then maybe they show how
tricky he's done and that gets the most attention.
So then all of a sudden they go,oh, oh, okay, that's
(20:47):
interesting. Then they do another trick
online, and then they do anothertrick where they expose it
online. It gets more attention again.
They go, wow, So what's gaining the likes or the attention is
when I reveal the trick or turn the camera from behind.
So they see you performing to someone.
But the audience, which would bethe people online watching, they
can see how the trick is done. When they realise that that gets
the most attention, their focus switches to that.
(21:09):
I think that's what happens. You blend, you know, that
traditional kind of big performance stuff with some
technology within within what you're doing.
Are all performers embracing technology is kind of a choice?
Are they forced to, or is there almost a segment that prefers
doing things, you know, for lackof a better word, that kind of
(21:30):
artisanal way? I can only look at it from
outside perspective as a magician though.
In general, magicians are very quick to adapt.
Example would be when the pandemic hit, straight away
magicians jumped online, realised that now they're
working within this frame. There's certain limitations but
there's certain advantages. Like I did so many shows online
(21:52):
with Zoom and there's advantagesto, to being online too.
Honestly, magicians were jumpingonline, putting on live shows or
online before anybody. I mean, I saw some comedians try
and do it and it was very interesting that it didn't quite
have the same effect. And the comedians really needed
that laughter feedback. Whereas the magician, I can work
(22:13):
with you interactively through the screen, you know, think of a
number, think of a colour. Wow, here it is.
So magicians are really clever with technology in in my show,
there's a lot of tech being usedthat you're unaware of.
So yeah. Please, please don't tell me.
Tell me what it is. So.
So we've adapted So. Much and and and that's one, if
(22:36):
I'm being honest, that's one of the major positives I can see
that technology has allowed us to do things that seemed
impossible like five years ago. And again, being disguised
though so it looks very basic, like you might just be using, I
don't know, a piece of paper anda pen or whatever it may be but
but you know, there's a lot going on.
Magicians are adapt like they'veadapted and they've been using
(22:58):
it a lot. Yeah, cool.
It's interesting. Yeah, no, that's, that's a,
that's a really good point. And I'd like to explore that a
little bit more now. So you've mentioned that you
incorporate it in all these waysthat that no one will even know.
And let's, let's keep, let's keep it that way for now.
What other ways, you know, people within the industry kind
of using it to, to help their careers along or, or help get
(23:22):
them started? We know in music, a lot of
youngsters might produce music, say in their bedroom and, and
then they can just put it onlineand, and get a start that way.
And it just kind of breaks down all those what were previously
large barriers to entry for, forpeople to getting into
different, you know, creative pursuits.
Yes. Is this the same within the
(23:43):
world of of magic and illusion? And how is that playing out?
Yeah, absolutely. Cause 'cause I remember being a,
a kid and having to, I hired A venue, put on a show, no
audience, pretended there was anaudience, filmed it all.
Had to hire camera crew. You know, had to budget for all
of this, save up all my money, you know, put on a show, then
had to have someone edit it for me.
(24:04):
And then we had to package it onVHS tapes, put little stickers
on and then had to get a database list of agents,
managers, promoters, physically send out the VHS tape, call him.
Did you watch it? No, you know, write a letter.
It was just so much harder and, and and costly to get like this
tape into people's hands and they had to physically get the
tape, pull up, you know, put it in push play, spend the time to
(24:27):
watch it. So now you can just film
yourself and it's acceptable. You could film yourself just
sitting where I am right now presenting the magic.
And that can straight away be emailed to an agent or a manager
taking photographs where you gotyou can do it on your phone.
Now you have to bring in a professional photographer and
filming yourself, editing yourself.
All of that's now done in house.So it it, it is lowered the
(24:49):
entry barrier, which is a great thing.
It's then when you go to the next level that there's still
kind of this, this kind of this gap between everyone that's kind
of gets interested in it and gets involved in it online.
And then whether it becomes liketheir profession and, and what's
happening, what's happening next.
But I think that's a good thing about magic and it's exposed
more people to it because of that.
(25:13):
So yes, if I, if you would ask me, what would would I, what
would I have preferred? Yeah, I would have preferred to
be able to have done it in person here, not having to hire
a venue and, and, and hire a camera crew or anything like
that. Just hire my, my friend who
loves filming, you know, or whatever it may be or film
myself. Like I don't think young people
know how how lucky they are in that regard and how you can get
(25:37):
your video into someone else's as his hands.
Does having so many more people able to kind of access and and
get into the world and try theirown luck essentially, does that
lift the overall quality by challenging everyone to almost
compete against each other to push themselves?
Does you know the saying a rising tide lift all boats apply
(25:58):
to your industry? Yeah, I think it does.
I think having more people involved in it from coming from
different, different worlds likethis mixing pot brings new ideas
to it, which I've, I've definitely seen an elevation in,
in, in the quality of what people are doing.
(26:19):
And like anything, it's like, you know, I remember in
Australia, we always used to have this thing about like, oh,
we don't have a really good soccer team and we know we're
not very good at soccer, but that's because we didn't really
have training programmes to get young people involved.
And so you, you got to be able to nurture that.
So I think, I definitely think by that, that entry barrier
being lower, I think it brings more people in.
(26:40):
Whereas in the past there was a lot of the shut doors, like if,
if you, if you wanted to learn magic, you really had to kind of
seek it out, go to the library, borrow a book, spend the time,
analyse it, try and work out what's going on, go to a magic
shop, join a magic club. Like all of a sudden there's
here, there's a lot more involved already than just being
on YouTube. The magic magic shop, from my
(27:02):
experience would be like, no, you're not really ready to learn
that or they wouldn't let you learn that.
Like they would go keep it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. It was pretty like part of that
sucked. Like, I'm being honest, part of
that was a bit like, well, why? You know who who are you to tell
me that? But then part of me is also
like, it's also like, you know, when you see kids, I did some
like break dance classes when I was a kid and all the kids
(27:24):
wanted to do is learn how to do backflips.
But you, you, they, you have to learn like you have to, they all
want to do the cool tricks, but the teacher would be like, no,
you got to learn this first, or you got to understand this
foundation or you could hurt yourself or, you know, there's
no point just learning big tricks.
But some kids just wanted to learn big tricks because really
what they wanted to do was show so off show the big tricks.
I think that's a little bit thatcan happen in magic too.
(27:45):
So, but I do think in general that that more people are being
involved and more thinking lifts, yeah, lifts, lifts the
entire art form I do. And I think that one of the
things that you know, everybody would be aware of is that that
can now come very easily from anywhere around the world.
And you can see what people are doing all over the globe.
(28:06):
Rather than kind of your local shop, where as you said, you
might get gate kept out of accessing a, a certain trick,
which is which is cool. But does, you know, with so many
people kind of tuning in online,does that demand for content
mean that people can get burnt out trying to keep up with that
demand? Or do you really just focus on,
(28:28):
you know, your own thing? And if it translates down into a
piece of content, that's wicked.If it doesn't, OK, cool.
The bigger, the bigger performance and the bigger
illusion. That's the real goal.
For me, you've described me 100%.
My goal is, you know, I do television, I do live shows, and
then socials are secondary. Not because I don't like it,
(28:49):
just because to put a whole theatrical stage show together
and any magician or any performer knows this, it's very,
very challenging to actually do a 2 hour show and do it properly
and seamless and cast and crew and lighting and sound and AV
and everything. Question.
So you know, that's what I do primarily.
So that's my first focus and my first love.
But I think other people, their focus would be, I just want to
(29:12):
do the content online and or no,I'm getting results from the
content online and therefore alltheir focus and energy is on
that, which makes sense because that's where the results are
coming from. But but you can tell online
magicians, pretty much their focus is is is.
Online, you know, makes sense that it would be a bit difficult
to translate something that you've purposely focused on a
(29:33):
creator to be viewed through such a tiny device into a world
where it is just so much more wondrous and, and big.
And, you know, for me personally, like that's where
the wow factor comes from. And, you know, I'm somebody that
doesn't actually want to know how it's done.
I would, I would rather keep, you know, some magic in the
(29:54):
world, like if you're a kid and Santa's coming or you know,
Easter Bunny or whatever it is. So I don't really want to know
the the secrets behind what you do, but there is a lot of people
that do. And obviously there's there's
that demand for that kind of content, knowing that that world
exists where there's a an entiresubsection of the audience that
exists to literally just peek behind the curtain and know how
(30:17):
it's done. Does that mean that when you
create this genuine sense of wonder and disbelief in an
audience, is that even more rewarding these days?
Yeah. Absolutely.
And some degree of the live audience, everyone's got access
at their fingertips to, to, to how things are done.
And so when you manage to amaze and baffle and not fool, it's
(30:39):
not about ha ha, I'm really, really clever.
You're not that. That is never the way that I
approach it. But to bring that sense of
astonishment is a beautiful thing.
And yes, now in today's age, it feels even more special to some
degree. And this is something you learn
very, very quickly as a magician.
You think it's all about you. In the beginning, like I got
(31:00):
into magic because I was shy, I was introverted, and I learned
how to eat fire, and then I learned how to take a $5 note
and change it to A10. It's all about me, Me, me, me,
me, me, me, me, me. It's a very selfish endeavour.
You practise in your bedroom by yourself in front of a mirror,
watching yourself, videotaping yourself, Self, self, self,
self, self. I'm the grand illusionist.
And then you realise it's not about me at all.
(31:20):
It's actually, and I don't know if all magicians realise that,
but I definitely realise that it's not about me, it's actually
about the audience. How does the audience feel?
Again, when I did that linky wing routine, how did I make
them feel? I have to share a part of myself
in order to move them, in order to touch their souls.
And so it's not about me and, and, and I think that's an
interesting growth that you go through in the beginning, but I
(31:44):
forgot what your first, what theactual question was.
I mean, you, you've covered it that, that it's more rewarding
delivering that you know you areessentially, even though what
you know you're doing is as a magician, you are delivering
that feeling that magic exists in the world.
You could draw a connection between it and say that world of
of professional wrestling where if you kind of suspend disbelief
(32:08):
just to enjoy it for what it is,you can get it.
Although I think you know what you do is is on another level
compared to say professional wrestling, but there is
parallels there. Yeah, there is, there's
parallels. For sure between, yes, I am a
fully grown adult, I know that it is, it is a trick or it is
kind of rehearsed or something. But yeah, being able to just
(32:29):
kind of compartmentalise that and enjoy it for what it is
almost comes full circle all theway back to, you know, 100 years
ago where people were forced to just enjoy it for what it was,
which was that entertainment, which is, which is a very ironic
thing that, you know, as technology and access to digital
(32:50):
means has just permeated througheverything, It almost generates
that traditional wonderment backagain by the nature of everyone
being so used to seeing things that are as they seem online.
So when you're right, right, youknow, you're seeing it in the
world, you're like, Oh my God, you know, magic does exist.
And yes. Yeah, and it becomes quite.
(33:10):
It's very powerful, especially live, because again, I go back
to online or on television and I'm very conscious of this.
You can sometimes justify it. Like you'd say, that's an actor
that's set up, that's not real. If I was there, I would know how
it's done. Then you come and watch the live
show and you go, huh, well, thatperson's not set up because
(33:32):
that's my brother. So that's not set up.
How did he know that? Or I can't see any strings.
I thought they levitated with strings.
I don't see any strings. Do you see any strings?
I don't see any strings. So all of a sudden you start
getting sucked into it the same way when you go watch a concert
or a sporting match. It's great watching it on TV.
To some degree on TV it's better.
Like you can see the commentators explaining
everything about the sporting match and you can see everything
really clearly. But what a difference when
(33:54):
you're in the actual event and there's that that energy around
you. So the magic show is 100% works
on that. And I going back to what you
said earlier, I'll just never understand the idea.
But by exposing magic for the sake of exposing it, as he said,
because it's like running aroundkind of saying, hey, Christmas
is coming up, guys. And guess what?
(34:14):
You know, Santa's not real. Like, what does that do for you?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Like, I'm not really sure what, like all you've done is kind of
like killed some fucking kids. Like, you know, they decide, oh,
really? Like they'll find that in their
own time. You know, where the Santa is
real or not real. And you know what?
What a beautiful thing to imagine.
Like, like, you know, when you first fanned out.
(34:37):
I hope there's not too many children like watching this.
You know, when you first found out you were kind of weren't you
disappointed? I know I was.
I was, of course. Oh, really?
I remember that. Sucks.
Some kid told me I was in like grade 2 and, and I didn't want
to believe it. You know, I was just like, I
held on for, you know, a couple of days longer.
And then I think someone else told me and, and then I probably
(34:59):
asked my parents. And so, you know, like
destroying someone's belief in something just to do it and, and
show how clever you are. Yeah.
And, and I'll tell you somethingelse that's interesting too.
I, from my own experience, and again, other people may have a
different experience. I have found that when I, I'm
not trying to insult anyone, when I have performed for highly
(35:21):
intellectual people, I always find, I always used to think, oh
man, they're going to dissect it, they're going to debunk it,
They're going to try. And, and this has happened.
And I, I performed at conferences with, with surgeons
and I thought, this is going to be a tough gig.
This is going to be really, really challenging.
And they're the ones that are the most kind of immersed in it.
(35:43):
And they see every nuance and they go, wow, Now how you said
this and how you said that, and I don't know, maybe it's because
they're more, maybe they can just see it more clearly as
opposed to sometimes performing for an audience that maybe they
don't have that same outlook. They're not, not as maybe
they're as worldly. I'm not sure what it is.
Then they're the ones that seem to feel like you are attacked,
(36:03):
attacking their intelligence. And therefore, yes, and
therefore they kind of go, well,I I know how you did that.
That's that stuff like this. Yeah.
Most of the times they're wrong,to be honest.
That's a. Really interesting point there
that they are feeling that, yes,it's a magic trick, but maybe
they're seeing it as you tricking them like they're a
(36:23):
fool as opposed to, you know, the sleight of hand or wow, how
did they did that? Yeah, that's, that's
interesting. And I think that that's
obviously the people with that focus and that approach to, to
being an audience or an observeris obviously one of the, the
downsides that's much more prevalent through, you know,
(36:43):
the, the, the proliferation of, of digital access and, and the
Internet through the industry. But everything that you've said
as well, it sounds like there's so many positives that have
seen, you know, the craft, you know the industry itself and and
you know, the whole world of magic and illusion grow and
expand into new and exciting ways, which is obviously
(37:04):
fantastic. That said, what would you say
the biggest positive of technology and and magic
colliding has been? OK, so from my perspective,
there'd be two things. It would be like the other day I
had, I had someone in Vegas email me and say, Hey, we're
looking at doing this particulargig.
Can you do AB And CI was like, Yep, cool.
(37:26):
Boom, send them the video straight away.
Done. Like it's just that quick.
And they go, wow, yes, you made a helicopter appear.
You did this, you did that. And like the, the, the, the
communication is just so quick and it's so like, and they can
see what you do straight away. And so things move much more
quickly. Another thing that's really
interesting pictures, like when I do international TV pictures,
(37:48):
local pictures, but Interstate, we do it like this.
And, and so it's kind of, I usedto have to get on an aeroplane,
fly to Sydney, going to the studio, sit down at the board,
you know, like it was, it was, it was very, you know, it was
cumbersome. It was, there was a lot
involved. So little things.
I just think of other things like little things like that.
You know, the international TV shows have aired in 22
(38:08):
countries. I can talk to all those
different countries, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, like
this. Yeah, yeah.
All that work and promotion is like a benefit to me.
Then there's obviously the technological side that works to
make magic more, more magical isthe best way to put it.
And the other thing that I love is in my show, we incorporate a
lot of AV content and screens. So what I do now is I have a
(38:31):
roving camera. I've been doing this for a long,
long time, but I have a roving camera with me the whole time.
Not like in a concert where you know you're seeing the
performances from so far away that they're on the screen so
you can watch them sing. No, no, no.
What I mean is like, I want to show you a particular apparatus.
I say I bring the camera in, have a look at the trunk, have a
look inside. It's completely empty.
Yes. Is it solid?
Look, I'll show you that it's solid.
(38:51):
Great. So I'm proving to the audience
that this is real. I'm about to do this crazy death
defying escape. You know, look at the tank.
It's a Perspex tank. It's solid.
Look at the glass lid, that's solid.
Look at the steel bars. Look, they're solid.
So the audience, even though they're sitting there, they
really get brought in and you get to prove everything.
That to me has enhanced the magic and I've I've really
(39:13):
embraced that because using thatkind of technology, I don't
know, just it, it just makes it more immersive.
It's probably the word I'm looking for, not just so like
I'm sitting there and that's. The show, yeah, that's, that's
quite insightful that point there around involving that
technology and giving people that close up look like once
(39:35):
they can see actually there is where are the hidden wires or
where, I don't know, I don't know the kind of things they're
expecting to see. But once they can see that it's
not there through getting that close up view, it almost turns
the magic back up rather than, you know, letting them peek
behind the curtains. So to see, oh, OK, how it's
(39:57):
done, that's not something that I'd I'd thought about.
So that's very interesting to hear that giving people access
through technology can almost baffle and bewilder them even
more. And.
And what we also do is before a big escape, I have a pre filmed
content that I explain, this is the escape.
(40:17):
These are the locks, these are the handcuffs, these are the
chains. And all of that is like a little
kind of build up to what I'm about to do again, to prove that
what I'm doing is real. So without it, I then
traditionally have to do it on stage, bring somebody up and it,
it can kind of slow the pace a little bit.
So by having it in a video packaged up quite neat and tidy
(40:39):
it, it kind of sets the audienceup for now.
This, this thing that's about tohappen.
Instead of watching the screens,the curtains shut and then the
video finishes. They now know what's going to
happen. They know.
They know what the challenge is.The kernel flies out and we're
ready to go. So it's just working out ways to
incorporate it to enhance what we're doing as opposed to taking
taking away. And that's, that's, I think a
(41:01):
perfect summation there, the kind of workflow.
And you said something a couple of minutes ago around you're
able to leverage technology to instantly pitch ideas all over
the world and, and communicate like that, which I would imagine
frees up so much more time to focus on developing the
entertainment as well. What's one piece of advice you
(41:22):
would give to anybody interestedin in getting involved and, you
know, thinking they, they don't know where to start.
They're intrigued by what they've perhaps seen online and
want to learn how that they can,you know, start performing for
themselves. What's one piece of advice that
you would? Give that.
Let me see. Oh, there's so much that I
(41:42):
would. Let's say 3 pieces then.
OK, I look, I think it's really good to learn magic online
because you can visually watch it and you can mimic, and that
makes the process of learning much easier.
But then there's a point where Ithink you should try and get a
book and learn from the book. Because once you understand
(42:04):
magic a little bit and the mechanics and how things are
supposed to be, learning from a book forces you to really
analyse what the trick is about,where all the little mistakes
can kind of happen. And then you're forced to take
what's on the page and go, OK, so I've got this card trick.
What do I do with it now? What do I do?
(42:24):
I do. I tell a story.
Do I talk about my grandfather giving me this deck of cards?
Is it? Did I learn it from a famous
magician? You start thinking, like, all of
a sudden you got to start thinking.
When you watch it online, you just go, oh, cool.
OK, so there you just end up copying it.
And So what you end up with is many of the same people kind of
doing the same effect, the same way with the same personality.
(42:46):
And so if you're quite sincere about being a magician, then at
some point you'll you're going to want to learn to develop your
own kind of style and your own approach.
And you can only do that by almost shutting off what
everybody else is doing. That's definitely what I did
(43:07):
when I was growing up. I was influenced by lots of
people and said, you're kind of afraid to see all these
wonderful people. David Copperfield Houdini.
But then there's a point where you kind of got to shuttle that
away and try and find your own style.
And now it's just so much harderonline because you're just
constantly watching how other people do it, other people do
it. And so you kind of just, well,
that's the way you do it and, and you'll do it well.
(43:27):
But if you learn it from a book,you'll then be forced to do it
to an audience. Let's say you do it to your
parents and you go, oh, that didn't work, Mum didn't respond.
Then all of a sudden you think about it, why didn't mum
respond? And you start to analyse the
effect more. It ends up being a little more
challenging and you have to put more time into it.
If you really are interested in pursuing the art form, if you
just want to learn a trick, I think it's just good to, you
(43:48):
know, it's great to do it onlineor learn from a video.
It just depends where you want to go with it or what you want
to do. So my advice, I guess, is learn
your trick online and then at some point learn from books.
Like honestly, really learn frombooks.
The trick is only one aspect, the storytelling, the
presentation, the showmanship isanother.
That would be my, my, my advice.And I would say if you want to
(44:08):
be a great magician, you have tolove the process of practise and
rehearsal. If you don't, I don't know, you
can be that good. So you can't just love.
You can't just love that result.Yeah, it makes a lot of sense
that like everything, you know, you get out of it kind of what
you put in. And you, you said something
there too, which is exactly whatI was thinking, that developing
(44:31):
your own storytelling to build that, as you mentioned earlier,
emotional connection is what really is going to make someone
kind of stand out on on their own.
But Speaking of storytelling, tell us what you've got coming
up, and then how can people follow what you're up to?
Yes, I've got a brand new tour. We've called it tricked.
Why? Because it's a bit of a play on,
(44:52):
you know, people always think you you're coming out there to
try and trick them. And obviously the way my
approach is that I'm not really there.
I'm not trying to fool you. I'm not trying to prove that I'm
so much more intelligent than you are.
That's not the idea at all. And it's a brand new tour, new
illusions, new escapes, new close ups, slide of hammaging, a
lot of technology involved all this AV content, LED screen.
(45:13):
So we can explain, you know, do what I was explaining to you
earlier, like show things on camera, lots of close up work,
lots of interaction with the audience, very immersive.
And I'm touring, it's starting to tour all around the country.
So people can find out by going to my website
cosentino.com.eusoitscosentino.comdot AU all all my socials, which
(45:34):
is the Cosentino on all platforms.
Awesome, Cosantino, thank you somuch for joining us.
My pleasure, thank you for having me.
For more info on what we've discussed today, check out the
show notes. If you enjoyed this one, you can
subscribe to Ruined by the Internet on your favourite
podcast app and help spread the word by sharing this episode or
leaving a review. I'm Gareth King, see you next
(45:55):
time.
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