Calen Morelli and Cinematic Magic

     Calen Morelli released another one of his cinematic magic pieces the other day. Personally, I love it. I think it's heading in a proper direction for magic. It's a little outside of staged performance, a little outside of context, but very visually compelling.

     Morelli has always thought & created in an incredibly hyper-visual manner, and a lot of his concepts revolve around the concept of a fixed-frame spectator, because he loves to toy with that frame we view through. While I definitely enjoy the ever-changing frame of the close-up participant, I've been slowly growing to love the frame of the camera, the remote screen viewer, as an anonymous person to perform for.

     Cinematic Magic is something that doesn't necessarily impose the non-fiction boundaries of the Street Magic wave of the 90's, nor is it so deeply rooted in the cinematic pretense of the earlier magic specials of the 80's where there is very a clear performative stage, but combines the complimentary elements of those two styles. It's my proposition that there will be a time for Cinematic Magic in the young adult age of the 2000's (approx. 2015-2025) that will become very popular. (Sort of a knee-jerk societal response to the hyper-real hyper-fake sense of social media and the self, and the media itself we all consume these days.) I know we're doing some work in this area. I know Morelli is doing and has accomplished a lot of work in this area. I wouldn't be surprised if we ran across eachother's paths again sooner than later. 

Cheers, Morelli, love this work,

-- J.R.