Julien Losa: Magic on the Boats

Today, we are delighted to present the second episode of Détours de magie with Julien LOSA, who will tell us about his experience on cruise ships! Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube channel and share the video!

Video Transcript

Hello everyone. Our guest today, Julien LOSA, is known for his many contributions in magic, mentalism, but also for another particular point, that of performing magic on ships. He will share his experience with us, how he got there, and we might even hear some juicy anecdotes on the subject. You see, I won the innovation award for a changing QR code. And that actually made me think because I told myself that it was the spectator who created their own QR code themselves. And there wasn't really an effect before creating their own QR code, you see. No. Uh because the QR code didn't exist. That's all. That's what I meant by that, that I only see that as a way to truly create ex nihilo. You have to rely on a new technology in a very broad sense, a new discipline, a new technology or a new something. But what about your QR code effect, can you describe the effect to me? We're going to switch roles. So Thibault, hello. Hello Julien Losa, you can describe the effect. Yes, I can describe the effect. There's a QR code shown to the spectators. We scan it, and we land on the magician's website. There. Normal. A spectator comes up on stage, it's a big 60 by 60 QR code with, well, 60 by 60. The spectator is invited to scramble the QR code. In fact, the QR code is made of white and black dots that are magnets. It's on a plate, so you can move all the dots. We tell him, "Go ahead, move them around a bit, scramble your QR code a bit." He scrambles it a bit, he says "Stop, go ahead the audience, scan the QR code." Now, he scans again. They had scanned before, and they had landed on my site, they scan and now error 404. Finally, the link is broken because they created, he created a messy thing. Well, it doesn't exist. OK. Then, you say great, uh, I take another spectator, you have them choose what you want, a card, a movie, a celebrity, anything. Well, choose, we understand each other. And you say, while you're choosing that, the other spectator continues to scramble their QR code, so they create their completely random thing. The magician never touches the QR code, doesn't need to touch their phone, uh, and it's all the phones in the room, so there's no app downloaded or anything, it's the spectators' phones. And we say, "OK, you chose a celebrity, Beyoncé for example." Can you scan the QR code that was just created by the spectator and we land on Beyoncé's music video. OK. Uh there. So there, in fact, it's really the creation of the QR code more than, without going into the methodology. Yeah. Wouldn't that be doable with a multiple output? Imagine papers and stuff. No, because it's not a multiple output, it's a, well yes and no, there are at least three methods. Well, there are three techniques that are mixed. There's a multi-out, uh, actually no, no, actually no. There's not even a multi-out, again, without going into the method. You force the card or the celebrity. You can force nothing at all if you want, and I'll do it for you afterwards offline if you want. No, because I tried to find an analogy with, well, we could do that with a multiple out. Uh yes, exactly. But there, you could, the trick can, it's code by the way, for those who want a code that is available on the cabinet d'illusion website. Uh you can if you want, really arrive on stage with your hands in your pockets, you just have the QR code on stage, you do your story of scrambling the QR code and you tell me the celebrity you want. No forcing, nothing at all. OK, go ahead, scan and we land on the Wikipedia page, you see. OK, that's possible. OK, so yeah, no, no multiple and no QR code change. The QR code remains in view of the spectators non-stop. But I'll tell you about it, I could do it with billet work. There, I'll tell you more about it in private. Those who are interested, feel free to watch. And that's very interesting, in any case, the visual aspect. In any case, it's visual and especially participatory. There are few tricks, not that there aren't any, but there are few where you have the whole room participating at once. Yeah. And there, it happens in the hands of the spectator, of all the spectators, you see. There's the famous thing where everyone has to shuffle the cards, give them to their neighbor, throw them away and so on and gradually and at the end there's only one card left. There's that trick which is quite participatory but there's also the code now. Right, but let's reinvent the roles and get back to our sheep. No, but it's true that, yeah, but, uh, but I remain intimately convinced that you, well, first you had to analyze a QR code, so something that existed, so you started from something. Oh yes, no, really. Yes, that's for sure. No, no, but yeah. No, that and this discussion about creativity is interesting. But you were saying, to come back to what you were saying, you were saying that you performed shows, especially on cruises, on ships. Well, that's my, that's my only playground, and I know, I know I've confined myself to a niche, but that's my only playground. Where did that come from? Why ships? Well, first of all, it was my first professional experience in 2008. It was in 2008, I started as a professional magician, it was ships and, uh, and it was a love-hate story and all that. It was I love it, I hate it, I love it, I hate it. And so, yeah, in 2010, I did the Maison de la Magie or in 2011, I don't remember anymore. OK. Then, in 2012, I did the Instict Theatre. And then, I said, "Yeah, it's good, I'm moving to Brazil and I'm only doing ships." And actually, what I like about ships, and it's funny that you ask me that question because it's, I discussed it I think the day before yesterday or 3 days ago, something like that. Actually, what I like about ships, I actually, well, for context, I've completely abandoned corporate events, corporate, marketing, it's no, even though I know that's where the money is. Yes, in companies. Yeah. But so there, and because we're not going to lie to ourselves, theater doesn't pay and corporate pays very well, too well. And actually, the funny thing is that financially and artistically in my head, ships are in the middle. That is to say, I loved the creative freedom and the freedom of, of, of what I was saying about theater. I hated the clean-cut, little suit and tie, Uber driver side of corporate and all that and the fact of "Oh, you shouldn't say, you shouldn't say this, you shouldn't say that because maybe the CEO will be offended or something." So there, I loved the freedom, I hated that but I didn't love the salary of that and I thought "Oh, and in the middle actually you have the ship where you have a semi-freedom. So that, yeah, it's still, it's still corporate because you shouldn't do things. Yes, it has to be, yeah. But I have a semi-freedom on, already the tricks I do and the texts I do, well, I go for it and I don't ask myself questions. Within reasonable limits because it's a family audience and all that, the salary isn't bad. Not as good as corporate but better than theater. Better than theater. And so, it's the, the, the happy medium for me of the, it's the, the, how do you say? Oh, damn. Yeah. The good compromise, that's the word I was looking for. That's it, it's an excellent compromise in my head anyway on money versus freedom. And how did you come to say to yourself, "Hey, I'm going to go on cruises, that's where I feel like I belong." I arrived like that. I was a graphic designer, layout artist in a cabaret in Metz in Saint-Julien les Messes. OK. It was called the Cotton Club. And, uh, and for the funny anecdote, I apply to the Cotton Club as a magician. I send a little email and everything. [__] that's old. I send a little email and everything, I say, "Yeah, I want to start as a professional magician and all that." My CV and the guy replies, "Oh, that's cool, I'm looking for a graphic designer, layout artist." And then I look at my email that I had sent. I say, "Oh, well, I sent the wrong CV. Didn't send the right CV." And, and that's it, that's all my professional experiences, it's only things like "Oh damn, well I'm going anyway." And, uh, and so, yeah, I went to work as a graphic designer there. Uh and I met Edilson Show Paris with whom I became friends and everything. He was a producer of cabaret troupes, dancers, and all that, cabaret shows. And, uh, so he saw me do a bit of magic for fun and everything and one day he says, "Yeah, don't you want to, don't you want to start as a magician?" I say, "Yeah, go ahead, I have a cruise ship for you." Oh really?

Oh, we don't care, we're telling the story. And in 2007, he tells me, "Go on, go up to Paris and all that, prepare a show, buy some equipment, all that." I'll get you on a boat in 2007. I go up to Paris in 2007 with my small suitcase and all. I'm squatting at a dancer's place that I was dating at the time and, uh, I never left, in fact. You, I never left. I ended up in Paris. I ended up in Paris in 2007, uh, in "So, is this boat coming or not?" I mean, I know I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have gotten on the boat in Paris. He would have made me fly, all that. Yes. No port in Paris, a priori, new radio silence. I say, "Oh crap." So, I stay in Paris, I start meeting friends, uh, and I start being a freelance graphic designer again for fun in Paris. And a year later, Edilson tells me, "I'm sorry, uh, do you want to leave this time?" I'm like, "But you're not going to pull the same trick on me again?" So, he made me leave and well, he made me leave. I was focused on close-up magic at the time, and he tells me, "Yeah, you'll have to do 45 minutes on stage." I've never performed on stage. Yeah, it'll be fine. It wasn't fine at all. My first 5-month contract, I spent 3 months with the Sword of Damocles thinking I was going to get fired. Yeah. And what's the rhythm of the cruise? One show per day. It depends. No. So, wait, wait, wait, because my last contract that I did, from which I resigned, yeah. It was 6 days out of 7. Let's move on. But, uh, on average, no, on a cruise ship, on average, a magician, uh, well, let's say a guest entertainer, is a guest artist, whether it's a singer, dancer, uh, no, not a dancer, but whether it's a male singer, female singer, juggler, magician, whatever, a guest entertainer, so someone who is not a crew member, they just come for a week or two, they'll work two nights a week, two nights per cruise. So if your cruise lasts 7 days, well, you perform for two nights out of 7 days. If your cruise lasts 10 days, whatever, I think the best I did was a one-month cruise where I worked two nights and you get paid on a cruise ship, you get paid per day spent on the ship. I got paid for a month for working two days, and I'm like, "Yeah, that's cool." Two nights on top of that. Two nights. Yeah. Yeah. And how do you do it, because how does it work on a ship? Because if you do two nights, it only happened once. Yeah. Yes, it also has to be profitable for, uh, for the company that hires you. But if you have several shows a week, the people who are on the ship, well, they stay on the ship. So, you need two different shows. That's it. Yep. On a ship, you have two different 45-minute shows, and generally, you have two sittings. You have two sittings. So, the same evening, you'll see, you'll have the same show scheduled twice. Once, let's say, I'm going to say something silly, but once, let's say, at 7 PM and the other at 9 PM. Which means half the passengers come to see the show at 7 PM and the other half goes to dinner and at 9 PM, well, they switch. And so, yeah, you have to have two 45-minute formats and all that. Yeah. To do number 1 on day 1 and show number 2 on day 2. Exactly. And are there any anecdotes or things that happened to you on a cruise that you'd like to tell us about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. One anecdote that made me... well, I have millions of anecdotes, but among the anecdotes where I think, "Damn, that's the kind of thing that makes me laugh." I was on a ship that was doing the Caribbean and all that, and departing from New York, our home port was New York, and actually, before our home port was New York, it was another one. And one day, our cruise director, or rather, our entertainment director, who was a step above the cruise director, we had a meeting where he told us, "Well, we're going to start the New York cruises and all that with a port of call in New York and everything." So, we're like, "That's cool, we're going to see New York and all that, great." He says, "Yeah." But, uh, the New York audience is different. I'm like, "What do you mean? What does 'different' mean?" And he says, "Yeah, actually, the, the New Yorker..." and I think he was from South Carolina or something. So he was a bit trashy, and he says, "Yeah, the New York audience is different, they're nice but they know what they like, they know what they like, and they like what they know." Program. Yeah. No. So, that was the official meeting about starting the New York season and all that, and I see, "OK, that's a weird phrase, but OK, I kind of get the idea of, OK, you shouldn't stray too far from the beaten path." That's it. And so, the next day, we start, and he tells me, and he also says, "Yeah, they're direct." OK, that reminded me a bit of Paris, actually. And I'm like, "Yeah, OK." And so, the next day, we board the passengers in New York. First time we're in New York. I go there. I have my little coffee, my little coffee in New York. I'm discovering, I'm like, "It's great." And, uh, and then the cruise starts, and the next morning, we had a session where the artists on that ship, that's how it was anyway. The artists had to go have coffee around 8 AM at the passengers' cafeteria to socialize a bit with the passengers. I'm there. And so, you have a nametag. It's an integral part of your job to socialize. Yeah, but sometimes it's more forced than others. For example, the cafeteria thing, it was really, uh, in the program, and we had to go. Generally, they tell me, "Yeah, well, socialize with the guys, socialize with the cool passengers." Here, it was really in the program, it was at 8 AM, such and such artist, you're at the cafeteria, you have your coffee and you talk to people. OK. And so, yeah, I go there, I have my coffee and all that, and so you have nametags, badges with your first name and your job on board. I'm drinking my coffee and I have a woman who turns to me. A woman with gray hair, very respectable, well, very composed, very classy, very whatever. She looks at me and says, "Ah! Ah! You work here?" I'm like, "Yeah, yeah." "Oh, you're a magician, I hate magic. Have a good day." And she leaves and I'm like, "Have a good day too. But what happened? What?" And then I remembered the "they know what they like, they like what they know" and "they're direct" and I'm like, "Oh, yeah!" But I don't think she wanted to offend me or anything. It's just what. She, yeah, she realized I was a magician, that she hated it. "Alright, have a good day," she left. Was she an artist too? No, she was a customer. A passenger who completely crushed me in 5 seconds while I was about to drink my coffee and I was like, "Yeah, OK." Yeah. In fact, yeah, since they're kind of subjected to the activities on the ship, well, a captive audience, they don't really have a choice. I mean, there's the evening show, but unless you have sometimes several shows at the same time, no? That happens on big ships. Yeah, generally on big ships, you have two show rooms, but it's like you have the main hall and then you have some kind of comedy club or whatever and that kind of thing. But yeah. Yeah. But yeah. No, it's... What did your experience on ships teach you? Is there anything you would... It taught me, first of all, that I had a destructive, don't-care side. It taught me to care a little less. No, but it's true, it's... What makes you care a little less? The kind of, well, cruise literally, or the fact that, after all, a cruise ship is a big floating campsite. So, that's it, so it's a cool atmosphere. No, it depends on the cruise ship companies. There are cruise ship companies where it's really too cool, way too much. And there are some where they're a bit stuck up and all. It really depends on the companies. I don't want to name names. So we won't. No, the "I don't care" side is just, well, I go, I do my job, and you can't please everyone, and it's fine. Now, I know that yes, ship companies want us to please everyone and all that, but at some point, you have to realize that you can't. You can't. It's like everywhere, even in theater, some people will come to see you and, well, you'll see a theater thing and they won't necessarily like it. But otherwise, what ships taught me is to be flexible and I'm in the process of finishing learning not to say yes to everything, and it's hard. Yeah. Yeah. Because on a cruise ship, you're, well, after all, you're on a floating tin can 8,000 km from home, and if you say no a little too often, they're American style, so they'll fire you easily and put you on the dock with your suitcases and say, "Alright, bye." Ah, do you recommend this activity to magicians? I mean, working on a cruise ship. Yeah, it's a great experience. It's very educational and, uh, for years there was this thing of, "Yeah, magicians on a cruise ship are those who are at the end of their career and who will end their career there." And that's completely false. And yeah, no, it's excellent at the beginning of your career, it's excellent in the middle of your career, it's excellent at the end of your career and it's great. Williamson did, there aren't that many magicians working on cruise ships, I feel like. A lot. There are a lot, but the problem is that not many of them are French. Ah, yes, I'm talking about for several reasons, first because they don't speak much English, and then because we don't have that culture. Meaning that I don't meet many French passengers. I meet some from time to time. I think there are one or two companies, maybe three at most, compared to the tens and tens of others. But yeah, we don't have that culture. You go to the United States, you start talking about cruise ships, 4 out of 5 will tell you, "Oh yeah, I went on a cruise last year with my family and all." They don't really have, I mean, they have a larger maritime area than France, even if we have a big cruise ship that stops in Marseille, that stops in the north. Uh, I forgot, I forgot the northern port, Le Havre. We have a lot of cruise ships that stop in Le Havre. We have a lot of cruise ships that stop in Bordeaux, if I'm not... No, it's not Bordeaux. Yes, maybe, I don't know anymore. But anyway, yeah, we have them. It's just that it's not in our culture. We don't have that fun when we go on vacation. Well, it's the chalet in winter in the mountains to go skiing or, well, uh, Yeah, that's it. Or going to the beach, but there's no... That's true. How do you think that can be explained for France, the fact that there isn't necessarily this... I'm going to be very cliché and say it's cultural. Very cliché, as the saying goes. But yeah. No, I mean, it's just, it's cultural, actually. It's not our thing. What's the longest cruise you've ever been on, for example, in terms of contract duration? 7 months. 7 months? Yeah. 7 months at sea non-stop. Ah, no, no, you're not at sea non-stop. You still have stopovers. Generally, on a one-week cruise, I'm going to say something silly, but on a 7-day cruise, I don't know, you have 2 days at sea and 5 days at dock, so it's like a dock, a dock, a dock, a day at sea, a dock, a dock, a day at sea. And you also take advantage of it to travel and see the country. Yeah, but it's travel. I think that's perhaps the explanation. It's travel. It's packaged, consumable travel, so to speak. You don't have time. You don't really have time to see much. They, in any case, when we do 7 months and, therefore, every week we do more or less the same route. Yeah. Meaning that, for example, on the ship I was on, we were doing Saint-Martin. OK. Which I love. I love Saint-Martin. We were doing the Dutch side, not the French side. But Saint-Martin, yeah. Well, when you do it every week as a crew member, well, it's silly, we dock there with the ship. You have Saint-Martin, we dock there with the ship, and then the first week, you go up to there. The second week, you say, "I've already seen that, well, we'll go a little further, whatever." Passengers only get one time, actually. So, and eventually, you have time to see a bit. Yeah. You have time to get used to it, you have time to get your bearings. Passengers don't have that. And how do you get renewed? Meaning, do you regularly stay with the same company and the same ship, etc., with the same crews, or is there always a mix? There's a lot of turnover. Yeah, there's a lot of turnover. When you're a guest entertainer, a guest artist, the goal is actually to work, uh, to work with two or three different ship companies and you jump from ship to ship and you do your week, you leave, and OK. But I like residencies and I like to stay for a long time, but, uh, after the pandemic, they're doing residencies less and less. They take guest artists for a week, two weeks max, and you go from company to company and whatever. OK. Well, that's super interesting. It's, uh, first of all, thank you, Julien, for, uh, this time, uh, you spent. All my pleasure. That's cool. That's nice. Thank you for taking the time to watch this video. I hope you enjoyed it. If so, don't hesitate to share it, to subscribe. Uh, I remind you that there is the newsletter you can subscribe to. We publish content twice a week, always a bit original and different. If the anecdote about boats and magic interests you, don't hesitate to watch the video that is now displayed with Jean Madd and Chantal Saint-Jean on their houseboat metamorphosis. That was in this episode, and I'll see you very soon for a next video.