When I was a teenager I put together a four ace routine that I did all the time. I haven’t really done it in probably a decade, but did it the other day and now it’s creeping into my close up set.
There’s not much to the routine, here’s the flow:
1: Deck is shuffled by the spectator and I cut to the four aces
2: The aces are put in the middle and appear on top of the deck
3: The aces are put into the middle of the deck and the deck is given to the spectator. They shake the deck and the four aces jump out.
It’s a nice little three effect trick with a fun, interactive ending. It’s a good trick to have in my brain to use whenever I need to fill a couple of extra minutes when doing close up magic.
I think you should always have some back up material that you can do with the props you already are carrying. I have my main close up set of material, but I have a ton of things that I can do with a regular deck at a moments notice.
-Louie
Month: February 2024
It’s the Little Things in Videos
While I was working on my promo video, a video of a magician came across my feed. The trick is fine, but there’s a few things about the video that should have been addressed. Here’s the video:
I’m assuming you noticed the fake audio reaction in the video. They never sound quite right and they way most people use them, they’re never proportional to what they’re doing. It’s always too much.
The other thing you may not have noticed was the guy on the left standing on stage like some sort of body guard. At about the 18 – 20 second mark his face pops into frame. The “audience” is going nuts and he looks bored as hell.
Why is that guy even in the video?
Cropping him out would be a super easy job. As long as you’re in there adding audio tracks, might as well crop him out. It’s the small things that you need to notice in the videos you make. I always try to crop out people who look uninterested or people in the background. It’s not always possible, but you gotta try!
-Louie
New 2024 Promo Video
Way back in about January of 2020 I added a task to my To Do List, and that was to remake my promo video as it was about two years old at that point. It was a low priority item, so I didn’t immediately get to work on it. Then the whole “2020 thing” went down and making a stage magic promo video became super low priority!
Well, four years later I finally got around to making a new promo video for my stage magic show.
This one took me about a 20 + hours to make. Most of that time wasn’t the actual editing, but going through 6 years of video to find the videos that I wanted to pull clips from. It’s pretty easy to know right off the bat if a video is useable based on the background and general video quality. That removes about 60%-70% of videos right way, but it’s still a time consuming process!
The other super time consuming thing is watching the final video over and over again to notice small things, correcting them and then making a new final video. Then repeating that until I’m at final video version 12 or so. There is a point when you just need to be done with the video and barring something crazy you didn’t realize, it’s time to put it out into the world!
I’m glad I finally did it and can remove it from my To Do List!
-Louie
How to Get Exposure
One of the thing that drives me nuts on social media are magicians complaining about people asking them to do gigs for “exposure”. The people are super offended that someone asks, however that’s the way that charities operate, by donations. You are a business, and they ask businesses for donations, you should be flattered that they consider you a business!
I will agree that the promise of exposure is usually an empty promise as they think you’ll do all of the work to get the exposure. It should have to be that way and it doesn’t have to be.
A long time ago I did an “exposure gig” and was passing out my cards, etc and after the gig they had a meal for me. It was the volunteer meal, now what people attending the gig were served. Everyone was eating steak and salmon and they gave me a ham sandwich and bag of chips. That’s when I decided that was never going to happen again.
The next day I wrote up a document and converted it to a .pdf that details exactly what the charity has to do if they want me for free…but beyond that, how they have to treat me.
Now when they call me for “exposure gigs” I tell them that I would love to help them out and I’ll send them a .pdf to see if we’re a good fit. The majority of the charities that contact me after seeing the .pdf tell me they can’t do what I’m asking for, and that’s fine. It’s putting into their head what exposure actually is. The few that accept my terms are exposure gigs where I actually get exposure and a ton of it that translates into paid gigs…some of the exposure gigs turn into paid gigs as well!
Instead of being offended, spend an hour and write up what you think is a fair trade in terms of promotion. Then when they ask, say “yes”…on your terms!
-Louie
There’s No Plan B For Your A-Game
Awhile ago I was hosting a zoom meeting that was an informal Q & A about performing at senior communities. At one point we were talking about books and I think it was JR Russel who mentioned the book There’s No Plan B For Your A-Game.
One of the concepts in the book is write down a goal and then to work backwards from it identifying the challenges. It’s an interesting take and for me it makes it easier to map out what I need to do to make things happen. For some reason working forwards and identifying milestones is harder for me.
Another thing in the book is the idea of living like you’ve accomplished a goal. It doesn’t mean living beyond your means. It means living with the habits that you would have. It’s important to note that Bo is from the sports world, so working out like you’re in the NFL before you’re there is kinda the idea.
How does that apply to magic?
Simple, do you want to be more creative? What do creative people do? They create, so live like you’re creating every day. Block out 30 mins of creative time and spend that time doing nothing else but creating. Sure, maybe nothing will happen at first, but you’re establishing a habit. Once you have the habit, it’s much easier to sit down and create.
I’m about halfway into the book and I like it!
-Louie
The 10 Count
About a month ago I went to Disneyland with a bunch of entertainers after an event we were all at. While not everyone was specifically a magician, everyone there had a magic component in their show. Somehow the “10 Count” with sponge balls came up.
The 10 Count is a little thing where a sponge ball travels from one hand to the other while you count to ten. Each number has a physical action associated with it. It’s a great framing for a quick trick and isn’t limited to sponge balls. I first learned the 10 Count from a sponge ball book when I was a teenager, however it looks like it was probably created by Martin Gardner using matchsticks.
If you don’t know it, it’s worth looking up!
-Louie
Show Structure from the Globetrotters
This is my final post about the Harlem Globetrotters…but seriously, if you’re a family, comedy magician, you can learn a lot from watching this show. Like how many of the players have defined characters, and how the “game” is structured.
They have a lot of audience participation bits, but they aren’t done in a row. They’re separated by bits without audience participation.
In your show, is it a constant stream of people coming up and down from the stage. Are you only interesting when you’re interreacting with people from the audience?
-Louie
Show Them You Got Skills!
One of the takeaways from seeing the Harlem Globetrotters is while its a fun show, the audience is definitely aware that everyone on the basketball court is very skilled! Before the game started one of the Globetrotters (Moose, I think) was nailing baskets from half court with one hand and his back to the hoop!
How does that relate to performing magic?
Simple, in my opinion the audience must know you are skilled at what you do. I guess you don’t need an overt display of skill like a manipulation act, but something that shows you’re not just doing push button magic.
How do you do that in magic? There are a lot of ways, many years ago when I went to Caesar’s Magical Empire in Las Vegas the stage show as done by The Pendragons. One of the things that he did was sat on the edge of the stage and did a torn and restored cigarette paper. It stood out because The Pendragon’s show is soo big, then he does a little bit with a tiny piece of paper. That routine just used his hands and the cigarette paper and showed that he can do sleight of hand.
Whatever you do to show skill doesn’t have to overtly look like you have skill like producing cards from backpalm, but the audience needs to know you have skill.
-Louie
The Moisture Festival Podcast – Creosote
On this episode it is all things accordion with accordion duo Creosote. We learn about the different types of accordions, get some history about the accordion and how it is still one of the most popular instruments in the world.
Jamie and Gabe discuss how they met, what makes they do so unique and some of the cool opportunities they have gotten throughout their years of playing. We also learn both of their completely different accordion origin stories. A really fun interview with a some fantastic people.
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