Category: magic show tips

What’s in a Name?

The last week I’ve been working on a trick where four Polaroid pictures disappear and reappear under an envelope. Something the trick will need is a name. Giving magic tricks a name is something that I really hate doing. If I just write “Polaroid” on a set list I know what trick that is.

Where the name becomes relevant is if I decide to release the trick or to publish it. When I publish a trick in my monthly column in Vanish Magazine I don’t put a lot of thought into the name. I pretty much just put something at the top of the page. For product I put a bit more thought, but still no where near as much thought as I probably should put into it.

This week I realized another reason to name a trick. I’m on an episode of Masters of Illusion and in the show description of the trick I’m doing it says what I emailed to the producer. The title I gave them was a pretty horrible title. I’ve learned my lesson and in the future I’ll put a bit more thought into the name of the trick!

Being a Good Podcast Guest…

Recently I was the guest on a podcast that interviews people within the fair industry. Here’s the interview:

Listen to “Louie Foxx, – Master Magician presented by Countyfairgrounds” on Spreaker.

One thing you’ll notice that I answer every question with story. I don’t give simple answers, and my stories (usually) go somewhere. You’ll also notice that when I need to think, I repeat the question they just asked me.

A final thing you’ll notice is how I put context on my answers. Right now (May 2020) is a very strange time and hopefully a unique time. When the host asks me what events I have lined up, I have to put a verbal asterisk on the questions. I do that a couple of times in the interview and explain when this was recorded so that someone listening when things are back to normal understands why I answered how I did.

Virtual Way To Force A Card…

One of the challenges we’re all having moving shows from physical shows to virtual shows are things like card forces. There are ways to do them, however you’ve got to get over things like “lag” in video and comments. There are plenty of people doing the visual riffle card force, but there’s some risk with that.

Here’s a force that I’ve been doing a long time that’s 100% sure fire:

How the force works is you fan a deck and run the joker along it, someone from the audience says stop and remembers the card next to the joker. That’s your force card. The advantage this force has is that it allows people to change their mind. That overcomes any lag issue. They can say stop, then have you move the joker if it’s not exactly where they wanted you to stop.

One of the things I like about this force is how direct it is. There’s really no procedure. They say stop, and that’s where you put the joker. Look into if you need a “virtual card force“.

Mismade Bill!

In my magic lecture I talk about how you should be taking your magic one step further than what’s already out there. This is especially true if you are doing stock magic tricks. One of the twists I’ve put onto a standard magic trick is my finish to the Midmade Bill trick. It’s a trick I call Splitting Image, it was just reviewed by a magic reviewer:

With everything I do, I try to move it a step beyond where the store bought version is. This is advancing the act, simply doing sponge balls doesn’t.

Polaroids to Envelope

For the Polaroids to Envelope magic trick I’m working on, the last technical step is to clean up the handling. The initial handling had three Tenkai Vanishes, which is fine, but redundant. I also think that if you do the same false transfer over and over, you need a convincer to show both hands empty.

Here’s the tweaked handling:

One thing that I decided with showing both hands empty was that I didn’t want to make both hands being empty part of the vanish. I wanted to show both hands, just not show the dirty hand as a “moment” of the trick. In the video you’ll notice that I show both hands as I turn the envelope over.

The technical end is finished for now. The technical part is something that may evolve over time, and something that’s never completely done.

Pics to Envelope!

Oh man, we’re hitting the homestretch here! A few days ago I started writing about wanted to do Goshman’s Cards Thru Newpaper and how it has morphed into a completely new magic trick.

The final change to the physical props was to get rid of the jumbo card that the pictures reappeared under. I was texting my friend Terry Godfrey, who is a very smart magician and we came up with the idea of changing the jumbo card to an envelope that starts out holding the pictures.

Magic trick

I ended up making the envelope, so it’s not a standard size. It’s a little bit smaller than the jumbo card that I was using.

Card magic

At this point I have an original magic trick. The next step is to clean up the handling a little bit.

Pics to Jumbo Card.

The last couple of days I’ve been writing about doing Goshman’s Cards Thru Newspaper and how it morphed to Cards To Jumbo Card. Today we’re going to talk about the next leap it’s taking, and that’s starting to get rid of the cards. In place of the four regular cards, I’m using Polaroid pictures of my daughter and our pets.

Magic trick

The cool thing about these is that they are slightly smaller than playing cards, which makes a lot of the sleight of hand much easier! The nice thing about coming up with a method that doesn’t use a duplicate, they pictures could be of people from the audience, or of a company’s products, or whatever.

Once again, the video below wasn’t intended for people to watch other than me. It’s a “proof of concept” video that was for me to watch and see how well everything worked and also to remind me of what I was doing.

Things are starting to come together, but there’s still one thing I don’t like, and that’s the jumbo card. Tomorrow we’ll talk about how I got rid of that.

Color Change

The other night while watching TV with the family I was fiddling with a deck fo cards and came up with a strange color change. There’s a lot wrong with it, and in its current state it’s not a good color change.

The main problem with it is that it’s not good for video. I can see the flash that happens when you palm the card being hidden in a live show, but not on video. Also there are better ways to do a color change.

It was fun to play with.

Cards Thru Newspaper

A magician friend of mine a few months ago performed Albert Goshman’s Cards Thru Newspaper for me. I remember reading it in Goshman’s book, however I remember reading it and working through it and it didn’t feel spectacular. I was also probably 17 years old at the time, so that might have affected my opinion of the trick.

If you haven’t seen the trick, here’s Goshman doing it:

Compared to a lot close up magic, it’s pretty slow. It’s still a good trick for non magicians and had a couple of good moments in it. I like it as a “formal” close up thing that could be done via video projection. However, I have to look at what I don’t like about it. The biggest thing I don’t like is the newspaper.

In the trick there are two newspapers, the one laying flat on the table and the one being used as a cover. The cover newspaper was easily replaced by a jumbo card.

Cards thru newspaper magic trick

Replacing the flat newspaper on the table made me have to rework the method of the trick. There’s a couple of moments in Goshman’s routine where you need that newspaper. I could replace it with something like a handkerchief, but decided to rework the routine.

What I ended up with is something complete different than Goshman’s Cards Thru Newspaper, and an original trick. Taking a trick as a starting point and then continually removing what you don’t like is one way to create original material.