Pictures – MagicShow.Tips

Take Up Reel Question

A question I recently got asked about my Take Up Reel for the vanishing bird cage is how much can you move around with it on. My answers is that it gives you pretty much full range of motion.

For the last month I’ve been performing 2-3 shows a day and my 45 minutes show ends with the vanishing birdcage. I’m pretty physical in the show, and in the middle of the show I do some trick roping with the take up reel on my left wrist with the pull set to the long position.

Right after the trick roping routine, I could reach over, grab the cage and vanish it. I don’t as the cage is about 15 mins later in the show, but in that picture the working end of the take up reel is in my right sleeve.

For me and how I perform, using a take up reel allows me to do the vanishing birdcage. It’d be impossible using just a wrist to wrist pull.

-Louie

Apples and Oranges

One trick that I’m doing in the school assembly is based on Jim Steinmeyer’s Apples and Oranges routine in his book Conjuring. Jim’s trick is the Piano Card Trick, but using apples and oranges, which makes it play on stage. Essentially the trick is an orange disappears from one side of the stage and reappears on the other.

I took Jim’s idea and rewrote the script and changed the props so that it works for the show I was doing. In the first few weeks of doing the show, I felt like the kids holding the nets of fruit were really only there as human props and I needed to give them opportunities to shine. I started by asking them some questions, then giving one of them a line and creating an impossible challenge for the other kid. This made the routine soo much more engaging that it was before.

Also I should add that the trick is good! When the orange ends up on the other side of the stage, the teachers seem more amazed than the kids! That’s an important point about this show and all kids shows, the magic needs to be good. There were (and still are) soo many magic tricks that from an effect standpoint aren’t good that are marketed to children’s performers. This is part of what creates the stereotype that kids magic is cheesy. If you up your game with good tricks, it’s helps take you out of that cheesy magician box.

-Louie

Sponge Tennis Balls…fixing lines

When I was putting together my tennis ball routine for this school assembly tour, I started using Sponge Tennis Balls by Daba Magic. I like these more than the Alan Wong Sponge Tennis Balls as the Daba ones pop open much faster.

After using them for 2-3 shows a day on this tour, I found one thing that I don’t like about the Daba Sponge Tennis Balls. The white line on them is tape or something like that, where on all the other sponge tennis balls I’ve tried, they are painted on. After about a week the tape lines started getting loose, and this week they started falling off.

Here’s what the lines should look like:

And here’s what they looked like this week:

Honestly, I wasn’t surprised that this would happen to them. I didn’t think that tape was good way to make the lines. I went to the store and bought some paint and redid the lines:

It only took a few minutes to paint the lines onto the sponge tennis balls, and this should hold up for a lot longer than the tape lines.

-Louie

Ankle Switch Problem Solving…

For this tour I started using my Media Star remote control that runs my music with the magnet ankle switch. Early on I realized that it was running about 2 shows before it stopped reliably working. Changing batteries every couple of shows solved the problem, but is annoying and I have a feeling that’s not how it’s supposed to work.

In the show I use the ankle (magnet reed switch) in a few spots to make the music play seamlessly, however there’s one spot where I need it as I can’t use my hands. I have someone from the audience playing sound effects from a fake music remote, and I need to trigger them when they push the button. With the ankle switch giving me problems, I needed to think of a way to make the gag work.

I defaulted to the mentalist’s old friend, Dual Reality! I put three different colored dots on my remote control.

I simply say “push the blue dot” or “push the red dot”, which implies to the audience that there are different buttons, when in reality it’s all the same button. I’ve done this for one day (2 shows) and it’s working out well and is a great, simple solution to the problem of the ankle switch not behaving properly.

We’ll see how it works for the three shows today…

-Louie

International Leg of the Tour

During this school assembly tour around the midwestern US states, I took a quick trip to Canada to performing a show…so technically this is an international tour?

I was performing in a variety show with Trevor and Lorena Watters, a baton duo (whose names I forgot) and Michael Dardant

The shows went great, but more importantly, after essentially being by myself for weeks, it was nice to hang out with friends!

Tomorrow I’m back to doing the school assembly, but my emotional battery has been recharged!
-Louie

Finding Little Things to Change…

Yesterday was the end of the third week on the road performing my new school assembly show. This week I was really focusing on getting more out of the people who help me onstage in the show and letting them “shine” more.

One bit in the show where I draw a picture of a kid. I have the kid face the audience and do different emotions. I was using and older kid in the 3rd to 6th grade range and they weren’t really doing much interesting. My reasoning for an older kid was they are standing on stage by themself, so I was worried a kid that a younger kid would be uncomfortable onstage alone. Turns out I think that was the issue with an older kid, they feel a bit self conscious.

This week I switched a kindergarten or first grade kid and the difference is HUGE! Every kid I’ve used was great, and really played up the emotions that I was asking them to do. Also there’s something that all ages love is seeing a little kid have fun. Their joy is infectious!

It’s little things like this that make a good show great! My show still has a lot of these little things to be fixed.

-Louie

Efficiently Loading In and Out

One huge thing with this school assembly tour is efficiency. Honestly, I’m not getting paid a ton, so wasting time loading in and out isn’t a good use of my time. The show loads in and out in one trip.

My road case has wheels on the bottom of it and I have handle that attaches to the front of it that I use to pull it.

One trip without a dolly or hand truck makes this a quick load in and out.

-Louie

Asian Magic Boxes…

Magic has a long history of appropriating Asian culture, from people performing in yellow face to props having random Chinese characters put on them to make them look exotic.

I have a prop that has Chinese on it that actually makes sense. A couple of years ago I made a production box out of a take out box from a Chinese restaurant. This idea had been in a notebook years earlier, but I finally got around to it in 2020.

This box is the first trick in the school assembly show and gets a huge reaction! In the show I use it to produce a tennis ball, while saying producing a tennis ball from a take out box doesn’t really make sense, in the routine it does make sense.

This little box is crushing it in the show!

-Louie

Setting Up The Show Quickly

Out here on this tour, sometimes the travel time between shows is very tight and I don’t have very much time to set or strike the show. I provide everything except electricity. Knowing that some shows I may not have much time to set, need to pack out quickly, or both, I have two set ups for the show.

The normal set up takes about 20-25 minutes to set up and I use this when I have plenty of time to set up and strike.

Here’s the normal set up:

The quick set up/strike takes about 10-15 mins and I use it when I have tight travel time.

Here’s what it looks like:

The big difference is that I don’t have the banner. It also doesn’t use a speaker stand for the PA. A difference you can’t see is that the quick set up doesn’t use a wireless headset mic. Those few things make a huge difference in set up/strike time.

I use the handheld mic with a stand or a mic hanger for when I need to use my hands. I’m really glad that about a year and half ago I decided to learn to use a handheld microphone. Having practiced with a handheld really makes me a lot more versatile!

-Louie

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