It’s kinda strange getting back to work. I’ve been practicing all week and got into the city I’m performing in last night and spent the night practicing. Today’s agenda is more practicing. Luckily this hotel has some space to set up the show.
Running the show as much as I have the last week is really helping my lines come back to me more automatically.
I think that’s one of the things that separates more seasoned performers from newer ones is that they know their show soo well they don’t need to think. That frees up brain computing space to deal with ad libs, paying attention to what’s happening in the room or fixing any problems that arise.
People love to crowd source information on the internet. The problem is that you don’t know the quality of the information you are getting back. Recently someone posted a picture of a prop they had acquired, but didn’t know what it did. It was a dice cup with a hole in the back, four dice and a jumbo die.
The misinformation starts when people don’t know what they are talking about start it tell the person what the cup is for. Here’s the first couple of responses:
Then a couple of people took the dice stacking suggesting a bit further and said you could look through the hole to see the number on the top die. Let’s start with that idea of using it to see the number on the top of the top die. Learning to stack the dice is hard…once you can do that, knowing what number is on top of the stack without a gimmicked cup is VERY EASY. It makes no sense to make the stacking aspect harder without make knowing the number uppermost easier.
Now let’s look at the props. You have regular game dice, where any marketed dice stacking set would come with casino dice which are the standard for people who stack dice. In the picture below, the casino die is on the right.
Yes, I’m aware you can stack game dice, however it’s much harder than on casino dice due to their size, rounded edges, and lack of consistent 90 degree angles. I learned to dice stack with a drinking glass and game dice, so I know it can be done, I also know who much easier it got when I had proper tools.
Next if you look at the cup, it tapers and is not straight sided. Some people stack with dice like this, however most people use straight sided dice cups. On it’s own the tapered cup wouldn’t say it’s not for dice stacking, but then you look at the height of the cup in relation to the dice. Once you get them in the up and ready to stack, they have a long way to fall, which is where you will give you trouble.
Looking at the whole picture, the style of dice and style of cup, I’m 99% sure it’s not for dice stacking. I’m leaving 1% as it’s some strange homemade prop that was never marketed.
I made a quick replica of the props shown and here’s the style of routine that I think the props are for:
The internet is a great way to crowd source answers, but the problem is that it’s hard know the quality of those answers.
Last night I performed at a hybrid in person / virtual show. The in person aspect of it was interesting as it was a socially distant, outdoor event in tents…oh, the show took place at the tail end of a snowstorm, so it was cold out! I was performing indoors with a an open roll up door in front of me. I could see one table, the rest were in tents watching on a projection screen which was showing what was on the zoom feed.
It was a very interesting experience. The camera was over my left shoulder and the audience in front of me. The challenge was where to play to. I chose to mostly play to the camera as that’s where the majority of the audience’s viewpoint was from. It’s very strange to no play to the only group of humans you can see. I didn’t ignore the one table I could see, but did most of my talking to the camera.
Going forward, I think ticketed, in person shows are going to have to do this hybrid approach to make any money if they physical audience has to be socially distant. How you will approach this scenario is something to start thinking about now…
In an effort to streamline things for my virtual show, I picked up some foot pedals. Each pedal acts as a button that you can program to do a specific task.
The first thing I did was something that Richard Lake mentioned in the talk he did with Nick Lewin and made them up and down arrows. I then went through my show in OBS and made a scene for everything, so my show basically went straight down. It was a pain to do, but useful if I’m doing the show without a producer.
Normally I have a producer in the room running my OBS scenes, so I changed the foot pedals to activate a camera shot. So I have my general, tight, and close up that I can control with my feet. I’m really liking having the control of the cameras with my feet.
I feel like I’ve put a lot of work into the table I’m using for virtual shows. I think it’s really made a difference in the flow of the show. It’s soo much more efficient use of space than how I was previously doing it.
Here’s one view of the shelf:
And here’s the shelf rotated 180 degrees:
The nice thing with having holders is that I can look down and immediately know if something isn’t there as it’s holder will be empty. There are two wild cards as far as set up goes, the rest of the props can stay set up all the time. Those are the Gypsy Yarn and the silk in apple/peach. Both of those routines I set up on the day of the show.
You’ll also notice some redundancies, like each trick that uses a pen has it’s own pen. This is because I don’t want to be searching around for a pen, and it makes sure I have a back up pen if one dries out.
One of the ways I get a lot of work is through showcases. These are where you perform in front of people who are in a position to book your show. This year has been interesting with them happening virtually. I think a lot of “newer” musicians are struggling in this format compared to what a variety act can do.
Recently I was at a showcase and took this picture of this band’s virtual showcase:
They had their tip info on the video!!!!
I can’t believe their agent didn’t look at it and tell them to take it off. I think it’s not only disrespectful to the viewer, it’s just lazy. The band added the tip info to an existing video, that means they have a copy of it without it.
Show that you respect your audience and don’t ask them for a tip, when you’re trying to get a contract worth thousands of dollars!
When I’m working on my show, I’m not trying to make giant leaps in getting better, but more smaller things that get better more frequently. What I mean by that is instead of trying to put together a finished show piece before adding it to the show, I get it good enough, add it to the show, and then keep improving it. It’s this constant action that hopefully keeps things evolving and improving.
For my virtual shows I’ve been using a mic on a stand that pics up the audio in the room. It’s a repurposed podcast mic, and while the sound is decent, I think I’m going to be switching back to using a mic pack and lapel mic. This will give me consistent audio as I move around my performing space. It will also allow me to easily mute myself if I need to say something to my producer.
One little challenge this is adding is getting the audio into my production software. One of the main reasons I had switched to the podcast mic was that it was a USB mic. With my mic pack, I can’t plug it into the 3.5mm port in my laptop because I’ll lose the speakers on my computer. That’s where a quick amazon search lead me to a 3.5mm to USB adapter. So far in my little tests today the adapter works great.
Not only will this improve my audio, but it will clear up some floorspace eliminating the mic stand that held the podcast mic. I’m excited to try it for real in my show next week!
Having a second set of eyes helps a lot when working on things. Every now and then when I do virtual shows I’ll sneak a friend into the zoom and have them write notes on the show. Recently my friend noticed a rookie mistake I made.
In my three shell game routine (my Russian Shell Game routine) I have a graphic overlay pop up with the numbers 1, 2 and 3.
I wear a white shirt and the numbers are white. My friend pointed out that they blended into my shirt. It was a simple fix to add black borders to them for the future
Now they’ll work with pretty much any background.
Having a fresh set of eyes watch your show for little things make a big difference!
One of the things that’s been a challenge for me in virtual shows is using my space wisely. My virtual studio is in the office I share with my wife and I need to build the studio every show virtually from scratch. It’s much more work that driving to a venue and setting up.
About a week ago I did a post about adding a rotating shelf to below my working table top. I’m liking it and have gotten to use it in a couple of shows. I’m adding holders to the props, so that they can just stay set up. Here’s what I’ve 3d printed so far:
The goal is to hopefully cut down on my set up time. I just need to set up the studio, and not the studio plus all of my show props. The silver lining is that the holders also keep things from falling off the table when it’s moved or the shelf is rotated. I still need to make the holders for the rest of the table, but this is a start!
One of the things I’m always doing is trying to be more efficient. I’ve been having a difficult time streamlining my virtual show’s prop set up. Essentially what I had were two tables off screen and props would move from one to the other as they were used. This isn’t the worst system in the world, but it does take up a lot of space.
Last night I was playing with a different set up where I had a prop table in front of me but now in view of the camera. It was a much easier way to grab props. However I still have the challenge of having a working table in addition to the two prop tables. That’s when I got the idea of putting a shelf below my working table:
This shelf spins, so that I can rotate it to access different props easily. I’m going to cover it with felt and probably 3d print holders for my props to keep them upright, and in position. The shelf is also at a height where when my hand drops naturally, I could grab, or secretly steal something.
This shelf may be the key in eliminating both of my prop tables, and that will free up some physical performing space!
