Category: Video

Performing on National TV!

Doing a national news spot can be very challenging when doing magic. A while ago, I wrote a post about doing them with some behind the scenes video. One of the biggest challenges is how fluid they can be. With magic, it’s fairly easy to be prepared with a couple of tricks that run different lengths of time.

Recently I did a national news spot at a gig where I was doing my street organ. This is a bit more challenging for a news spot. I was told we’d have 30 seconds, so the reporter, producer and I planned the bit and here’s how it came out:

Unforeseen Challenges of Performing on Live Television!

Those 30 seconds ended up being over a minute! I was rushing because I thought we didn’t have much time. I was also getting a weird vibe from the reporter and wasn’t sure what to make of it. In my past experience, the weird vibe means we have to wrap up. After we finished, he mentioned he lost the audio in his earpiece, so he didn’t know how we were doing on time. We both were kinda flying blind!

Given the situation it turned out well.

-Louie

Is the Three Shell Game Relevant?

Not too long ago, a magician I was hanging out with said he didn’t think that younger people understood or knew what the shell game is. I disagree; I think young people know what the three shell game is, and my reasoning is that every ballpark in the USA plays a version of it on the jumbotron. Here’s the shell game at a Cincinnati Reds game:

It’s a simple concept of a game, and younger people definitely know what it is, or it wouldn’t be played in stadiums! This is one of the things that I like about it, it IS RELATABLE because people have played it before!

-Louie

Magic Trick That Looks Like AI!

Modern magic, especially close up magic has moved to very visual effects. Things that look like AI or if you’re old school, then trick photography. Magicians rarely look to the past, there are some amazing tricks that look like a modern AI fake magic trick.

One example is the Joseph Silk Gun. Another is the Jumbo Card Restoration Frame which was invented by Theo Bamberg in 1909. I’m sharing a greenroom with a magician who has one of these and it looks amazing!

There’s ton’s of really cool stuff from the past that fits modern styles, you just got to search it out!

-Louie

Doing a National News Spot!

A few days ago, I was doing a news spot to promote the state fair that I’m performing at. In this contract, I’m only doing my Vintage Organ, so no magic. One of the things that I did was go over what I planned to do with the person I’d be talking to on the show. He asked if he could play the organ and I said “yes”, then asked him if he wanted to just play a song or if he wanted to get a laugh. He said, “laugh”, so that’s what we went with. I’ll post a video of the media spot when I get it.

When you do TV, there’s a lot of waiting around. My call time was 8am, and we didn’t do the actual spot until 9:45am! One of the things that I did was start to play Name That Tune with songs on my organ. I did this about 10 mins before we were supposed to start. I didn’t want to force it in; I noticed everyone was standing around doing nothing. I asked how much time we had and was told about 10 mins, so I started the game.

Here’s the “behind the scenes” video that Fox and Friends posted:

Not only did this kill some time, but since I had been waiting for close to two hours, I wanted to do something to put some energy back into me! It worked well, and it was a fun news spot!

Last year I made a behind the scenes video of a news spot that you can watch here!

These news spots can be intimidating, especially national ones like this, but a little bit of planning and a little bit of goofing around make a huge difference!

-Louie

A Simple Cell Phone Magic Trick

Personally, I don’t like using my cellphone for magic tricks. It’s too easy for an audience to say something is an app or AI. The other reason is that so many magic specific apps get abandoned by their creators, and they just stop working.

Here’s a little magic trick that I came up with that uses a cell phone:

The video above was the test of the trick, I’ve tightened it up and removed all the double lifts from it.

Honestly Evaluating The Magic Trick

What I like about this is that it doesn’t use any magic apps, so I’m not relying on some magician in their basement in Alabama to keep it updated!

What I don’t like about it, is that the effect is fairly slow. Removing the double lifts speeds it up a lot and takes out a lot of unnecessary process.

One last thing, I found the trick is stronger when it’s repeated a second time!

When creating magic tricks, I think it’s important to evaluate what’s going one. Figure out what you like and don’t like and what makes it hit harder for the audience. Try things, take risks. .

-Louie

Fun Origami Magic Trick!

In the summer, I frequently work with Jeremey the Juggler, who is a juggler, but also an origami master (I’m not sure if that’s an official title). One day he mentioned that he made an origami box that just happened to kinda do a magic trick.

Here’s his video:

I’ve helped him in the past with a tutorial, you can see it here!

When he mentioned this to me, I took a piece of paper from a magazine and made one and came up with a little routine with things in my hotel room:

There’s really not much to do the trick. A false transfer and use your arm to cover you loading the object on top of the box. Then use the box to do the second vanish.

It’s a quick, fun little sequence that appeals to magicians and origami people.

-Louie

How To Make a Magic Video Go Viral!

When you talk to people who are big on social media, they all tend to give similar advice:
1: Post consistantly
2: If something works, repeat that

I’m not huge on social media; I really post stuff that I think is interesting. My average Instagram post right now is between 2k and 20k views. However, recently this one hit 300k views:

That is an outlier for me, so I went to the advice of repeating what you did. The video from above is part of my shell game routine, and I have more of the same clip that I could use, so I made a second one:

This one is currently at 1.8 million views!

instagram magician
Screenshot

So when that one popped, I decided to follow the format again and use a third chunk from the video.

This one is sitting at just over 8k views. The formula worked spectacularly for the second video! I do have another phase or two from the original video, I might put them up to see what happens.

I guess I’m going to parrot the advice, that if something works, do it again and repeat until it stops working!

-Louie

How To Create a Visual Hook For Magic Routines

One of the things that I try to do when creating magic routines is to think about what they look like. This is important when you perform at places like state and county fairs, where you have a transient audience. Having strong visual hooks that will stop someone that’s walking by is important in that market.

Here’s an example of a visual hook, it’s part of my Body Language Book Test which is in my 2025 PCAM Lecture notes.

In the routine, a guy ends up hitting me in the belly with a tube. It’s a great bit, but more importantly, the routine is visually interesting virtually the whole time!

Three Easy Way To Adding Visual Appeal To Magic Routines

Here are three common, and easy ways to add visuals to magic routines:
1: Props – If you have an interesting prop, that is obviously visually interesting, and of course, the bigger the better! People need to see it from a distance, or they won’t stop.
2: People – More people onstage can create drama. You’ve changed your show from monologue to dialogue.
3: Action – Having motion onstage makes people stop to watch. A bad dance troupe will having an easier time getting a crowd than an amazing stand up comedian.

Ultimately, most things will use more than one of the things above to draw attention.

A good example is my Straight Suit routine, which you can see here. It combines a interesting prop, the inflatable suit with action.

Also keep in mind that not every single routine needs to be a giant thing, for texture in your show, you should vary things. A great example is Franz Harary in one of his MEGA illusion shows also does silk to egg.

-Louie

Jimothy and How To Create a Card Trick

A couple of days ago I saw a video of a unique looking racoon that that internet has named Jimothy. Here’s the video:

He’s popping up everywhere, and that got me thinking, what magic trick could I do with him.

A Simple First Step To Creating Magic Tricks

The easiest way to create a magic trick quickly is to find the theme, in this case Jimothy and figure out what to do with it. I’m travelling right now, so I’m limited with props, which can be a good thing when trying to create something new. I did have some blank face playing cards, so that gave me a start, it’ll be a card trick, with a picture of Jimothy.

My idea was to do an ace assembly type trick, with Jimothy and things raccoons eat. The challenge was that I didn’t have enough blank face cards to do it in the traditional way with 16 cards. I think this was a good thing, because most ace assemblies are too long and redundant, but you kinda need to have three “traveler” piles because there are four aces. I didn’t have that restraint for this trick.

I’m a huge belivier in creating magic tricks with rules or restraints. It definately makes it easier. You can read about how this applied to a full show that I wrote here!

Here’s what I came up with:

What I like about the format of this card routine is that it can be used for other themed tricks. It’s an easily adaptable format, customizing!

-Louie
PS: You can learn more about how I create magic here!

A Good Card Trick for Emergencies!

Last week I finished reading Card Man Stuff by Al Leech and this week I started reading another card magic book by Al Leech called Super Card Man Stuff. This book is pretty good. I’m about halfway through it, and while I don’t think it’s as good as Card Man Stuff, it’s still pretty good and a worthwhile read.

Here’s a Card Trick I Love!

In the book, there’s a gag that’s essentially an impromptu novelty card, like the ones that came in a FAKO deck. Here’s what it looks like:

I think this is a great trick (gag) to have in your brain for emergencies. I can see many opportunities where knowing this and having it in your mental toolbox, ready to be used, would be helpful!

Many times knowing little bits like these have bailed me out of situations or enhanced them!

-Louie