Video – Page 39 – MagicShow.Tips

Event Promo Videos…

Frequently I’m asked to make little promo videos for events that I’m performing. Here’s one a made for a gig a few days ago:

They wanted me to thank the sponsors and to do a quick trick. One of my “go to tricks” for situations like that are flap cards for a quick color change. I do the first change in the glass (which as far as I know I’m the first to do) which I think adds to the impossibility of it changing. Then the second is just the toss change.

Having a quick and visual trick you can do for things like this helpful. Also essentially having a formula for doing videos for events, so you’re not reinventing the wheel every time. I just grab my glass and card and I’m good to go!

-Louie

Chinese Take Out Production…

Yesterday I wrote about an idea of using a chinese take out box as a production box. I went out and bought some poster board and made a box using the real one as a template. It was pretty easy to make the box, and luckily it all worked out on the first try:

I won’t use cards as the production item as they don’t make sense coming out of the box. I think I’ll use chinese food like noodles, or possibly and oyster and then noodles.

I think this is superior to many production boxes that are on the magic market because it’s something that people actually see everyday. Also as a prop, it’s much easier to relate to than a mirror box!

-Louie

Tooth Fairy Magic…

The other day I had a strange idea. I wanted to do a transposition between a tooth and a quarter. Using the toothfairy as presentation hook is a no brainer for this. The challenge was that I wanted one of them to be held in the spectator’s hand and obviously they are very different shapes.

The solution finally hit me, why not hand them a folding coin that was folded in thirds? This will have roughly the same shape as a tooth, and have some textures like a tooth. Once that was figured out, the rest of the mechanics were pretty simple. Here’s me trying it out:

It works! This was a great solution for strange problem.

– Louie

Great Tricks Suck on Low Stages…

A couple of weeks ago I was at a booking conference and one of the acts did Bowl-A-Rama by Kevin James. If you aren’t familiar with the trick, it’s a bowling ball production from a sketch pad. Here’s what it looks like:

This is a great trick…usually. Here’s a picture of the guy I saw doing it:

Do you see the problem with doing it in this venue?

If you can’t spot the problem, here’s what it is: The stage is very low
The production of the bowling ball happened below the guy’s waist, which means most of the audience couldn’t see it. This was his opening effect and totally wasted on the audience.

I don’t fault the performer. He was flying in to do a showcase set and probably only packed his showcase set. Replacing the bit probably wasn’t an option for this specific bit.

One thing I try to do is watch shows from the back of the audience. Another way to do this is put a video camera in the back, but at eye level as if you were sitting in a chair. If you pay attention you will see what’s visible and what isn’t. For me, I try to avoid anything where the action happens below my waist.

-Louie

Interactive…

The other day I picked up Interactive by Danny Orleans and Mike O’Donnell as it’s on Sale for 25% off right now. Interactive is a “touch the screen” type trick, however it gets it right. There’s no counting or spelling, which ups the odds of you getting everyone to end up on the right place at the end of the trick.

I got the pro version as it comes with the some tutorials and templates to make you own custom versions. I think the pro version is the way to go, it saved me a ton of time making a custom version. Sure, I could have figured out how to make my own custom version from the basic version, but in time saved, it saved me money.

I’m doing a few library shows in 2022 that are cryptid themed, so I made a custom version of the trick using bigfoot. I’m hoping with the talk up, the trick and the extro that I can get about 3 minutes out of it. I see this as something that I can fairly easily customize for themed virtual events and live ones if they have projection. If you know me, you know I dislike doing tricks that are themed to events…however this is relatively painless and I’m not compromising (much) what I’m willing to do.

-Louie

Snappy Flappy Card Transposition!

In my virtual shows I started doing a card change with a flap card. I was isolating the card in a glass, then shaking the glass and the card changes to another card. I really like this, as it makes the change really impossible. The method is simple, it uses a flap card and the card it sitting at an angle. The weight of the card keeps the flap from flipping. Then simply shaking the glass allows the flap to flip for the change.

The other night I was watching a hockey game and playing around with using the flap card in the glass as a card transposition. Here’s what I came up with:

Here’s what the trick needs: It needs some scripting to call attention to just one of the cards. Mention that that jack of diamonds is in the glass, so that when it’s appears in your hand, they know something has happened. I think if you mention both cards, it gets confusing.

-Louie

Video Showcasing…

I’m home now from a booking conference I was at earlier in the week. One of the things that happens at these are video showcases. These are up to three minute videos that play usually in between the live act showcases. There were a couple of good video showcases and a lot of bad ones.

The number one thing about a video showcase is to use still images sparingly and use them with purpose. One of the showcases I watched was of a musician who does a roving act and he does a lot of audience engagement and pulls around a wagon that looks really cool. His video was all still images with him singing a song played over. It didn’t really give any context to what he does or how a buyer would use it.

The next worst thing is to play a video of you playing a gig. One person played a video him that had bits of several songs, but they were all at the same venue. It was visually boring. At least have several venues…and record them from the soundboard, they audio will turn out much nicer and easier to listen to.

Another thing is that news footage is great…but trim out all the stuff that’s not you! One act had a nice news clip, but they kept in the intro of the two newscasters bantering about the weather or whatever at the beginning, essentially wasting the buyers time for 15 seconds. Then they left in the extro of the two newscasters banters about what was coming up next, once again wasting the buyers time.

The final thing is you don’t need to use the full 3 minutes (or whatever the max is) for your video. If you can tell the buyers what you need in 75 seconds, great…you don’t need to bore them with redundant info for the remaining time. Trimming out the fat is key!

Those are some tips if you are putting together a video showcase or making a sizzle reel!

-Louie

Committing to the Cage…

When I was driving home from Abbott’s Magic Get Together, I stopped and visited a magician in Minnesota to talk about the vanishing birdcage. He was thinking of adding it to his show.

His fear was the cage hanging up on his sleeve. The thing with the cage vanish is that people think it’s easy, until they start to work with it and then realize how hard of a trick it is to do. The first thing you do is try to eliminate anything that will snag on your sleeve. The second thing you do is use proper technique for the vanish. That’s putting a lot of tension on the pull and making the “hand tunnel” correctly.

Here’s me vanishing the cage at the fair yesterday:

Once you’ve gotten the snags removed and the technique down, the last thing you have to do is commit to the vanish. When you make the cage disappear you don’t do it timidly, you vanish it like it’s going to go up your sleeve. Committing to the vanish is where I think a lot of people have trouble. They’re worried about it not going up the sleeve, so the don’t pull as hard as they should.

Dr. Strange Magic Show…

Last week I was at Disneyland and went over to the California Adventure park to see the Dr. Strange show. Essentially this was a 12 minute magic show. The magic trick were essentially used as “live special effects”, and not as magic tricks. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing them this way, it’s just a different mindset.

There were basically four tricks: Devils Hank, Ring to Flower, Zombie, and an Appearing Pole. This show was a great example of a themed magic show. Every trick was used with a purpose to further along the story. The Zombie was well motivated, but went way longer than it should have gone.

Here’s video I found online of the full show:

This show is also a good example of why when I do themed shows my role is more of a lecturer than a character that’s presenting a show. Performing as someone other than me doesn’t really interest me, and I’m not a good enough actor to do that.