Right now I’m on the road performing in Alaska and I tend to practice more when I travel than when at home. There are a few reasons for this, but the big one is that I think I just have less distractions. All of the things that I can use to put off practicing at home don’t exist in a hotel room in another state.
Right now I’m working on a trick with a dollar called Sketch Money by Joao Miranda.
For my summer show I needed a way to produce a dollar bill and I remember seeing a review of this trick. This is follow up to the trick Sketch, which was a similar production of a card. The one with the dollar bill was also very poorly reviewed, where the card got good reviews.
I think the main reason for the difference in reviews was that the card one was better for close up where the dollar one has a problem, that can really only be solved by distance between you and the audience. I think most of the people that bought it were looking for a close up trick and that’s the why no one liked it.
The solution on the instructional video was for you to simply step back 6 feet from the audience. That’s a horrible solution to the problem, as it’s strange if you are table hopping and doing stuff under the audience’s noses, then step back two meters. This is a platform trick, not a close up.
I did some reworking of the gimmick to make it slimmer, and I’ve got some ideas to improve it even more, however they were beyond what I could make in a hotel room. The gimmick supplied could be made better, however I understand why it is the way it is. It’s got to be made to hit a price point, and make it reasonably easy for the average person to be able to make.
This is where being willing to rebuild something you paid for is a good trait. You can take something and make it better than the mass market version. Your custom version will be better 99% of the time!