In yesterday’s blog post I wrote about a four ace production that I saw on social media and why it wasn’t good. This morning I’m going into my social media and found a four ace production from about a year ago. If I remember correctly this is from Principia by Harapan Ong.
Here’s why the is a better trick that the one that I shared yesterday:
I’m talking, it fills the dead space a bit better
No procedural shuffling
You get an ace production right away
The final ace production is magical and puts an punctuation on the trick
Is the ace trick that I did the best? No, however it’s way better than the one that I shared yesterday. Think about what you’re sharing before you put it out there.
After being in magic most of my life, I still love it. That’s not to say that I unconditionally love any trick, there are plenty of bad ones. For example I had this one come through my Facebook feed:
For a four ace production it’s pretty bad, and the payoff after all that procedure heavy shuffling doesn’t justify the time it took to get there. After all of that shuffling, at least give me a flash production of the four aces, don’t just take them off the top of the deck.
For a social media video, a better trick would be a couple of riffle shuffles and then a flash production, and you’d be at less than 30 seconds of video and it’d be a much stronger trick. For one minute to simply turn the top cards over, you’d need some novelty or cardistry type shuffling to make it interesting.
The other night while watching TV with the family I was fiddling with a deck fo cards and came up with a strange color change. There’s a lot wrong with it, and in its current state it’s not a good color change.
The main problem with it is that it’s not good for video. I can see the flash that happens when you palm the card being hidden in a live show, but not on video. Also there are better ways to do a color change.
The other day I posted about a virtual gig I did. I was an act in a cabaret show and my bit was prerecorded, so I didn’t perform live. Honestly that was sort of a mistake. We should have found a way to do it live from different locations, and not prerecorded.
All of these things like Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Zoom, etc all have chat functions. When my prerecorded segment was on the show, I didn’t know if I wanted to watch because I was scared of what people would say in the comments. I forced my self to watch it and read the comments as my segment was playing. I decided what I could learn from negative comments would have HUGE value. I got positive comments, so my ego was unscathed.
One thing about doing a virtual gig is that you can use the comments to your advantage. You can use them for people to pick a card, name a number, say their favorite movie, etc. Now you can add some interactive elements to the show.
The takeaway is you should embrace the comments feature and use them to your advantage!
About six months ago I had an idea for a trick, essentially it was a signed card changed from a five of spade to a four of spade. You can read my idea for method for this trick here. This is basically the trick “Picking Off The Pips” that I think I read a version of in the Amateur Magician’s Handbook by Henry Hay when I was a kid. The difference is that it’s a signed card.
I was going to make up a card, but time wise never did. Then due to the cancellations of shows due to COVID-19 I was cleaning up my office and found a set of Dry Transfer Decal Card Pips.
This was probably the greatest thing that’s come out of cleaning out the office! Thanks to these I was able to easily make the gimmick for my idea.
The pip I added to the card was a bit smaller than the pips currently on a poker size deck, but I don’t think that will change how the trick works.
The trick hinges on people not being as familiar with a deck of cards as magicians are. I remember as a kid my mom coming home from work and they had a corporate trainer do a thing with a deck of cards. It wasn’t a card trick, but at the end the trainer asked if anyone had noticed anything strange with the cards. My mom was the only one who noticed that the red cards were black and the black card were red. The only reason she caught that is at that time she’d probably picked a hundred cards a week for me while I was practicing tricks. Normal audiences won’t notice.
I’m glad to have the gimmick, unfortunately I there are no audiences to do the trick for right now. I wish I could try it out.
Right now I’m reading the bookFASDIU 2 by Paul W. Cummins. FASDIU stands for From A Shuffled Deck In Use. The material in this book is all on things using a deck with no set up and no gaffs. I’m really liking the book so far much of the material is the kind of magic I like to do.
I really like the first trick in the book, however this blog post is about the trick called A Total Triumph which is based on a Steve Reynolds trick. In this trick right before the reveal of all the cards going the same direction except for the selected card, you need to get rid of a reversed card on top of the deck. I thought that the old “drop the deck and the top card flips over” thing would solve this.
Here’s a quick demo used in a different context of the idea:
The move makes more sense in the context of the A Total Triumph trick. I’m unaware of anyone using this move to clean up a reversed card in a deck. I think it’s interesting to use a card reveal as a clean up.
It’s fun playing around with magic tricks. A couple days ago I wrote about tweaking the card trick A Case For Premonition by Roberto Giobbi. This is a card trick where someone names a card, it disappears and it’s in your pocket. I jammed the card trick with a buddy and showed him another way … Continue reading “Keep Tweaking…”
It’s fun playing around with magic tricks. A couple days ago I wrote about tweaking the card trick A Case For Premonition by Roberto Giobbi. This is a card trick where someone names a card, it disappears and it’s in your pocket. I jammed the card trick with a buddy and showed him another way of doing it that I had thought of, which I like a bit more.
In the original method you need to count out 51 cards, it’s boring and time consuming. What I’m doing instead is using a deck that’s marked and in a memorized order. They call out a card and you spread the deck to about where the card is, locate it and get a pinkie break under it. I do this as I say, “You could have named any card…” then I square up the deck. I then side jog the card, and ribbon spread the deck face up on the table. This will hide the selection. Be sure to not be selfish and ribbon spread the cards so that they indices aren’t upside down to the audience. I then run my finger across the cards looking for their card, and it’s gone! I finish by doing Bob Farmer’s Bammo Move as I pick up the deck, palm the card and produce it from my pocket.
It’s not a huge change, but I think it really streamlines the process of making the card disappear. It’s also technically a lot easier than Giobbi’s version that uses a Double Deal and a Cull Palm. If you used an edge marked deck, you’d eliminate the need for the estimation and spread, you could just look for the mark and get a break.
In the past I’ve mentioned that jamming with other magicians is an important part of the creative process. This has benefits beyond just coming up with ideas, you can also learn new techniques by hanging out with other magicians. Here’s a magic jam from yesterday: In the video you may have noticed the Coin in … Continue reading “Bouncing Ideas…”
In the past I’ve mentioned that jamming with other magicians is an important part of the creative process. This has benefits beyond just coming up with ideas, you can also learn new techniques by hanging out with other magicians.
Here’s a magic jam from yesterday:
In the video you may have noticed the Coin in Chapstick that I’ve been messing with. It’s an interesting idea, and it was fun two work out some of the finer details with these magicians. I think the trick got better after getting some good feedback!
Yesterday I wrote about using projection in my show. The key is to enhance the live action, not to replace viewing it from the stage to the screen. Basically the idea is to have the action happen live on stage and visible to the audience, but then using the screen to verify or highlight smaller … Continue reading “More on Projection…”
Yesterday I wrote about using projection in my show. The key is to enhance the live action, not to replace viewing it from the stage to the screen. Basically the idea is to have the action happen live on stage and visible to the audience, but then using the screen to verify or highlight smaller details.
A good example of this would be a Signed Card to Pocket. The main props which are cards are large and can be seen in a large theater. The signature or specific card number is smaller. Having a screen to project the signed card onto will make the effect play larger.
My idea for working solo is to have a dedicated table with a camera on it and then the projector and screen. In a lot of venues I won’t need to provide the screen, as they will have one already, or I may be able to directly project the image onto a wall behind me. Projecting onto the wall as needed is the ideal situation.
There are certain “plots” in card magic that I’m really not a fan of. One of them is the Do As I Do type of tricks. These are typically very procedure heavy and the payoff isn’t that great. Usually it ends with you and a spectator finding the other person’s card. Last night I was … Continue reading “Do As I Do…”
There are certain “plots” in card magic that I’m really not a fan of. One of them is the Do As I Do type of tricks. These are typically very procedure heavy and the payoff isn’t that great. Usually it ends with you and a spectator finding the other person’s card.
What makes this Do As I Do trick great is that it’s not a “pick a card” type trick. It’s a color change type of card trick, but the cards change for both you and the spectator! Best of all there’s no procedure! The top cards on both halves of the deck keep changing, it’s great!
I love encountering tricks that change how I feel about magic plots!
