Tag: illusion

Doing Illusions…

One of the fun things in the World of Wonders show is they do the some great illusions! One of them is the headless woman. This is part of a larger routine, where a girl gets her head cut off, the head is displayed balanced on a sword on a chair (so you can see under the head) and then the body is displayed without a head!

It’s fun to get to slip into the illusions for fun, but it also gives me a lot more respect for people who do them. Not just sideshow illusions, but magic illusions as it’s a lot of slipping into places that don’t feel like they were designed for people to slip into!

I don’t do illusions, however I do think it’s important for magicians to try to slip into them. It’s easy to say, “I know how it works, she’s just in the base…“. the reality is that there’s a lot more to it than simply laying down.

Stuff I’d Never Do…

One of the fun things about making short pre-recorded videos for events is that I get to play around with things that I’d never do in my show. Here’s a clip of a trick from one of those videos:

What I really enjoy about making videos like this is getting to play a lot more. When you can try something 20 times, it allows you to take risks you’d never take in a live show.

Go out and play!

Creating Digital Content…

Lately I’ve been busy creating digital content for events. This is different from virtual or live stream shows. I’m creating tricks and routines specifically for their groups and they are using them to promote their online events. It’s fun, and very much a different mindset than performing.

Here’s a practice video for one of these videos:

Ultimately we didn’t use the final trick, however this is a good example of having fairly well rounded knowledge of magic techniques comes in handy. Personally I never thought I’d be doing any illusions at this point in my career, but know a little bit about them has come in pretty handy lately!

a bit of praise…

Yesterday’s post was a bit harsh on Goswick. I’m going to give him some praise today. Here’s a trick I think is an interesting idea:

Now, it’s a interesting routine, I’m not sure it calls for the giant props that he’s using, but it’s a good idea. If there was a way to have a flat board, without the strange triangle, it’d be a much better trick. I think the triangle points at the method.

I do like the idea of watching the elbow, that’s good. I wonder if there’s a better prop for this trick. Maybe a cloth that’s held up, you’d need a little bit of engineering, but using a cloth or something not rigid would add another layer to this effect.

Catalog vs Reality…

When I was a kid there used to be an ad in magic magazines for a catalog of illusion plans. They were by Goswick’s Illusions. I remember writing him to get the catalog and based on the one picture of the illusion and the catalog description it was amazing. Somehow 20+ years l stumbled upon his website and he’s still selling his illusion plans.

It was a very interesting watching his demo videos, he has a lot of creative ideas…unfortunately they are poorly executed ideas.

Here’s one of them:

I 100% give him credit for creating his own method and ideas. However magically most of them fall very short of being good ideas. It’s one thing to have an original effect or method, but you need to understand what makes a trick good. Not everything should be sold, have a free plans workbook that’s the bad ideas, or contribute them to a magazine…charging people for them is something that I personally don’t agree with.

Keep Notes…

Last year for a gig I built a Girl Without a Middle illusion. Basically, it’s a Sphinx Illusion, but I put it on wheels so that I can get in it and walk around. Then I can stop and put other people in it, and pictures and be taken. Here’s what it looked like: After … Continue reading “Keep Notes…”

Last year for a gig I built a Girl Without a Middle illusion. Basically, it’s a Sphinx Illusion, but I put it on wheels so that I can get in it and walk around. Then I can stop and put other people in it, and pictures and be taken. Here’s what it looked like:

After doing it last year, I think I must have thought it wasn’t going to get rebooked as I kept nothing about the box, not even the building notes. When the time came to rebuild it, I was basically starting from scratch. I found the receipt for the mirrors, so that gave me some basic info about the box and a starting point.


My learning lesson was doing something as simple as taking a picture of my build notes would have helped a lot.

Ideas Become Reality…

I’ve been keeping notebooks for idea for magic since I was a teenager. Most of the ideas from the early ones are horrible, but every now and then I’ll flip through them and find something interesting. About 10 years ago I had an idea for a trick, but it was missing something that would make … Continue reading “Ideas Become Reality…”

I’ve been keeping notebooks for idea for magic since I was a teenager. Most of the ideas from the early ones are horrible, but every now and then I’ll flip through them and find something interesting. About 10 years ago I had an idea for a trick, but it was missing something that would make it functional.


I was running at the gym and notice something triggered an “ah-ha moment” that made the idea work. When I got home, I created the two parts on my 3D printer and printed them up. Here’s one of them in the CAD Program:

And here’s the other one that’s printed out:

Now that I have these two pieces, I’ve assembled the trick and am happy to report that the trick works!


The sad news is that in the 10 years since I had the idea my performing style has changed a lot and this really doesn’t fit how I perform. However it’s been in my head for so long, I’m going to keep developing it at home and try to figure out a way to make it work.


TLDR: Always keep an eye out for solutions to a problem