Oh man, we’re hitting the homestretch here! A few days ago I started writing about wanted to do Goshman’s Cards Thru Newpaper and how it has morphed into a completely new magic trick.
The final change to the physical props was to get rid of the jumbo card that the pictures reappeared under. I was texting my friend Terry Godfrey, who is a very smart magician and we came up with the idea of changing the jumbo card to an envelope that starts out holding the pictures.
I ended up making the envelope, so it’s not a standard size. It’s a little bit smaller than the jumbo card that I was using.
At this point I have an original magic trick. The next step is to clean up the handling a little bit.
Yesterday I wrote about working on Albert Goshman’s Cards Thru Newspaper. Then I took out what I didn’t like, the newspapers and it left me with cards thru jumbo card. In the original effect the cards penetrated up through a newpaper that was laid out like a mat. In the reworked version of the trick, the cards disappear from my hand and reappear under a jumbo card.
My thinking was to have the four cards that disappear one at a time and reappear under the jumbo card be signed, or be blank cards with spectator’s signatures. With this change to each card being unique, I can’t use Goshman’s method that has a duplicate. I needed to figure out a new way get the cards there, or more specifically to do a switch or two.
I started working out a sequence that made sense. What I came up with, for the most part was identical to Albert Goshman’s routine, just without the newspaper and instead of the cards penetrating the newspaper, they teleport to under the card.
The video below wasn’t intended to be watched by anyone other than me. I’m posting it to show how I create. When working on a sequence, I’ll just turn the camera on and play around. The nice thing is that if something works, I can easily go back and find it. This was probably sequence number 43 of the evening. There’s not a lot you can see in the video, but enough for me to know what I did.
At this point, I’ve removed a prop, and reworked the method, so technically it’s an original trick. However it’s still a card trick right now, and I’m trying to not add card tricks to my show. I’ll talk about my solution to making it not a card trick tomorrow.
When I see magic shows, I like watching them from the back of the room. You learn a lot more about how to perform from a bad seat than you do a good seat. In theory your show will play to all areas of the audience and play virtually equally. I get that some things … Continue reading “Worst Seat in the House”
When I see magic shows, I like watching them from the back
of the room. You learn a lot more about
how to perform from a bad seat than you do a good seat. In theory your show will play to all areas of
the audience and play virtually equally.
I get that some things will automatically be harder to see from
different parts of the audience by nature of distance, like a jumbo card will
look jumbo from the front row, but smaller from the back.
When watching a magic show from the back, it makes you aware
of what you can and cannot see. For
example I personally can’t read a normal playing card from about the 10th
row. What does that mean, someone in the
back of the theater doesn’t know what it is.
How do you overcome this? Use jumbo card, use low vision cards, make the
card with a big X???
Then colors of props start coming into play. Having a prop that “pops” due to contrast
between what you wear or the background becomes important. I’m not saying all of your props have to be
neon colors, but it’s important for you to be aware of what’s visible and
what’s going to disappear.
Start watching shows from the cheap seats and you’ll soon realize most magic
shows are too small!
A week or two ago magicians started noticing that the Walgreens Drug Stores in the USA stared selling Jumbo Bicycle Decks of cards. They also started buying a ton of them when they were on sale as a “buy one get one free” deal. Then came the realization that the cards were the new … Continue reading “Magician’s Love a Deal…”
A week or two ago magicians started noticing that the Walgreens Drug Stores in the USA stared selling Jumbo Bicycle Decks of cards. They also started buying a ton of them when they were on sale as a “buy one get one free” deal.
Then came the realization that the cards were the new thinner stock jumbo cards. By “new” I mean the stock they changed to a decade ago. This thinner stock is harder to use than the old stock which was at least twice as thick as the new stock. The same magicians that were hoarding the cards were complaining about how they were useless.
These cards have tons of ways to use them.
Practice with them and you’ll be able to handle them like the old stock. I’ve been using the new stock for years.
Make a “double deck” where you essentially have two decks in one.
Make a pop eyed popper deck
Think outside the box. The advantage of the thinner stock is you can make some interesting gimmicks without having to “split” the cards. Here’s one of the things that I made:
This is a flap card and my design was based on FLAP by Hondo. In the future I want to make a card that has two changes, so shows a total of three cards if you include the card it starts one. My plan would be to use this for a reveal of the cards for the classic “Tossed Out Deck” trick.
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