magic show – Page 6 – MagicShow.Tips

Using Light to add Punctuation

While in Arizona last week I visited Organ Stop Pizza and I wrote a little bit about it yesterday. Today I’m writing about something else that I noticed with performance. In many of the songs the organist played, there was lighting changes:

The room was normally dark, and when he got towards ends of song and it had a big ending, he would lighten up the room for the finale, then darken it at the end. While these songs were songs that had more exciting endings, the lighting change end really signaled the crowd to clap and cheer louder.

This is a technique used in many theater shows, sometimes ending the trick with a blackout. I’m sure there’s a name for it in theater terms, I just don’t know it. However it’s a way to signal the end of a trick or routine that may have less off a definite and hard punctuation at the end.

The organist used the lighting very deliberately and very effectively. Personally I’m a pretty basic lighting guy, and that’s probably because I came out of stand up comedy rooms, and not theaters. However it’s something I would like to explore more.

-Louie

Suspension of Disbelief…

When I was in Arizona last week I went to Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa, AZ. This is pizza place that has a guy play a giant Wurlitzer organ.

One the the things that I found interesting was the people around me commented about all of the songs he knows. He takes requests and they are pretty varied in genre. What the people didn’t notice was that he had device to his left just out of view that he was using for the songs he didn’t already know.

This is an interesting suspension of disbelief, which is different from when you see Peter Pan and ignore the wires that make him fly. This a suspension of disbelief closer to doing magic. The audience wanted him to have a huge catalog of music in his head, so that’s what they believed, despite all of his typing.

In magic you want the audience to believe you can do the trick…not necessarily by “magic” but you can do the trick successfully. Once you convivence them that you can you can take a lot of risks and they will unconsciously suspend disbelief and be onboard with things.

Juan Tamariz talks about this in The Magic Rainbow. Basically he says that once they audience is onboard with him, he can do things that would be easily explained. He does them after he’s proven himself, and the audience suspends disbelief that he’s simply using a trick prop.

I was watching the organist arrange his set list of requests. He has a couple of songs he knows, then plays a one he doesn’t know, then a medley of 3-5 songs and I think one or two of these he doesn’t know well, but can bookend with known songs and finally he plays a couple songs he knows well. It’s a great plan, it’s also the Juan Tamariz formula.

-Louie

First Outdoor Gig of 2022

I just wrapped up performing at my first fair of 2022 and this fair has reminded me that to be successful performing at a fair you need a lot more than a good act. You need to be flexible as there are soo many unexpected variables.

The fair I was at has soo many challenges. One of the biggest ones was that it way very windy. By windy, I mean it would blow my table over. I’ve had to deal with that before sometimes the solution is simply to unscrew the top off my table and set it on the floor.

The stage was mostly in the Arizona sun all day, which bakes your props. I do a trick with keys and by the time I got to that routine they were physically uncomfortable to touch. The solution was to put strings on the end of the keys, so people could hold them by the string.

Then there was the blowing dust. Unfortunately there really wasn’t a solution to that. All that really can be done is to either pause until it stops or power through it.

Having performed at many fairs in the past, I’m aware of the challenges and while I’d prefer to not have the wind blow over my table, I’m equipped to handle them. Fairs will make you a better performer because you’ll have to deal with pretty much everything from weather, to people, to venue challenges. If you can figure out how to adapt, you can figure out how to work your show virtually anywhere.

-Louie

Short Event Promo Videos…

I think I’ve written about this before, but Hondo’s Flap Cards are amazing! These are essentially cards that change from one card to another. I frequently do quick little videos for events that I perform at for them to use on their social media and I usually use a flap card.

Here’s one I recently did:

What makes the flap card so great is that I can get two changes in very fast while delivering the message. Also it’s a very visual trick that doesn’t have a phase where I have to prove something, like showing a box empty. For me, these cards fit the bill!

-Louie

Hitting the Road from the Past…

I’m getting ready to head out for the beginning of my “Fair” season of 2022. My first one for this year is also the first one that I had cancel on me in 2020 and it also ended up cancelling in 2021. I recently did an interview with a reporter and did a quick search for the article. It doesn’t look like it’s been published yet, however I did find this one from right before the 2020 fair:

I like how the article does get a little bit of my “flavor” in there about going to ghost towns. It really doesn’t do a lot to put butts in seats, the show description lacks a lot of sizzle. I think it may not have been the writers fault, I may have not told them about the show in a super exciting way.

Reading this makes me remember how important it is for me to convey specific things and emotions from the show. Also, the line about me debuting a trick, I need to sell that a lot more. It’s lacking a ton of sizzle.

The season is just getting started, and I’ll have more chances to work on it!
-Louie

RIP – Retire It Please

One thing that struck me was the amount of love for the Amazing Jonathan I’m seeing in FB posts.

It’s not the love for him that’s surprising, it’s the people who are doing it. There are a lot of people who I know have swiped gags from the Amazing Jonathan’s show and use them in their show, but are posting RIP’s on their social media. Are they really mourning his passing, or are they mourning the passing of their source free material.

These posts are like being sad when circuit city whet out of business, but not being sad because you were a customer, but because you used to shoplift laptops and it was easy to steal from. If you’re really sad he’s passed, you’d put the rest all of the gags stole from his show.

-Louie

Shell Game Collection…

We’re wrapping up our first move for the first time in 16 years, and it’s amazing what you accumulate over a decade and half. At our new place I set up my collection of three shell game sets, and I have more than I thought I had, and in the picture below there are no duplicates:

There are some interesting sets in the collection. For example I have three sets of Rivera Shells that are all made out of very different material. There are both sets of Karl Normal Shell Game which are bowls, the original run has a divot in the top, where the second run of them doesn’t.

The shell game set I own that’s not pictured is my main working set. I really should get a second set as a back up, and to have in the display.

-Louie

Area to Improve…

This morning I’m reflecting on the two senior shows I did over the last two days. Normally I wouldn’t put too much thought into them, however it’s been a while since I’ve done a full, in person show. I’ve been doing a lot of shorter bits lately, and that’s a different skill than 45-50 mins.

I think the areas I could improve would be to have a few more “non contact” tricks in this show. What I mean is have non contact options. There are a few spots where I needed to go into the audience, as I wasn’t allowed to bring people on stage. For procedural things, it’s not a huge deal. I’ve already added non contact options for things like “pick a card” an instead I have them name a card. It makes for some more interesting methods and makes me not be lazy.

There are some magic tricks that the person has do for the effect to really work. A good example is a I a Key R Rect / Seven Keys to Baldplate sort of trick and the impact is very much lessened when I turn the keys, versus having someone from the audience do that. The bigger problem is that the action happens in the audience, so it’s harder for people to see. The nice thing is that when it opens there’s a CLICK noise.

One solution I have though of for the Key R Rect trick is to have 3 people pick numbers from 1-4 and whoever picks the number I wrote down wins. I think it works, but in my head I feel it’s lacking something. It could just be that guessing a number doesn’t feel like a game to me. I do need to just go out and try it and see how it plays…

-Louie

Lip Reading…

Yesterday I did my second day of senior shows and it was a lot of fun. I think I may finally be figuring out how to make my coat hanger thru silk routine work. I just need to let the effect marinade and sit with the audience even longer. The trick is a very strong and visual trick, and I think brains just take a long time to process it.

Another thing I’m learning is how much people use their eyes to listen. When we listen we also do a lot of lip reading. When someone is masked, it’s harder to understand them because we can’t lip read. This makes a ton of sense looking into the past. For example my wife uses the captions when she watches movies on a smaller screen like her phone. It makes it easier for her to “hear”. Because of this I’m talking a lot more slowly and deliberately in my shows.

-Louie