magician – Page 6 – MagicShow.Tips

Cee-Lo for Virtual Shows…

One of the tricks I’m adding to my virtual magic shows is Cee-Lo which is my cups and dice routine. One of problems going from an in person show a virtual show is that you can’t move the audience’s focus around as easily. At one point in the routine I need to load the cup and doing it in the room with people there is super easy, however it’s much harder with the focused eye of the camera.

Normally I would load this from my pocket, however that won’t work for the reason above. What I’m going to do is load from the table. I designed a holder for the dice and they will slide up into the cup from behind the table’s edge.

This holder is currently printing out and I’ll try it out later today. This is something that I normally couldn’t use in my live shows because I perform in conditions where people can frequently see behind my table. This is one of the interesting things about working on a virtual show, I can use techniques that don’t work for my in person show.

Odd and Offbeat Variety Show

On Thursday (5/28) my buddy Matt Baker and I will be hosting the Odd and Offbeat Variety Show. We’ve got some fun acts and all will be performing live and we’ll do a Q&A with the acts after they perform.

I think this is a great format for a virtual show, you get a lot of acts and it’s done live. Check it out on Thursday!

Putting Your Show Online…

Over the last week a lot of magicians have been putting their shows online. I’m talking about a youtube video of their whole show, not just streaming. In my opinion 99% of these are garbage to watch. I’m not talking about the quality of the show, but the quality of the video. They only reason I’m able to get through them is that I like to know what other people are doing around the world.

If you are going to put a video of your show online, or even a clip, the first thing you need to do is cut out any fat at the beginning and end. I watched video last night and there was 20 seconds of the stage and the back of audience’s head before anything happened. This is a common problem with social media clips, where people leave in the video them turning on or off the camera. Edit that stuff out. When you leave it in, it tells me you don’t respect the viewer enough to spend a couple of mins to edit it out.

The big thing is audio, most of the shows I’ve watched sound like they were recorded off the camera’s microphone in the back of the room. Sure you can hear the show, but you have to listen.

The final thing is that you really need to have a couple of cameras and mix up the angles. The single camera at the back of the room with a wide shot of the whole stage doesn’t cut it anymore. You could use bits of the same routine from different shows. Recently Judah Friedlander and Adam Sandler did this in their Netflix shows.

Consider those three things before you upload your show to YouTubej.

COVID and Cancellations…

Currently the COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) is going around and people are freaking out. I know of a lot of events that are getting postponed or cancelled, and a lot of performers who are losing shows. Some of these cancellations are justified and some aren’t.

Over the last few days I’ve done a lot of thinking and talked to a lot of people who run event venues and produce shows. I’m trying to figure out what is the artist’s responsibility in regards to cancelling shows. Many times the artist has no choice and the decision is made by the venue, booker or producer. However sometimes the artist has a choice, generally in a contract this is called a Force Majeure clause. This allows one or both parties to the contract to cancel for reasons beyond their control. This is slightly different than and “act of god” clause, which covers things like weather. A Force Majeure clause covers a few more things like riots, or virus outbreaks.

**NOTE** I’m not a lawyer, find an actual lawyer for legal advice.

In show business there’s the old saying, “The show must go on” and sometimes it should, and sometimes it shouldn’t. I’ve seen or performed in plenty of shows where things have happened that should have stopped the show. I’ve personally seen fights break out, had someone die of a heart attack at a show, and famously in the Seattle area a comedian was assaulted with a baseball bat and almost killed onstage. All three of those instances the show didn’t go on, it stopped.

All three of the examples are pretty extreme, let’s move to an example that happened early in my career. I was schedule to perform at an assisted living facility for senior citizens and they called me the day before to cancel because the flu was going through their facility. I agreed to cancel, and this was a point in time where the money really meant a lot to me, I was living gig to gig. I understood that spreading the flu was potentially deadly to the seniors, and I didn’t want to get the flu and agreed to the cancellation. If you look into the current Coronavirus situation most of the deaths happened at an assisted living facility and they think it was spread during a Mardi Gras party there.

You can read about it here:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8084659/Germ-fest-Mardi-Gras-party-Washington-care-home-sparked-deadly-coronavirus-outbreak.html

What Can You Do?

Losing gigs sucks, and losing them out of an “abundance of caution” and not something that’s currently happening isn’t fun and it’s stressful. Here’s what you can do to prepare. Build up some savings, so you can ride out the cancellations. I think the common advice is to have three months of what you need to pay your bills saved up. I know a lot of people are stressing out about losing a gig or a dozen gigs. I’ve been there, it’s not fun, however it’s your duty as a business owner to have some money put away in case you can’t perform. I’ve had to perform sick, or with a broken arm to pay the bills, it’s not fun. Save some money.

Another thing you can do is not to post how many gigs you are losing. I think it makes people who wouldn’t otherwise cancel a gig start to think about it. If I’m a corporate gig and I have you booked, and look at your facebook page and see you’ve have 5 gigs cancel this week, it’s going to put it on my radar that maybe we should postpone our monthly meeting that we have you booked at. I know those posts get comments and interactions, but it’s for the wrong reasons. You can’t complain about the hysteria when you are feeding it. If you’re going for social media content, post about the gigs you are doing, post video of magic trick from your office, or post some video of you at a show last month.

Let’s wrap this up:

I’ve come to the conclusion that for my personal ethics I need to keep my audience safe. How do I do that when I also personally believe it’s still safe to go see shows, especially if you’re not in an “at risk group” for the Coronavirus? I’m going by what the health department in city or county the venue recommends. Sometimes there are outright bans on things, and sometimes there are just recommendations. The health department is (in theory) smarter than me about things like this. I’m following their recommendations, and I think ethically as a performer that is your duty to provide a minimum level of safety to your audience.

After The Force…

The other night I finished up reading After The Force by Ron Frost. I think it’s important to keep learning. There are tons of magicians I know that don’t learn magic for fun. They only learn something when they have to, which I think is the wrong approach. I think that magicians need to keep … Continue reading “After The Force…”

This book’s title is a bit misleading, I expected just endings to card tricks. The first part of the book teaches you how to force cards in a variety of ways. I agree with Ron’s assertion that the Classic Force is the best force. Then he teaches you a lot of tricks that uses forces, but in the context of the whole tricks. It’s the trick start to finish. Not that it’s a bad thing, I just thought it’d be something a bit different.

I’m glad I read the book, and worked through the stuff in it, however I don’t think anything from it is moving into my working set. It’s not that the stuff is bad, it’s just not for my show. There is one move in the book that will move into my “toolbox” or moves that I use when a situation calls for it. The big thing is to keep educating yourself on techniques and grow as a magician.

Podcast Guest Tips…

Yesterday I wrote about learning to be a good guest for doing media spots. Today I’m going to give you some tips to being a good guest on podcasts. Here’s a quick bit of background, I co-host a podcast called the Odd and Offbeat Podcast and also am the co-host of the podcast for the soon to be released Moisture Festival, which is the largest variety arts festival in the world.

My role as co-host of the Moisture Festival Podcast is to interview performers from around the world. One thing that has surprised me is how many don’t know how to be interviewed. Here are a few tips to be a good podcast guest:

Speak into the microphone and stay on the mic.
Come prepared. Ask if they have sample questions, or write out some questions and have answers to these. Even if these questions never come up, you’ve put thought into the interview and that will show in the final product.
Don’t think you are interesting, plan to be interesting.
Arrive a few mins early to chat with the host(s). That will allow you to relax a little bit and get all the awkward chit chat out of the way.
Don’t speak with your hands. On a purely audio medium, no one listening can see you. Also when you talk with your hands, you will be whacking stuff like the table and the mics pic all of that up.
Before the recording ask if things can be edited. Especially if you are telling a story and accidentally whack something with your hand, can you start over and have them edit the part with the distraction.
Answer questions and don’t ramble. If you are asked a question and you don’t want to answer it, tell them that. Don’t ramble a “non-answer” for two minutes.

Of all of these, the big one is to stay on the mic! When editing an episode, if I have to go in and bump all of your audio and no one else’s audio, that’s a huge pain in the butt. Hopefully you can go out and be a better podcast guest!

Fight For What You Need…

The way I get a lot of work is by doing showcases. These are things where a lot of acts perform 15ish mins and buyers watch them to decided whether or not to book them. Here’s how today’s showcase wanted to run our music: They wouldn’t let us plug into the board. I had to … Continue reading “Fight For What You Need…”

They wouldn’t let us plug into the board. I had to argue for about an hour with people all up the chain of command to get them to allow us to plug in. The organization thought holding a microphone up to your phone was a viable way to run sound for a show. Doing it that way is your Plan B, not your “professional set up” that’s provided initially.

Finally I convinced them that that was an unacceptable set up. We pay a lot of money to perform in front of these buyers, and the least they could provide us with was to be able to plug into the board. I finally got all of the showcase acts to tell the organization about why the sound won’t work. What changed their mind is when we all joined together to tell them why that set up was unprofessional.

I think I burnt a few bridges with people to get the sound right, but it was the right thing to do. If anyone insists that running sound that way is professional, I’m OK burning the bridge as I never want to work for them.

Connections…

Connecting with an audience is something that is important to do. It’s one of the things that can take some time, and to really do it you need to open yourself up. Sure you can get by on the strength of the trick alone and have that carry the show, but that’s not how I want to present my art.

I’ve always hated called what I do “art”, as I feel it sounds pretentious. However the more I’m out seeing other people perform, the more I’m realizing what I do is art. I still dislike calling it that, but I think what I do is finally becoming art.

Ideally in my show people learn a little bit about me and my journey. I want them to know how I got to be standing in front of them. It helps them decide why they should care about what I’m doing. Am I just a dude doing tricks, or am a person that’s had an amazing journey to share these tricks with them?

Ta-Dah?

When I was working on a cruise ship last year, I became friends with the comic on the ride to the ship. We had never seen each other work, and he asked me about how I did my “Ta-Dah”. He was referring to the moment when you tell the audience the trick is over.

I never thought of it as a “Ta-Dah“, but more of a “F*ck Yeah!” moment. In my head, it’s the moment where something amazing just happened it’s amazing, not just something cool happened. I’m trying to build it out to a moment where everyone understands what’s going to happen and why it’s amazing.

Also the shift from “Ta-Dah” to “F*ck Yeah!” is an energetic one. I’m going for a moment of an you believe that just happened, and not, wasn’t that cool. This change is reflected in my silent scrip that goes through my head while I perform.

Custom Props…

The more you do magic, the less “off the rack” magic props you will use. The more you use props professionally, the more you figure out exactly how you’d like them to feel, handle, or whatever. Sometimes this means using custom made props, sometimes this will mean using props that are altered. Recently while travelling … Continue reading “Custom Props…”

The more you do magic, the less “off the rack” magic props you will use. The more you use props professionally, the more you figure out exactly how you’d like them to feel, handle, or whatever. Sometimes this means using custom made props, sometimes this will mean using props that are altered.

Recently while travelling the TSA screened my checked baggage and lost my two table tops. After two weeks of phone calls I managed to find track them down at an airport lost and found at McCarren Airport in Las Vegas. They are sending them to me via overnight FedEx at my cost! It’s crazy, that they were in the TSA’s control, and I need to file an claim to get reimbursed shipping to me.

The worst case scenario was that the tables were gone and I had to get them remade. This scenario where I’m out a few bucks to get them back is still cheaper than having to have them remade. Also it gets them to me quicker, I don’t have to wait while someone remakes them.