Over the summer I did something in a show I regretted. I was performing at a fair and there was a kid that kept coming to the show and was being a distraction. I can handle the 4H kids that come to the show everyday, but this kid would walk up to the front of the stage and block the audience and say things to me. Not things that were remotely relevant, but like, “use my pen” as he tried to hand me one of the novelty shocking pens that a booth at the fair was selling.
After numerous times telling him to “No” and to step away from the stage, it was being a huge distraction for the audiences over multiple shows. One show I took the clock that I use for a trick out of my case as asked him if he could read a clock like this. He said “yes”, and I asked him what time it showed. He told me and I said, “No, it’s time to sit down and shut up”! It got a huge laugh, and worked, the kid sat down and didn’t talk the rest of the show.
The laugh told me that the audience was on my side, but I didn’t feel good about it. The laugh didn’t move the show forward, sure it eliminated a speed bump. On stage that’s not my character, sure I’m edgy and snarky, but not mean. I honestly felt bad about it. However the kid showed up to my shows the rest of the week and sat through them quietly and enjoyed them.
I’m sure there would be a better way to get the kid to behave and in the moment I had to make a choice. I’m not sure what I would do in the future. If I waited till after the show and talked to the kid, the whole audience suffers for that show. The kid was making the show unwatchable.
Maybe that was the only solution? I don’t know. I still feel bad.
-Louie
Tag: stage magic
3d Printing Vintage Magic Parts!
A couple of months ago I got a Leon’s Improved Glass Penetration by Merv Taylor.
It appears it should have a dozen spikes, plus two hooked spikes, and mine only came with six. Five regular spikes and one of the hooked spikes. These are something that was custom made for the trick, so it’s not something I can just go to the hardware store and buy.
This is where my 3D printer comes in handy. I designed a replica of the spike and printed it out!
The test one came out great, now my next step it to print out a full set of them! I do still need to try to create the hooked spike. I’d like the set to match.
-Louie
Vintage Magic Trick: Blaisdell’s SKP
This vintage magic trick is Blaisdell’s S-K-P, and I can’t find any reference to it online. Here’s what it looks like:
@louiefoxx What were you thinking? #magictrick #rubberband #vintage #whatwereyouthinking #magic #rubberband #louiefoxx #vintagemagictrick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
The problem with the trick is there’s soo many props and soo much process to make a rubber band go through a shoelace. There had to be ring on string techniques that could accomplish the same effect in a much clearer manner. One of the challenges of the trick is the audience needs to understand how the line segments that the rubber band make work. If they don’t understand that, the trick will fall flat.
I will say the move that accomplishes the trick is kinda interesting, but not enough to put out a physical trick. I think this trick would be a good magazine item, but not a full release.
-Louie
Production Totes
When making deliveries, Amazon uses these totes to haul packages:
I don’t know if they’re common enough for people to recognize what they are. They collapse flat and I think they could be converted to a magic prop. It wouldn’t be hard to make one into a tip over trunk. You would also simply put a panel that flips up on the bottom and put it on a mirror base and you’re good to go.
The challenge is that I don’t think they’re quite super common knowledge like a milk crate was. Maybe in a couple of years…
-Louie
Using the Camera Cover
Yesterday I posted about my simple camera shutter that I use to keep my camera from having TVs or projectors time out due to no signal when it’s not in use. In the video below you can see the projector in use at a comedy club gig:
@louiefoxx 68 minute magic show in 103 seconds! #comedymagic #magicshow #oklahomacity #OK #comedyclub #magician #bricktown @bricktowncomedyclub ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
All of the sound/tech people on the little tour of comedy clubs I just did were amazed at how simple of a solution the little 3d printed cover was!
I feel like I should mentioned that both times I’ve flown with the iphone with the camera cover in my backpack, TSA took it out for additional screening. I guess it looks strange on the Xray.
-Louie
Simple but Ugly
In using projection at my shows over the summer I learned that some projectors or TV’s will “time out” and turn off if they don’t think they’re getting a signal. The camera I use has a black out option that I used to use, until I learned that the black out can be interpreted as no signal and the TV or projector will go into sleep mode.
To solve this problem, I 3d printed a simple camera cover for my iphone and glued it on.
This is a very simple, low tech way to solve the problem. The camera is still sending a picture to the screen, so it won’t got into sleep mode.
For these shows I didn’t want to run the camera through my laptop and use my Media Star to control it. That’s way too much set up and gear for a library show.
-Louie
Vanishing Bird Cage!
I love that there are people who know what I’m into and when they run into thing that they think I’d like, they text me! For example, I collect vanishing bird cages and last month at magic live my buddy Clive Hayward sent me some pictures of a vanishing bird cage that was for sale there.
This cage is unusual, you’ll notice the side bars are attached by string!
I have a vanishing bird cage in my collection that’s similar, however it has metal parts that connect the sidebars to the cage. I’m curious if maybe this vanishing birdcage was a “budget” model of one with metal connectors, or if this was a home repair.
I’m glad this one is in my collection!
-Louie
Stand Up Comedy at a Fair?!
One of the styles of acts/shows that you don’t really see at a fair (aside from grandstand shows) are comedians. I think there are several reasons for this, but the main one is that comedy doesn’t really work before about 6pm and it needs a lot more attention than a juggler or magician.
Last week there was a comedian at the fair that I was at!
The comedian was Dan McGowan, and I was usable to catch his shows his first day, but ran into him at the grocery store that night!
I recognized him because he was wearing the same shirt he’s wearing in the video on his website! We chatted for a bit and he’s super friendly! I came in early to the fair the next day to catch a little bit of his show.
Dan is a solid comic and blended material with going off script and doing crowd work with the audience. Performing a show at 12:30pm is not for beginners, I think this is also another reason that you don’t see a lot of stand up comedians at fair is that the experience level you need to be at, there aren’t a lot of people that can do it.
A huge challenge for Dan was the gap between the stage and the audience. There was gap was huge, so it’s extremely hard to make a connection over that “moat”.
Dan had a lot of obstacles and he overcame them!
Many fairs that I perform at have a gap between the stage and the audience and it’s a HUGE challenge to overcome. Usually what I will do when I encounter this is do in my in the grass in front of where the audience is sitting. Sure, I’m in the sun, but the way I see it, I’m being paid to be there, so I can stand in the sun.
If you’re thinking of performing at fairs, you need to figure out the best way to handle a gap between you and the audience for your show or style of performing
-Louie
Silk in Selected Balloon
Last summer I started working on a trick where a silk appears in a selected balloon. It worked alright and got decent Reponses from the audience, but it was lacking a lot. Like the point in the routine where the silk disappeared never really figured itself out.
The bigger challenge was that sometimes you could see the silk through the balloon. I tried doubling up the balloon, and that cut down the instances of people being able to see the silk through the balloon by about half, but it was still too frequent. Then I had other things to work on and I really haven’t messed with the routine until almost a year later.
The solution for hiding the silk in the balloon was very simple, I used a black balloon inside a colored one, instead of using two of the same color. Then next challenge was how to suspend the silk inside of the balloon as I didn’t want the silk to fall to the floor. This was very simple, I just used a bit of fishline tied to the end of the silk. This fishline was tied into the knot at the top of the balloon.
Now with most of the technical problems solved, I can get back to work with the routine.
-Louie
Know Your Audio!
A couple of weeks ago we went to a “drag brunch” and I’ve always said you can learn a lot from watching any type of performance, not just magic.
One of the things at this venue was the audio. They had two speakers running and the preshow music and host mics were fine, but they act’s music was only coming off of one speaker. That lead to soo much less energy being put into the crowd with the music when you can hear forks clink on the plates.
With my basic knowledge of sound, I can tell you whatever program (or cord) they were using for the music for the acts was sending the signal to the speakers with one side of the stereo output. When I was waiting for the bathroom, I was chatting with one of the acts and mentioned that whoever was running the sound needed to bump their music as it was only coming out of one speaker. The act asked me if I could fix it, I told them that “While I work in live events, it’s not my gig or my place to tell they sound person how to do their job….But if you tell them what I just told you, it would make it better.“
This is why you need a basic knowledge of things like sound, if the sound is bad, or not enough, you need to be able to communicate to whoever is running sound what you need. Frequently a lot of sound companies send out people whose job isn’t as a sound engineer, but more someone whose job is to load in/out the equipment and make sure that no one steals it.
The second half of the show was soo much better as the music filled the room much better. The “sound guy” had to work a lot harder than the first half because they had to turn the volume up for music and turn it down for the mics In reality, it’s barely any work, but a lot more than the nothing they were doing before.
-Louie