Tag: stage magic

Color Changing Silk Gimmicks…

A couple of days ago a friend of mine sent me a video of the Infection color Changing Silk effect. I’m familiar with the instant color changes which I think are usually more suited to a manipulation act than the “poke and pull” style with a dye tube.

A long time ago when Norm Nielsen sold a color changing hank where you pulled it through your hand and the silk’s color changed. I always thought that would be a great first or last phase of a dye tube color changing silk routine.

I think Norm’s version would be a good beginning and Infection would be a better ending. I’m not sure if using both in the same routine would be better than using just one? Also there’s a lot that would need to be figured out, like how you’re going to transition from one gimmick to the other and ditches so you end semi/totally clean.

It’s an idea…and I don’t know why, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone use one of the pull through gimmicks AND the push and pull gimmicks in the same routine. Maybe I’ll get one and give it a try….
-Louie

Spoon and Fork Transposition

Every now and then I end up with a trick that I like, but it doesn’t have a place in the show. These tricks end up in the preshow section of my show until I either come up with a routine for them, or give up on trying to figure out a way to fit them in show. The spoon and fork transposition is something that’s a great trick, but stayed in the preshow part of the show for years.

I finally fleshed out the routine a little bit, so it was more than a quick trick. It’ s a two phase routine, with an ending. Recently I tried it at a virtual magic open mic and it went well:

One thing I didn’t think about was the “hips gag”, I don’t think it played virtually. One of the problems was I was sitting, which I really should have realized before I started. Sometimes little things slip, that end up being a much larger problem that you’d think they would be. At least I now know for future gigs!

-Louie

Bad Shows…

One thing I can’t stand are magicians who say they always “kill” at their shows. I’m sure there are people that do crush is from the audience’s perspective all the time, but did they honestly and artistically think they did their best every show?

I’ve done shows where at the end I get a standing ovation, and think to myself, “really, that show wasn’t that good”. I’m not saying the audience is wrong to show their appreciation, I’m saying the performer should honestly look at each show. Could you as a performer have done better?

Personally I learn more about doing bad shows that I do from crushing it. You learn or try to learn why things that normally work didn’t. Was it you, was it the audience, was it the situation or a combination of all of them? Then you need to figure out how to make it not happen again, or at least reduce the risk or amount of reasons why the show was bad.

I’m not saying you should go out and do bad show intentionally as a learning tool…but you can learn things by going to an open mic at taking drastic risks with your show. Sometimes something you think would turn off an audience connects…sometimes it doesn’t.

Take some risks…it’s art, not brain surgery.
-Louie

Trying Take Out…

One of the cool things about virtual performing is that if you have something you want to try, there are a ton of opportunities to do it…and you don’t need to leave you house! Yesterday I popped into Kevin Peel’s Open Mic Magic Show on Zoom. The nice thing about this show is that it’s UK based, so showtime is noon in Seattle!

I was looking to try out the Take Out Production Box for an audience, here’s the first attempt at doing the trick:

I think it works, I do need to do some writing to come up with something to say, or some jokes. For a video I like the “travel hack” premise, however for a live show, I think it may need some more meat. I could be wrong…

-Louie

Taking “Take Out” Further…

I frequently say that creating magic is just problem solving. Lately I’ve been writing about using a chinese take out box as a production box. Logistically, I have the hiding of the load and the showing of the box empty figured out.

The challenge is when is “good enough” good enough?

Right now the production from the box works with a box that’s plain white on both sides. I want to have a box that’s plain white on the inside and on the outside it will have the a red Asian looking logo of some sort. That’s the thing that really establishes it as a Chinese Take Out Box from a distance.

I just ordered a bunch of take out boxes and I’m going to play with a couple ideas for being able to show one side plain and the other side with a logo. We’ll see how it goes…

-Louie

Take Out Ideas…

With the Chinese Take Out Production Box, I probably should explore some ideas beyond my initial idea for a routine. While the original idea is good, maybe there’s a better idea.

  • Vanish: Item goes into the box and you open the box flat for the vanish.
  • Mentalism Reveal: Someone thinks of a object and then you make it appear from the box.
  • Multiple Mentalism Reveal: Produce first thought of item from the box, then show the box empty and then produce the second item.
  • Item and Price Reveal: Something thinks of a menu item and price. You open the box to reveal the price inside (also showing the box empty). You close the box and then produce the item.
  • Time Travel: You remove something from the box, and open the box flat to show it empty. It vanishes and reappears in the box.
  • Transformation: Something goes into the box (like hard dry noodles) and they come out as cooked noodles

There’s some ideas, I kinda like the idea of a transformation, maybe ingredients go in and out comes a finished food? Anyway, I’m glad I dug a little bit deeper than just my initial idea.

-Louie

Chinese Take Out Production…

Yesterday I wrote about an idea of using a chinese take out box as a production box. I went out and bought some poster board and made a box using the real one as a template. It was pretty easy to make the box, and luckily it all worked out on the first try:

I won’t use cards as the production item as they don’t make sense coming out of the box. I think I’ll use chinese food like noodles, or possibly and oyster and then noodles.

I think this is superior to many production boxes that are on the magic market because it’s something that people actually see everyday. Also as a prop, it’s much easier to relate to than a mirror box!

-Louie

Production Box

Last week we had Chinese food for dinner and I was looking at the take out box, which were originally called oyster pails and thought it would make a great production box.

I’m always surprised at how many people don’t know that these containers convert to plates:

This would be the method for hiding the load chamber and the presentation hook. It’s a “chinese take out hack” to turn the container to a plate. I made a quick mock up and it seems to work, but I need to try to make a better model of it.

I’m going to make a mock up later today out of poster board. I tried altering the existing box, but the wax/plastic coating inside makes taping anything to it really difficult. I’ve worked out the moves to hide the load chamber with what I have and I’m convinced it will work, I just need to build one with more tape friendly materials!

-Louie

Correct Banquet Seating!!!

Last week at the conference I was at, I finally ran into the correct way to have seating in a banquet hall! Normally when there are round tables, the chairs are seated around the entire table.

The problem with this is if there’s a show or presentation, one to three people have their backs to the stage. Commons sense thinking for event planners is “people will just turn the chairs“. Unfortunately the reality is that most people don’t turn the chairs. They start watching with their bodies contorted in the chair to watch the show. This gets very uncomfortable and even if you engage them the entire time, it’s still hard for them to enjoy the show.

The simple solution to this is to ask people to turn their chairs. What always amazes me is that this never gets 100% compliance. You’ll get maybe 25%-75% of the people to turn their chairs.

The banquet room I was at last week had the chairs arranged like this:

All of the chairs are facing forward and there’s no chair at the front of the table. That’s how you get good value from whoever you hire for a show!

Let’s hope this trend continues (it won’t)

-Louie

High Tech Hypnosis…

A while ago I saw Kreskin do his show and hypno show. One thing that struck me was his “induction” to people onstage. Kreskin handed them a card, and they passed it around while he played the piano. As they passed the card around the people (mostly) fell asleep. From the audience’s perspective it was really cool to watch.

I’ve been told that the card says something like, “Please play along and go to sleep”. I don’t know for sure, but that gave me an idea, here’s how it would look:
You have a big QR code and you have everyone onstage scan it. They all look at their phones and fall asleep. Also you turn the card around and have the audience scan it if they want to follow along. They see a “hypno wheel” spiraling. You then do your hypno show.

Here’s what’s really happening is one of two things. The first solution, is the QR code changes to another image at a certain point. So the first qr code has the message to play along, then changes to an image of a hypno wheel. When you have the audience scan it, it’s already changed to the image of the wheel and the play along message is gone. The other method would be a flap card, so the audience is actually scanning a different link. With this method, you’d still want the original scan to change so that no one could see the first message.

This is something I’ll probably never do…

-Louie