June 2019 – Page 2 – MagicShow.Tips

Tossed Out Invisible Deck

In the show yesterday I tried out my new idea for the invisible deck. You can read about the idea here. In a nutshell, the idea is to have multiple cards named and all of them are reversed in the deck. I don’t know if for the audience this is a better trick than the standard invisible deck with only one card, for me it’s an interesting challenge.

I did the trick once yesterday and it went well. All the named cards were reversed in the pack and the people in the audience seemed to not know how the trick worked. This is an important part of a new idea…having it actually work for an audience, now the next step is going to be tweaking the gimmick.

Roughing stick by vanishing in for card magic — image from www.VanishingIncMagic.com

I’m roughing the cards with a Roughing Stick that Vanishing Inc puts out. It works well, but I need to play around with how I apply it to the cards. Right now I’m doing it in the middle of the length of the card. I think I’m going to make another deck where it goes across the middle of the short edge of the deck and see how that works.

The cool thing about the Roughing Stick, is that it’s easy to apply, so I fairly quickly try it in different configurations and see what works best for me. I’m also thinking I need to use two different cards stocks for the trick. I’ll be doing some playing this week!

Working On It…

This week is my first county fair of the fair season this summer. I did three shows today. The first show was the new show that I’m working on, the second was my normal show and the third show was a combination of the two. All the shows went well despite the normal or abnormal challenges of performing during a fair.

The new show is what’s more important than the old show to me right now. Here’s the huge difference between the two…jokes and premises. The new show hardly has any and I really feel it. The show is also lacking in transitions, it’s got a long way to go. That’s the nice thing about these shows at fairs, I get to do a lot of shows in a short amount of time.

One of the things that was hitting harder than I thought was that the 10 Card Poker Deal. I thought it would be a lot harder to get it to transition to the stage, but the two times I did it yesterday it played well. I may try to do it in all three shows today. It’ll be in the preshow for one show and in the body of the show for the other two.

Ideas and Action

Whenever I get an idea, my goal is to try to get a working version of it as quickly as possible. For me, this is a way to see if the idea has something going for it. There could be a weakness in effect, or method. Knowing that there is early on before a ton of time has been devoted to it is very helpful.

Recently I had an idea pop into my head for a trick. I’m calling this trick “Invisible Tossed Out Deck”. Basically it’s a tossed out deck premise where three people end up thinking of cards. However instead of tossing a physical deck into the audience, it will be an imaginary one. The payoff will be that the thought of cards are in your deck upside down.

It only took a minute to source the necessary props for the routine.

I quickly realized that there’s a problem if I construct the deck like a normal Invisible Deck. I’ll need a cull or displacement for each card I’m revealing. Luckily yesterday I was setting in construction traffic and sat for an hour not moving. I started to play with methods for concealing cards in the spread and came up with a couple of methods.

Later today I’ll give the trick a try during my preshow and see how it goes!

Road Work Ahead…

Later today I’m heading out to perform for a week in California. I’m using this week to get some work in on my show. In stand up comedy you go on the road to work on your act and less desirable venues so that you are good when you perform in good venues. Magicians seem … Continue reading “Road Work Ahead…”

Magicians seem to lack having “a place to be bad”. Well, these venues do exist, I think that most magician’s egos have a hard time letting them “be bad”. They are afraid to try new things, to push the envelope. Instead they do safe, hack tricks and that’s why magicians aren’t considered artists. It’s like they are a cover band of a cover band of a cover band.

My advice is to go out on the road, leave half of your A-show at home and bring some wacky ideas and force yourself to try them out. Out a few years ago I did a long tour in the midwest and my goal was to come up with a new 45 minute school assembly. By the end of the tour I had one and it was SOLID, but it took guts to leave my normal show at home and hit the road with a trunk full of ideas.

Deck Ripping Routine…

A while ago on this blog I wrote up my deck ripping routine. Basically it’s the split deck trick, but instead of a factory made deck, you are using a deck that you rip in half with your bare hands. One of the things I like about doing this trick is the “barrier to entry”, you have to put in the time to be able to do the trick.

The other day during my preshow at a library gig I had a kid helping me and I just kept classic forcing the two of hearts to him. I was playing around and would top change the two for another card, then rip it in half and throw it away. Then the kid would pick the two of hearts that I just torn up. I did this a couple times. Finally I turned the deck face up and had him pick a card that wasn’t the two and I had him stand on it (after I switched it). I then ripped the deck in half so he couldn’t pick the two. Once the deck was ripped the kid (on his own) reached down to look at the card he was standing on and was very much amazed that the card had changed into the two of hearts!

This is a decent ending to a multiple force routine. You really can’t do anymore, the deck is destroy and the card has changed one last time. Structurally and logically, I need to work on it, but for this “improv” situation it was fun.

While I will probably never do this routine again, it got me thinking about it. What if I used a flap card with a lock. The person picks a card that’s not the force and you set it facing the audience. You rip the deck, and then the card visually changes into the force card. I’m not sure this is better than the kid reaching for the card he’s standing on, because his reaction really sold the trick.

New 45 Min Show…

My big project this summer is to work on a new 45 minute show. To be completely honest, it’s not 100% new, as some of the material is stuff I’ve done before. The goal at the end of the summer is to have a second show that’s an A show, or at least a strong B show.

Currently I’ve done the show two times, and hitting the road next week, so I’ll get a ton of chances to work on it. There are some things in the show that I like, and some that I don’t. This is one of those things that over time, I think will start to fit together.

Having only done the show a couple of times, I realized I use the fake explanation of the trick three times. I need to cut out at least one of them, and space out the remaining two. Ideally, I’d cut two of the fake explanations and have only one.

It’s time to put the work in….

Pump The Breaks…

At my only show I did yesterday I really slowed down. The entire show I probably went 30% slower. I let the magic moments sink in and the jokes marinade with the audience. I’m really happy with the results and I’m going to keep the slowness going for all three shows I’m doing today.

I understand why I go fast. It’s a fear of failure. It’s the fear of audiences not liking the tricks, or jokes not landing with the audience. How I deal with it is that I plow on to the next line. I recently watched a short little animated documentary on Doc Ellis. If you don’t know who he is, he’s the Major League Baseball pitcher that pitched a no hitter on LSD!

What doc was doing with drugs and alcohol was dealing with his fear of failure as a major league pitcher. I’m doing the same thing with speed. Moving from bit to bit and not giving them time to fail, but in the process they aren’t getting time to succeed!

Instagram Magic

A year or so ago I was chatting with Jonathan Friedman and he said something like, “Instragram is now a perfectly valid performing venue…”. He’s 100% correct. Social media magic has really launched the career, or kept them going for many magicians.

Shin Lim is a good example of this. His fanbase is HUGE outside of magicians. He’s using magic trick to keep people who follow him engaged and promote upcoming shows. A lot of the stuff he’s doing is social media only content. It’s stuff that he’s really not going to do in a show, it’s just to reach or connect with fans.

On a smaller scale than Shin Lim, I do this. The main reason is to give me an outlet for ideas. Things that I know I’ll never really do in a show. Here’s a good example:

Having a reason to work out little ideas and a place to share them is great. I’ve had a couple of ideas I’ve posted videos of get big responses, and I’ve figured out ways to work them into the show.

The moral of the story is to not be upset with social media magic tricks, they have place and a purpose. You need to grow with the times and stop being a dinosaur!

Working Slow…

In my continuing quest to be a better performer, I’m still trying to slow down while I perform. Personally I’ve always had a fast rate of speech, I remember that was always a note on the presentations I gave in elementary school. During my shows I have to make a conscious effort to not talk … Continue reading “Working Slow…”

In my continuing quest to be a better performer, I’m still trying to slow down while I perform. Personally I’ve always had a fast rate of speech, I remember that was always a note on the presentations I gave in elementary school. During my shows I have to make a conscious effort to not talk fast, it’s rough.

What I try to do is to put out the verbal information in chunks. I say a bit, then I take a slight pause to let what I just said sink in with the audience, then continue talking. This seems to work. I’m not just throwing information at people and not giving them time to process it.

Working slower applies not only to verbal but to physical things as well. I’m taking more pauses to display things.

I’m happy with the results of doing it this way. It still takes a effort on my part to do. I think it’s easier with newer routines as I’m learning them this way, where older routines I learned them and have done them too fast for years and need to break that muscle memory.

Never Restore It!

One of the “impromptu” tricks that I do is the mismade bill. It’s an amazing trick, and I’ve got a great routine for it. The flow of the trick is that I borrow a dollar, rip it up and it ends up mismade. I leave the dollar bill with them and don’t restore it. When … Continue reading “Never Restore It!”

Mismade dollar bill magic trick — image from www.mismadebill.com

When I do the trick I normally don’t turn it back, I offer to buy the dollar bill back. It’s a much stronger trick to leave it messed up and give them the option to keep the bill. If they want a dollar back, I simply give them a fresh dollar out of my wallet.

Here’s why I never turn it back. People at that point try to bust you. They’ll remember the condition of the bill, or serial number and call you out on the switch. You are in a much better position buying back the bill with a separate dollar or ideally letting them keep it.