Author: Louie

It’s Not Strange…

One of the most important things you can do right now is watch other performer’s virtual shows. You can learn a ton about doing these shows by watching them. You may see stuff you dislike and it’s a reminder for you not to do it and you may see things you like and you can try to recreate those elements.

The other day I watched a performer’s first public virtual show. One of the things he did was talk about how “weird” watching a show virtually is. From the performer’s view, it’s very strange and not like what we’re used to. From the audience point of view, it’s not that strange as they are used to consuming entertainment through their computers or TV.

Personally I firmly believe in addressing the elephant in the room, however at this point it’s only strange for the performer. Unless you have a joke, trick or point of view, in my opinion, it’s now best to skip it. In March and April I think mentioning it was appropriate, but now we’ve all had zoom meetings, zoom school, we’re all familiar with it.

Also going forward, if you’re a performer and you’re not an expert on using Zoom, you need to be. Kids have been using it for school for three months, PTA meetings have been happening over it for the same amount to time. You can’t be fumbling though it anymore.

New Book Day!

Today I’m starting to read Paul Romhany’s book Stand Up Magic. He’s my editor over at Vanish Magazine, and I’ve been a fan of the stuff that he puts out before I started writing for Vanish. It’s all solid real world stuff.

I’m one trick into it so far after reading the introduction, etc and he does a great job explaining it. It’s a number prediction and not only goes into the work in great detail, but also covers variations and afterthought on the routine.

What I like about the first trick is that it’s clearly put together by someone who is actually out there working. It’s got a solid method. One thing I’ve learned to be able to spot in books and DVD’s are methods by people who aren’t out there working all the time. The may be great for a one off show (which isn’t a bad thing), but aren’t solid if you’re out on the road performing all the time.

I’m excited to read more of this book!

Streamlining The Show…

Now that I have a few more of these “masked, small group, no contact, socially distant” magic shows under my belt, I’ve started to streamline the show. I know what’s working and what’s not working or what’s not needed. Instead of doing one 45 minute magic show, I’m doing three magic shows that are 20 minutes each.

If you compare the picture above to the one that I posted a few weeks ago when I first started doing these shows, you’ll notice I have a lot less stuff in my case. The props I never used have been taken out. There are still some things I don’t really use, but have as back ups in case I end up with a really strange group.

You also may notice I have multiple sets of the same prop. This is because I’m doing three shows instead of one with very short gaps to reset. Having three sets of Gypsy Thread set up, or three peaches ready cuts down on reset time. I can now have one group coming in while the other is leaving.

Something else that was never really a concern with me since I usually only do one show, or have longer gaps to reset the magic tricks in my show is the actual reset time. Pretty much everything in the show was selected because it has quick or no reset time, or it was practical to have multiple sets of it. This was a compromise that needed to happen to make this show work.

The Moisture Festival Podcast – Leapin’ Louie Lichtenstein

This episode of The Moisture Festival Podcast we travel down to Portland to chat with David Lichtenstein, AKA Leapin’ Louie Lichtenstein. We chat with about the origins of his character and street performing around the world!

We’ll also learn about Portland’s Umbrella Festival and David’s trip to South America to find spiders!

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Magic With a Message…

It’s been over four months since the government essentially shut down the performing arts industry. It’s open in a very limited capacity right now in the USA. Last week was the last week I was able to claim the federal PUA in addition to my state unemployment benefits. Here’s a little video I made about it:

As far as a production goes, it’s a fairly understated shotglass production. The tube it’s produced from is about half the size of the shotglass. However as far as scale goes, it’s pretty small on the screen and the magic isn’t as strong as it could be…but the message is solid.

Flattening The Curve…

The whole virtual magic show is changing what you can do in your shows. Tricks that really weren’t practical to set up in a venue now make sense. Tricks with bad angles now have a place to be performed deceptively.

A few years ago they Stewart Semple came out with the Black 2.0 paint. This is a flat black paint. It doesn’t have a lot of use in a live magic show because it doesn’t trap light like a velvet does, but it turns out it works pretty well in videos.

Here’s a trick that uses Black 2.0:

I think I wrote this trick up in Vanish Magazine a couple of years ago. It uses the 2d of the screen you are watching on to hide the 3d of the “black hole”. I like the idea of switching a flat object for something that’s round and using that space to hold a production.

I really like the idea of hiding the production in plain sight.

Bigger or Smaller??

I’m working on a trick right now where an object changes either from something small to something large. In the routine there are multiple phases of it changing, which make me wonder which way is better, from large to small or from small to large? It also changes shape, so that adds a another factor to this If it was simply one change in size and not shape, it’s definitely be from small to large as that has more impact.

It got me thinking about Quick Change Acts, as the act moves along the dresses tend to get shorter and shorter. However most do have some variation and usually the final dress is a gown. When watching these acts on TV my family will always comment on the shrinking of the dress during the act, so it’s something that’s noticed. Not that it’s a bad thing, because I think it adds impact to the final change.

For my trick, I think I’m going from small to large as the final change the object only changes in size. So it’s got a finale feel to it.

Vintage Louie…

One of the first routines that I really thought out and wrote a script for was my Card to Mouth Routine. I published it a few years ago in Vanish Magazine and I’ve taught it in my lectures for a long time.

Vanish Magazine just put out a collection of the second year of their magazine and my trick is in one of their promo pics for the book!

This is a fun routine and while Card to Mouth might not be a trick that’s currently socially acceptable to do, it’s still worth looking at how I put a frame around the card to mouth premise.

Head Shots…

Back when I first really started performing when I was about 21 years old and got to the point that I needed headshots, the digital thing was just becoming common. People were amazed that I had an email address, just to put this into context. At that time you sent off the negative of your pic to a place that then made you hundreds of physical 8×10’s and the cost was hundreds of dollars.

At that time many performers didn’t really get new pics taken until you ran out of the old ones because they were soo expensive to get done. Because of that they guy whose picture was on the comedy club’s ad for the show that weekend didn’t look anything like the comedian who was performing. The headshots were sometimes 10-20 years old!

Now let’s fast forward to a common problem in more modern times with no one using physical headshots anymore. What’s happening now is that someone books a show, you send them promo and they end up using a picture they found on the internet. It’s usually a old, low-res picture that’s not very flattering instead of the current, professional high-res picture you send them.

I just finished dealing with a scenario with this. Someone I work for frequently has been using this headshot of me. The thing is that picture is about 20 years old, and I’m about 20 years old in the picture. I send them new pictures every year, but this remains the picture that’s been used.

Finally, yesterday after being on the phone with them, I think I convinced them to delete that picture from their files and it really hasn’t been relevant in over a decade. I think my problem is that while I have been sending them new promo every year, I never specifically asked them to stop using that picture.

Fooling Myself…

When I used to travel frequently one of the things that I did to keep myself busy was invent magic tricks. I has some guidelines, the main one was to use things found in my hotel room. Here’s one from a few years ago:

One thing I really like about this trick is the visual of pulling the bill through the straw. Once I had the idea of the sideways penetration, then I had to figure out a method. I can’t find any notes I wrote for this trick and honestly I’m not 100% sure how I did it. I have an idea of how I probably did it as there are only a few ways you can slide a bill through as straw.

Doing these hotel room videos were a fun creative challenge because you are really limited prop wise with what you can do.