Louie – Page 204 – MagicShow.Tips

Catch your whale

Right now we’ve all found ourselves with a lot of extra time. I’ve been using mine to try to catch my “Great White Whale” of tricks I’ve always wanted to create. This trick has been in my head for over a decade and a lot of things had to come together to for it to happen.

Here’s the trick, and be sure to watch the whole thing:

I’ve been fascinated by the idea of using a nested replicas of the main prop as a final load ever since I read Gary Oullett’s cups and balls routine in his Fulminations column in Genii magazine. Then about 10 or 15 years ago I thought about applying it to the shell game. The hurdle was getting shells to nest and enough of them.

Then the breakthrough came when I got a 3D printer. I could print the shells, however the problem was they didn’t look like shells. They looked like plastic things that kinda looked like walnut shells. A friend of mine sent me a link of how to make molds and I tried to learn off of youtube videos with limited success. I ended up taking a 4 hour class on making molds and resin casting that really helped speed up the learning curve.

I kept making baby steps to get towards the end result and finally got there. I’m not done yet, ideally in the future I’ll have some shells that look a little bit better, but for now I have a workable version of the trick!

Fix It!!!

When someone puts out a magic trick, there are two ways the creator does it. One is how they do it and the other is a dumbed down version for people who don’t want to practice. Personally when I put out a product, I put out what I actually do and use (at the time of putting it out). That way it’s a release that I know inside and out.

A great trick that came out a few years ago, but has mixed reviews is called Split.

The effect is you have a twenty dollar bill and it visually rips into two ten dollar bills. This is a great trick, but the main complaint I saw was the gimmick was obvious. The problem that people weren’t able to see past was that it was designed to be done with non-US currency. The money in other countries is more colorful and the designs hide the gimmick better.

For me it took about a minute of looking at the gimmick to solve the problem. Here’s my gimmick:

Basically I moved the gimmick from the middle of the bill to the edges. There’s a lot more printing to hide it on a US bill.

Then there was a corner of the old bill that was slightly visible when I was doing mirror practice. I covered it with the corner of a bill that matched what it should be. This was a small thing that really wasn’t an issue, it just sorta bugged me.

When you get a trick and you think it doesn’t work, before you write a bad review, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Was the trick designed with European money, or created by someone that’s left handed, or whatever. You many not work exactly as the creator, and you need to be able to adjust.

Dropping Triumph

Right now I’m reading the book FASDIU 2 by Paul W. Cummins. FASDIU stands for From A Shuffled Deck In Use. The material in this book is all on things using a deck with no set up and no gaffs. I’m really liking the book so far much of the material is the kind of magic I like to do.

I really like the first trick in the book, however this blog post is about the trick called A Total Triumph which is based on a Steve Reynolds trick. In this trick right before the reveal of all the cards going the same direction except for the selected card, you need to get rid of a reversed card on top of the deck. I thought that the old “drop the deck and the top card flips over” thing would solve this.

Here’s a quick demo used in a different context of the idea:

The move makes more sense in the context of the A Total Triumph trick. I’m unaware of anyone using this move to clean up a reversed card in a deck. I think it’s interesting to use a card reveal as a clean up.

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.

Online Instructions…

Each year more and more magic tricks are coming out that come with online instructions and that’s the only way to get the information. In theory everyone wins, you get video instructions, it drops the cost for the creator, and possibly the buyer as well. It also makes things cheaper to ship.

Now for the downside, not everyone will have access to the information. What I mean by that is that access won’t last forever like the instructions in some physical form. Sure you can download the instructions (usually), but that only is good for as long as the tricks producer has the video online.

A good example would be a trick that’s been out for several years, but you just bought it at a magic shop. You open the trick, find the download card and go to the site, but the site no longer exists. What do you do? If the company is out of business, you’re out of luck. I guess you could return it to the magic shop, however that’s doesn’t solve the problem of product being out there where producer of it got rid of content that was paid for.

Personally I don’t do online only instructions, every magic trick I sell comes with a DVD or print instructions. I do offer “bonus content” online for tricks I sell or for stuff in my lecture notes. The pain in the butt with these things is that I just changed my hosting on my website and I had to service all of those links, many are to products I haven’t sold in a few years. Unfortunately a lot of creators don’t do that.

The hard part now is that less and less computers have DVD players, how do I deliver video content without it being online? The current solution I’m considering is thumb drives. The downside is that they cost much more than DVD’s, but the upside is that they are small, and versatile. I could order 100 of them and use them for a variety of different products.

If you’re a magic producer, you need to think about what’s going to happen when someone buys your trick 5 years from now…unless you’re just in it for a quick money grab (but then you’re an a-hole).

Practice!

With the lack of live performance venues performers have been doing their thing with streaming video on the internet. Most of it is a person in front of a camera with no production value. Yesterday was St. Patrick’s day and The Dropkick Murphy’s live streamed a show that would normally have an audience and it … Continue reading “Practice!”

Besides really setting the bar for a live streamed show, they also were a lesson in how to perform. You should be able to perform like it’s a stadium for no one. I know it’s strange when you don’t get the feedback from the audience, however they way they performed it was as if to a full house. It’s clear that when the rehearse, they rehearse like they are playing to a crowd. They way the pause after a song, they’ve been there and planned to be there.

Look at how you practice, are you simply going through the motions or are you doing it like you’re actually doing a show?

Taking Your Show Online…

It’s an interesting time to be a magician, with virtually no venues to perform in. There are a few birthday party magicians still performing, but I think that’s about it, the whole industry has been forced to close. This has led performers to try to move their shows online.

Several performers have put their whole shows online and can be watched for free on things like YouTube or Facebook. I’m trying to figure out what the end game is when you put a whole show online. Sure it’s great for the viewer, but most are giving it away for free and asking for donations. How do you monetize it?

Also I think we’re a bit early in the “social isolation” game to start giving away your show for donations. We’re only on day 5ish of a potential 56 days, there’s still plenty of Netflix content to get through. I’d wait a little while for people to start getting bored…

Magic Shop Jam!

On Friday of last week I pitched in and helped out at Market Magic Shop in Seattle for a couple of hours. A couple of magicians came out and we jammed a bit, it was a lot of fun! One of the things that we were goofing off with was pressed pennies. Here’s a trick … Continue reading “Magic Shop Jam!”

On Friday of last week I pitched in and helped out at Market Magic Shop in Seattle for a couple of hours. A couple of magicians came out and we jammed a bit, it was a lot of fun!

One of the things that we were goofing off with was pressed pennies. Here’s a trick with one:

It’d be an amazing giveaway if you had your own custom penny made, or better yet a quarter and did the trick and gave them away. The initial cost would be crazy, but would be a giveaway that they’d keep!

Lip Bomb!

A couple of months ago I recorded my Coin in Chapstick magic trick and haven’t looked at it. I’m glad I finally did, the trick looks great! My only problem with it is that it doesn’t really have a place in my show. I did a blog post about it awhile ago about how just … Continue reading “Lip Bomb!”

A couple of months ago I recorded my Coin in Chapstick magic trick and haven’t looked at it. I’m glad I finally did, the trick looks great! My only problem with it is that it doesn’t really have a place in my show. I did a blog post about it awhile ago about how just because it’s an everyday object doesn’t mean it’s right for your show.

You can watch my trick here:

The trick would be better suited as a “street magic” type video than it would in formal show. I’ll probably write it up and publish it in Vanish Magazine.