Louie – Page 238 – MagicShow.Tips

One of the things that I don’t really do is perform as a character. What I mean by character is dressing up like a cowboy and being a “cowboy magician”. Some people perform as a popular movie character, or celebrity.

The main reason I don’t do this is that I can’t character act, and most magicians can’t either. Many think they can, without any acting training, and these are probably the same people that get upset when an actor learns a magic trick and people think that trick is amazing.

Doing a character is more that just a costume. For example here’s someone that performs “as Sponge Bob:

Unfortunately they don’t do a voice, they don’t do the trick that Sponge Bob would do. It’s a guy wearing a cheap outfit doing a normal show. This in my opinion is a cash grab, someone trying to make a buck and not giving a sh!t. I don’t know his life circumstance, maybe he really needs the money, but this is a very short sighted way to get it.

A better way would be to take some acting classes, learn whatever character you are going to be doing, select material that fits it. Here’s a good example of doing it right:

This performer is doing a Captain Jack Sparrow style character, however the costume is correct to the character. It’s not a halloween costume. Also look at the material selection, he’s using swords and it looks like a sword basket in the background. This is a show that makes sense with the character.

If you do a character, do it right. If you care, audiences will care.

Make it Bigger!

One thing I’m trying to do is make things play larger, so it’s easier to see them from the back of the theater. I think this is something that’s really overlooked by many magicians. Sometimes you can’t make something larger, like when you are doing Miser’s dream, the coins size will max out to a point when they are no longer believable as a coin.

One trick that I love is the Coin in Bottle, however it does play fairly small. The nice thing is that the trick has an audio component to it. The audience can hear it rattling around inside the bottle. I really liked the idea of creating an impossible object that I could give away. My idea was to do a tennis ball in bottle:

The use of the topit worked great in a live setting, but not so well in a video. The other method I used a sponge tennis ball that I had cut in half and hallowed out. I would just smash the bottle onto it, collapsing it under the bottle as the other real tennis ball popped into view. Both methods had advantages and disadvantages.

I no longer do this trick in the show as I’m lazy and putting the tennis balls into the bottles was a pain in the butt and not worth the pay off. For me the thing is to keep thinking bigger and actually trying to make it play bigger!

Themed Show?

Yesterday I went to Luche Libre Taco Shop in San Diego, CA. This is a Mexican Wrestling themed restuarant. One thing is that they go all out with the theme. It’s not just a picture on the wall, it’s all the pictures on the wall, it’s the graffiitti in the bathroom, it’s the toys in … Continue reading “Themed Show?”

Another place I went a few days ago was Hodads in downtown San Diego. It’s also themed out. It’s a rocker/skater/surfer themed, that had a late 80’s feel to it. Once again it was 100% themed.

These were two of my favorite places we ate at this week. Why? Simple, they were fun. They did the theme right. You felt like you were a part of something.

This got me thinking about people who do themed shows. People use themed props, themed costume, or themed patter, however not many people use all three. Typically you’ll have someone that uses two themed things, but not all three.

I think you need to jump in and do a full on themed show if you are going to do one. This is something that really brings the audience into your world.

Creativity Tools…

Lately I’ve been thinking about how to be more creative. My method for creativity isn’t very formal. It’s more of when I see something I think, “wouldn’t it be cool if…” then I try to figure out a way to do that. I’m trying to come up with a better way.

One idea was to have cards with all of the effects in magic.
For example one card would says, “appear” and another would say, “penetration”. Then I’d have another set of cards that would have a list of object. They could be objects that are common in magic like a card, or ball, but then a bunch of less common magic items like a toothbrush. There would be an optional third set of cards that would have items that must be used in the method, like thread or a magnet.

I was thinking of getting an app made for my phone that would randomly pick the effect and objects. This would make it more convenient than having three sets of physical cards, and make it easier to add objects.

I think having a system in place for creativity will help me churn out ideas. The key to creativity is volume, the more ideas you have, the more bad ideas you have. Getting the bad ideas out of the way, to get to the one out of a hundred idea that’s good, hopefully is an efficient manner!

Production Value and You

One of the things I noticed while watching Shawn Farquhar’s show the other day was his use of production value in the show. It’s something that a lot of magicians, especially ones who come out of the comedy world don’t use enough of. It’s also something that adds a lot to the show.

For example he uses different lighting for different parts of the show, not just a general wash. This adds texture to the show, however it’s something that you can’t do in most non-theater venues. Some higher end corporate events or conventions in ballrooms will have lighting options. I’ve only encountered this a few times in hotel ballrooms.

My opinion is to design a show that works both ways. So it piece will work and play with a general wash, however when you have the option for lights, you can use it.

I keep a thumb drive with everything a theater could want on it in my case. This has all of my cues from lighting, video to audio, as well as the audio files. I always have it, so if I have someone to run the lights, I’m good to go!

Not So Close Up…

The tend in magic is the choreographed sleight of hand to music, like what Shin Lim did on America’s Got Talent. It’s style that’s been around for a long time, it’s just popular right now. I think of it as something that was a “magic convention act” in the past, and now is a mainstream act.

A couple of nights ago I was lucky enough to see Shawn Farquhar do his “shape of my heart” card routine at a show. It was really great. It hit all the musical beats, it had good visual magic, and overall it’s a great routine.

This kinda proves the theory that I’ve written about before that this style of close up when put on camera is the new stage manipulation act. I think audiences are getting better with watching a live show on a screen. Personally I’d rather watch it without the screen, however to the general public this is an acceptable way to view a show.

Over the last few months I’ve started to think about what I could do for this style of performing. It’s really not what I do, so I don’t know if I’ll ever come up with anything.

Show Flow…

Frequently on internet magic groups people talk about set lists. I’m always amazed at how many people just make up the show order as they go. They justify this as selecting their show to what the audience will like in the moment. In theory this is a good idea, but your show will lack tightness, … Continue reading “Show Flow…”

Having a set list and following it allows you to work on your show as a show, your segues get better, your prop management is better. You will have less wasted motion, than if you are randomly grabbing a prop. This gives the audience a sense that you know what you’re doing.

I really feel like my show started to grow as a show, not as a collection of acts when I started doing it according to a set list. This doesn’t mean you can’t vary the list occasionally, but you strive for a consistent, preplanned show order. This has helped me enormously as my career has grown and from when I’ve started working in venues that want me to submit a set list for the theater crew.

Put your show down on paper and learn it like a show!

Worst Seat in the House

When I see magic shows, I like watching them from the back of the room. You learn a lot more about how to perform from a bad seat than you do a good seat. In theory your show will play to all areas of the audience and play virtually equally. I get that some things … Continue reading “Worst Seat in the House”

When watching a magic show from the back, it makes you aware of what you can and cannot see. For example I personally can’t read a normal playing card from about the 10^th row. What does that mean, someone in the back of the theater doesn’t know what it is. How do you overcome this? Use jumbo card, use low vision cards, make the card with a big X???

Then colors of props start coming into play. Having a prop that “pops” due to contrast between what you wear or the background becomes important. I’m not saying all of your props have to be neon colors, but it’s important for you to be aware of what’s visible and what’s going to disappear.

Start watching shows from the cheap seats and you’ll soon realize most magic shows are too small!

Improvised Magic

As a magician you need to be able to do magic anytime. It doesn’t mean that you have to do magic whenever someone brings it up, but you should be able to do something. I’m pretty sure I’ve written about having an impromptu show that you’ve practiced as a show that you always have on … Continue reading “Improvised Magic”

As a magician you need to be able to do magic anytime. It doesn’t mean that you have to do magic whenever someone brings it up, but you should be able to do something. I’m pretty sure I’ve written about having an impromptu show that you’ve practiced as a show that you always have on you. I’m not writing about that today, but the ability to improvise magic.

You need to be able to look at a scenario and mentally go through your “toolbox” of sleight of hand, subtleties, or whatever and to make a trick happen. For example last night my family was at dinner with another family and they had a kid who wanted to see a magic trick. I’m a horrible human if I say no to a 7 year old kid. Now, this doesn’t mean I need to do a whole show, but a quick trick.

Looking around the dinner table there was standard stuff like cups, plates, silverware. What I ended up doing was improvise a little routine. I told the kid I was going to teach him how to do a trick and then I taught him how to stick a spoon on his nose. I then told him I was going to make mine disappear off my nose. I held a napkin in front of my face, wiggled my nose so the spoon fell off, and lowered the napkin to show it was gone. The kid of course saw what happened…but then he was blown away when his full glass of chocolate milk appeared in my napkin!

I’ve done the appearing cup in the napkin before, but needed a way to get the misdirection to steal it. The idea of dropping the spoon off my face was something that came to me in the moment and worked out great. It was a funny moment and everyone let their guard down, which allowed me to steal the cup.

Understanding magic and how it works allowed me to work out this routine at a glace of the table.

Just Another Show…

Recently I’ve started performing in a new market/venue for me. I’m lucky that a lot of my friends work, or have worked this market and I was able to ask them a lot of questions before my first show. Knowledge is key to breaking into any market. It’ll keep you from making rooking mistakes, and … Continue reading “Just Another Show…”

One of the best pieces of advice that I got from my agent was, “act like you’ve been there before”. This is an amazing mindset to have. Don’t walk in all wide eyed like a kid on the first day of kindergarten. Walk in like the senior in high school. Sure there will be challenges, but really none of it’s a big deal.

That leads me to the second best piece of advice that I was given, also from my agent was, “It’s just another gig” and that’s true. You just do your show. You can get all excited about all the bells and whistles that now surround the venue, but at the end of the day, you just do the show you were booked to do.

If you keep changing the show you’ve polished ,then your show will suffer. In my opinion, it’s better to slowly tweak the show you do to fit the venue.