If you’re not following Mario the Maker Magician on the social media, you are missing out on seeing some amazing, fun and totally unique magic! He built a cardboard robot that does magic tricks, and it’s better than most magicians!
Hopefully something will pick him up and start using these. I can see that being a bit on Saturday Night Live, or a reoccurring bit on a family variety show. The robot would also crush it on America’s Got Talent!
He’s doing some interesting things from a method standpoint because he can’t use a lot of traditional methods. These videos remind me that I need to work harder!
On Thursday night I did a lecture for IBM Ring 252 in Tennessee. Over there they are mostly open for in person events and it sounded like they do their meetings both virtually and in person. This is a good sign that things are starting to move back to “normal”.
For this virtual magic club lecture I added a camera that I can move around to show views of thing that people ask about. Here’s an example of using it:
About a year ago when I started doing virtual lectures a lot of the questions I got were about the technical side of doing a virtual show and what sort of material worked virtually. The magic lecture I did on Thursday night they were more interested in material for in person shows. I think that we all can see the light at the end of the tunnel!
If your magic club is looking for a lecture, let me know!
When I do virtual shows the format I’ve been using is fairly similar to the structure of my in person shows. I usually alternate a trick where I’m solo on stage, followed by a trick where I use someone from the audience onstage, then repeat that. It’s a nice break from a constant stream of people coming up from the audience.
Last night at a virtual show I started using more people on screen than I normally would. In the solo tricks, I just talking to the people and joking with them.
It played out really well and it made the show a lot more fun for me. For a virtual show it really helped bring up the energy and forced me to be more present in the show during my solo tricks.
You can get them from Hocus-Pocus.com. People frequently ask me if I would prefer they ordered from me or them. The nice thing when you order from a magic shop is you are supporting a magic shop, and helping to pay their employees. Sure, I make more in my pocket when you buy direct, but when I agree to sell them a product to a magic shop I’m happy with the terms. The advantage is that they normally have them in stock and can ship quickly. If you order direct sometimes there will be a delay due to me travelling, or whatever.
I’m not saying “do not order from me“, but more trying to show you the advantages and disadvantages of ordering from a magic shop. You can’t complain about them disappearing, if you don’t support them.
Last night I was walking my dog and was thinking about an amazing idea of my friend Bri Crabtree. She uses a green screen spot, which is a genius idea! My idea was to use it as an xray for a vanish. Here’s a rough idea of what I’m think of:
I’m thinking if I get a ping pong paddle that’s green on one side I can make it work. Show the non-green side that says “x ray” then flip it over, show the skeleton of my hand with the coin and d do the vanish.
It’s not the deepest mystery in the world, but it is fun!
A while ago I realized that three of magic tricks I’ve developed in the last year is basically the same plot, just with different props. Three things disappear one at a time and reappear grouped together.
I’m trying to add some texture to the show. One of the things I picked up is The Matrix Pad Reloaded. While the name implies that three things would disappear and reappear in one spot like a traditional coin matrix, it’s not exactly that. It’s a moving ink effect, so not really a teleportion, or vanish and reappearance, it’s closer to an animation.
Here’s the demo of the trick:
For a virtual family show I think I could add some fun and make it more interactive. I started by adding different colored pens, so each dot is a different color. While less practical for an in person show, this change is a simple alteration of the gimmick. Now I can have three people each pick a color and I have three people involved in the trick. Then I decided we can play a bit and they will pick a mode of transportation and that’s how the dots will move.
Here’s the test run of it I did at the local magic club:
While it’s not perfect, I think that there’s something there.
One of the first tricks that I started working on since the COVID pandemic started a year ago was my Polaroid to Envelope trick. This trick started as Goshman’s Cards thru Newspaper, but then evolved a lot. It’s pretty much been unchanged for months, here’s what it looked like:
Yesterday I was going to work on it some more as I was going to be doing the Nashville Magic Company’s Tricks of the Trade magic open mic in the evening. That’s when it hit me, I don’t need four pictures, I just need three. One of them doesn’t do anything, it cleans up some clutter and tightens up the routine a little bit.
After the open mic they do a little bit of a workshop for the performers to ask other performers for thoughts on what they performed. I got a couple of great suggestions and ideas. Someone asked why the pictures appeared face down, instead of face up. This is a great idea, that because I was building from a another trick, I didn’t think about that.
I started playing with having the pictures face up and I think I got a workable sequence out of it. Having just three pictures is soo much more manageable than four! I’ll probably record a video of the new sequence later today and post it when I get a chance.
If you’re not using these virtual open mics to work on material they are a huge resource that didn’t really exist a year ago. Not only to practice material, but to get specific feedback from other performers.
About a week ago I did a little chat with Nick Lewin and Fielding West about performing comedy magic. It was a live Zoom chat and it was a lot of fun and the feedback was very positive. A few people have asked if it would be available afterwards. It looks like Nick has it as a download on his website www.lewinenterprises.com
If you missed it, here’s a little video teaser
One of the key takeaways from this talk is that most magicians that call themselves comedy magicians don’t understand comedy. You need to go out and learn to write jokes, and create comedy. There’s a real interesting moment in the talk where we create a joke to fill a spot in the show that’s just expository patter. Not only do we create the joke to fill an slow spot, we tweak it and add a tag to it!!
I was honored to be part of this panel and it was a lot of fun!
One of the magic products that I put out and that I’m the most proud of is the Take Up Reel that I created. What a Take Up Reel is used for is to shorten a length of string and was popularized by Billy McComb and Tommy Wonder in their Vanishing Birdcage routines.
As far as I know I’m currently the only person / company that makes a Take Up Reel for sale. I’m working on a batch of them this week. It takes about a full week to make one from start to finish. Here’s one of the locks coming out of my 3D printer:
Magic is being revolutionized by 3D printing, especially stage magic. It allows you to affordably make soo many custom props that would have cost tons of money to have fabricated 5 or 10 years ago.
If you’re not out printing stuff, I highly recommend learning how. It’s pretty easy, and you don’t even need to own a 3D printer as there are companies you send the file to and they’ll make it for you.
I’m trying to decide if I’ve become an old curmudgeon, or if some other people are simply idiots and the internet is highlighting this. Recently in a facebook group someone was asking for a good way to vanish or produce a die. Anyone with basic knowledge of sleight of hand knows how to do this. I’m going to assume the original poster asked in case there was something strange that they had not thought of.
Then they get this response and you can see my response below it:
Am I being an old a$$shole…or does this the person who responded have no idea what they are talking about?
as far as I know a shuttle pass pretends to move a coin or coins from hand to hand. It is neither a production or a vanish. It may set you up for the production of vanish, but it’s neither of those*.
Why would you suggest a shuttle pass?
My only guess is you don’t know what you’re doing. This is why crowd sourcing your knowledge instead of going out and getting a working knowledge of sleight of hand hurts you. It feels like a short cut until you realize you’ve driving around the same block four times.
My advice is to go out and learn the basics and try to figure it out on your own, that way you won’t be chasing leads that have zero merit.
*Yes, I do understand that from a technical standpoint it’s both a production and a vanish to create the illusion of passing an object hand to hand, however to the audience it’s neither of those.
