magic show tips – Page 207

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.

Real vs. Manufactured Moments

One of the reasons live entertainment is unique is that anything can happen and each show has the potential to be unique. The problem comes in when you have performers who refuse to go off track, and strictly stick to the script. When you ignore things that come up and don’t, “live in the moment” … Continue reading “Real vs. Manufactured Moments”

One of the reasons live entertainment is unique is that anything can happen and each show has the potential to be unique. The problem comes in when you have performers who refuse to go off track, and strictly stick to the script. When you ignore things that come up and don’t, “live in the moment” you are missing out on a gold mine of stuff that can happen.

One of the things in my show is I have places where the person onstage can have a real moment onstage with me, not a manufactured one. Then I get to play, we can see where it goes. Sometimes it doesn’t go anywhere and that’s the risk, however the reward outweighs the risk.

The only hard part is to recognize when real moment becomes a manufactured moment. This is something that will happen with time. You’ll learn that if you ask a specific question within a certain contex you’ll typically get a handful of answers. Over time you’ll end up with a response to those. That’s when the real moment becomes a manufactured moment. There’s nothing wrong with a manufactured moment. I have a ton of them in my show.

Next time you perform, ask a question and play with the answer you’re given.

Cutting Up Jackpots…

One of the things that blows my mind is when I hear a magician say that they don’t hang out with other magicians or performers. You learn so much from other performers, more that that, there’s the sense of community. You aren’t alone out there doing you art, other people have the same struggles, and successes!

Yesterday there was a fun get together of variety performers. There’s nothing like getting a bunch of us together and swapping stories. In the carney world they call it “cutting up jackpots”. Hanging out with other performers is also good for your soul.

One of the things that makes it helpful is that I’m entering a new market and a lot of these people work this market, so hearing their stories of their experiences really helped me view my struggles in perspective.

Go hang out with other performers!

Three Ball Routine…

After playing some more with the Three Ball Routine, I started to write up a little routine. The routine changed from what I had written yesterday for an ending, however the ending that I wrote make more sense with the routine. I still like the egg idea from yesterday’s post, just not with this routine. … Continue reading “Three Ball Routine…”

Here’s the routine (so far):

“This trick uses three balls, that’s why there are 2 billion chinese. 3 balls, one for each year of high school I completed.

What I love about this trick is how pure of a magic trick it is, no fancy boxes, no dancing girls, no dignity. It’s 91% sleight of hand, 7% my gift of gab, and 2% old school “Magic”

This is probably the most international trick I do. These balls were made in factory in china, but I bought them in shop mexico and the trick is presented by me, who is from…my mother.

One…two…three.

That’s one, two…did you see the third one go? It hasn’t yet. And faster than you even begin to throw money onto the stage, there is it! Don’t reach for your wallet…the moment’s past.
Let’s do it again in spanish.

Tres Bolas. Uno…Dos…Tres
Uno…Dos… .Y No Trace
Let’s try it in chinese. Ee…Ar…San. San goes into the pocket.
Ee..ar…and San.
One more time…Ee..Ar …and sam goes into the pocket. This trick has literally taken around the world…to pull flags out of fist and name countries”

I like the ending with the flags of the nations because it fits with the theme of the routine. Also the flags should play pretty big, and move the action up towards my face. The patter isn’t finished yet, and I need to come up with one more language to do the final count instead of repeating Chinese. I think there’s something in this routine…

Three Ball Routine

One of my current projects is working on a routine for the three ball routine. That’s a trick, where aside from the patter, there’s not a lot new you can put into to. The balls go from hand to hand, your pocket to hand and then maybe end up with the balls turning into a … Continue reading “Three Ball Routine”

My routine’s framework is pretty simple. The balls go hand to hand twice. They go from the pocket to the hand once. The second time they go from the pocket to the hand, there will be a surprise production. I’m thinking I might do an egg production.

There’s an coin in egg trick by Nefesch that I think is called Hatchling. It’s a signed coin in egg…where the coin is actually in the egg. It’s interesting, and I think that the production of the egg could be topped by the object in the egg. Especially if it’s unexpected, so not linear where you borrow the object, it disappears, then the reappears. Making something like a signed card reappear in the egg that was used earlier in the show.

The next step is to work out the patter, and figure out what I’m going to put into the egg…and the general logistics of how it will play out.