magic show tips – Page 79

Interactive…

The other day I picked up Interactive by Danny Orleans and Mike O’Donnell as it’s on Sale for 25% off right now. Interactive is a “touch the screen” type trick, however it gets it right. There’s no counting or spelling, which ups the odds of you getting everyone to end up on the right place at the end of the trick.

I got the pro version as it comes with the some tutorials and templates to make you own custom versions. I think the pro version is the way to go, it saved me a ton of time making a custom version. Sure, I could have figured out how to make my own custom version from the basic version, but in time saved, it saved me money.

I’m doing a few library shows in 2022 that are cryptid themed, so I made a custom version of the trick using bigfoot. I’m hoping with the talk up, the trick and the extro that I can get about 3 minutes out of it. I see this as something that I can fairly easily customize for themed virtual events and live ones if they have projection. If you know me, you know I dislike doing tricks that are themed to events…however this is relatively painless and I’m not compromising (much) what I’m willing to do.

-Louie

Masters of Illusion Holiday Special…

I looks like tonight on The CW the 2021 Masters of Illusion Holiday Special will be airing at 8pm. Back in March I did a trick for this special, but don’t know if I’m in it or not.

That’s the crazy thing about doing TV, you don’t know what will make it or not. Of the stuff that I submitted for the next season of Masters of Illusion, I probably put the most work into the holiday trick as it was something that was totally new to me. Where the other stuff for the normal episodes were things that I had done before.

We’ll see if my trick makes it…

-Louie

MishMash Wallet…

For a while I’ve had an idea for a trick wallet…well for a wallet trick. The wallet w0uld be a Tyvek Wallet and you can have them custom printed with what ever you want on them. My idea is to have a bunch of card pieces put on it, and this is essentially Harry Anderson’s Mishmash Card, but printed on your wallet. The basic effect is someone thinks of a card they see and you reveal it.

In the sample above, there’s more force cards than in Harry’s trick. There’s 8 force cards above. I can now use a similar procedure as in John Kennedy’s Mind Power Deck to figure out the thought of card. I can verbally reveal it, or use a multiple out like in David Harkey’s Minds Eye Deck.

I think combining Kennedy and Harkey’s ideas may make it a stronger trick. I uses figure out what the card is without asking what it is and use that information to set up the reveal. I also like the idea of having your wallet be the trick, so you are good to go whenever!

I just ordered a wallet…I’m betting the design will need some tweaking and I’ll have to redesign it and order another one.

-Louie

Snappy Flappy Card Transposition!

In my virtual shows I started doing a card change with a flap card. I was isolating the card in a glass, then shaking the glass and the card changes to another card. I really like this, as it makes the change really impossible. The method is simple, it uses a flap card and the card it sitting at an angle. The weight of the card keeps the flap from flipping. Then simply shaking the glass allows the flap to flip for the change.

The other night I was watching a hockey game and playing around with using the flap card in the glass as a card transposition. Here’s what I came up with:

Here’s what the trick needs: It needs some scripting to call attention to just one of the cards. Mention that that jack of diamonds is in the glass, so that when it’s appears in your hand, they know something has happened. I think if you mention both cards, it gets confusing.

-Louie

Read Nick’s Blog…

If you’re not reading Nick Lewin’s Blog, you are missing out. He just put out a post called “new rules for magicians 2021“, which are 8 rules for magicians. Each of them is solid advice. I want to comment on his first one, which is:

New Rule #1 Realize that not everyone is fascinated by Houdini.

This is 100% true. It’s just a name, not someone that YOU are personally acquainted with. Using Houdini in most instances is a lazy way to find a hook. Usually it’s used in an escape and someone says that they will escape faster than Houdini did. Let’s make an analogy, if I went to see an show and the signer said they were going to sing 9 to 5 better than Dolly Parton, that doesn’t draw me in at all. Just sing the song.

One rule I’ve had in my show for a long time is that I don’t mention any other magician in my show. There’s a reason for that, most people don’t have a connection to that. Not too long ago a local magician had a huge bit where he described a trick that Criss Angel did, but then he related that to a just ok coin trick. Watching this, my impression was that he told me about a TV show he watched where a magician did a way better trick than what the local magician is about to show me. Mentioning the magician took away from the trick.

I think the one exception to mentioning another magician is if you have a relevant personal reason to do it. If you were on Fool Us, then mentioning you did the trick for Penn and Teller makes sense. If you invented a trick for David Copperfield, then mention it. Name dropping those has meaning, just mentioning another magician because you were too lazy to write something better is just that, lazy.

-Louie

Double Action Pull – Take Two

I redesigned the pulley for the double action birdcage pull that I made yesterday. The main difference is that it’s slightly larger and the hole on the non pulley side has been moved 90 degrees.

Here’s a side by side comparison with the one that I made yesterday. The old one is on the left and the new design is on the right with the strings on it.

I foreseeing possibly making it wider with the ends flaring out, so that it doesn’t roll inside the jacket and twist the line. We’ll see if that actually ends up being a problem, or if tension alone will straighten out or keep the lines straight. I’ll play with it a bit and see what happens.

If you’re curious about this style of pull, I think I first read about it in Jim Steinmeyer‘s book The Magic of Alan Wakeling. In that book it’s used to vanish a fan, however I think using a pulley on a wrist to wrist pull is much older than Wakeling using it.

-Louie

Double Action Pull…

For some reason I’ve been thinking of the “double action” birdcage pull lately. I’ve used one a long time ago, and never really felt it contributed much to the vanish. Essentially what a double action pull does is give you more pulling power with less motion. It converts your motion 2 to 1, so you move one inch and the line moves two inches! It’s a great way to reduce arm motion for the vanishing birdcage, but adds complexity to the setup. Every bit of complexity you add, it’s another thing that can potentially go wrong. This may be the issue I have with it, the gain of having reduced motion isn’t worth the risk.

I haven’t used one in 15+years. Tonight I decided to make one, so I designed this one to be 3d printed:

Here’s what the insides look like:

There’s not really too much to it, it was a simple design and a quick print. Here’s the printed version:

There are a couple of things I want to change after printing the first one. The big change is that I want it just a little bit larger, so that I can fit a bearing inside for the pulley.

I’ll do a new design later today and hopefully I’ll nail it the second time!

-Louie

Covering the Spot…

One thing that I’m always looking for a games (legit or not) that I can play with people when I’m doing roving magic. For longer gigs, or events when it’s slow when I’m scheduled to rove, being able play a game is a great way to create energy beyond my roving magic set.

Recently I picked up Cover The Spot by Ian Kendall. This is the classic carnival game of the same name. The nice thing about this version over the traditional carnival game is that it’s simply 6 disks and not a large board with 5 disks. It’s portability is a huge plus for me!

The instructions are clear and Ian gives strategies for for different scenarios that may come up. This isn’t a “self working” thing, it will take some work to learn to do it correctly and consistently, but that’s a good thing. If it was easy to do, it’d be easy for your audience to do. Don’t misinterpret what I mean by it not being easy to do, it’s easy to do…once you practice a little bit. It’s not hard to do.

Unfortunately it’ll be a couple of weeks before I can get to try it for an audience, but I’m excited for when I get to try!

Video Showcasing…

I’m home now from a booking conference I was at earlier in the week. One of the things that happens at these are video showcases. These are up to three minute videos that play usually in between the live act showcases. There were a couple of good video showcases and a lot of bad ones.

The number one thing about a video showcase is to use still images sparingly and use them with purpose. One of the showcases I watched was of a musician who does a roving act and he does a lot of audience engagement and pulls around a wagon that looks really cool. His video was all still images with him singing a song played over. It didn’t really give any context to what he does or how a buyer would use it.

The next worst thing is to play a video of you playing a gig. One person played a video him that had bits of several songs, but they were all at the same venue. It was visually boring. At least have several venues…and record them from the soundboard, they audio will turn out much nicer and easier to listen to.

Another thing is that news footage is great…but trim out all the stuff that’s not you! One act had a nice news clip, but they kept in the intro of the two newscasters bantering about the weather or whatever at the beginning, essentially wasting the buyers time for 15 seconds. Then they left in the extro of the two newscasters banters about what was coming up next, once again wasting the buyers time.

The final thing is you don’t need to use the full 3 minutes (or whatever the max is) for your video. If you can tell the buyers what you need in 75 seconds, great…you don’t need to bore them with redundant info for the remaining time. Trimming out the fat is key!

Those are some tips if you are putting together a video showcase or making a sizzle reel!

-Louie

Give It Up For the Troops…

Last week when I was at a booking conference there were several acts that used the US National Anthem as part of their showcase. That inspired me to write this joke:

The joke has lead to a lot of thoughts on the use of the National Anthem and things like, “tributes to the troops” in the comments of the post. Here’s my thinking, if you honestly want to give a tribute, then do it from the heart, don’t do it the exact way everyone else does it…and don’t do it with the “Branson Formula” which is a hymn followed by a patriotic song (or vice versa), or as one guy did last week and combined the two into a single song called “Jesus, the ultimate veteran”.

Actually honor them, singing God Bless the USA doesn’t honor them. It doesn’t tell their story. Bring a vet onstage and interview them. Give all the active or retired duty military all of your merch for free. Do it from your heart, not from a formula that came out of someone else’s brain.

-Louie