Category: Pictures

Vanishing Birdcage…

I’m fascinated by the Vanishing Birdcage trick. I remember hearing stories of Bert Allerton doing the vanishing birdcage close up at tables. The story I remember reading was that he took the sides off of his cage so that it would vanish quicker and have less bulk in his sleeve.

There have been many other people that have done the cage, and solved many problems. For example, using a Take Up Reel to allow you to do the cage later in your show.

The biggest challenge is how do you deal with the cage after the vanish (if it’s not your closer)? There are a lot of solutions ranging from using a small, flexible cage and just leaving it in your sleeve, to having a secret pocket in your pants your ditch it in.

Recently it hit me, that a virtual magic show is a great place to use the cage in the middle of the show. After the vanish you could have a title card that says “no rubber birds were hurt in this trick” or something like that. Then in the few seconds that plays, you ditch the cage. As long as you use title cards previously in your show, it won’t feel out of place.

Scripting Magic Book…

My current book that I’m reading is Scripting Magic by Pete McCabe. This book is interesting and I’m only about 145 pages into volume one and it’s pretty good. When I was younger I used to have a loose script, but nothing formally written down. As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized the huge advantages to writing down what you say in your show.

For me writing out a script makes it a lot easier to see where jokes should be. It also makes it easier to work on them. One thing I don’t like very much is the script format that this book uses when it’s showing scripts. I find them hard to read, however I’m 99% sure it’s simply because I’m not used to that format. I think the more I use it the easier it will get to read.

I’m working on my Polaroids to Envelope trick that I wrote about a week or so ago. I decided to write out the script using the format in Scripting Magic. What I did was simply use a practice video and wrote down what I said and added the actions.

Polaroids to EnvelopeDownload

In the version in the document above it’s pretty basic and narrative. It’s got a rough presentation hook, and a chuckle in it, but it needs more work.

Virtual Producer…

The last couple of months I’ve watched a lot of online magic shows and I’ve come to the conclusion that the one thing they all need is a producer. Someone to make the show run smooth, whether is changing cameras, reading comments or just someone to troubleshoot any problems that may come up.

My buddy and I have been working together to produce each other’s virtual shows.

It’s amazing what a little bit of production value adds to the show. Also it’s helping me develop some stuff for stage shows that will use video projection!

If you’re doing a virtual show, find someone to run the production, it helps a lot!

Virtual Way To Force A Card…

One of the challenges we’re all having moving shows from physical shows to virtual shows are things like card forces. There are ways to do them, however you’ve got to get over things like “lag” in video and comments. There are plenty of people doing the visual riffle card force, but there’s some risk with that.

Here’s a force that I’ve been doing a long time that’s 100% sure fire:

How the force works is you fan a deck and run the joker along it, someone from the audience says stop and remembers the card next to the joker. That’s your force card. The advantage this force has is that it allows people to change their mind. That overcomes any lag issue. They can say stop, then have you move the joker if it’s not exactly where they wanted you to stop.

One of the things I like about this force is how direct it is. There’s really no procedure. They say stop, and that’s where you put the joker. Look into if you need a “virtual card force“.

Pics to Envelope!

Oh man, we’re hitting the homestretch here! A few days ago I started writing about wanted to do Goshman’s Cards Thru Newpaper and how it has morphed into a completely new magic trick.

The final change to the physical props was to get rid of the jumbo card that the pictures reappeared under. I was texting my friend Terry Godfrey, who is a very smart magician and we came up with the idea of changing the jumbo card to an envelope that starts out holding the pictures.

Magic trick

I ended up making the envelope, so it’s not a standard size. It’s a little bit smaller than the jumbo card that I was using.

Card magic

At this point I have an original magic trick. The next step is to clean up the handling a little bit.

Pics to Jumbo Card.

The last couple of days I’ve been writing about doing Goshman’s Cards Thru Newspaper and how it morphed to Cards To Jumbo Card. Today we’re going to talk about the next leap it’s taking, and that’s starting to get rid of the cards. In place of the four regular cards, I’m using Polaroid pictures of my daughter and our pets.

Magic trick

The cool thing about these is that they are slightly smaller than playing cards, which makes a lot of the sleight of hand much easier! The nice thing about coming up with a method that doesn’t use a duplicate, they pictures could be of people from the audience, or of a company’s products, or whatever.

Once again, the video below wasn’t intended for people to watch other than me. It’s a “proof of concept” video that was for me to watch and see how well everything worked and also to remind me of what I was doing.

Things are starting to come together, but there’s still one thing I don’t like, and that’s the jumbo card. Tomorrow we’ll talk about how I got rid of that.

Cards Thru Newspaper

A magician friend of mine a few months ago performed Albert Goshman’s Cards Thru Newspaper for me. I remember reading it in Goshman’s book, however I remember reading it and working through it and it didn’t feel spectacular. I was also probably 17 years old at the time, so that might have affected my opinion of the trick.

If you haven’t seen the trick, here’s Goshman doing it:

Compared to a lot close up magic, it’s pretty slow. It’s still a good trick for non magicians and had a couple of good moments in it. I like it as a “formal” close up thing that could be done via video projection. However, I have to look at what I don’t like about it. The biggest thing I don’t like is the newspaper.

In the trick there are two newspapers, the one laying flat on the table and the one being used as a cover. The cover newspaper was easily replaced by a jumbo card.

Cards thru newspaper magic trick

Replacing the flat newspaper on the table made me have to rework the method of the trick. There’s a couple of moments in Goshman’s routine where you need that newspaper. I could replace it with something like a handkerchief, but decided to rework the routine.

What I ended up with is something complete different than Goshman’s Cards Thru Newspaper, and an original trick. Taking a trick as a starting point and then continually removing what you don’t like is one way to create original material.

Masters of Illusion…

Several months ago I hinted that I was putting together some material for a TV show. I always assume that I’ll have my bit cut and end up no being on the show. I recently got an email of the list of acts that will on the show, and I’m on the list!

I’m excited to be a part of the 7th season of Masters of Illusion on the CW network!

It was a lot of fun getting to work on a TV show and hanging out with all of the acts!

Make It Easy To Watch!

This morning a buddy of mine sent me a video of a magician doing a card trick and wanted to know my thoughts on it. The thing that stood out to me, and is something that I should have realized before is that most of us are doing card tricks for social media incorrectly.

Many videos of just the hands have them coming down from the top of the screen, or are from the spectators point of view showing more of the magician. If you are doing any card tricks that require you to spread the cards, the indexes are upside down.

If you are someone that frequently handles cards, it’s pretty easy to tell what is what. However, most people are not. If you asked someone to memorize a card and they saw it upside down there’s a great chance they will struggle with it. It’s also visually unappealing to look at. Here’s my suggestion, use a left handed deck of cards.

left handed cards

This cards spread this was a so much easier to identify for someone that’s not familiar with cards. If you don’t spread the cards, like in an ambitious card routine then it’s not really a issue.