Pictures – Page 28 – MagicShow.Tips

Prestige Mentalism Trick

One of the ways to add a bonus trick to a routine, is to introduce the prop you’re going to use for the routine as part of a prediction. In the school assembly show that I’m working on, I’m doing a routine with a tennis ball and will be using it as the reveal of a prediction, then going into the tennis ball routine.

The way I’m going to be doing this is using a trick called Prestige. This prop is visually similar to Tom Stone’s routine Of Dice and Men. It has 5 numbered options on cards and someone from the audience names one of the numbers and on the back of that is your force item.

I picked up the dry erase version of Prestige, I’m not sure this was the right version as I have a feeling I’m going to have to keep redrawing the pictures on the cards. I guess I could draw them in Sharpie and it won’t be an issue.

The trick comes with numbers that stick to the cards with magnets.

The magnet numbers are used for a bonus trick where all the numbers disappear except for the chosen number. I’m not doing that and having the numbers removable add bulk to the folded up packet and makes setting up a little bit harder.

I took some vinyl numbers and stuck them to the outside of the sleeves.

This has less stuff for me to break, or lose while I’m on the road and a good solution for the routine that I’ll be doing. We’ll see how this trick goes next month…

-Louie

Magic Show Set List

Every show that I do, I write out a set list. This helps me with packing, set up and general planning, like not having similar effects back to back in the show.

Here’s a recent set list for a 60 min corporate holiday show:

I also have notes as to who to thank during the show. By the end of the show, I’ll probably won’t remember the names of anyone helping me out without a note.

I’m always amazed when I work with people that don’t use set lists. But those are usually people who don’t really have a set show and just go up and “wing it” every time. Personally I know my show, but the are many different configurations of the show, I’m not always doing 60 mins for adults, the show length and audience make up changes.

-Louie

Duane Duvall

A couple of weeks ago Duane Duvall passed. Duane was a huge part of the Portland, OR magic scene. I didn’t know Duane super well, but had plenty of conversations with him over the years. His magic business card collection was amazing!

Here’s bit of Duane:

Thanks Duane for all you’ve done for Northwest magicians!
-Louie

Christmas Mentalism

Here’s a little mentalism trick that’s Christmas themed!

Effect: You show five pictures of Christmas things and someone thinks of one of them. You read their mind and tell them what they’re thinking of.

This is simply a progressive anagram. Using the chart below you say letters, one at a time, and if the letter is in what they are thinking of, you move down the list and if it isn’t you move to the right.

The nice think about this list is that you can only get one NO answer before you know the work they’re thinking of.

Personally if I was to do this, I would have an index of the different options, and have a physical prediction, or something like a modified Six Outs by Blake Vogt with only five outs.

-Louie

They Eyes Have it!

A few years ago I had a giant production fish in my show. Shortly after I got the fish, I was recording an episode of the Odd and Offbeat Podcast which I cohost with Matt Baker. We did a story about a fish market that put googly eyes on their fish to make them look fresher (you can listen to it here) and that gave me the idea to put googly eyes on the production fish. It made it look a thousand times better.

Right now I’m working on my show for a school assembly tour and I have a smaller production fish in the show. Here’s what the fish looks like when you order it from the magic shop:

And here’s what the fish looks like after adding the googly eyes:

The eye adds a lot to making the fish look real. It also adds a bit of dimension to the fish. Sometimes its small things that make a huge difference!

-Louie

Lasso Card Trick

One of the tricks that I’m planning on doing for the school assembly tour next month is the lasso card trick. Traditionally this trick is done with a force card and a duplicate card, however I’m doing it with a picture that someone from the audience will draw on a jumbo blank card.

I’m also adding a gag to it. The first time I put the rope into the bag, it’s going to bring out a fish! I have one of the small production fish, and I’m not using it’s collapsible properties for this trick, it’s just being used as a fish.

I made a rope that wraps around the fish and will connect to the magnet in the longer rope by the end of the rope. The length of rope that’s around the card has the magnet in the knot. I want to be able to untie the rope from the fish, to hopefully sell that it’s a legit knot for the card.

My seam where the two ropes meet isn’t the best, but when done from the stage it shouldn’t be seen.

The next challenge was to be able to magnet the fish and not the card. My solution was to have the fish upright in the corner of the bag. I simply made a little holder by using the handles of the paper bag and taping them in place.

magic production fish and lasso card trick

So far this seems to work. We’ll see if it lasts for 75 shows. The good thing is that these loops will be easy to replace!

-Louie

What’s Next for What’s Next

Sometimes during my morning writing I will explore ideas for tricks like What’s Next that uses the spot card. This is routine where the number of spots on each side keep changing, then there’s a sucker explanation followed by a series of surprises. The prop in that trick resembles a domino and Norm Nielsen made a version of it that has the correct color combination for a domino. Someone else had made a version of one that’s a cookie with the chocolate chips being the spots.

What’s next is a trick that is perfect for trying to theme, you just need to figure out what the spots are. They could be zits on a teenagers face, or my favorite idea I came up with, bullet holes on a road sign. If you’ve driven in the rural USA, seeing a road sign that’s been shot up is common.

It’d should be simple to make this. Just use bullet hole stickers for the spots on the what’s next card, and cover the white board with art that’s a street sign. I’m going to imagine that the gimmick’s black art to hide the magnets would still work with the bullet holes.

If you wanted to do some work, you could do a kicker ending by building a flap card gaff to one side of it to reveal something.

Honestly I’ll probably never use this, so feel free to make one up. Creating things you know aren’t for you is still a good creative excercise!

-Louie

Gimmicked Handcuffs

A few months ago I wrote a blog post about a set of gimmicked handcuffs I had made a long time about. You can read about them here. The allow you to escape from the cuffs, but they also have another feature that allows you do a thumb tie style effect.

These cuffs have two very different gimmicks in them and I finally got around to making them again!

Essentially these cuffs will be used as a gag in the show. The premise of the trick is a rope escape, however at the end I’ll say I didn’t get out…of the handcuffs. The appearance of the handcuffs will hopefully get a laugh, then I’ll go into the thumb tie bits. I’ve never really done anything like this in the show, so we’ll see how it plays out.

-Louie

Holiday Magic Shows…

Recently I did a holiday party for a company that was in a situation that I normally would have declined the show as the conditions weren’t right for a successful show. Sometimes what I talk about with the client and the reality of what the show is when I get there are completely different. I’m not saying that the client was trying to deceive me, but sometimes we speak different technical languages, or they assume things like a table is movable when it isn’t.

Here’s the view from the back of the audience looking towards the performing area.

There are big tables with people only on one side. This puts huge gaps between the groups of people, which makes having them come together as an audience much harder. The other challenge was that most of the guests showed up late, and they were still eating when it was my showtime. We pushed it back 15 mins, but that’s all I could do. If I didn’t have another show after this one, I would have pushed the show back 30 mins or more.

Some performers really lose their crap about corporate holiday shows starting late. The reality of these shows is that 95% of them start late. If you have another engagement, be clear with the client the situation. Personally if I had a choice of starting the show late, or performing while people are eating, I’d pick starting the show late every time. Obviously there are things reasons to not start the show late, like having another engagement, personal plans with your family, or it’s going to start hours late!

Sometimes you just need to make the best of situations. The audience was great, and had a good time!

-Louie

School Assembly Show…

In less than a month I’ll be debuting a new school/library show. I’ll be on a school assembly tour for five weeks. The show is called “Incredible Idioms” and is themed on idioms.

The great thing about breaking in shows by doing three a day for over a month is that the show gets really good, really quick…Or you realize by the end of the 5 weeks you don’t like the show and never do it again.

The key to these is actually putting in the work. I’ll be doing a lot of reviewing video and writing every night and the first week or two the show will be rough, but then it’ll be super tight for the rest of the tour. Oh, by rough, I mean just good, and not great. I’ve done school shows for a long time, and have a good general sense of what kids like (but the do surprise me sometimes).

Right now I have a ton of half built props and half written routines. It feels like the show won’t be ready in less than a month, but once one routine gets completed, they’ll all domino into being built.

-Louie