Pictures – Page 69 – MagicShow.Tips

Creating Custom Gimmicks

I just wrapped up building a custom prop for another magician. I don’t know if people know what goes into creating props. Below are the first three attempts at making part of the prop, I forgot to take a picture of the forth and final version.

The first version which is on the left, was kinda my “proof of concept” version and it let me know that the idea was solid.

The middle version was a slight tweak, where the slot is bigger, but that brought me to a second challenge, the top needed to taper in. I also realized I has a little more room to play with with the prop, so I extended the gimmick.

The third version on the right, fit great, but internally I discovered there was a “pinch point”, so I had to go back and to a quick redesign, which led me to the fourth and final version (not pictured).

Looking back, the second version was clunky, but functional. The third version didn’t really work, but the final version worked soo much better than second version. I’m glad I pushed forward to get it to the final version!

If you’ve got a custom prop you are looking to get made, contact me and we can chat about it!

-Louie
Click here to learn more about building your own magic props!

Always Learning…

When I was on vacation in Australia in November, we visited Sydney’s Chinatown. There was a guy there cutting silhouette portraits, and I had mine done. In the past and still occasionally I’ve cut portraits at gigs, it’s a great little skill to have, but to be totally honest, I have no idea how to sell it.

OK, back to the guy in Sydney, unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of his sign, but it was $2 Australian dollars for a portrait, or just about $1.10 US.

He cut it quick, and his display looked nice and he did it really quick.

The silhouette doesn’t really look like me, but it was fun to get it done and totally worth about a dollar!

I’ve always said you can learn a lot from simply watching people who do what do, no matter their skill level or what you view as their skill level. Here’s what I learned from him:

1: He had a great display that clearly said what he did, how much it cost and how long it would take.

2: He cut on a vinyl with and adhesive back and stuck it to the card at the end.

The adhesive backed vinyl is very smart, it eliminates the need for glue, which then eliminates the need for a table. It also saves times. If I ever try to sell the silhouette portraits again, I’ll probably experiment with using something with an adhesive back.

-Louie

Asking Questions…

One of the huge lesson I learned last month on the school assembly tour that I was on was how to get more our of the people who helped me onstage. Basically I just asked a lot of questions. The questions aren’t random, and I have preplanned joke responses for some answers, but I’m looking for thing that I can use to create a real live moment.

The other thing I learned is not to jump in too quickly with my response, especially if I already have a joke answer to what the kid says. You need to let the kid’s answer land with the audience, then hit your response. If you reply too quickly, the audience doesn’t have time to process, but I think it also feels less real and in the moment.

Take your time.

-Louie

Take Up Reel Question

A question I recently got asked about my Take Up Reel for the vanishing bird cage is how much can you move around with it on. My answers is that it gives you pretty much full range of motion.

For the last month I’ve been performing 2-3 shows a day and my 45 minutes show ends with the vanishing birdcage. I’m pretty physical in the show, and in the middle of the show I do some trick roping with the take up reel on my left wrist with the pull set to the long position.

Right after the trick roping routine, I could reach over, grab the cage and vanish it. I don’t as the cage is about 15 mins later in the show, but in that picture the working end of the take up reel is in my right sleeve.

For me and how I perform, using a take up reel allows me to do the vanishing birdcage. It’d be impossible using just a wrist to wrist pull.

-Louie

Apples and Oranges

One trick that I’m doing in the school assembly is based on Jim Steinmeyer’s Apples and Oranges routine in his book Conjuring. Jim’s trick is the Piano Card Trick, but using apples and oranges, which makes it play on stage. Essentially the trick is an orange disappears from one side of the stage and reappears on the other.

I took Jim’s idea and rewrote the script and changed the props so that it works for the show I was doing. In the first few weeks of doing the show, I felt like the kids holding the nets of fruit were really only there as human props and I needed to give them opportunities to shine. I started by asking them some questions, then giving one of them a line and creating an impossible challenge for the other kid. This made the routine soo much more engaging that it was before.

Also I should add that the trick is good! When the orange ends up on the other side of the stage, the teachers seem more amazed than the kids! That’s an important point about this show and all kids shows, the magic needs to be good. There were (and still are) soo many magic tricks that from an effect standpoint aren’t good that are marketed to children’s performers. This is part of what creates the stereotype that kids magic is cheesy. If you up your game with good tricks, it’s helps take you out of that cheesy magician box.

-Louie

Sponge Tennis Balls…fixing lines

When I was putting together my tennis ball routine for this school assembly tour, I started using Sponge Tennis Balls by Daba Magic. I like these more than the Alan Wong Sponge Tennis Balls as the Daba ones pop open much faster.

After using them for 2-3 shows a day on this tour, I found one thing that I don’t like about the Daba Sponge Tennis Balls. The white line on them is tape or something like that, where on all the other sponge tennis balls I’ve tried, they are painted on. After about a week the tape lines started getting loose, and this week they started falling off.

Here’s what the lines should look like:

And here’s what they looked like this week:

Honestly, I wasn’t surprised that this would happen to them. I didn’t think that tape was good way to make the lines. I went to the store and bought some paint and redid the lines:

It only took a few minutes to paint the lines onto the sponge tennis balls, and this should hold up for a lot longer than the tape lines.

-Louie

Ankle Switch Problem Solving…

For this tour I started using my Media Star remote control that runs my music with the magnet ankle switch. Early on I realized that it was running about 2 shows before it stopped reliably working. Changing batteries every couple of shows solved the problem, but is annoying and I have a feeling that’s not how it’s supposed to work.

In the show I use the ankle (magnet reed switch) in a few spots to make the music play seamlessly, however there’s one spot where I need it as I can’t use my hands. I have someone from the audience playing sound effects from a fake music remote, and I need to trigger them when they push the button. With the ankle switch giving me problems, I needed to think of a way to make the gag work.

I defaulted to the mentalist’s old friend, Dual Reality! I put three different colored dots on my remote control.

I simply say “push the blue dot” or “push the red dot”, which implies to the audience that there are different buttons, when in reality it’s all the same button. I’ve done this for one day (2 shows) and it’s working out well and is a great, simple solution to the problem of the ankle switch not behaving properly.

We’ll see how it works for the three shows today…

-Louie
Click here to learn more about building your own magic props!

International Leg of the Tour

During this school assembly tour around the midwestern US states, I took a quick trip to Canada to performing a show…so technically this is an international tour?

I was performing in a variety show with Trevor and Lorena Watters, a baton duo (whose names I forgot) and Michael Dardant

The shows went great, but more importantly, after essentially being by myself for weeks, it was nice to hang out with friends!

Tomorrow I’m back to doing the school assembly, but my emotional battery has been recharged!
-Louie

Finding Little Things to Change…

Yesterday was the end of the third week on the road performing my new school assembly show. This week I was really focusing on getting more out of the people who help me onstage in the show and letting them “shine” more.

One bit in the show where I draw a picture of a kid. I have the kid face the audience and do different emotions. I was using and older kid in the 3rd to 6th grade range and they weren’t really doing much interesting. My reasoning for an older kid was they are standing on stage by themself, so I was worried a kid that a younger kid would be uncomfortable onstage alone. Turns out I think that was the issue with an older kid, they feel a bit self conscious.

This week I switched a kindergarten or first grade kid and the difference is HUGE! Every kid I’ve used was great, and really played up the emotions that I was asking them to do. Also there’s something that all ages love is seeing a little kid have fun. Their joy is infectious!

It’s little things like this that make a good show great! My show still has a lot of these little things to be fixed.

-Louie

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