Pictures – Page 81 – MagicShow.Tips

What’s in a Name?

Not too long ago I wrote about simply having a description of your show on a schedule being more effective at putting butts in seats than your name. Here’s the daily sign on the stage that I’m performing at for a 12 day contract:

My show’s name is the only one that has any description of what it is. It’s the only one where if someone sees the sign, they are going to go out of their way to see (if they want to see a magic show). The other two acts with no description probably won’t make it on people’s mental schedules.

Sure having just your name is great for your ego, but it doesn’t help with crowds. I’d rather have “magic show” than “Louie Foxx”.

The name that I gave my show is, “Louie Foxx’s One Man Side Show“, however usually either Louie Foxx or One Man Side Show made it on the sign. It was my agent’s idea to call the show The Magic of Louie Foxx for the fair/festival industry. It’s really made a difference in my starting crowds!

-Louie

Trying Color Matching…

I figure I should try the Murphy’s Magic Color Match sets in a show…since I own them. I don’t like the markers that the set comes with, so I had to pull out the gimmicks and put them into a new set of pens.

On a side note, on the Murphy’s Magic Color Match Video, they mention removing the gimmicks, but then don’t talk about it…at least not that I watched. I will say I didn’t watch the whole video, the routines don’t interest me right now, so it could be buried in those instructions. It’s not listed (that I saw) on the table of contents.

I’ll give them a try later today and we’ll see how it turns out…

-Louie

Color Match!

Currently I’m on the first half of a twelve day contract in Fresno, CA. I used to do Promystic’s Color Match in my show a while ago and I’m recently cycling it back into the show. At the beginning of the run I had one of the pens start to do strange things, so I ordered a replacement part for it…but that doesn’t help me for the rest of my current contract.

Luckily, Hocus Pocus is only 5 minutes from where I’m performing, so a quick trip there and I picked up one of Murphy’s Magic’s Anverdi Color Match sets.

I honestly don’t think that the Color Match that Muprhy’s Magic sells is Anverdi’s…especially when at the beginning of the video they show how it’s different. It’s Murphy’s way of justifying something that may be an ethical dilemma.

I do like how the Murphy’s Magic set has an auto cycle off for the signals. That’s handy in 91% of instances, however in that remaining 9% it makes it harder on you as the performer. Yes, they do have a work around, but it’s not really practical for me. Method wise, I guess it’s solid, I’ve only practiced it, because somehow my Promystic gimmick that was acting funky, magically started work fine once I bought the Murphy’s Magic set.

While a few bucks more, I still prefer the Promystic Color Match set, I think it more solidly built. I also like that I can easily have two thumpers operate at the same time, where I don’t recall them mentioning that using two was possible with the Murphy’s Magic set.

I think I’m going to keep using my Promystic set as long as I can, as I prefer how it works. It could just be me being old and stuck in my ways…

-Louie

Gimmicked Handcuffs…

A long time ago I was playing with the Anthony Linden’s Suit Jacket Escape routine. This is an “in and out” type of escape routine, and it uses the shackles that have the giant oval ring between the chains that lock your wrist. Anthony’s routine is great, however I visually don’t like the look of the shackles with the big oval in it.

What I did to get away from the shackles is I bought a set of “jump cuffs” from Cannon’s Great Escapes. Jump Cuffs are handcuffs that can be (minimally) examined and you can instantly open them. I was going to use them for the “in and out” part of the routine, but I couldn’t get over the noise of the arm ratcheting. Also it took a long time to take them off and put them on.

The solution to the time and noise was remembering the method used in Harry Anderson’s Cufflinks routine from his book Wise Guy and it was also a commercially available product. Part of the Cuff Links routine is a thumb tie style bit with handcuffs instead of your thumbs being bound.

What I did was take my Jump Cuffs and gimmick them like the gimmicked cuffs for Cuff Links. This gave me a really cool gimmicked set of handcuffs, that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else use. Unfortunately the routine didn’t play for me and I eventually sold the uniquely gimmicked handcuffs about 10 years ago.

Now I have an idea for a routine that would used the Jump Cuffs with Cuff Links gimmick. I just bought a new pair of Jump Cuffs from Daytona Magic and am going to add the Cuff Links gimmick to them. We’ll see if my new idea for a routine works…

-Louie

Kraft’s Famous Magic Kit!

Sometimes it feels like I’m perpetually cleaning out my office. This time I found a super rare Kraft’s Famous Magic Kit. This is a punch out magic kit that was created by Harlan Tarbell!

From what I’ve heard (mostly from Richard Kaufman) is that there are two versions of this punch out kit. The 1936 version for Morton’s Salt which has Tarbell’s name on the cover and the version that I have from 1938 for Kraft which doesn’t have Tarbell’s name anywhere on it.

I suspect that the Kraft version is a bit more rare than the Morton version as I’ve found many instances of that one being sold, but I can’t find a single mention of the Kraft version. I’m guessing since it lacked Tarbell’s name, less people saved them.

If this is something you’re interested in, I just added it to my Used Magic For Sale page!

Virtual Show Prop Shelf

The dismantling of my Virtual Magic Show is continuing. Today I took apart the spinning shelf that held all of my props for the show.

As the show progressed, I simply rotated the shelf counter clockwise to get to the next set of props. From an efficiency standpoint, it was great! It was also nice to glace at the holders, and if there was an empty one, then a prop wasn’t set for the show or was missing!

I’m getting rid of the board, and keeping all the holders. If I need to recreate this, it won’t be hard to do.

-Louie
Click here for more information about learning to build your own magic props.

Adding Production to Your Show

I’m always thinking about how to use video screens to make the show play bigger. It’s technology that 10 years ago really wasn’t within the grasp of the average magician, but now for less than $1,000 you can have a compete set up…even less if you already have a laptop computer!

One of the things about the Micheal Buble show that I was recently at, was that the screens weren’t just for making him bigger. There were three screens and sometimes there was a “set piece” like a the moon above. Sometimes it was a close up of a band member or the audience in the middle with Buble on the sides or vice versa.

This is something that doing a couple seasons on Masters of Illusion taught me, that the background adds a lot. In their tech sheet they ask if there’s something you want as your background. Something simple like adding a picture of a workshop when you’re doing a bit about inventing a trick, or a picture of your wife when you’re doing a routine about your wife adds a lot of production value to your show, and that’s just still images.

-Louie

Changing Seats…

Somedays I get to a gig and see that it’s really set up for my show to struggle. Here’s the set up at a recent fair:

The hay bales are probably 35-40 feet way from the stage, and in full sun. Due to the direction the stage faced, there really wasn’t much I could do about the sun, but I could work on the hay bales. I drug most of them closer to the stage:

Closing the gap to the audience really helped me connect. It also stopped people from using the area in front of the stage as a walkway through the fairgrounds. I always do what I can to give my show the best possible conditions based on the situation.

-Louie

Auto Spring Fan Card Revelation

When I travel, I usually have a ziploc bag full of things that I can use to make gaffed items or fix broken gaffs.

Yesterday I wrote a blog post about gimmicking an Auto Spring Fan. It’s because of this bag of stuff I was able to start work on making the gimmicked Auto Spring Fan.

Gimmicked auto spring fan with flap card

I spent some time splitting cards, so that they fan wouldn’t be super thick and glued them over the existing backs of the cards on the fan, and added a flap card

I’m happy to report from a technical standpoint, the trick functions properly. The next step will be to actually try it for an audience!

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

Auto Spring Fan…

The other day I was at a magic shop in Mesa, AZ and I bought an auto spring fan of cards on a whim. If you don’t know what an Auto Spring Fan is, it’s a packet of cards that pops open into a fan automatically. I thought I was probably just going to have a kid hold them in pictures after the show.

During the drive to the gig, I thought about what else could be done with them. There’s not a lot you can do besides open them. Then I got an idea, they could be used as a card revelation. The idea is the whole fanned deck would turn into the selected card.

I realized that if I held the closed deck face down and fanned them so that I was tightening the spring, I could show the backs of the cards on the edge that’s normally hidden.

This allows me to have all the cards on the back (except for the top card) to have the corner shown when fanned to be the same card. Having the top card change would simply be making a flap card.

…at least that’s how it is in my head. Now to actually make the gimmick, which is the real work!

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