Category: Pictures

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.

Cover the Spot carnival game

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

Magic Jam on the Road…

Last week I was selling my show at a booking conference, and got involved in a little impromptu magic jam! It was Cecil Lewis, Jeff Martin, Dan Paulus and me.

When you’re on the road, you need to take time to do things that fill your soul. This is one of the things that keeps me moving, I love jamming with other magicians!

-Louie

Naypes by Roberto Mansilla

A couple of weeks Matt Disero mentioned the book Naypes by Roberto Mansilla on his Facebook page. His post got me curious about the book, so I picked up a copy of it. It’s a book of card magic for parlor or stage shows. I cracked it open on the plane yesterday.

In the beginning Roberto does a good job of defining what parlor and stage magic is and the difference between the two. He also talks about four techniques to make cards play to a larger audience.

I’ve read a few tricks into it and I like the approach to Out of This World, and the routine for Card in Envelope. I’ll probably finish reading it on the flight home in a few days. I’ll keep you posted with what I think…

-Louie

Eye-Balling the Problem…

In my show I do a joke about a kid losing a glass eye during the show. I thought it would be funny to add a visual gag to the verbal joke. The gag works for when you’re doing a multi show type of gig, but it doesn’t work for single show. I ordered a glass eye, and now I have one in my prop case!

The gag works, and I’m glad I spent the $25 on a glass eye, however the gag can be better. Most people don’t know that a glass eye is basically flat, it’s just the front 1/4 of the eye. People think it’s a whole globe that would be a sphere. I think if I managed to find a good looking sphere, the gag would play better.

I guess there’s only one way to find out…track down a round glass eye!

-Louie

Al Koran…

A couple of weeks ago at Potter and Potter‘s Ken Klosterman auction I managed to win one item. It was Al Koran…well some of his ashes and a sealed deck of his cards along with a display.

If you don’t know much about him, here he is on the Ed Sullivan show:

Al invented Ring Flite and the Medallion, both tricks I’ve done a version of during my career!

-Louie

Hanging Out…

Whenever I’m out doing shows, I always try to spend time any magicians that are in the audience. Sometimes I don’t know who is a magician, so I apologize in advance if I don’t hang after the show.

I am still very passionate about magic and really enjoy watching and learning it. If you come out to one of my shows and be sure to mention you are a magician. Sometimes I don’t have time to hang after the show…but if I am available, I always love to jam for a little bit!

Dr. Strange Magic Show…

Last week I was at Disneyland and went over to the California Adventure park to see the Dr. Strange show. Essentially this was a 12 minute magic show. The magic trick were essentially used as “live special effects”, and not as magic tricks. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing them this way, it’s just a different mindset.

There were basically four tricks: Devils Hank, Ring to Flower, Zombie, and an Appearing Pole. This show was a great example of a themed magic show. Every trick was used with a purpose to further along the story. The Zombie was well motivated, but went way longer than it should have gone.

Here’s video I found online of the full show:

This show is also a good example of why when I do themed shows my role is more of a lecturer than a character that’s presenting a show. Performing as someone other than me doesn’t really interest me, and I’m not a good enough actor to do that.

Removing The Force…

I finally got around making a trick that’s been on the back burner for a couple of months. I really like the trick 52 B Wave 2.0 by Vernet. This is essentially a brainwave deck with the kicker of all the cards being blank at the end. It’s got a great three beat ending.

52 B'wave 2.0

There’s one thing that I don’t like about it. What I think is the weakness is that you have to force a color (red or black), which isn’t a huge deal. I do see how adding a second bank of reveal cards would bump up the price and possibly make working it a little more complex.

I decided make it so that I could do the trick and have any card named. I went out and bought some matte finish spray to make some rough cards. It was a pretty easy process to make the black deck, the one surprise I had was the Vernet jumbo cards are a tiny bit shorter than the Bicycle Jumbo Cards, so I had to trim down my reveal cards. Other than that, it was pretty painless.

The routine I’m doing has people throwing cards, and before I had to force half of the card initially, then after that it was a free choice. Now I don’t need to do the initial force, just toss the pack to the audience and they start tossing away cards. It should be much cleaner this way.