Tricks – Page 121 – MagicShow.Tips

Virtual MCing!

Today, you can check me out doing some virtual stage hosting for the Coconino County Fair on their facebook page! I’ll be introducing their bands and doing some magic tricks.

When I was a teenager I remember in all of the Karrell Fox boxs there being tons of magic tricks that he used to introduce act. Things like a piece of rope ends up shaped like an acts name, or the chalk magically writes the acts name on a chalkboard. I remember thinking how that was very dated feeling. What I mean by that, is that it doesn’t (to me) feel modern in a live variety show.

Now that I’m doing some of this virtual hosting, things like that kinda make sense. In a virtual video, the trick can happen, then the bands video starts. There’s not lag between me leaving the stage, and the band walking on and getting ready. I’ve gone back and reread a lot of Karrell’s stuff and while the props need to be modernized, the ideas are solid!

Prop Making…

This week I’m MCing a virtual event, well really just doing introductions for bands at an event. It’s three bands, and all I really need to do is read the words that the event producer gave me, however I want to add a little something. One of the things that I want to do is make a corndog appear and disappear. As far as I know, no one makes a vanishing corn dog.

I started out to fabricate a corn dog. The first step is to make a silicone mold of a corn dog. The first surprise was that a corndog floated in the silicone, so I had to hold it down with some toothpicks. Once the silicone mold had cured, I pulled out the real corndog and used urethane to make the fake corndog.

I added some pigment to the urethane, the color, isn’t exactly right, but I’m going to give it a little bit of paint and I’ll be good to go. I only need this for one show, so the paint doesn’t need to last.

I’m excited to do record this! We’ll see how it turns out!

Taking a Pea…

One of the silver linings about having the entertainment industry shut down during the COVID pandemic is that I’m getting play around with making a lot more props. One thing that I’ve wanted to make for a while are peas for the three shell game.

I had some time some the other day and made some molds for the peas. Then I picked up some urethane and made them. The urethane I used was a 40A on the Shore Hardness Scale.

They have a little bit of give, but are pretty firm. I like them so far!

Still Working On It…

Months ago I started working on my version of Goshman’s Cards Thru Newspaper trick. My version ended up taking out everything I didn’t like about the trick, which are the cards and the newspaper. I ended up replacing them with Polaroid pictures and an envelope. It’s still a work in progress.

A couple weeks ago I was invited to be a guest at a magic club meeting that took place over zoom. One thing they did was allow people to perform and get critique from Patrick Martin, who also did a presentation during the meeting.

Only a handful of people took the club up. I volunteered to do something if they had space and wouldn’t get in the way of club member’s having the chance to be critiqued. They had plenty of space, so I did my trick with Polaroid pictures.

There was some great feedback, mostly with how bad my pictures were and how they showed up on the screen. They are 100% correct, here’s a screenshot:

The reflection from my ring light made the picture hard to see. There are a couple of solutions for this:

Spray them with matte spray to dull the gloss
Have the camera behind the ring light and bring the pics past the ring light
Have more contrast between the animal and background in the actual picture
Remake the picture so that it’s not glossy (i.e. fake Polaroid)

I think the final solution will be a combination of all of the above.

a bit of praise…

Yesterday’s post was a bit harsh on Goswick. I’m going to give him some praise today. Here’s a trick I think is an interesting idea:

Now, it’s a interesting routine, I’m not sure it calls for the giant props that he’s using, but it’s a good idea. If there was a way to have a flat board, without the strange triangle, it’d be a much better trick. I think the triangle points at the method.

I do like the idea of watching the elbow, that’s good. I wonder if there’s a better prop for this trick. Maybe a cloth that’s held up, you’d need a little bit of engineering, but using a cloth or something not rigid would add another layer to this effect.

Catalog vs Reality…

When I was a kid there used to be an ad in magic magazines for a catalog of illusion plans. They were by Goswick’s Illusions. I remember writing him to get the catalog and based on the one picture of the illusion and the catalog description it was amazing. Somehow 20+ years l stumbled upon his website and he’s still selling his illusion plans.

It was a very interesting watching his demo videos, he has a lot of creative ideas…unfortunately they are poorly executed ideas.

Here’s one of them:

I 100% give him credit for creating his own method and ideas. However magically most of them fall very short of being good ideas. It’s one thing to have an original effect or method, but you need to understand what makes a trick good. Not everything should be sold, have a free plans workbook that’s the bad ideas, or contribute them to a magazine…charging people for them is something that I personally don’t agree with.

Test it !

One of my favorite creation is my take up reel. It’s something that I’ve wanted to use forever and went out and created a way to make it happen. Normally when I put out magic props, I put out what I use. When developing this, I got it to work great for me and thought I had a final product. I then sent it out to some people and they didn’t use it like I did. That led to me improving it and ended up with a better final product!

It’s always great when I get emails from people who have one:

“Louie’s Take-Up Pull is incredible. If you want to perform the Vanishing Birdcage in the “real world” you need one of these, but you can do much more with it. I have several Take-Up Pulls made by Hammerton and Martin but this high quality modern recreation is every bit as good and at a fraction of the price of any of the others. I highly recommend Louie Foxx’s Take-Up Pull!”
Marc DeSouza

Getting emails like this makes all the work in testing it worth it!

Shell Sequence…

Yesterday I wrote a post about what playing with gimmicked shells, pea and table for the three shell game. Here’s a simple sequence I put together with them to highlight what you can do with the combination:

My end goal is going to be having “zones” on my table that make the balls appear under that specific shell. I think will have some interesting possibilities…

Shell Game Embellishments…

When I was a teenager I ended up with a set magnetic set of shells for the Three Shell Game. If I recall they were Martin Swindle Shells. This set of shells had a magnet in them and a magnetic pea. I never really used the magnet as I couldn’t really figure out a way to get the pea off the magnet. That function seemed to be simply for a vanish of the pea, and that’s it.

Over the weekend I was playing with the idea of getting the pea off of the magnet while in the shell. The second phase of the video has what I’ve come up with:

My solution to getting the pea off of the magnet in the shell was to use a stronger magnet in the table. When the shell goes over that spot, it pulls the pea off the shell and onto the table. The larger idea is to have multiple magnets in the table, so it can be a larger routine with more phases.

Three Ball Routine Props…

A long time ago I wrote a blog post about the three ball routine that I do called Sankey’s Balls. This is a three ball routine that uses two balls, and a third one for the finale. This is the opener for my family shows.

The hard thing about doing a three ball routine is finding suitable small balls. I have a set that I like, but they aren’t made anymore. I needed one more set for one of my cases. I’m trying to have each case have all the props needed for the show in it. So no props move from case to case.

To get another set of balls, I had to make some. This set is fresh out of the mold, I need to trim the fill spots and then they’re good to go.

I made these out of polyurethane and they handle really well.