Tricks – Page 122 – MagicShow.Tips

Closure…

Material cycles in and out of my show fairly frequently. One trick that has been out of the show for a while is my Applause Please trick. This is my version of milk in lightbulb that uses an applause sign instead of a lamp. I took this out of my show a bit after I … Continue reading “Closure…”

Material cycles in and out of my show fairly frequently. One trick that has been out of the show for a while is my Applause Please trick. This is my version of milk in lightbulb that uses an applause sign instead of a lamp. I took this out of my show a bit after I started selling it to magicians.

Currently I have a need for the trick in the show. In my color changing handkerchief routine at the end when the original handkerchief is gone, the audience is left missing some closure to the trick. What I’m doing is using the applause sign throughout the show, then when it comes to the end of the color changing handkerchief routine the silk reappears from the lightbulb.

I’m hoping the reappearance of the silk will be a better end of the routine for the audience. Always look at your show and try to find things that don’t feel right and try to fix them, don’t settle for just OK.

What’s Wrong With That Act…

Recently I saw an act that is everything I dislike about how people perform magic. They lacked technical skill, knowledge of the trick and presentation. For me it was a trifecta of what I don’t like.

This act did the “Sands of the Desert” trick. This is a trick where you have a bowl of water and you swirl your hand in it and the water turns black. then you dump different colored sand into the bowl and swirl it up. Then you reach into the bowl and pull out handfuls of dried sand that’s all the same color. For the finale the water in the bowl turns clear.

First of all, the performer couldn’t do the trick. It’s not a hard trick to do, and they lacked the technical skill to do it. It was pretty crazy to watch. You really should practice it before you do it in a show. You not only need to know the “sleight of hand” but how and why the props work like they do. That’s super important, knowing why something is shaped the way it is, or how to hold it.

As far as their presentation goes, it felt like they were trying way to hard to put meaning to something. They tried to use the trick as an analogy for the universe. That’s fine, but it lacked conviction and authenticity. It felt like they asked someone to write a script and they read the script. If you watch Jeff McBride do his stuff, you feel that he believes it and he’s trying to open your eyes to something, not just saying big words. He puts his heart into it, but that’s also Jeff, and a piece of who he is.

Put yourself into your tricks, put your heart into it and put your time into it. Dive into the props, the sleights, learn the history of the trick, learn as much as you can about and the story you’re telling. That will come through in your show.

Two Methods…

One of the nice things about the magic scene in Seattle is that we have a monthly magic show called Magic Monday. Essentially it’s a “magic open mic” and a great place to work on new material. Most areas don’t have a venue specifically for magicians to work on new things, or give newer performers … Continue reading “Two Methods…”

One of the nice things about the magic scene in Seattle is that we have a monthly magic show called Magic Monday. Essentially it’s a “magic open mic” and a great place to work on new material. Most areas don’t have a venue specifically for magicians to work on new things, or give newer performers a place to work out materials.

A couple of nights ago I performed at Magic Monday to practice some routines that I hadn’t done in a while. One of the routines uses some technology, and it failed during the show. That’s the importance of having an “out”. When doing a trick that relies on technology, that frequently means you need to run two methods for the trick at the same time.

While running two methods to accomplish one trick is a bit of a pain, but if you use tech, it’s worth it. It’s good that for the trick I was relearning, the worst possible scenario happened, that let me practice that scenario. That’s a good lesson, you need to not just plan for the worst, but practice for it!

It’s The Little Things…

When I’m doing roving magic, one of the tricks that I frequently do is the Mismade Bill. I have two versions that I do, in the most basic I borrow a dollar, rip it in half, and restore backwards. The other version is my marketed “Splitting Image” trick. In this version I take a picture … Continue reading “It’s The Little Things…”

When I’m doing roving magic, one of the tricks that I frequently do is the Mismade Bill. I have two versions that I do, in the most basic I borrow a dollar, rip it in half, and restore backwards. The other version is my marketed “Splitting Image” trick. In this version I take a picture with a spectator’s phone of them holding the bill, then I tear it, restore it backwards, and make the picture change from a normal bill to the mismade bill.

In the basic version, I let the person keep the bill, in the second the keep the picture on their phone. Occasionally I’ll have someone try way to hard to figure it out. They’ll track me down an hour later at the gig to tell me the bills serial numbers are different. If they are going to look at the bill that closely, they’ll also notice the bill doesn’t exactly line up.

Normally I don’t care if they notice something like that after an hour of examining the bill. However, I’ve got a TV spot coming up and with the super high def TV’s, I don’t want people to be able to freeze the show and check numbers. The odds of anyone checking are very slim, but wanted to have that covered.

Here’s my bills:

It’s a small touch that took me 10 mins to do, so it wasn’t a huge undertaking. It’s the small touches that will make the experience for that one guy who tries to check the serial numbers more “magical”!

An Idea…

For about nine months I’ve had an idea for a trick kicking around in my head. I keep thinking about it, and that’s a good sign, I just haven’t sat down and put a lot of directed energy into it. The week I’ve started to take action on making this idea a reality. Unfortunately this … Continue reading “An Idea…”

Someone from the audience thinks of something and whispers it into a mason jar and closes the lid. They hand you the jar, you open the lid, listen to the inside and tell them what they are thinking.

Then you write something (unseen) on a giant pad of paper and whisper it into the jar, and they tell the audience what you were thinking. You confirm this by turning around the paper.

There are many variations of this that can happen. Two people from the audience could whisper into the jar and hear each others “whispers”.

The hurdle I’m hitting right now is what information do I want them to whisper? Obviously I’ll need to force the info, so it could be a book, it could be a birthday, or whatever. The one thing I know is that it’s not going to be done with playing cards.

Using a Gimmick…

Yesterday I wrote a post about the Linking Pins. Today I’m going to write a bit about one of my favorite things about the routine. My routine uses a gimmick, but only for a small part of it. The rest of it uses ungimmicked pins, but by the time the gimmick is in play, I’ve totally negated the idea that I could be using what I’m using.

In the first three phases of the routine that don’t use the gimmick, they look just like I’m using the gimmick. Also they get the audience to check out the pins, when there’s nothing to find, so when they is something to find, no one is looking!

Here’s the final phase with the gimmick:

In the video you see how I put a lot of “tension” into what’s going to happen. The guy can see and feel them together. I’m building tension with that. Once they go through each other, he has to relax. That release of tension gives me a natural moment to get rid of the gimmick.

Linking Pins…

One of my favorite close up tricks to do is the Linking Safety Pins. What I like about it is that is uses an common object and the magic is direct and visual. Those two things save me a lot of time with the expository phases of the trick. I don’t really need to explain what they are, but I do. I also don’t need to explain what going to happen, because it’s obvious.

The other thing about my routine for the Linking Pins trick is that all of the props are handled by the audience and all but the first effect in the routine happens in their hands. This makes a simple trick a bit more hard hitting.

Sometimes when I’m out doing my routine, after the pins go through each other the first time, someone will say they are trick pins. I tell them they can keep them after I’m done. I have a pocket full of pins so leaving a set is no big deal. This 100% removes the idea that they are trick pins.

ACAAN???

One trend in magic that I’ve noticed lately is that whenever someone puts out a new gimmick, or principle one of the routines they come up for it is an Any Card At Any Number. The problem with this is that none of these are truly an ACAAN. as there’s a limitation at some point. … Continue reading “ACAAN???”

One trend in magic that I’ve noticed lately is that whenever someone puts out a new gimmick, or principle one of the routines they come up for it is an Any Card At Any Number. The problem with this is that none of these are truly an ACAAN. as there’s a limitation at some point.

A good example is the Mental Dice that just came out. You are using the dice to get information, but unfortunately with 3 dice you can’t make any number between one and fifty two. You could use one die for the tens place and the other for the ones place, but that still won’t get you all the numbers from one to fifty two.

In the book Body Mentalism, which teaches a really cool technique for forcing a person, one of the effects is an ACAAN. Unfortunately it’s really an Any Card at Number, there’s not a free choice of number. It’s very limited, in this method. I’m all for brainstorming ideas and including them, but people need to stop passing off a Card at a Position as an Any Card At Any Number.

I may be a bit biased as I’m a fan of the ACAAN trick, and have done it on TV, my live show and published several variation of the trick. It’s one of those things that in my opinion have a very specific set of rules for it to be an ACAAN.

Raise Up Your Show

Sometimes you need to stick to your guns and do your show how you want it to, then there are other times when you need change it. I’m a huge advocate of pushing back if someone unreasonably wants you to change your show. An example of this is a booker wanting you to incorporate something into your show at the last minute. I’m frequently asked to magically make a prize or award appear. I almost always decline this.

There are times that you want to alter your show for the event. When I performed in Virginia a couple days ago, I saw an illusion act perform. They weren’t on a raised stage, which is something I’m very conscious of. Being an act that uses smaller props I’m very aware of how they can disappear if they are held too low when you aren’t on a raised stage. The act I saw did a Wakeling Sawing in Half, which is a great illusion. It’s a big prop, but the action happens low.

I’m standing in the back taking this picture, you probably wouldn’t notice the large box for the illusion in the picture. There’s a girl in the third row standing on someone’s lap to see. While it’s a big and visual prop, you can’t see it if it’s too low to the ground. This is a situation where a small handheld prop would have played a lot larger than the sawing in half.

In my opinion the show would have flowed better if they had cut out the sawing in half and filled the spot with something smaller, that could be held higher, or just run the show five minutes short. Removing the trick would have made the show much more enjoyable for me, as there wasn’t really any jokes, or story engage me once the visual was lost.

Be aware of the sight lines of people seated from the third row and back.

Great Book…

The other day a buddy of mine gave me the book A Magician Prepares and I started reading it on my flight yesterday. This book has some shortcomings, like the layout which makes it hard to read and the title isn’t that great, however the content is fantastic. The book is a bunch of short … Continue reading “Great Book…”

There’s a lot of great advice in this book, and I think it’d be a great book to read when you start to hit the semi-pro level. When you’ve begun to get an act and are out working it semi-regularly. I do think it’s worth a read no matter where you are in your career.

One thing that struck me was in one interview a guy mentions that people ask, “why do all cruise ship magicians do the same stuff?”. His answer was the limitations of the gig, you need to fit it all in a suitcase that’s less than 50 pounds.

Having worked on some ships, I get the challenge of the limitation, however I also think that it’s a shortsighted reason. The reason is laziness, they don’t want to create a something new. Sure something like color changing hanks plays big, packs small and there are plenty of routines for it. That’s a trick that’s in my show, however it’s not chosen because of the size of it. I do the trick because in my routine there’s a message that I want to convey with it. Also the way I do it, I use an additional prop that takes it out of the “packs small” category.