Tricks – Page 126 – MagicShow.Tips

Working It…

This week I’m at another fair and doing three stage shows a day. This is a good chance to work on new stuff. I’m going to be putting some more time into my silk and coat hanger routine this week. I’ve been working on the technical end of the trick, now it’s time to work … Continue reading “Working It…”

Since that video was recorded, it’s changed a little bit. I’ve added a phase to the routine, and a couple of jokes. My goal is for this to end up being about 3 minutes.

I’ve got a choice, do I do jokes in between every magic phase, or front load it with jokes and then have the back half be magic. I think it needs jokes between each phase. I’ll play with it both ways this week…

Last Show…

Earlier today I did my final library show of the summer. This year I’m performing a lot more in a different market, so only did about a dozen libraries. I’ve got couple of things that I learned about a few of the new magic tricks that I did in the show this summer.

First I learned how to do the Gypsy Thread trick for kids. I had to do some focus group work to figure out why the trick was falling flat. It’s one of those tricks that’s almost too good. The kids thought it was “magnet string” and it just turned back into one piece automatically. To solve this I had a kid hold the string, and it didn’t restore initially. Then later it turned back into one piece.

The second thing I learned is that the big fish production is OK by itself. However if you add the production of a smaller fish before it, the big fish production plays much better!!!

I think a lot of people don’t learn from their library shows. It’s a short term run, and that’s it. Personally I try to have one or two tricks that I can use outside of that themed show, and I’ve got two great ones!

Unique Visuals…

One of the things that I try to do with my show is to give it unique visuals. I think I’m starting to really achieve that in my show. It’s a lot of work, and commitment, but in the long run it’s the way to go. When someone describes my show to another magician, I want the magician to know it’s me by the description.

Sure a card trick looks like a card trick, however there are some ways to make them look different. For example the Card Stab trick. In my main show I use a Rat Trap, this is a less common version of the trick. I also do a unique card stab using a dinosaur costume!

In my local market, if someone describes either of these version of the card stab to a magician, they will know it’s me. I wouldn’t say either is my “signature” trick, but both are associated with me locally.

What tricks are associated with you? Are they tricks that no one else can buy? That’s the goal with the dinosaur card stab, it’s something I created, you can’t buy it, it’s 100% mine.

Gaffed Cards…

One of the things that I want to play with this summer are gaffed cards. More specifically, I want to use flap cards to do some changes. I’ve got a few ideas for what I want to do with the flap cards. Ideally I want to put together a close up set that’s 5 mins that can be projected onto a screen.

This is one of the places where a flap card will shine, because people can’t reach for the cards, and it allows you to more easily ditch things. The formal close up allows you to do some fun magic that’s highly visual…and doesn’t require a lot of space in the luggage.

Last night I was playing with more traditional “dental dam” flaps. They work great, however they have seams in them that the more modern “Hondo” style flap cards don’t have. Hondo has really solved a lot of problems with the dental dam flap cards. However, the Hondo flap cards do have their own disadvantage, and that’s that you can potentially see the elastic as it’s on the outside of the card.

All in all, I think both gimmicks have a place where one is better than the other. Now to figure out what I want to do in my card set….

Gypsy Thread…

I posted a while ago about the Gypsy Thread trick and trying to figure out how to make it work in my library shows. The problem I was having was kids had two ridiculous explanations of how the trick worked. Either magnets or trick string that just goes back together. I heard both enough that it’s something I need to address.

Here’s my solution, I bring a kid on stage to help with the trick. This is good and makes the trick play bigger. The kid tries to put half of the pieces of string together and they can’t on the first try. This effectively cancels out the theory of magnets or trick string. Then the kid ends up holding all of the string and it restores while they hold it. After making this little change, it’s playing a lot better.

However there is a change I want to make to the trick. I just need to find time to work out the handling. I want the kid to hold all of the strings at the first failed restoration attempt. There are two ways to accomplish this. The first way is that I could add in the length of string with the ball of string on it after they’ve handled the string the first time. This wouldn’t be hard to do. The second method would be much bolder and have them hold all of the strings including the one with the ball of string. I’d just shove it into their fist and have them hold it.

Either way I think would make the trick stronger from someone trying to back track it. I know it’s a trick I’m doing in a kid show, but what makes art is going a step further.

P.S. I think Nick Lewin sells the best thread for the Gypsy Thread trick…at least for how I do the trick.

10 Card Poker Deal…

In my continuing quest to make the Ten Card Poker Deal play on stage, I did four shows for middle school kids yesterday and included it in my show. I was a bit worried, about whether or not they understand the rules of poker. The poker craze peaked 15 or so years ago, so it’s not a huge as it was. They all were aware of poker and I helped them out with the order of hands.

What I love about the Ten Card Poker Deal is that the whole thing seem so fair. I basically told the kids I was going to cheat. It was interesting, they started to put conditions on the deal. Of course due to how the trick works, they can pretty much do anything they want, I just might have to guide it a little bit.

The real reason for the trick is to get to the kicker ending I’ve come up with. I prediction the outcome of the final hand of cards. This ending has been playing really well. I like this ending and it makes the trick feel less like I got lucky three times, and puts an ending to the trick. As is (95% of the time) , the ten card deal really has no finale.

Know More Than Seven Tricks…

There’s been advice that you only need to learn a few tricks and you can do those the rest of your life. Sure that may have been good advice in 1910, but now TV, and streaming video eat up material. Every famous magician in the world has done more than a dozen different tricks.

Having a background in magic and sleight of hand bailed me out of a situation last week. I went to do a trick in my show and the deck of cards I use for that trick wasn’t there. It was there when I did the early show, it was gone, and I never found it later. I was already into the trick with three people onstage. I freaked out, but then knowing tricks saved me!

How I bailed myself out was I had another deck that which I rip in half later in the show and I used that deck to do “cards across”. The method was pretty crude, just palm three cards and add them to the other stack. I then forced a three and used that for the number of cards to be moved.

The trick played well, but had I not been a magic nerd, it wouldn’t have turned out very well. That background in magic and sleight of hand is “insurance” for when things don’t go well.

Selling a Trick Onstage…

One of the tricks that I’m working on is the Silk and Coat Hanger. This is basically a silk and ring routine, if you dig around this blog you can find more about it. Basically the silk goes through the coat hanger in different ways. It’s a fun trick for me to do as a perform, and so far the audience seems to enjoy it as well.

Here’s the problem with it, I’m having trouble selling it on stage. Most people who do it, do it to music, not talking. I think I need some jokes upfront and then do the trick to music. Music is nice because it fills the gap while I wait for the audience’s brains to catch up with the effect. As a talking act, you stand there for what feels like an eternity while the audience processes the trick.

I really like the trick, and it’s semi unique to me. I’m going to keep plugging away with it and hopefully I’ll figure out how to make it work better on stage!

Tossed Out Invisible Deck

In the show yesterday I tried out my new idea for the invisible deck. You can read about the idea here. In a nutshell, the idea is to have multiple cards named and all of them are reversed in the deck. I don’t know if for the audience this is a better trick than the standard invisible deck with only one card, for me it’s an interesting challenge.

I did the trick once yesterday and it went well. All the named cards were reversed in the pack and the people in the audience seemed to not know how the trick worked. This is an important part of a new idea…having it actually work for an audience, now the next step is going to be tweaking the gimmick.

Roughing stick by vanishing in for card magic — image from www.VanishingIncMagic.com

I’m roughing the cards with a Roughing Stick that Vanishing Inc puts out. It works well, but I need to play around with how I apply it to the cards. Right now I’m doing it in the middle of the length of the card. I think I’m going to make another deck where it goes across the middle of the short edge of the deck and see how that works.

The cool thing about the Roughing Stick, is that it’s easy to apply, so I fairly quickly try it in different configurations and see what works best for me. I’m also thinking I need to use two different cards stocks for the trick. I’ll be doing some playing this week!

Ideas and Action

Whenever I get an idea, my goal is to try to get a working version of it as quickly as possible. For me, this is a way to see if the idea has something going for it. There could be a weakness in effect, or method. Knowing that there is early on before a ton of time has been devoted to it is very helpful.

Recently I had an idea pop into my head for a trick. I’m calling this trick “Invisible Tossed Out Deck”. Basically it’s a tossed out deck premise where three people end up thinking of cards. However instead of tossing a physical deck into the audience, it will be an imaginary one. The payoff will be that the thought of cards are in your deck upside down.

It only took a minute to source the necessary props for the routine.

I quickly realized that there’s a problem if I construct the deck like a normal Invisible Deck. I’ll need a cull or displacement for each card I’m revealing. Luckily yesterday I was setting in construction traffic and sat for an hour not moving. I started to play with methods for concealing cards in the spread and came up with a couple of methods.

Later today I’ll give the trick a try during my preshow and see how it goes!