Tricks – Page 128 – MagicShow.Tips

Premonition…

One of the card magic plots going around right now is a “Card To Pocket” that’s done in the style of Eddie Joeseph’s Premonition. Right now Max Maven’s Pocket Nightmare and the Other Brother’s Card To Pocket are just coming out. The trick is a card is selected, the cards are gone through and there … Continue reading “Premonition…”

One of the card magic plots going around right now is a “Card To Pocket” that’s done in the style of Eddie Joeseph’s Premonition. Right now Max Maven’s Pocket Nightmare and the Other Brother’s Card To Pocket are just coming out. The trick is a card is selected, the cards are gone through and there are only 51 cards, their card is missing. It’s then produced from your pocket.

Last night I was reading the book Concertos for Pasteboards and there’s a Card to Pocket by Roberto Giobbi called A Case For Premonition. This one uses one normal deck, which is a huge advantage for me than the two marketed ones. The disadvantage is that I need to deal the cards instead of letting a spectator go through the cards. Personally I think the condition of the audience dealing is a that impresses magicians more than non-magicians (in most cases).

After working through the one in the book, I did a couple of tweaks. There’s a moment where you need to spread through the cards to find selected card that had just disappeared. I didn’t like that, so in the dealing process I deal them a bit sloppy and side jog the card before the selected card, which lets me find it without spreading the cards. The other thing I changed was the need for a cull palm. Instead as I pick up the deck I do the pass that’s used in Bob Farmer’s Bammo Card Walloper to bring the card to the top and simply palm it.

I’m excited to try this out on real people to see how it plays. I think this will be one of the tricks that I do as part of an informal card set. I always like reading a trick and immediately know that if I change a couple of things it will work with my body vocabulary.

Bouncing Ideas…

In the past I’ve mentioned that jamming with other magicians is an important part of the creative process. This has benefits beyond just coming up with ideas, you can also learn new techniques by hanging out with other magicians. Here’s a magic jam from yesterday: In the video you may have noticed the Coin in … Continue reading “Bouncing Ideas…”

In the video you may have noticed the Coin in Chapstick that I’ve been messing with. It’s an interesting idea, and it was fun two work out some of the finer details with these magicians. I think the trick got better after getting some good feedback!

After The Force…

The other night I finished up reading After The Force by Ron Frost. I think it’s important to keep learning. There are tons of magicians I know that don’t learn magic for fun. They only learn something when they have to, which I think is the wrong approach. I think that magicians need to keep … Continue reading “After The Force…”

This book’s title is a bit misleading, I expected just endings to card tricks. The first part of the book teaches you how to force cards in a variety of ways. I agree with Ron’s assertion that the Classic Force is the best force. Then he teaches you a lot of tricks that uses forces, but in the context of the whole tricks. It’s the trick start to finish. Not that it’s a bad thing, I just thought it’d be something a bit different.

I’m glad I read the book, and worked through the stuff in it, however I don’t think anything from it is moving into my working set. It’s not that the stuff is bad, it’s just not for my show. There is one move in the book that will move into my “toolbox” or moves that I use when a situation calls for it. The big thing is to keep educating yourself on techniques and grow as a magician.

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.