Tricks – Page 132 – MagicShow.Tips

Well, That Worked…

One of the great things about performing at fairs is that you have a lot chances to work on new material. A couple of days ago I mentioned an idea for quickly getting a borrowed dollar bill (you can read it here). I tried it at two of my three shows yesterday and it played a lot better than I thought it would.

Basically a kid draws a picture and it turns into a dollar bill, and I will borrow that dollar bill in the next trick of the show. Later the picture reappears in an impossible location.

Here’s what I learned yesterday. The first show I asked a kid to draw a picture and the girl drew a heart. As far as giving me material to work with, the heart didn’t give me much. The second show the kid drew a picture of me and this gave me a lot to work with! Today when doing the trick I’m going to ask the kid to draw a picture of me and I’ll make jokes about it.

With a drawing of ME it’s easier for me to make fun of the drawing without it feeling like I’m crapping on the kid, because I’ll be making fun of me. This is a huge distinction in how the audience could possibly form impressions of me.

Always Be Tweaking…

Over the last year I’ve been working on a Take Up Reel of my own design. If you don’t know what a Take Up Reel is, it’s a complicated process to do something very simple. All it does all you to have a piece of string and shorten it. That’s it. It becomes very handy if you use a wrist to wrist pull and need freedom of movement before using the pull.

What I designed works great for me, however I designed it for how I use it, not how other people may use it. Recently I sent some out to other performers and am getting feedback. Based on that feedback, I’m working for it to hold a thicker gauge line.

Adding a thicker line is a small change, but it adds a bit of an engineering challenge to the device. Hopefully it’s not too hard, I’m working on the first adjustment now and we’ll see how it is once it’s done printing.

Being open to other people’s feedback is something that I think is very important, especially if it’s something that I want to bring to market.

Borrowed Dollar Problems…

In my interview on The Variety Artist podcast I talk about working on a drawing duplication trick. It hit me yesterday that this could be the solution to the hurdle of borrowing money from the audience. The challenge of borrowing money is the time it takes people to get out money, or whether anyone will have money to offer.

How do you get from a drawing duplication to borrowing a dollar bill?

Simple, they draw the picture, I fold it up and it turns into a dollar bill. I give them the dollar bill. Then a bit later I need to borrow a dollar bill and of course the person who I just gave the dollar to has one ready for me to use.

Then later, I have the picture that they drew that I can load as a prediction, or as a production of their drawing. I think this solves the problem of time and uncertainty of borrowing money from the audience.

Bonus Tricks…

A year or so ago I published a trick in Vanish Magazine that used a Sharpie Marker as a prediction. How it went was someone picked a card and drew picture on it. I then told them to look a the pen they are holding and it said, “you will draw a smiley face” which was exactly what they drew. This was playing the odds. I noticed that most people when asked to draw a pic on a card will draw a smiley face. If they don’t draw it I don’t tell them to look at the pen.

I call things like that bonus tricks. Tricks that when they happen are amazing, but don’t always happen.

In my close up card set I force the same card over and over again. Finally they get a different card. I top change it for a similar card. If the initial forced card was a 7 of Diamonds, the different card will be something like a 9 of Hearts. They remember the 9 of Hearts, and I top change it for the 7 of Diamonds and ask them to sign it. At this point one of two things will happen, they will either notice the card had changed or they won’t. If they don’t notice the change, then I get a bonus trick once they are done signing it!

The bonus trick is that I take the card back face down and top change it for the 9 of Hearts, which is what they think they signed and set it face down on the table. I do a pass to bring the signed 7 of Diamonds to the center of the deck. I ask them if they remember the card that they signed and they’ll say the 9 of Hearts. I then rub it on the table and show that their signature has disappeared. For the finale of the bonus trick I spread the deck and show that their signature is now on the 7 of Diamonds!

This is a really amazing trick and hits hard! Being on the lookout for bonus tricks in what you already do, you can do some real miracles!

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.