Tricks – Page 135 – MagicShow.Tips

Three Ball Routine…

After playing some more with the Three Ball Routine, I started to write up a little routine. The routine changed from what I had written yesterday for an ending, however the ending that I wrote make more sense with the routine. I still like the egg idea from yesterday’s post, just not with this routine. … Continue reading “Three Ball Routine…”

Here’s the routine (so far):

“This trick uses three balls, that’s why there are 2 billion chinese. 3 balls, one for each year of high school I completed.

What I love about this trick is how pure of a magic trick it is, no fancy boxes, no dancing girls, no dignity. It’s 91% sleight of hand, 7% my gift of gab, and 2% old school “Magic”

This is probably the most international trick I do. These balls were made in factory in china, but I bought them in shop mexico and the trick is presented by me, who is from…my mother.

One…two…three.

That’s one, two…did you see the third one go? It hasn’t yet. And faster than you even begin to throw money onto the stage, there is it! Don’t reach for your wallet…the moment’s past.
Let’s do it again in spanish.

Tres Bolas. Uno…Dos…Tres
Uno…Dos… .Y No Trace
Let’s try it in chinese. Ee…Ar…San. San goes into the pocket.
Ee..ar…and San.
One more time…Ee..Ar …and sam goes into the pocket. This trick has literally taken around the world…to pull flags out of fist and name countries”

I like the ending with the flags of the nations because it fits with the theme of the routine. Also the flags should play pretty big, and move the action up towards my face. The patter isn’t finished yet, and I need to come up with one more language to do the final count instead of repeating Chinese. I think there’s something in this routine…

Three Ball Routine

One of my current projects is working on a routine for the three ball routine. That’s a trick, where aside from the patter, there’s not a lot new you can put into to. The balls go from hand to hand, your pocket to hand and then maybe end up with the balls turning into a … Continue reading “Three Ball Routine”

My routine’s framework is pretty simple. The balls go hand to hand twice. They go from the pocket to the hand once. The second time they go from the pocket to the hand, there will be a surprise production. I’m thinking I might do an egg production.

There’s an coin in egg trick by Nefesch that I think is called Hatchling. It’s a signed coin in egg…where the coin is actually in the egg. It’s interesting, and I think that the production of the egg could be topped by the object in the egg. Especially if it’s unexpected, so not linear where you borrow the object, it disappears, then the reappears. Making something like a signed card reappear in the egg that was used earlier in the show.

The next step is to work out the patter, and figure out what I’m going to put into the egg…and the general logistics of how it will play out.

Use Everything…

Most magicians have drawers full of magic that they don’t use. Stuff they’ve bought and for whatever reason ends up in a drawer never to be seen again. I used to have that, however a couple years ago I decided I was going to actually use all of my props…at least a few times.

I’ll do the tricks from the “magic junk drawer” at about a dozen times. The goal is to learn what I can from the prop before throwing it away. Occasionally I’ve been surprised and something that I thought was junk became a keeper.

I think the reason a lot of good tricks end up in drawer is because the price to prop ratio is bad. What I mean by that is if you paid $50 and they gave you a blank card your mindset is that it was a rip off. The trick’s value when performed could be much higher!

However the majority of the tricks are simply bad tricks that someone either loved enough to sell…or was greedy enough to sell a bad idea. Bottom line is that if it doesn’t work for you after you’ve done it about ten times, don’t keep it!

One of the tricks I’ve always loved is the Haunted Deck. It’s an amazing trick, the first one I ever bought as a kid was horrible, half the deck was gimmicked, and you were attached to it, so it wasn’t the most practical version of the trick. It worked, but it could be better.

This is where innovating comes through, there’s are better ways to do the Haunted Deck, and it’s a good thing we didn’t stop at the version I bought as a kid. A similar version is the one popularized by Eugene Burger, which while similar in method, allowed you to use the deck after the trick. This is a huge leap in the method.

Then you have a version using Loops, which allows you to use a borrowed deck, but can be unreliable as the gimmick is fragile. A few years ago I discovered Haunted 2.0, which fit the bill for me. 100% reliable, allowed me to use the deck before and after the trick, it’s great and the version of the trick that I do. However last week at a magic session a friend of mine showed me an impromptu version. It’s at about the 37 second mark of this video:

I think this version looks amazing and the only reason I haven’t switched to it is that in Haunted 2.0 you don’t have to touch the deck, which is one of the strong points of that version.

If we stopped innovating with “good enough” the Haunted Deck would be a trick that I wouldn’t be doing now. So go out there and make good tricks better!

There are tricks that I’ve wanted in my show because I like the idea of them. Many of these classic tricks are very briefly in the show as they don’t work with me and how I work. One of these tricks is the Three Ball Routine. I’ve put it in and taken it out of the show probably a dozen times.

Recently a company called The Hands of Magic put out a set of silicone balls for the trick. I just picked up a set, and while I haven’t used them in a show, they work great when I practice with them.

These balls are a bit different from the bouncy balls you’d get at the two store. They less dense and have a bit of give to them. This is helpful when you accidentally drop them, they don’t go as far as super balls.

These balls also have a nice gloss on them, that hopefully won’t wear off. The gloss will make them look a little bit bigger and will make them play a bit bigger than a matte ball.

So far I like these balls and would recommend them…now to find a spot in my show for them.

Ripping Routine Part V

The additions to the base script are in bold. EFFECT 1: “Take a card, and don’t let me see it.” “And you’re going to grab one, don’t let me see it.” “On the count of three say your card out loud. If you say the same thing, that’s amazing and it means you’re married in Uruguay. … Continue reading “Ripping Routine Part V”

The additions to the base script are in bold.

EFFECT 1:
“Take a card, and don’t let me see it.”
“And you’re going to grab one, don’t let me see it.”
“On the count of three say your card out loud. If you say the same thing, that’s amazing and it means you’re married in Uruguay. Ready…One, Two Three.”
EFFECT 2:
“We’re going to make it a little bit harder. We’re going to cut the cards”

“I learned to do rip a deck when I was younger. One of my roomates was a circus strongman. He could do things like rip a phone book in half, take a cast iron frying pan and roll it up like a burrito, open a pickle jar on the first try “

“The wrist strength to do this is common in every circus strongman and teenage boy.“
“You’re going to take a card and you’re going to take a card. Hopefully your cards will match each other and my card.”
“ Like two turtles, your cards match on the back …”
“The odds of them matching the first time were one in fifty two. Now that there are double the cards, it’s one in fifty two times fifty two. Or one in two thousand, seven hundred and four. There’s also a one hundred percent odd that my math is wrong. ”

“On the front…They match about as much as my mom and my ex-step dad”

“Oh, wait. I put my card here, hopefully it matches one of your cards.”

“Like a half Hawaiian, half pepperoni pizza, this end perfectly!”

The ripping routine is now off to a start. It’s brand new, so it’s not the best routine that it can be yet. There is still a lot of work, audience testing and workshopping it.

Ripping Routine Part IV

Today we’ll start writing the meat of the deck tearing routine. Basically I’m going to write a narrative script. This is going to be the essential things that I need to say for the trick to work, or to make sense. I’m also going to write the accompanying action with the trick.

There are essentially two tricks in the routine. The first is where they both pick and card and it’s the same card. The second is where you rip the deck, they both pick an card and they don’t match, but do match your half and half prediction

Here’s the bare bones script:

EFFECT 1:
“Take a card, and don’t let me see it.”
Have a card selected and returned to the deck.

“And you’re going to grab one, don’t let me see it.”
Have a second person select a card and return it to the deck.

“On the count of three say your card out loud. One, Two Three.”
They both say the same card.

EFFECT 2:

“We’re going to make it a little bit harder. We’re going to cut the cards”
Rip the deck in half

“You’re going to take a card and you’re going to take a card. Hopefully your cards will match each other and my card.”
Set your prediction card on the table and have a card selected from each half of the torn deck.

“The cards match perfectly on the back…”
Line up the tear on the face down selected cards.

“On the front…”
Flip the cards face up to show they don’t match, and react.

“Oh, wait. I put my card here, hopefully it matches one of your cards.”
Flip the card over to show it matches the halves they picked and react.

Currently we’ve got three things done. We have a presentation hook, we have a few random jokes and we have a bare bones script. Tomorrow we’ll start working on putting those together and punching it up.

Ripping a Deck of Cards…

A few days ago I wrote a post about figuring out trying out my little routine for ripping a deck of cards in half. Now that I’ve done it once and confirmed that people like the bare bones of the trick, I can start to expand up it and work on a routine. Here’s the … Continue reading “Ripping a Deck of Cards…”

A few days ago I wrote a post about figuring out trying out my little routine for ripping a deck of cards in half. Now that I’ve done it once and confirmed that people like the bare bones of the trick, I can start to expand up it and work on a routine.

Here’s the bare bones (the deck ripping trick starts about halfway through):

First thing with a routine is what is it going to reveal about “me”. I used the word me in quotes, because it doesn’t have to be the literal me, it can be what I want to portray on stage as “me”. It’s going to reveal that I hang out with some unusual people. My idea for the opening/hook is:

“When I was younger one of my roomates was a circus strongman. He could do things like rip a phone book in half, take a cast iron frying pan and roll it up like a burrito, open a pickle jar on the first try.
While I lived with him, he helped train me to rip a deck of cards in half”

Another idea for an opening/hook would be:

“I’m always amazed at how many people come up to me to show me a trick they can do. What other profession does this happen in? Imagine after open heart surgery, you wake up and ask the doctor if you can borrow his scalpel to show him that you do a mean amateur appendectomy.”

Both are decent approaches to the presentation of the trick. I think I prefer the first one. I think learning stuff from an old roommate is more relatable than people wanting to show you a card trick. If working at a magic convention, then the second one is probably good.

Ok, so we’ve got the hook, now where to go from there? Tomorrow we’ll start to build the meat of the routine.

Split Deck…

In a post a few weeks ago I mentioned that I was learning to rip a deck of cards in half. I’m up to consistently being able to rip about half a deck of bicycle cards, but and able to rip a whole deck of cheap cards about 95% of the time. Every now and then I’ll hit a pack that for whatever reason just gives me a hell of a time ripping.

Last night in Seattle we had a magic jam and I threw a few decks of cheap cards in my bag. My routine is basically the “Split Deck” but without any gimmicked cards (aside from the cheap deck). It played well for the magicians, and then later we ended up doing some magic for the table next to us it played for them as well.

In between the two times I did the trick, a little bit more framework had developed in my head. The trick started with two people each looking at a card and they end up having picked the same card. Next I put out a prediction card, and I rip the deck in half. I say that they both will pick a card that matches my prediction and they both take a card (from different halves of the deck). They compare their cards and they aren’t the same card…but then we look at my prediction and the front is two ripped cards glued together and they halves match the selection.

This played pretty well, and I think it’s going to be something that I start to explore as a routine bit more in the future.

Another Day, Another Shell Game Move

A while ago I posted a picture of some newly acquired three shell games sets for my collection of them. Michael of Wack-O-Magic offered me a set of clear walnut shells he had made, but never figured out a use for. He sent me the only two sets he had made. This isn’t the first … Continue reading “Another Day, Another Shell Game Move”

Posted by Louie Foxx on Tuesday, February 19, 2019

This isn’t the first set of clear shells, I also have a set of La Maggiore Cristallina shells, which are beautiful! I never really used them much as they don’t fit into the routine that I do.

With Michael sending me two sets, one set went into the collection and the other set sat on my desk for me to play with. Here’s what I came up with:

Staring at the shells led me to some out of the box thinking that gave me another unique shell game move! I think Terry Seabrooke mentioned how he creates with a prop on an old VHS tape. He said, he puts the prop somewhere where he’ll see it all the time, a place where he’ll basically trip over it every day. That makes him think about the prop in short chunks all day.

I think Terry’s method is a good one, it makes you think about the prop, but you aren’t sitting at a desk having a staring contest with it. I know I’ve come up with many tricks simply using stuff that’s within eyesight of my desk.