Category: Video

Placeholder Card Trick

Inspiration comes in some strange places. I was cleaning out my storage closet in the office and found a gimmick that was for an ACAAN that was marketed in the late 1990’s. The trick was garbage, and was about to throw it away when I realized part of the gimmick had potential for a different trick.

Here’s the video I sent to my brainstorming group a while ago:

I like the concept of the card turning blank from a deck that’s in order. It makes it very easy to determine that the selected card is the one that’s blank. I don’t think I’ve seen a trick like this before, where a card turns blank in a deck that’s in order. Usually trick where the selected card turns blank, it’s away from the deck or it happens from a packet, like Gordon Beam’s Limited Edition trick.

I’ve been having fun doing this trick which I call Placeholder.

-Louie

Blankety Blank Blank Blank by Ken Driscol

Here’s a packet trick that I found in a junk magic bin. It’s a twisting the aces style effect with the backs turning blank at the end.

There are a couple of things that I didn’t like about the trick. The big thing with this style of twisting routine is no one really shows all the backs at first. This is easily accomplished with a Flustration Count and half pass. I think the surprise of the blank cards at the end is more amazing when the audience feels like they’ve seen the 4 regular backs.

-Louie

NW Ring of Fire Magic Club

On Thursday night I made it out to the NW Ring of Fire magic club in Lynnwood, WA. There were about 15 magicians there. It’s been years since I’ve visited this club as it’s over an hour drive (without traffic) for me to get there .

Jeff Dial Magician
lynnwood magic club nw ring of fire

The club president Tony Blei kept things fun, positive and moving along!

While I was there, I won the raffle and my prize were two magic VHS tapes

Mark Leveridge master routines

I don’t have a VHS player, but I discovered a long time ago that the tape can be removed from VHS tapes and they work as hat coils!

It was a fun night and if you’re not going out and meeting other magicians in your area you should! They are a good source of ideas, referrals, and people to cover gigs if you get sick.

-Louie

Getting More Out of What You Already Have

One way to build a show is to get more time out of the props you already have. There is a limit to the payoff the the trick, like a 15 minute Professor’s Nightmare routine might be a bit much (but maybe not). It’s up to you to figure out what the maximum of any routine you do is.

I have a trick rope routine that I do in the show. By trick rope, it’s a lasso demonstration, not a rope trick. The whole thing runs about 3 minutes and is fairly basic, but has some laughs and a big applause ending. I’m working on adding a few more things to it to hopefully build it out a minute.

I’m working on adding some vertical loop tricks to the routine…but first I need to work on doing butterflies which is the basic skill for vertical loops.

The challenge with something like lasso tricks is that they are a high practice, low payout skill. People think that it’s easy based pretty much on cartoons and think you can do tricks with the rope that are basically impossible due to how gravity works. That said, people still like it.

The nice thing is that most magicians aren’t going to put in the time to learn to do lasso tricks, so it gives me something semi unique right off the bat! The side bonus with lasso is that it’s easy to travel with, and has no set up. I can grab it and do it!

-Louie

Air Tag Magic Trick!

A few weeks ago I was hanging out with some magicians before the Justin Willman show in Seattle. One of the props we were jamming with was an Apple Air Tag. Here’s one of the more visually interesting things:

@louiefoxx AirTag Hack! #airtag #appleairtag ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

It’s an obvious trick to do with an AirTag, but the name lends itself to the trick. This is a trick I’ve wanted to do with an AirTag, but I stopped doing the muscle pass in 2020 and can’t do it anymore. Sure I could probably play with it for a week and relearn it, but I don’t really have a need for it anymore.

If you can muscle pass, this is a great and easy trick with a borrowed AirTag!

-Louie

Always be Practicing!

While I was at the airport recently, I looked out the window and say one of the aircraft marshaller’s juggling the marshalling batons:

This guy is using his downtime at work to practice and get good at a skill!
Practicing in your downtime with other tasks in a great way to pick up new skills! I learned to do rubik’s cube and a lot yo yo tricks in the time between when I finish setting up my show and my show’s start time. Sometimes it’s just 15 mins, or whatever. That’s time I could be scrolling through Instagram, or learning something new!

-Louie

Adding Effects to Sizzle Reel

I’m playing with adding some visual effects to sizzle reels, or social media videos. Here’s two versions of a sizzle reel, one without effects and one with some visual effects.

Here’s the one without:

And here’s the one with:

The goal is to not use the visual effects simply because I can, but to hopefully use them to enhance what you’re watching. I don’t want to be like soo many of the videos in the early days of consumer level video editing where every transition was a a huge deal, with star wipes or whatever.

Let me know which you think is better!

-Louie

Happy Thanksgiving!

Every year I post this trick on Thanksgiving. It’s a good example of adding a theme to a trick that already exists.

The base routine was something that I had read in a Jim Steinmeyer book. For holidays, look at what you already do and look for logical connections then make the trick!

-Louie

The Rocket Card Fountain

I’m still working on my Rising Card routine. At the end of it I’m doing a bit where I push the out jogged card back into the deck and it rises up again. I do that several times, but the bit is lacking an ending. It’s the same joke over and over again.

I’m thinking that maybe after it gets pushed down and pops up a few times, I set the glass into my case, THEN all the cards come shooting out of the glass.

I started playing with it in the green room at the fair a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t really try it at any shows at the fair as I don’t want to deal with the clean up of cards everywhere at the stage I’m at.

Here’s what the ideas will look like:

I’m using The Rocket card fountain. I really like this, it’s pretty quiet and so far is very reliable. I can’t wait to actually try it in the show!

-Louie

Small Changes

In my Drawing in Ball of Yarn routine, there’s a middle phase that’s a mismade bill. I’ve been having trouble with the the mismade bill part. The bill part was essentially my 13 sided bill routine that I do close up. Here’s what that looks like:

The mismade bill phase was too long for it’s spot in the show and I dropped it for a few weeks. Then I added it back in with a little change, I’m using a Quadraflex style mismade will that has the four quarters.

The routine for the mismade bill part of the routine is simple. I say, “I’ll fold your dollar four times.” then I do that and ask the kid, “do you know what that does…it turns it into four…” as I’m slowly unfolding it. For the last 30+ shows the kid has always replied, “dollars”. Then I say, “four dollars?! Have you seen the budget for this show? It turns it into four quarters!” Then I reveal the mismade bill.

I think this works a lot better because I keep dealing with the number four and it foreshadows what the audience is about to see and then at the reveal, it tells them what they are seeing.

I’m glad I put the mismade bill phase back into the routine and tried a different approach!

-Louie