Magic Conventions…

One of the silver linings to the entertainment industry being closed due to COVID is that I can go to different magic conventions. I’ve always been curious about KIDabra, which is for family entertainers. This year they are having a virtual convention, and I’m lecturing at it!

I’ve got some fun stuff to share with the group, including the full version of my Spoon Stunt which has never been taught before!

Louie Foxx KIDabra 2020 from Mark Daniel on Vimeo.

The line up looks great, if you’re a family performer, you should check it out!

Three Card Monte Sequence

One thing that I like about the Three Card Monte is that it automatically engages the entire audience. It’s a game they all can play with being the person playing it. That’s why I think things like the 3 Card Monte or the Three Shell Game are perfect for virtual shows. The level of engagement is great!

Here’s a video from a practice session:

I’m working out the sequence, right now it’s:

  1. Mix and the money card is in a different position
  2. Set aside a non-money card, do the mix and the money card is now the one set aside
  3. cards change so the two non-money cards are now the money card and the money card is now the non-money card
  4. all cards change into jokers

There’s a lot of magic that happens in that sequence. It’s a pretty amazing sequence, and basically using the three card monte premise as a presentation hook for card color changes.

Triggers…

A couple of days ago I posted a video of a coin production and vanish I had played with a little while ago. Then a day later I posted a video of a short routine idea with that coin production. Those videos were works in progress, and it’s still a work in progress, however I’m working on solving one of the problems, which is probably one of the biggest problems. That is triggering the coin appearance or vanish.

Essentially I needed to design a triggering system for the coin. Here’s what I came up with:

I designed it and it’s 3d printing right now. I’ll assemble it later today and hopefully it will work without any major redesigns!

The Moisture Festival Podcast – MC Shoehorn

We’re staying in Portland for this episode where we invite MC Shoehorn into the travelling studio. Shoehorn opens up about his past in New Orleans and learning to tap dance from the kids on the street!


He also tells us how he developed his unique act of tap dancing and playing the saxophone.

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Copentro Like Routine?

After playing with the coin trick from yesterday’s blog post, it hit me that I could do something similar to Bob Kline’s Copentro trick. If you’re not familiar with the trick you can see it here:

Essentially the difference is that Copentro has a base for the cup and then typically a stand the holds the coins to allow them to vanish. Using the coin vanish / production from yesterday (plus something else), I can now do the Copentro trick eliminating the base and stand.

Here’s a proof of concept video (nowhere near a final version):

The routine and the moves still need some practice, but I think it has the potential to be a solid little routine.

An Old Idea…

A couple years ago I was playing with using black 2.0 paint to make a coin appear. The problem with it was that it really didn’t work in an in-person context for the show. Well, in the current world of virtual shows, I can control performing conditions in the room I’m in, so I’ve started playing with it before.

Here’s a test video:

Personally I like the production more than the vanish. I like how there’s a “pop” to the coin when it appears. Now I need to figure out what to do with it and how it will be used.

Magician Foolers…

There’s a genre of magic tricks that I’m not really into and those are what are frequently called magician foolers. The main reason for this is that I don’t perform for audiences of just magicians very often. When I do perform for just magicians, I do my real world stuff. One thing to keep in mind is that just because it’s a trick for general audiences, doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t fool magicians.

Three card monte

What I’m writing about today are tricks that are specifically designed for audiences of magicians. Recently I’ve discovered an interesting principle, for doing a reverse three card monte type effect, where the audience mixes the cards and you always find the money card. I thought it was a interesting little thing and that’d be that, until I did it for a couple of magicians and it floored them! We spend the afternoon jamming with it and we added a second phase, but we’re still at it being a trick for magicians.

I think the important thing was for me to recognize what this probably is, it’s a trick for 2 am in the lobby of a magic convention. I’m going to keep playing with it and hopefully figure out something more mainstream to do it with.

Test Firing the Cannon!

Over the last couple of days I designed and built a tiny cannon that will shoot out a flea in a flea circus. I picked up some flash paper and finally got to try it out and it worked! It’s always a good feeling when something translates from your head to a physical prop easily.

If you’re not 3d printing props, you are really missing out. Basically within 3 hours of chatting about making a flea cannon I had one in my hand. The video below has a little overview on the 3d printing process as well as a demo of the flea cannon.

If you don’t have a 3d printer, you are really missing out!

Tiny Cannon…

Yesterday’s post I wrote about making a cannon for my flea circus. The existing, public domain design wasn’t what I wanted, so I built my own from the ground up. Here’s what I printed:

I still need to clean up the edges and there’s some tweaks to the design, but I think it looks fine and hopefully it will be functional. I don’t have any flash paper, so I can’t try it until later today when I can drive to Market Magic Shop and pick some up.

Fingers crossed it will work!

Building a Better Cannon

The other day I was chatting with another performer who is building a flea circus and I mentioned I’ve 3d printed a couple. Right now there’s a small cannon 3d file on the internet that some people are using for their flea circus’s, however in my opinion it’s pretty big:

One of the reasons for its size is that it holds a party popper inside of it. Also it wasn’t designed for a flea circus. Because of this, it’s not going to scale down smaller if you still want it to shoot out the party popper.

Personally I don’t need it to shoot the party popper, so designed a cannon to shoot out flash paper.

This will be printed in two parts, that’s so that I don’t have to deal with supports in the print. This will speed up the printing process, and I’ll just glue the two together.

To give you an idea of size, the light blue base is about 1.5 inches in diameter. It’s printing right now, so we’ll see how it turns out!