MagicShow.Tips – Page 210 – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Artist vs Craftsman

One thing that I don’t get is the appeal of a coverband to a performer in one. What I mean by that, is your art is 100% other people’s art. You are taking something that someone else did the work on and taking credit. You are relating to the audience through other people’s art, which … Continue reading “Artist vs Craftsman”

This relates to magic, not just music. After David Copperfield did his snow routine on TV, and Kevin James started selling the prop, 99% of routines that were presented were about someone “never having seen snow”. This dumbs down magic. It gives performers a false feeling that they are artists, but it’s also why a lot of magic isn’t taken seriously.

Magicians say they are unique and this is the problem. If you say in your promo you have a unique take on magic, or a show unlike any other and you do standard tricks the standard way, you are doing everyone who is an artist a disservice.

I you are a magician that does tricks the bought and presents them in a way that’s standard, you should bill your show as “classics of magic” or something like that. I know we’re all guilty of having done standard stuff in the normal way, that’s part of the learning process. At some point you have to decide if you’re going to be a 1980’s cover band or Bon Jovi.

Practice Time…

Practicing is something that I’m amazed at how few magicians do. The kinda learn something, then it’s the end. Or the bigger one is when magicians complain that something is hard. That’s loser talk, yes somethings may be hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Everyone wants to be Shin Lim, but only Shin Lim put in the work to be Shin Lim.

In a broad sense practicing can take many forms. It could be working on the muscle memory for a sleight, it could be rehearsing an act, it could be writing a bit, it could be watching a video of yourself performing. There are a lot of ways you can put in the work. All of those things make you a better performer.

Personally, I’m writing this today to motivate myself. I’m in a situation where I have a lot of downtime while travelling to shows. Yesterday was day one of two weeks and at one point I was bored. I’m not bored, I was being lazy. There’s nothing wrong with relaxing, but being bored there is. Once I realized my thought, I picked up a book and started reading, I was practicing being me.

There’s a henry rollins quote that’s relevant to this: “No such thing as spare time, no such thing as free time, no such thing as down time. All you got is life time. Go.”. That’s true. I can spend my time wishing I had something to do, OR I can do something.

New Tricks in the Show…

Every summer for about the last decade I do a library tour and this summer is no different. This year I’m only doing about a dozen library shows. In the past I think I’ve done 70ish some years. Each summer the library tour gets a show written for it. Usually this is based on the … Continue reading “New Tricks in the Show…”

One of the tricks in the show is a trick I’ve wanted to do for a while, but doesn’t fit my style is the Gypsy Thread. I think it’s a good trick, however my show lacks what it needs to play larger, and that’s good lighting at many venues. Generally if a trick is something I can’t do virtually everywhere, I don’t put it in my main show.

That’s the beauty of the library shows, I can do a trick that I normally wouldn’t. If for some reason I fall in love with it, then I can work to move it into the main show. The huge thing it’s got going for it is that it’s a pack small trick. It takes up virtually no space in my case, so if I can come up with at least a decent presentation, it could be a great emergency trick.

When I’m planning on attending local magicians shows I frequently ask them if they’d like me to record their show for them. One response I get a lot is, “I don’t like to watch myself on video”. This response surprises me, especially now when so much of the live entertainment industry is video related with social media, etc.

I always wonder why people don’t like watching their shows on video? Is it because they aren’t proud of it? I think this probably the reason. It’s hard to watch your show early on when you aren’t good. You’ll notice everything that’s wrong or that you don’t like. This is where you grow, by watching those things and eliminating them so your show is watchable by you. If you can’t stand to watch your show, how do you expect your audience to watch it?

With video being so cheap and easy to get compared to when I started, it’s really a wonder why people are opposed to getting video and watching it. Personally I think good video is worth it’s weight in gold. Whether it’s for use in a promo video, a social media clip, or to improve your show.

Go out there are record your shows…but more importantly, watch the video!

Big Stages

The variety show that I was in last night was a lot of fun. A couple of the acts were thrown off by how wide the stage was. The stage was probably 24 feet wide and 8 feet deep. I personally don’t mind a wide stage, but work on them fairly frequently. The picture above … Continue reading “Big Stages”

The picture above is form the venue last night. You’ll notice one of the things that I do is “define my area” on the stage. My case and table create the edges of where I work. This keeps me from wandering the stage to get props if my case or table were at either end of the stage.

Having a wider stage is way better than a narrow stage where you are crammed into. Currently I’m working hard on my show to play larger. I’m not a pack small, play big person. I prefer to use props that fit what I want to do…but hopefully make it play large!

Learn To Play With Others…

Later today I’m performing in a magic show with three other magicians. Personally I like performing in shows that aren’t solo shows. However I’m amazed at how many magicians say that they don’t perform with other magicians. Honestly, I’m shocked that a magician wouldn’t be in a show with other magicians. I think there are … Continue reading “Learn To Play With Others…”

Honestly, I’m shocked that a magician wouldn’t be in a show with other magicians. I think there are a few reasons for this, the main one being ego. A magician doesn’t want to be on a bill with someone better than them. To grow as a performer it really helps to work with other acts, especially ones better than you and get their feedback.

One of the top reasons that magicians say they don’t perform with other magicians when they post about it on the internet is they don’t want their material stolen. This cracks me up. It’s very rare that the people that say this have anything worth protecting from being stolen. I think they say that as a cover for their insecurities about their show.

My advice is to go out and perform, make friends with performers, get feedback, your show will grow because of it.

Advice from Billy McComb

Frequently I end up driving several hours to gigs. Last night I had a gig at a casino that was only 90 minutes away, but quickly ended up being a 3 hour drive due to unusually bad traffic for the time of the day that I was travelling. I always give myself plenty of time … Continue reading “Advice from Billy McComb”

This CD set is amazing, there are three CD’s and every few minutes there’s great advice. One of the things that Billy McComb talks about is the advice that is giving to magicians to have a “flash” opening. A quick, visual trick you can do right off the bat to establish yourself as a magician. Billy doesn’t agree with this.

Billy thinks you need to establish YOU first and that he starts his show with a monologue. He bases this on the theory that if they like you, they’ll like your magic. I agree with this theory.

Last night at the casino I started started my show with jokes that I normally do elsewhere in the show and front loaded my show with jokes. My opening was just a series of jokes about me and my life. The audience was very receptive to that and I’m glad I made the change!

Ten Card Deal…

I’m very luck that have places to “work out” routines, not a lot of magicians have that. Personally I prefer to work out stuff in a real show over an open mic. With an open mic typcially the audience isn’t invested in the show like they would normally be in a show that they paid a ticket to see.

Last night I hosted a show and as host, not the feature or headline act, I can play a bit more with new stuff. Currently I’m working on a stage version of the 10 Card Poker Deal. It ended well, but was a hot mess up until the ending.

In my stage poker deal, it uses jumbo cards and ends with a prediction. Somehow I wasn’t paying attention and ended up having the wrong prediction after the first deal. Luckily I know a lot of poker deal variations and was able to do a second deal and end up with the prediction that matched the one I had on the table.

This is where it’s important to know more than just the routine you do. Whenever possible I try to have a deeper knowledge of the concept or the trick. Knowing more that just what’s required for the routine bailed me out of the situation last night.

10 Card Deal…

When I was a teenager I remember reading Bob Farmer’s column in Genii Magazine (I think it was Genii) on the 10 card poker deal. I would read about it and work through it, but never did it. I played with the 10 card deal again about a decade later when I was learning a memorized deck, as the Aronson Stack has one built into it, but never really did it.

For about the last year I’ve been fascinated with the 10 card poker deal. It’s really an amazing trick that’s built on a very simple method. I’ve ready a lot of the modern works on it, however it appears a lot of the best stuff is pretty old. Bob Farmer put out a book called the Bammo Ten Card Deal Dossier.

This book is full of the history of the deal and most of the published works on the 10 card poker deal. Within it there are tons of routines. I’ve put together a three deal routine using parts of other routines that make the whole thing feel super fair, and each step gets more fair.

My three phase routine is something that I don’t think would play for a huge group in a live setting for me. It’s really a head to head “competition” with someone. However I am working on a stage version of this trick, but I think it will feel different from most 10 card deal routines.

There are tricks that come in and out of your life, that you dabble in here or there. They just aren’t right for you, or you aren’t right for them a that time. Then one day at the right time, you rediscover it and the trick finally works for you (or you for it). I think this is why it’s important to constantly be learning things and revisiting old things.

Adding Texture to Predictions…

A friend of mine who is a mentalist from Ireland is in town and we had coffee yesterday. We were chatting about mentalism and the struggles to make it play big. One of the things he showed me was probably the coolest thing I’ve seen this year (more on this in a minute).

Part of the challenge of mentalism is you need normal-ish looking props. Once you know make a die 24 inches big, or use a calculator that’s build for bigfoot, you lose what makes mentalism great, which is the lack of propy props.

This is where what he showed me comes in. He showed me Phil Smith’s Quinta Force.

This is an amazing way to force one object out of five that feels very free and has some theatrical build up to it as well.

My idea is to borrow five different objects from people in the audience. You introduce a padded envelope that has your prediction in it. They give you a number, let’s say it is 28. You count to that number per the Quinta Force and let’s say we end up on a cellphone. You open the envelope and inside is a cellphone…then for the kicker on the back written in marker in giant numbers is 28!

I haven’t finished reading the book, so someone may have thought of this already.

That’s something that will play fairly large, I guess it could be done with paper prediction that unfolded into a large display. My thinking was to try to get away from a printed prediction as that’s fairly common way to reveal things and I wanted something that would add some texture to the show.