MagicShow.Tips – Page 237 – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Mentalism’s Biggest Challenge…

Mentalism is huge right now, unfortunately most mentalism isn’t huge. That’s the biggest challenge with mentalism, isn’t making it interesting. The biggest challenge is making it play big!

I think that’s why there are certain plots that are popular, like a chair test. A chair test uses 4 people, large props and can easily be seen from a distance. Where something like a lottery prediction is good if you have video projection, it won’t play nearly as well without projection.

Doing things like having someone roll a die is very small, and even if you use a two foot die, most of the audience cannot see the top side. Having something like a word picked from a magazine is small. This is why I think most mentalism is basically a close up trick that is performed for one person while a group watches. Where with a magic trick like the egg bag, we still see it happen, the part that the person does on stage is fairly “mechanical”. Even a card trick, we all know the card if they show it to the audience. But remembering a word, that’s something only one person knows.

I’ve been working on a trick that’s normally a close up trick, but trying to make it play big. I think I’m onto something….more later…

Unplugged Variety Show…

It’s amazing how much you learn by going to shows, especially shows you’ve seen before. Last night I went out to watch a variety show that three of my friends were in. Its’a show where I knew all of the performer’s acts very well.

What made this interesting was that in this venue non of them used the pre-recorded music that they normally use in their shows. They either performed with without the music or were accompanied by an organist playing on the venue’s Wurlitzer organ.

The really hadn’t rehearsed with the organist, so he played and the performers and organist tried to sync up. It helps that the organist was also a performer, so he could anticipate some beats. Also the performers would notice patterns in the music and try to hit beats that they saw coming up.

Having your music played live was the standard until probably about 50 years ago. Performers would travel with sheet music for the band. Live music is better than canned, as they can add little embelishments during the act. However it’s the rarity now.

I’ve only worked with a live band a few times. I think if I were to do it again, I’d try my best to have the band leader watch me do the act how I normally do it, so they could find the bigger moments in the act and be ready for them.

No Bad Ideas…

One of the things I try to do is act on most of my ideas. No matter how bad, impractical, or not my style it is. Just working them out is a good exercise for my brain. Most of these ideas will never make it into my show. Here’s an idea I’ve had in my … Continue reading “No Bad Ideas…”

Here’s an idea I’ve had in my head for a little while:

I’ve come up with several methods for it, all of which are very impractical. This one is probably the most usable version of the trick.

The downfall is that the trick isn’t how unpractical the method is, it’s that it’s a small trick. Visually it’s hard to see, and it’s got a very specific spot in a show that at can be. This trick has to be the opening of a card set, or when you introduce an additional deck of cards into a card set.

I’m glad I worked through the methods and got to work out my creativity muscles.

Magic From Non-Magicians…

There are tons of magicians that hate it when people show the magic tricks. Honestly I’m not sure why they’d dislike it. When you watch a trick you are encouraging someone that’s into magic on some level. You are also not being a jerk.

I understand that there’s a common magic trick that people show us and it’s a horrible trick and quite often the person fails to find the card because they don’t practice enough. However you never know when you are going to see something interesting.

Here’s a bartender that saw Chris Beason and I jamming magic tricks and offered to show us a trick:

While the trick was a math based trick, it was something I think I had read as a kid, but had never seen anyone do it. It was an interesting trick and while not the greatest trick in the world, it was worth watching 10 bad tricks to get to one that was fun!

Magic and Dinner…

Whenever I book a gig at a banquet I always mention that I do not perform while people are eating. The booker 95% of the time is OK with that and the 5% that aren’t OK are gigs I pass on. However of the ones that book, I would say a good half of them I end up performing while people are eating.

There are a few reasons for this, the most common one is that people don’t consider desert part of the meal. I consider desert part of the meal or at least part of “eating” and it has the same problems that the main meal has for the show.

Those problems are that when people are eating, they aren’t engaged in the show. They can’t laugh and clap like they normally would when not eating. Then once they get used to responding by not responding, they will not respond once they are done eating.

Unfortunately when you get to the gig and people are eating and you’re told to go on, there are really two things you can do:

1: Start the show
2. Don’t start the show.

Both have pluses and minuses you need to consider. Starting the show may affect the reception of your show. Not starting the show may affect your relationship with the booker. Also due to time restraints on the venue, it may not be possible to delay the show, so your option would be to actually not do the show.

In most situations I start the show and plow through it. However you need to do what’s right for you!

Echo…Echo…

Doing a stage show in a room that’s not designed for a show can be rough on the performer. Last night I did a show in a very echoy venue. It’s hard to perform in places like that. I really need to slow down my rate of speech for venues where there is an echo.

One of the things that I need to remember is to keep my rate of speech slow and take a lot of pauses at the periods and commas. That will help what I’m saying not step on the echo, and let the whole audience get what I’m saying and have time to process it before I talk again.

One helpful thing I did was walk around the venue while I was mic’d to hear what I sounded like. Sound does change a lot once you have a room full of people, however it gave me a feel for how the audio might sound.

The key is to be aware of the situation and not to complain. The event can’t remove the echo from the room, so you’ve got to be a pro and deal with it.

The Shrinking Card…

When I was a teenager there was a trick that came out called Diminishing Returns by Mike Powers. This is a great trick where someone picks a card and the whole deck shrinks except for their card. Then the whole deck grows and their card shrinks. For the finale their card visually grows back to … Continue reading “The Shrinking Card…”

It’s a great trick and I did it for quite a while. Recently I was messing around with some cards and ended up playing with a similar gaff and here’s what I came up with:

This is a fun little sequence for the shrinking of a card. There’s not much to it, and I might write it up for Vanish Magazine in the future.

One of the things that I don’t really do is perform as a character. What I mean by character is dressing up like a cowboy and being a “cowboy magician”. Some people perform as a popular movie character, or celebrity.

The main reason I don’t do this is that I can’t character act, and most magicians can’t either. Many think they can, without any acting training, and these are probably the same people that get upset when an actor learns a magic trick and people think that trick is amazing.

Doing a character is more that just a costume. For example here’s someone that performs “as Sponge Bob:

Unfortunately they don’t do a voice, they don’t do the trick that Sponge Bob would do. It’s a guy wearing a cheap outfit doing a normal show. This in my opinion is a cash grab, someone trying to make a buck and not giving a sh!t. I don’t know his life circumstance, maybe he really needs the money, but this is a very short sighted way to get it.

A better way would be to take some acting classes, learn whatever character you are going to be doing, select material that fits it. Here’s a good example of doing it right:

This performer is doing a Captain Jack Sparrow style character, however the costume is correct to the character. It’s not a halloween costume. Also look at the material selection, he’s using swords and it looks like a sword basket in the background. This is a show that makes sense with the character.

If you do a character, do it right. If you care, audiences will care.

Make it Bigger!

One thing I’m trying to do is make things play larger, so it’s easier to see them from the back of the theater. I think this is something that’s really overlooked by many magicians. Sometimes you can’t make something larger, like when you are doing Miser’s dream, the coins size will max out to a point when they are no longer believable as a coin.

One trick that I love is the Coin in Bottle, however it does play fairly small. The nice thing is that the trick has an audio component to it. The audience can hear it rattling around inside the bottle. I really liked the idea of creating an impossible object that I could give away. My idea was to do a tennis ball in bottle:

The use of the topit worked great in a live setting, but not so well in a video. The other method I used a sponge tennis ball that I had cut in half and hallowed out. I would just smash the bottle onto it, collapsing it under the bottle as the other real tennis ball popped into view. Both methods had advantages and disadvantages.

I no longer do this trick in the show as I’m lazy and putting the tennis balls into the bottles was a pain in the butt and not worth the pay off. For me the thing is to keep thinking bigger and actually trying to make it play bigger!

Themed Show?

Yesterday I went to Luche Libre Taco Shop in San Diego, CA. This is a Mexican Wrestling themed restuarant. One thing is that they go all out with the theme. It’s not just a picture on the wall, it’s all the pictures on the wall, it’s the graffiitti in the bathroom, it’s the toys in … Continue reading “Themed Show?”

Another place I went a few days ago was Hodads in downtown San Diego. It’s also themed out. It’s a rocker/skater/surfer themed, that had a late 80’s feel to it. Once again it was 100% themed.

These were two of my favorite places we ate at this week. Why? Simple, they were fun. They did the theme right. You felt like you were a part of something.

This got me thinking about people who do themed shows. People use themed props, themed costume, or themed patter, however not many people use all three. Typically you’ll have someone that uses two themed things, but not all three.

I think you need to jump in and do a full on themed show if you are going to do one. This is something that really brings the audience into your world.