card magic – MagicShow.Tips

Cool Moments in the Show

One of the great things about performing at higher profile gigs is that there frequently great photographers there. That’s one of the cool things about performing at the Moisture Festival, they have photographers who are experienced in taking pictures of variety acts. More than just having experience with variety acts, they usually get to see an act multiple times, so they can figure out where the moments are in your show!

Louie Foxx at the Moisture Festival in seattle — Photo Credit: Sanderling Photography

The picture above was taken right after the guy in the middle guessed the girls card! This is a 6-8 minute routine that I do where someone from the audience guesses another person’s card. This used to be a longer routine with three people, but I’ve shortened it to just two and it’s a much tighter routine.

Another change that I made to the routine a few years ago was switching to jumbo cards.

That makes the end of the routine really pop for the entire audience when the card is finally shown!

-Louie

News Spot

Here’s a news spot I did earlier this week:

It’s an OK media spot, not the best. They wanted 90 seconds, and I ran the card trick for the camera guy and producer and they wanted the whole routine, just done in 90-120 seconds. That made the spot rushed, I should have let most of the effects linger longer for displays of the card.

Then the camera work during the card trick missed a lot of things because it was tightening up when it should have been wider. All in all, it wasn’t a bad TV spot, but it wasn’t great.

-Louie

Four Ace Routine

When I was a teenager I put together a four ace routine that I did all the time. I haven’t really done it in probably a decade, but did it the other day and now it’s creeping into my close up set.

There’s not much to the routine, here’s the flow:

1: Deck is shuffled by the spectator and I cut to the four aces

2: The aces are put in the middle and appear on top of the deck

3: The aces are put into the middle of the deck and the deck is given to the spectator. They shake the deck and the four aces jump out.

It’s a nice little three effect trick with a fun, interactive ending. It’s a good trick to have in my brain to use whenever I need to fill a couple of extra minutes when doing close up magic.

I think you should always have some back up material that you can do with the props you already are carrying. I have my main close up set of material, but I have a ton of things that I can do with a regular deck at a moments notice.

-Louie

Card Production

A few nights ago I was dinking around with a deck of cards while watching a movie with my wife and came up with a production of the top card of a face down deck.

It’s not the greatest production, but it’s something. The action of the card reminds me of something in Ernest Earick‘s book By Forces Unseen.

I think the next step to making it better would be a way to have it come out of the center of the deck…but not sure if that’s possible!

-Louie

Custom Printed Gimmicked Deck

I finally used MakePlayingCards.com to have a custom gimmicked deck made! I’ve used them in the past to get large size double blank cards, but those weren’t custom printed.

There wasn’t much from a design standpoint as I just used their standard card faces. This deck is a deck of double faced cards, but the back is all the same card. I had these made to do my version of something that Eric Stevens had shown recently at the NW Ring of Fire magic club.

The cards came out great, and I would totally use them again!

-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

Demi Deck – Review

I bought into the hype and picked up a Demi Deck while I was at Hocus-Pocus in Fresno. Here’s a quick review of it.

First of all, it works exactly how I thought it would work. If you think about it, there’s really only one way it can work. I wasn’t buying it to figure out how it works, but it’s an interesting prop.

Let’s get into actually doing the trick. I was doing it for the groups of people who showed up as I was packing up the show. I would tell them when my next show is and then offer to show them a quick trick and would do the Demi Deck. It got good reactions from the people.

Next there’s the angle issues. It’s pretty solid from the front, I probably personally wouldn’t take this out for a roving gig where I’m going to be surrounded. But for a group of 4 or so people in front of me, the angles are pretty solid.

Now here’s what I like and why I bought this trick. This reminds me of old school Tenyo tricks where the method is frequently more interesting than the trick. It’s just a gimmicky trick that’s fun to do!

Personally this will probably never be in my “paid” close up work. Is it something that I’ll show people who are at my house…yes!

-Louie

Working on the Rising Card

The rising card routine, that I’m working on right now is missing something. What is missing is time. The routine is really bare bones and is very short, I think without any bits it’s maybe two minutes. Since the routine involves bringing someone onto the stage, I need to get at least three minutes out of it. Ideally if someone is coming out of the audience, it needs to be closer to about five minutes.

One of the ideas that I had was to have a kid do the most “epic” card trick. I have the kid show me their epic, hero face and walk. That didn’t hit the time I tried it, but the kid was younger.

The next time I used an older kid which played better and framed it a little bit different. I had said that they are in show biz now and had them show the audience their show biz smile and walk. That played a lot better than the doing an epic trick with a younger kid. I’m not sure if that’s the route that I want to take, but it’s a step in the right direction!

The other thing that the trick is lacking is music and a punctuation when the card rises out of the deck.

-Louie

Trying to Read More

I’m trying to do a lot more reading in my free time. I have a huge stack of things to go through and I just started reading From Witchcraft to Card Tricks by Stephen Minch.

This is a short paper backed book follows the history of card and close up magic and it’s very interesting! Lots of things that became popular 200 years after they were first invented. It’s a real eye opener, ever you wonder who invented the double lift or at least the first place it appeared in print? This book answers that!

I totally recommend it if you’re a magic nerd like me!

-Louie

Giant Dice Hat Load

A couple weeks ago when I was roving I threw a giant die into my bag. I was going to play with a hat load to produce it. I’ve done hat loads in the past and familiar with many techniques to get the giant die into my hat. I didn’t have a plan for the load, I just used the appropriate technique at the right time and if that opportunity didn’t present itself.

Here’s a highlight reel of some close up and the giant die production is in it:

I don’t know if this is something that I’ll actually add to my show, but it was fun to play with for a few days!

-Louie