Cee-Lo for Virtual Shows…

One of the tricks I’m adding to my virtual magic shows is Cee-Lo which is my cups and dice routine. One of problems going from an in person show a virtual show is that you can’t move the audience’s focus around as easily. At one point in the routine I need to load the cup and doing it in the room with people there is super easy, however it’s much harder with the focused eye of the camera.

Normally I would load this from my pocket, however that won’t work for the reason above. What I’m going to do is load from the table. I designed a holder for the dice and they will slide up into the cup from behind the table’s edge.

This holder is currently printing out and I’ll try it out later today. This is something that I normally couldn’t use in my live shows because I perform in conditions where people can frequently see behind my table. This is one of the interesting things about working on a virtual show, I can use techniques that don’t work for my in person show.

Final Loading Sequences

Many years ago I remember watching a VHS tape with Dan Fleshman who did his Fleshman Flash as part of his cups and balls routine. This is a cool loading move for cups and balls that is a virtually invisible way to load two balls into the cups.

It looks like he teaches the Fleshman Flash on The Restaurant Magic of Dan Fleshman DVD vol. 3.

dan fleshman magician

I remember rewinding that VHS tape over and over, the move was virtually invisible. Early on, that got me thinking about loading sequences and how you need to do more than simply put something into your pocket and steal it out the load.

Here’s and early version of my Cee-Lo Trick and at the end you can see the how the load of the second jumbo dice isn’t from my pocket.

And here’s another loading sequence that I’ve put together:

I think that varying your loading procedure is important. If they all come from the pocket at you put things away, it’s still surprising to an audience, but not as amazing. The more you go to your pockets the easier it is to backtrack. Start to think of clever ways to sneak the large production items in that aren’t all from the pocket.

Clean Up Your Act!

Apparently I’m pretty guilty of having some disgusting props. I was looking over what I use and my personal set of dice for my Cee Lo (cup and dice) routine are gross. I think how they got this bad is that I’m the only person that handles the dice, so I haven’t gotten anyone to … Continue reading “Clean Up Your Act!”

Apparently I’m pretty guilty of having some disgusting props. I was looking over what I use and my personal set of dice for my Cee Lo (cup and dice) routine are gross. I think how they got this bad is that I’m the only person that handles the dice, so I haven’t gotten anyone to react to their grossness.

The die with the number 1 up is the clean one and when compared to the other die, you can see how gross they were!

Right now is a good time to take a look your props and give them a good wipe down, even if they don’t need it!

Your Tricks Gotta Be Seen!

I’m frequently asked about why the Evaporation’s standard version is orange liquid. The reason for this is simple, it’s easy to be seen. Rarely will you have an orange background that you are performing in front of, so the color won’t disappear into whatever is behind you.   Using things like cola, which is a … Continue reading “Your Tricks Gotta Be Seen!”

I’m frequently asked about why the Evaporation’s standard version is orange liquid. The reason for this is simple, it’s easy to be seen. Rarely will you have an orange background that you are performing in front of, so the color won’t disappear into whatever is behind you.

 

Using things like cola, which is a dark brown be hard to see with a dark background, or using milk in an elementary school gym against a white wall make seeing the trick difficult. That’s why I settled on Orange.

 

You need to think about this stuff with all of your magic.  For example I love the idea of cups and balls, more specifically cup and ball(s).  So a chop cup would fall in this category.  My marketed trick Cee-Lo (Available from www.hocus-pocus.com) which uses 3 dice and a cup has some clever work on the final loads.

 

Here’s a video of Cee-Lo:
The problem is that the action happens on the table top, and if you are are a raised stage the audience is looking up at the bottom of the table and can’t see what’s happening.

 

There are a couple of solutions to this:

  1. Build your table at an angle, so the front edge is lower than the back.
  2. Use video projection onto a screen.
  3. Create a routine where none of the action happens on a table top.

The first two are pretty simple solutions, however how practical they are will depend on the venues you perform in.  The third one is the one that interests me.  You are now walking into fairly uncharted waters.  Aside from Ball and Cone, the only other cup and ball type trick that happens in the hands is Axel Hecklau’s Just a Cup.

 

Axel’s routine is great, but I want to come up with my own take on an in the hands cup and ball routine.  So my starting point was a baseball cap, which hand a brim that I can hold on to and a large ball, that’s an inch and a half in diameter.  All of the action now happens at chest level and it plays much larger due to the bigger props.

 

This routine is still in its early phases, hopefully it’ll work out.  Once it’s closer to being finished, I’ll start sharing some video of it.

 

The point of this post is simple:  Look at the tricks you do and think you about what the audience can actually see!

 

Louie