magic – MagicShow.Tips

Improving an 80 Year Old Magic Trick

In the June 1946 issue of The Bat magic magazine, there’s a trick called Puff by Frank Chapman. The effect is that you have a small piece of paper that you roll into a tube. You blow through the tube, and a ribbon comes out. That’s it. I think the effect can be changed a little bit to make it better.

First of all, why produce a ribbon? Ribbon isn’t valuable or interesting. The only reason I can think of is to do a trick with the ribbon.

Second, why not add a layer to this? Right now you snuck ribbon into a tube of rolled up paper.

Here’s my idea to address those two things.

Effect: You show a small piece of paper that has the colors of the rainbow printed on it. Someone picks a color; you then roll the paper into a tube, and that color confetti flies out.

Needed: A piece of paper with a rainbow printed on it. This would be the six color rainbow. The colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple in that order. You’ll also need a thumb tip with a small hole at the tip and some yellow confetti.

Set up: Put the confetti into the thumb tip. The thumb tip starts on your thumb, and you’re holding the piece of paper.

Working: Show the paper and force the color yellow using the “hot rod force”. Roll the paper into a tube around the thumb tip. Lift the tube with thumb tip to your lips and blow through the end with the small hole. As the confetti flies out, put the thumb tip on your other thumb as you unroll the paper.

That’s it. Super easy, not much to it, but the trick is better. The force of a color makes it a bit more of a head scratcher. The confetti falling is visually interesting, and no one expects you to scoop it up and do something with it. Confetti falling is a period, not a comma.

-Louie

Unforeseen Challenge!

Right now I’m writing a show that I’ll be doing for a elementary school assembly tour in April. One of the challenges is that I’m trying to avoid the whole 6 7 thing.

That makes counting tricks a challenge and there’s a card across type trick that I’ve written into the show. I don’t want to lose control halfway counting a packet of cards, and that needs to be done four times!

Right now is that my plan it to talk about the objects as I’m counting them. That would break up the 6 to 7 with dialogue between them. I’m not sure if that will work, but it’s an idea. Another idea is to use 9 items instead of the traditional 10. Then if three items move from one packet to the other, that will reduce the counting that will have the numbers 6 and 7 from four times to three times.

Another option would be to not have the trick about counting, but about specific items moving from pile to pile. So three red backed cards end up in a blue backed packet.

I’m not sure how this will play out…

-Louie

New Year’s Eve Gigs

It’s new year’s eve, and I’m at home! I’ve been on the road a lot this year and decided to not seek out work for tonight. Most new year’s eve gigs are train wrecks, and I try limit the ones that I do to ones that are First Night Festivals, or things where I’ll be done by about 10pm. I want to be home or at the hotel before the event turns into a drunk fest and before all the people who were drinking are on the road.

That said, when I was younger, doing new year’s eve gigs used to be a nice part of my income. It was one last good paycheck for the year. Then new year’s eve for me transitioned to doing alcohol free events around the country. For me this was an excuse to travel on someone else’s dime. And that brings us to now, where I’m happy to stay at home!

There’s nothing wrong with going out there and getting the money.

To everyone out there working tonight, have fun, be safe and get paid!

-Louie

Vanishing Bottle Routines

Yesterday, I posted a little routine for the latex vanishing bottle prop. If you haven’t read it, you can read it here and do that before you read this as what follows will make more sense. Here are some ideas for yesterday’s routine:

Use two bags instead of one so that the item travels across the stage.
Say they’ll change places, the spin the bag 180 degrees.
If using two bags, one could be labelled “full” and the other “empty”. You then turn the bags around, and they have the other word on the back.
To add a layer, to make the method harder to back track, you could start with a variety of drinks that are different colors and force the latex bottle.

There you go, a few ideas to expand the routine.

-Louie

Getting Props on the Ocean

It’s been a few days since my last show on the ship, my next shows are tomorrow. In my show I use a orange for my drawing routine and a banana for my whip routine. You’re not really supposed to be bringing fruit on/off the ship, so I get those two while onboard.

One of the challenges can be that they’ll have something like bananas all week, but then they’re out the morning of my show, and I can’t get them. Typically, a day or two before my show, I’ll go down and grab what I need and keep them in my room. Then on the day of the show, if they have them out at breakfast and they look better than what’s in my room, I’ll upgrade my oranges and bananas.

This is one of the challenges of performing on cruise ships: if you need something or break something, it can be hard to source it. I try to travel with what I need to fix things or backups. For example, I do Promystic’s Color Match in my show, and I travel with a spare set in case one stops working.

-Louie

Outdoor Magic Show in the Rain

This month I’m doing a few dates at a Halloween festival that runs 5 weekends. One of the days that I was performing, it was raining, and this was an outdoor festival. The stage was covered, but the audience seating was not covered.

The act before me performed for a few people with umbrellas that were standing behind the wet seats. What I did was move a bunch of seats onto the stage and dry them off.

I managed to fill up the stage seating and had great shows!

When you arrive at a show and the scenario isn’t ideal, consider how to improve it. I’ll usually run the idea by my contact at the gig to ensure there’s no reason why I shouldn’t do that.

-Louie

New Losander Floating Table

A bit ago Losander was pitching a new floating table in social media magic groups. Here’s his post:

I have a few issues with this. First of all, he’s using an AI generated image to show the table, so it’s not the actual product. Also, he’s showing tables that are 3 different dimensions. After people started asking which table they were getting and asking if the pics were AI generated, Losander finally said that he didn’t have the table yet.

OK, I find it crazy that he’s selling a table that he doesn’t have one to take a picture of. At $2,500 (retail) he really should have one he’s tested and knows it actually works. Sure he may have one that he’s used and not in perfect shape for a picture, but people are asking for video and he hasn’t (as of the time he made that post) shared any video.

The final thing is that he’s taking a presale on this new table. If you read the social media groups, many magicians have posted that he’s taken money and doesn’t deliver the product in a timely fashion. Magicians have to constantly bug him for product that he says he has in stock.

Here’s some people’s reported experiences:

Many magicians in these social media groups give the advice that if you want a table, you need to buy one at a convention that he’s at where you can take the table at the time of purchase. I’ve personally never ordered anything from him, the above are the experiences of people who say they’ve ordered from him, and your experience may be seamless.

-Louie

The Moisture Festival Podcast – Trevor Whittow

On this episode of the MF podcast we welcome Trevor Whittow. Trevor talks about what it’s like to be a professional clown, what it takes to get to that point and what sort of coaching he received that helped him along his path.

He also explains how magic helped him get on stage as a kid and how he has learned to separate his career from his hobbies. A fantastic conversation with an actual professional clown.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Levitations!

There’s a levitation illusion going around, and there’s something I don’t like about it. Before I go any further, the illusion is fine, there’s just a visual thing that I don’t like. If you can get past this, than it’s a great trick.

Here’s the style of levitation, I think the two pics below are different makers.

What I dislike is the cloth wrapped around the person floating. Specifically how it dangles on the end. This is also my issue with most chair suspension routines. The cloth really serves no purpose, aside from hiding the method.

I get that you can justify the cloth as it’s a magic cloth that makes people float…but then why isn’t all of the cloth floating and some of it dangling?

Yes, most levitations of a human have do deal with gravity. In my opinion the dangling of the hair and dress make the illusion look better visually. Where the cloth wrap doesn’t look anywhere are good as the person uncovered.

I understand that it’s not real magic, and you have to make concessions to hide the method. That’s a valid artistic choice, to have a purpose in your show for a levitation and due to venue limitations you need to use a method that you might not like to move the show forward.

Personally for me, I’d save the levitation for a theater where it can be done without the trade off of having to wrap the person with a cloth.

-Louie

Straitjacket and chains escape

For a few gigs this summer I’m going to be doing the straitjacket wrapped in 50+ feet of chain escape. One thing I started doing about a 8 years ago when I first started playing with the straitjacket and chains was take off the crotch strap.

Here’s before and after pictures of the straight jacket:

I realized that no one knows the crotch strap is missing if it’s not there. I discovered this when I was visiting the Oregon State Museum of Mental Health about 10 years ago. There was a straitjacket on display and it didn’t have a crotch strap and the information placard said that they weren’t used as a restraint, but to keep people from unconsciously doing self harm, Like thru scratching themselves.

Most people rely on the crotch strap as the main point of humor in their routine. I decided I didn’t want to do any crotch strap jokes, so there’s no loss there. Sure my routine may be funnier, but it’s not what I want to put out there as my art.

-Louie