Last month I performed in a magic show in California with five other magicians. Here’s the highlight reel of my show:
@louiefoxx 20 min comedy magic show in 44 seconds! #hermosabeach #magic #comedymagic #california #louiefoxx #hoopandcup #balancing ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx
Also if you’re not following me on Tik Tok, shoot over there and give me a follow at tiktok.com/@louiefoxx!
-Louie
Five Simple Steps to Making a Sizzle Reel
Let’s start out with what a sizzle reel is, they are typically a short, fast paced promotional video. In variety entertainment they are usually some between one and three minutes long. The goal is to give a buyer a feel for you and what you do.
Here’s how to make sizzle reel for your show:
Step 1: Go to the movies and watch the trailers for upcoming movies. These are longer than a variety act’s sizzle reel, but they are a good reference for what you are going for. Notice that the movie trailers don’t show whole scenes of the movie. The goal is to give you the vibe of what the movie is about and this is the goal of your sizzle reel, to give the vibe of what your show is.
Step 2: Go through video footage and audio and pick the best clips. I’m assuming you have a bunch of video because you’re regularly recording your show. You should be doing this to work on your show to make your show better. Also, you’ll notice that I mentioned audio, your audio should be recorded separately from your camera. You want clear audio of your voice if you use it in your sizzle reel.
Step 3: Edit out most or all of the set ups to your tricks and just show the magic. An agent explained it to me this way when he said, “I don’t want to see your rope trick, I want to see that you do a rope trick.”
Step 4: Find music that fits the feeling of your show and put your video clips to that music. I use Envato Elements for mine. It’s a subscription service that you get the license to use the music for web purposes. This eliminates any YouTube or whatever copyright claims.
Step 5: Upload it to YouTube or wherever you host your streaming videos. In addition to YouTube I use JWplayer. I pay annually for this service, because there are no ads or suggested videos at the end of your video. This gives you more control over what the potential client sees and you don’t have to worry about YouTube suggesting another act after your video.
One thing I should mention, when you’re compiling the clips, you need to think about the flow and what you want your target audience to think about. For example, I just made a sizzle real for my Incredible Idioms school assembly show, and I want to show the fun vibe of my show, but I also needed to show that there is educational content in the show, it’s not just a magic show.
-Louie
P.S. Here’s the sizzle reel for the Incredible Idioms show:
Somethings surprise me, like the success of my Incredible Idioms show. This is a school assembly / library show that I’ve done about 125 times since January of this year and I’ve done all those shows with zero promo! All I had one a one paragraph description that I’ve sent out.
I finally sat down and made a sizzle reel for it.
It’s cool that I was able to do the show that many times based only on my reputation!
I still need to update the website…
-Louie
In my spare time I help out with a variety arts festival and I’m updating their website with bio’s for performers. I’m amazed at how many performers don’t have a simple one paragraph bio.
Back when I was on vacation in Oct/Nov part of our trip was on a cruise ship and in one of the production shows they had bios of the different performers in the show on the screens before the show. These were simply one paragraph bio’s with a head shot of the performer.
These don’t need to be much and are used much more often than you’d think. A bio is different than a the short/long description of your magic show, as they may both be used at the same time in the same program.
A bio is a little more about you and less about the show. It’s simply a quick background on YOU.
Johnny The Magician began practicing magic when a magician performed at his sister’s 8th birthday. Ever since that day he’s been amazing friends and family with sleight of hand tricks and in the last 20 years he’s come a long way! In addition to being a graduate of the Chevez Course in Manual Dexterity he was also “stunt hands” creating magic with a credit cards in a national commercial for Visa.
In his spare time Johnny is an avid boating enthusiast having sailed on every ocean on the planet!
There’s really not much to it, just list some interesting thing about you, some accomplishments and maybe something about a hobby you have. Having a short bio ready to send out to bookers or already available on your website makes you life and their life much easier!
-Louie
Another day of me perpetually cleaning the office. I found a box of old promo that I thought I threw away a couple of years ago!
I kept one of each piece of promo and tossed the box. The promo has no value, I don’t look like the person in the picture, some of the info on the postcards is old and the overall style isn’t modern.
In the future, I’ll probably do a lot more short run prints of things, as it’s not very expensive to print 50 or a 100 of a one sheet flyer. Back when I had these printed, you really needed to print 500 or 1,000 of them. That’s why soo many comics had headshots that were 20 years old, they had to print 1,000 of them!
Life’s too short for boxes of old promo that you’ll never use again. Recycle it and be free!!
-Louie
The amount of magician’s promo pics that are cheezy, hack, or just plain bad is staggering. The goal of a promo pic is to get your personality out. I think a lot old school logic is that they need to know you’re a magician. You wouldn’t know that from David Copperfield’s pic on his billboard.
I know what you’re thinking…it’s David Copperfield, he doesn’t need that. You’re right, the billboard has some context, like his name.
Guess what? Your promo will also have some context, like your name and what you do.
You don’t have to be holding a fan of cards in your pic, they goal it to get a little bit of your personality out. Look at the headshots of the headliner’s on any comedy club’s website, you’ll see a lot of personality coming out in those pics.
Recently I had some pics taken and I was goofing around and this pic came out of the photo sesssion:
Is it the best pic to promote a magic show? Probably not.
Does it show much more personality than a me holding a fan of cards or having an ace in my sleeve? YES!
Try to show off yourself in your pics!
-Louie
