magic show tips – Page 21

Goldfish Cracker Puppet

I’m working on my library show for this summer. The show is going to have a trick for all of the colors of the rainbow. For orange I’m going to use a puppet that will do a card trick. I didn’t like the commercially made goldfish puppets, then I thought of the goldfish cracker. I liked that look and it’s funnier than a puppet that looks like a real goldfish.

Unfortunately no one make a goldfish cracker puppet, so I had to build one. I did find someone on TikTok that had made some, but isn’t currently making them. That meant I had to make my own:

This one is almost done, I need to put the eyes on it. I want to rig it so that one of the eyes will fall off, and I need to figure out how that’s going to happen.

This was my first time making a soft puppet, and it came out OK. It only needs to do about 30 shows this summer and not last for years. In the future I’d probably make it out of a different material that’s not felt. The felt will get fuzzy and “pill” with travel and use.

Overall the prop looks good enough and will get through the shows.

-Louie

Library Magic Show

This year I’m a bit late working on my library magic show. Normally I’d have it written out and have most of the props built. This year I’m just getting to the brainstorming stage. My show is going to have a trick for each color of the rainbow.

Here’s some of my initial brainstorming notes:

One thing I noticed once I started brainstorming was that a lot of things that I associated with colors were food. I don’t want the whole show to be about food, so I had to think harder and now only about half the show is about food!

The other challenge is to vary the magical effects in the show. I noticed that I had a lot of tricks that were productions, but the show can’t just be all things appearing. I added a card trick, a transformation (actually two) and a transposition. Hopefully that will provide enough variation of magic effect in the show.

-Louie

Magic Show Pop Up Bins

Many magician use pop up bins for prop holders. These are basically fabric covered cardboard cubes that sit on your table and keep your props out of view. I’ve used a half size one, so only about six inches tall for many years. I needed to replace my old one and I learned that that don’t make the size I need anymore. The taller cube is too tall for me to sue, so I custom made myself one.

Here’s my old one, my new one is in the middle and a standard tall one:

Since I was making one, I could make one that is how I wanted it to be, not how they come from the store. Here’s a close up of the custom one that I made:

I wanted my bin to be slightly taller so my props don’t stick out above the front, so I made the front 8 inches tall. I also need to be able to easily get to things sitting on the bottom of the bin, so I made the back of it six inches tall.

I love the result of it! It’s exactly what I need, and I’m not compromising. The best thing is that it was really easy to make! My only regret is that I didn’t custom make one years ago!

-Louie

Playing, not Learning or Practicing

The last couple of months I’ve have a huge output of original (to me) magic effects. The shift is that I’m playing with magic more, and in a directed way. Playing is different than learning a new trick or practicing one that I already do.

When I play with magic, I put a prop on the table and have recess with it. I just start playing, and sometimes an idea will pop into my head and I’ll have to figure out how to make it happen. Other times I’ll just play and come up with nothing new. However that play where I come up with nothing new is still flexing the creative muscle in my brain. I’m also working through my vocabulary of sleights or techniques. The goal is to move past what I know. For example, if I have a packet of cards in front of me, I want to get past doing twisting the aces. However sometimes that means working through all the ways I know how to do it to come up with an different angle on it. Or to figure out what I don’t like about the effect and try to fix that.

It’s been a lot of fun dedicating time to play. I think more magicians should do this!

-Louie

Rope and Coat Hanger

Years ago I came up with a way to do the silk thru ring trick with a coat hanger where the silk goes from the triangle to the hook of the hanger. My method uses a reel and is a very visual moment. I’m trying to recreate that but using using a rope instead of the silk and reel.

Here’s what I came up with.

@louiefoxx Magic with shapes! #magictrick #magic #shapes #coathanger #trick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Using a rope in place of the silk solves a problem but it also makes the trick less visual. I think that trick is fine when you take the trade off, it makes the trick much more practical in an outdoor environment like a fair. I’m not sure that this is a method that I’ll use, but hopefully it’s a step that will get me closer to something better!

-Louie

Magician vs Parrot

With social media eating up content, I’m always looking for things that aren’t from my show to use. I personally don’t want to burn material from my show on social media. Recently when I was in Cartagena, Columbia there was a parrot at the port, so I did a trick for it:

@louiefoxx Magician vs Parrot! #magictrick #parrot #magic #parrotsoftiktok #cardtrick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

It’s not the best trick in the world, but it was easy content to create and fun. More importantly, it’s not my act, so I’m not burning material.

Also, this parrot was kind of a card trick master. I put the shuffled deck down and he flipped over the four aces right away. I wish we had recorded that, but it wasn’t planned and caught us off guard!

Keep an eye out for fun moments that you can use for social media videos!

-Louie

Another Simms Vanishing Birdcage!

A few weeks ago before I went out of town I bought a Vanishing Birdcage and it arrived right after I left town. Now that I’m home, I got to open it up and check it out.

As I thought, it’s a Warren Simms vanishing birdcage!

It’s got the “S” stamped on it and the “H” means that it was made for Max Holden’s magic shop. I’ve now got two Simms vanishing bird cages in my collection.

This is my other one that was made for Tannens”

I’m glad to have both of these in my vanishing bird cage collection!!

-Louie

Ask Questions…

Lately I’m trying to be better about how I use people who come onstage during my show. I want to give them more personality in the show. One way I’m doing that is by asking them questions. Nothing crazy, the two main ones are “where are you from?” and/or “What do you do?“. From those two questions and the situations of the tricks, it’s leading to a lot more comedy possibilities.

These questions also help make the person from the a person, not just a prop. I feel like I was falling into a hole of people on stage being predictable and my show’s interactions with the audience were becoming less natural and more robotic. Asking questions is making me be more present in the show, but also creates a more unique show that the audience is watching.

I had a comedian I was working with recently mention that they were surprised at how much crowd work there was in my magic show!

-Louie

Working With Other Magicians!

Last month when I was travelling to a ship to perform for a week, I noticed on their app I could see the schedule. It turned out there was another magician performing the same week that I was, and that magician was David Williamson!

It’s kinds stressful heading out to a gig where you’re working with one of your favorite magician and one that’s in almost every magician’s top ten magicians. The silver lining to that stress is that I get to hang out with him!

I’ve seen his show before on a cruise ship back in the mid 2010’s when I was on vacation with my family. He does a solid show with classic Williamson energy, I love his stage persona, it’s great!

If you get a chance to see his show, do it…and if you get a chance to work with him, do it!

-Louie

Mike Bornstein’s Money Magic!

In the 1980’s and 1990’s Mike Bornstein had ads in magic magazines for his money magic. I found a set of his lecture notes and have been going through them. One of the tricks that I though was interesting was this torn and restored bill:

@louiefoxx The old hundred dollar magic trick! #magictrick #magic #magician #moneymagic #vintagemagictrick ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

While the method now is fairly standard for torn and restored things, what makes his interesting is the tearing sequence. It’s backwards from how most are done. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse, but different!

Finding unexpected things is one the fun thing about all these old lecture notes!

-Louie