magic show tips – Page 62

Economy of Motion…

Yesterday was a building day over here. Just me with my headphones in listening to music and working on building props for other performers. I’m very thankful for days when I can spend the day just building props without any distractions.

It’s also nice to be able to get ahead and build some extra things so I have some things in stock. Today I managed to be able to get a couple of extra Take Up Reels finished, so now I have some in stock and can ship them out immediately.

Before 2020, I really didn’t keep anything in stock, and everything was made to order. At that point you could really only get my magic tricks from Hocus-Pocus.com. After the venues closed in 2020 I started offering my magic trick for sale here and have a lot more in stock, that’s ready to ship out than I did two years ago.

It’s been great to learn that making items in batches, even when I only need to ship out one of them is a HUGE timesaver. It’s like in sleight of hand, it comes down to the economy of motion. With magic manufacturing, making four of them is usually the same effort as making one.

Now look at what you do in performing. Do you do several different shows, that may share a prop? Would it be easier and ultimately save you a lot of time if you had two of that prop, so you didn’t need to move it case to case? Could you have more than one of your show costume to save time taking it to the cleaners? All of these things could potentially save you a lot of time when you add up all the wasted time over the months and years.

-Louie

Don’t Tell Me…

Lately I’ve been popping into virtual open mics and there’s something that drives me crazy. It’s when performers say, “If you were here I’d have you ____” and usually fill in the blank with something like, “shuffle the cards” or whatever. It’s been almost two years since we’ve moved to virtual, you don’t need to say that. If you haven’t figured out how to do the trick without someone in the room yet, virtual performing may not be for you.

HOWEVER, I do think there is a place to mention that “if it was an in person show, I’d have you _____” and that’s to cover a method. More specifically to rule out a method. A good example of this in an in person show is when Kreskin does the linking finger rings and he exposes the gimmick and says he doesn’t use that.

In a virtual show context, you could say, “If you were here I’d have you shuffle the cards, but you’re not, so I’ll shuffle them…” then you do a false shuffle. The key would be to put a little bit of distance between the false shuffle and a crazy revelation that would only be possible with a deck that was in a special order. Doing a false shuffle and then doing something like Any Card At Any Number would probably be fine without putting in any time misdirection.

To sum it up, don’t tell the audience how you would do things if conditions were different…they aren’t attending an in person show and they know that.

-Louie

Tiny Bible Magic Trick…

Yesterday I posted a dollar bill trick where the dollar was used to produce a tiny bible. The “bible” was one I made was just some paper that was stapled together, covered with duct tape and wrote on it in white pen (These pens are also handy for marking cards!).

The homemade bible is fine for a test run, but the first thing the people I’ve shown this to did was flip through it. That tells me it needs to be a real bible or at least pass the flip test. There are certain things where having the object people want to touch be real and not something that pretends to be real makes the trick stronger. There’s a sense of disappointment if someone realizes that the oranges you use in cups and balls aren’t real. It doesn’t make the trick any less amazing, but it takes them out of the magic headspace there were in. With that in mind I went out and hunted down a tiny bible!

Sometimes it’s the little things that add a lot to the trick. Having it be a real bible makes it more than a sight gag…not much more, but it does elevate the trick!

-Louie

Bad Shows…

One thing I can’t stand are magicians who say they always “kill” at their shows. I’m sure there are people that do crush is from the audience’s perspective all the time, but did they honestly and artistically think they did their best every show?

I’ve done shows where at the end I get a standing ovation, and think to myself, “really, that show wasn’t that good”. I’m not saying the audience is wrong to show their appreciation, I’m saying the performer should honestly look at each show. Could you as a performer have done better?

Personally I learn more about doing bad shows that I do from crushing it. You learn or try to learn why things that normally work didn’t. Was it you, was it the audience, was it the situation or a combination of all of them? Then you need to figure out how to make it not happen again, or at least reduce the risk or amount of reasons why the show was bad.

I’m not saying you should go out and do bad show intentionally as a learning tool…but you can learn things by going to an open mic at taking drastic risks with your show. Sometimes something you think would turn off an audience connects…sometimes it doesn’t.

Take some risks…it’s art, not brain surgery.
-Louie

Covering the Briefcase Show…

The briefcase show made a little bit of progress yesterday. One thing thing a while ago my ship agent mentioned to me is that he doesn’t like the look of a case onstage. That was reinforced the first year I did Masters of Illusion, are also opposed to the look to having a case sitting on the stage. One thing that both my agent and Masters of Illusion agreed on was that having the case draped is acceptable.

With that in mind, I looked at my case and noticed how beat up it is and decided it definitely needs a cover.

It’s a simple matter to take a bit of black cloth and sew some loops into it so that it can hang off the top of the briefcase.

It’s a very simple solution that only costs a few bucks, but it really does make it look much better. I’ve still got a lot that needs to be done before the briefcase show is ready.

-Louie

Pelican Briefcase Magic Show…

It’s taken forever, but I’m getting to work on assembling a briefcase magic show. I dug out of the shed an old Pelican 1525 case that I bought for a specific gig a while ago, then used for my outdoor kid shows in the summer of 2020.

This case had a flange on the bottom, and I took that off. It used to have a bunch of custom 3d printed holders in it, but I took them out when I started using the case for the kid shows. I did leave my Sharpie holder in the case. This is a pretty creative solution to keeping pens easily accessible. The yellow holder has magnets in it, and so do the pens. They will pretty securely in the holder, but are easy to reach in and remove.

I’m starting to play with the layout of things in the case:

I have to make some choices, like using poker size cards, or moving up to parlour or jumbo sized cards. I think that choice will end up being made for me by what props/routines end up in the show.
-Louie

Vanishing Birdcage For Sale

Lately I’ve been on a downsizing kick, and cleaning out my office. Some of the things I’ve decided to sell are my duplicate Vanishing Birdcages. I’ve got a several of the same cages in various conditions. Here’s one that I’m selling:

This cage had a bar broken and a previous owner had done a repair. You can see in in the bottom left of the picture below:

This repair was probably in the best place it could possibly be. The lead edge contacts your sleeve a lot less than if it was done on any other corner.

I made a quick video showing the cage in action:

If you’re interested in this cage it’s currently on eBay:
UPDATE: it has sold

-Louie

Small Steps to Take Out…

The idea of using a take out box from a Chinese restaurant for a production box is starting to make some progress…and hitting a wall. The progress that I’ve made is that the box now has a Asian looking logo on the outside. This makes it instantly identifiable from a distance as a Chinese take out box, not just a random box. It also helps make the clear when the box is opened up, that you are showing the inside of it.

Adding the graphic seems like a small thing and it may not have totally been necessary. I think that it makes the trick a little bit more deceptive and play a little bit bigger. It’s that small step further that makes me happy. In one of SH Sharpe’s books he wrote that when you perform with props you made, “the pride you have in making them comes through in your performance” and I do agree. I think using props that I made, I have a sense of pride performing with that I don’t have when using something that I simply bought. Internally, I know all of the work that went into it!

-Louie

Hiding The Second Card…

A couple of weeks ago I was on an airplane and messing around with some cards. I was thinking that there wasn’t (that I was aware of) a false count like an Elmsley Count or Jordan Count that hid the second from the top card of a face down pile. After playing around a little bit I came up with a count to do hide the second from the top:

Count 1: Push off a double
Count 2: push off a single with the left hand. The right hand buckles the bottom card and when the card from the left hand covers the right hands cards, the the left hand steals the top card of the right hand’s pile.
Count 3: deal one card
Count 4: deal one card

That’s it, pretty simple. There’s not much to it. I think the reason not many people have explored a count that hides the second from the top card is that you have pretty much have to start with a double push off. This isn’t the easiest thing to do…it’s not crazy hard, but hard enough to scare away people.

I will say there are probably better ways to hide the card second from the top of the deck. I will also say it was a fun way to spend some time on a plane!

-Louie

Virtual KAX 2022

I’m excited to be a presenter at the 2022 KAX conference! KAX is for family performers and is geared towards all sorts of variety acts: magic, juggling, puppetry, storytelling, etc

This will be my second year as a speaker at KAX. Last year I did a talk about shadowgraphy. This year I’m going to be doing a talk that I’ve wanted to do for the fair industry, and that’s on how to improve your show.

The talk will cover how to watch your show, how to write notes for your show, and how to implement those notes. I honestly don’t think a lot of people know how to actively work on their show. It’s work, and it’s not fun work, but the payoff is huge and can yield results very quickly!

I was looking at the schedule and there’s a ton of great speakers! You can get more info and register at: https://www.kidabra.org

-Louie