magic show tips – Page 8

It’s the Little Things in Videos

While I was working on my promo video, a video of a magician came across my feed. The trick is fine, but there’s a few things about the video that should have been addressed. Here’s the video:

I’m assuming you noticed the fake audio reaction in the video. They never sound quite right and they way most people use them, they’re never proportional to what they’re doing. It’s always too much.

The other thing you may not have noticed was the guy on the left standing on stage like some sort of body guard. At about the 18 – 20 second mark his face pops into frame. The “audience” is going nuts and he looks bored as hell.

Why is that guy even in the video?

Cropping him out would be a super easy job. As long as you’re in there adding audio tracks, might as well crop him out. It’s the small things that you need to notice in the videos you make. I always try to crop out people who look uninterested or people in the background. It’s not always possible, but you gotta try!

-Louie

New 2024 Promo Video

Way back in about January of 2020 I added a task to my To Do List, and that was to remake my promo video as it was about two years old at that point. It was a low priority item, so I didn’t immediately get to work on it. Then the whole “2020 thing” went down and making a stage magic promo video became super low priority!

Well, four years later I finally got around to making a new promo video for my stage magic show.

This one took me about a 20 + hours to make. Most of that time wasn’t the actual editing, but going through 6 years of video to find the videos that I wanted to pull clips from. It’s pretty easy to know right off the bat if a video is useable based on the background and general video quality. That removes about 60%-70% of videos right way, but it’s still a time consuming process!

The other super time consuming thing is watching the final video over and over again to notice small things, correcting them and then making a new final video. Then repeating that until I’m at final video version 12 or so. There is a point when you just need to be done with the video and barring something crazy you didn’t realize, it’s time to put it out into the world!

I’m glad I finally did it and can remove it from my To Do List!

-Louie

There’s No Plan B For Your A-Game

Awhile ago I was hosting a zoom meeting that was an informal Q & A about performing at senior communities. At one point we were talking about books and I think it was JR Russel who mentioned the book There’s No Plan B For Your A-Game.

One of the concepts in the book is write down a goal and then to work backwards from it identifying the challenges. It’s an interesting take and for me it makes it easier to map out what I need to do to make things happen. For some reason working forwards and identifying milestones is harder for me.

Another thing in the book is the idea of living like you’ve accomplished a goal. It doesn’t mean living beyond your means. It means living with the habits that you would have. It’s important to note that Bo is from the sports world, so working out like you’re in the NFL before you’re there is kinda the idea.

How does that apply to magic?

Simple, do you want to be more creative? What do creative people do? They create, so live like you’re creating every day. Block out 30 mins of creative time and spend that time doing nothing else but creating. Sure, maybe nothing will happen at first, but you’re establishing a habit. Once you have the habit, it’s much easier to sit down and create.

I’m about halfway into the book and I like it!

-Louie

Show Structure from the Globetrotters

This is my final post about the Harlem Globetrotters…but seriously, if you’re a family, comedy magician, you can learn a lot from watching this show. Like how many of the players have defined characters, and how the “game” is structured.

They have a lot of audience participation bits, but they aren’t done in a row. They’re separated by bits without audience participation.

In your show, is it a constant stream of people coming up and down from the stage. Are you only interesting when you’re interreacting with people from the audience?

-Louie

Show Them You Got Skills!

One of the takeaways from seeing the Harlem Globetrotters is while its a fun show, the audience is definitely aware that everyone on the basketball court is very skilled! Before the game started one of the Globetrotters (Moose, I think) was nailing baskets from half court with one hand and his back to the hoop!

How does that relate to performing magic?

Simple, in my opinion the audience must know you are skilled at what you do. I guess you don’t need an overt display of skill like a manipulation act, but something that shows you’re not just doing push button magic.

How do you do that in magic? There are a lot of ways, many years ago when I went to Caesar’s Magical Empire in Las Vegas the stage show as done by The Pendragons. One of the things that he did was sat on the edge of the stage and did a torn and restored cigarette paper. It stood out because The Pendragon’s show is soo big, then he does a little bit with a tiny piece of paper. That routine just used his hands and the cigarette paper and showed that he can do sleight of hand.

Whatever you do to show skill doesn’t have to overtly look like you have skill like producing cards from backpalm, but the audience needs to know you have skill.

-Louie

Intro Video for Live Shows

Over the weekend I went to see the Harlem Globetrotters. It’s a fun show, and totally worth checking out if they’re in your area. One thing that they do (as most sporting events do) is they have an introduction video.

The pictures above don’t really do the intro video justice. It’s really just a quick sizzle reel to hype up the crowd and also give them a little bit of context as to what they’re about to see.

This is something my old agent Sunny had me do for showcasing and it’s carried into many shows where they have the capability of an intro video. It tells the audience it’s start time and will introduce me and my show better than 90% of people who introduce me. My intro video won’t say my name wrong, and will get my intro right 100% of the time and not try to add in things that it thinks is funny, but isn’t.

These don’t have to be very long, maybe 30-60 seconds and are really just a sizzle reel, to get the crowd to shift their attention to the stage.

-Louie

Silver Rocket Box by Richard Himber

I’m a huge fan of Richard Himber and his magic. One of the things that magicians say is that he had a huge ego and they support that by mentioning that he named his tricks the “himber wallet“, “himber ring” etc. That’s not quite true, those tricks were marketed under different names that didn’t have himber in the titles. Magicians started calling them himber ____.

At a magic auction a while ago ago I picked up a Silver Rocket Box that Richard Himber put out. It’s a super clever trick for producing silks.

@louiefoxx Silver Rocket Box vintage magic trick by Richard Himber! #vintagemagic #antiquemagic #vintage #magic #antique #collectiblemagic #louiefoxx #stagemagic #richardhimber ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I added the cup production. One thing that most silk productions lack is an ending. Usually they end with one big silk, which I think isn’t a good ending. You need to bunch up the silks and produce a bowling ball or whatever.

-Louie

Magic Meals!

Whenever I travel I always try to meet up with the magicians in that area! Since Chris Beason and I were in Canada last week to see Harrison Greenbaum’s show, there were a lot more magicians out than if I was just randomly in that town.

chris beason, rob tzeka, chris uhill, and glen lebarre

Before the show we got to have dinner with many of the the magicians in British Columbia!

Then after the show we got to have second dinner with the Norden’s and Harrison.

Mike norden, chris beason and harrison greenbaum

And the next day we got to have lunch with Reg Donnelly and Paul Romhany!

Chris beason, paul romhany and reg donnely

Paul knew, but didn’t mention that he had won the literary award from the magic castle! They announced it the next day.

It’s always fun to hang out and swap stories with magicians! If I’m ever in your area, shoot me an note, if I’m available, I’d love to kick it!

-Louie

Show Set Lists

For every show that I do, I have a written set list. I know my show, but I always have one. For my main show, it’s taped to the inside of the lid of my case. Recently I was in a show where I did three five minute spots, so the list was written on a piece of paper inside the bin on my table top.

I do this for a couple reasons, for my main show if I’m repacking it, it’s easy to go down the list as I pack to make sure I have all of my props. For unusual configurations of my show, it makes sure I have all the correct props set. It also takes brainpower out of what I’m doing, I can glance at the list and know what to do!

-Louie

Vanishing Birdcages!

While I was in Canada last weekend I was chatting with some magicians after the Harrison Greenbaum show and someone mention there was a guy about an hour away that was making vanishing birdcages and gave me his phone number. I called him the next day, and was invited over and got to see some of his cages!

These cages are great and since he’s not mass producing them, he’s open to doing custom sizes. The cages have a great action to them and look great!

I’m very fortunate to have gotten to see these cages and I’m on the list for a cage the next time he makes them!!!

Talking to people and then following up on opportunities when they present themselves is one of the biggest secrets to success. Not just in prop hunting, but in life!

-Louie