magic show – Page 34 – MagicShow.Tips

Connections…

Connecting with an audience is something that is important to do. It’s one of the things that can take some time, and to really do it you need to open yourself up. Sure you can get by on the strength of the trick alone and have that carry the show, but that’s not how I want to present my art.

I’ve always hated called what I do “art”, as I feel it sounds pretentious. However the more I’m out seeing other people perform, the more I’m realizing what I do is art. I still dislike calling it that, but I think what I do is finally becoming art.

Ideally in my show people learn a little bit about me and my journey. I want them to know how I got to be standing in front of them. It helps them decide why they should care about what I’m doing. Am I just a dude doing tricks, or am a person that’s had an amazing journey to share these tricks with them?

Take a Risk!

This morning finds me back at the airport after being home for about 30 hours. It was great being home for a bit and my family had tickets to see Mystery Science Theater 3000 Live last night and it was a blast. Joel Hodgson the show’s creator is also a magician and did one of the funniest self levitation tricks on Saturday Night Live a long time ago when he was a cast member.

The audience came to see a show that they loved, and he gave them a show that they loved. One thing that really surprised me was the amount of work that went into the show. It looks like they change up the movie a lot, so they aren’t just presenting the same show over and over again. This says a lot about the performers, that they are frequently doing something new and taking some risks.

I don’t think performers take enough risks. They do their act or show and once it’s good, they stop trying things. I know it’s scary to put yourself out there to fall on your face in front of an audience. Personally I think taking risks is what performing is all about !

Tech Sheets…

One thing I think every performer should do is learn to write a tech / cue sheet for their show. I know that not everyone performs in theaters, has someone else run their music, or does a stage act. Learning to do it before you need one will save you some stress.

A tech sheet basically tells the production crew what to expect and what they need to do. I’m not an “expert” at writing tech sheets, but can convey my needs to the crew. Basically this is going to tell the crew what you are going to do and what you’ll need from them.

They’ll need the name of the routine, lighting needs, audio needs, and anything else you may need from them. It’s pretty simple, however if this is sprung on you at the last minute and you’ve never done it before, it can add a lot of stress coming into a gig.

Take a minute write out a sheet for your whole show. Once you’ve got that, it’s easy to alter at the last minute as your show has changed.

Two Methods…

One of the nice things about the magic scene in Seattle is that we have a monthly magic show called Magic Monday. Essentially it’s a “magic open mic” and a great place to work on new material. Most areas don’t have a venue specifically for magicians to work on new things, or give newer performers … Continue reading “Two Methods…”

One of the nice things about the magic scene in Seattle is that we have a monthly magic show called Magic Monday. Essentially it’s a “magic open mic” and a great place to work on new material. Most areas don’t have a venue specifically for magicians to work on new things, or give newer performers a place to work out materials.

A couple of nights ago I performed at Magic Monday to practice some routines that I hadn’t done in a while. One of the routines uses some technology, and it failed during the show. That’s the importance of having an “out”. When doing a trick that relies on technology, that frequently means you need to run two methods for the trick at the same time.

While running two methods to accomplish one trick is a bit of a pain, but if you use tech, it’s worth it. It’s good that for the trick I was relearning, the worst possible scenario happened, that let me practice that scenario. That’s a good lesson, you need to not just plan for the worst, but practice for it!

Using a Gimmick…

Yesterday I wrote a post about the Linking Pins. Today I’m going to write a bit about one of my favorite things about the routine. My routine uses a gimmick, but only for a small part of it. The rest of it uses ungimmicked pins, but by the time the gimmick is in play, I’ve totally negated the idea that I could be using what I’m using.

In the first three phases of the routine that don’t use the gimmick, they look just like I’m using the gimmick. Also they get the audience to check out the pins, when there’s nothing to find, so when they is something to find, no one is looking!

Here’s the final phase with the gimmick:

In the video you see how I put a lot of “tension” into what’s going to happen. The guy can see and feel them together. I’m building tension with that. Once they go through each other, he has to relax. That release of tension gives me a natural moment to get rid of the gimmick.

Linking Pins…

One of my favorite close up tricks to do is the Linking Safety Pins. What I like about it is that is uses an common object and the magic is direct and visual. Those two things save me a lot of time with the expository phases of the trick. I don’t really need to explain what they are, but I do. I also don’t need to explain what going to happen, because it’s obvious.

The other thing about my routine for the Linking Pins trick is that all of the props are handled by the audience and all but the first effect in the routine happens in their hands. This makes a simple trick a bit more hard hitting.

Sometimes when I’m out doing my routine, after the pins go through each other the first time, someone will say they are trick pins. I tell them they can keep them after I’m done. I have a pocket full of pins so leaving a set is no big deal. This 100% removes the idea that they are trick pins.

Dealing With The Wind…

This week I’m an a conference for the fair industry. A good friend of mine, who is a great magician was also there and we were chatting magic and the subject of the Torn And Restored Newspaper came up. We were chatting about doing the trick outdoors, and the challenges of doing it in the wind.

He doesn’t do it outdoors, where I do. There’s one difference that allows me to do it outdoors (usually) and that’s the style of newspaper tear we do. He does the Gene Anderson Newspaper Tear and I use Nick Lewin’s Slow Motion Newspaper Tear. The Newspaper Tear that I do has less pages to it, so that means less changes for the wind mess it up.

The routine that most people use with the Gene Anderson Tear, is the one that I think was popularized by Doug Henning:

In this routine the newspaper is held open and flat a lot. Also all of the tears happen from the newspaper in an position where it’s flat. In Nick Lewin’s version, the newspaper is tear is started from a folded position and that helps a lot with wind.

Travelling…

Newer performers frequently ask me about how I travel with my show on an airplane. People are worried about lost luggage. Unfortunately the only thing you can really do about that is to either carry everything on, or accept that can happen. I guess there’s a third option and that is having a show where you can find all of your props in your destination city. Then there’s combinations of the three.

Unfortunately for my show, I can’t do it all in my carry on. Some of the items I use can’t be taken in the cabin of the plane and can’t be sourced locally, so I’m stuck checking at least some of my show. Since I have to check a bunch of stuff already, I check almost everything.

Currently here’s what I carry onto the plane in my backpack:

The white tube has my vanishing birdcage. If that wasn’t so easy to break by someone who examining it, I’d check it. In the zipper compartment is my cage pull, a thumb tip, mismade bills and a thumb drive with everything the people running the theater would need (cue sheets, video, music, intro, etc). Then in the yellow case is my audio gear (mics, mic packs, audio ape, etc). Everything else in the backpack is my personal stuff, so books, my laptop, etc.

I’ve had my luggage “lost” by the airline once, and they had it delivered to me within six hours. I also have had TSA screen my bags and forget to put a couple of things back into it, luckily after weeks of phone calls I tracked down my props!

What do I do if my luggage gets lost?

I’m lucky that I can do a lot with simple stuff and in the past I’ve done a lot of standard magic, so I can source a show locally. It’s not the ideal situation, however I can go to the Walmart in any city and pick up a two deck of cards, rope, scissors, yarn, pad of paper, duct tape, a couple of handkerchiefs and some markers and I’m good to go. This isn’t the show that I want to present, but I can do a decent show with that.

Ta-Dah?

When I was working on a cruise ship last year, I became friends with the comic on the ride to the ship. We had never seen each other work, and he asked me about how I did my “Ta-Dah”. He was referring to the moment when you tell the audience the trick is over.

I never thought of it as a “Ta-Dah“, but more of a “F*ck Yeah!” moment. In my head, it’s the moment where something amazing just happened it’s amazing, not just something cool happened. I’m trying to build it out to a moment where everyone understands what’s going to happen and why it’s amazing.

Also the shift from “Ta-Dah” to “F*ck Yeah!” is an energetic one. I’m going for a moment of an you believe that just happened, and not, wasn’t that cool. This change is reflected in my silent scrip that goes through my head while I perform.

Don’t Be a D*ck

If you want your magic show to stay relevant, you need to stay on top of what society say is “politically correct“. Yes, there is a place to push the envelope and be edgy, but for 98% of us we aren’t. Of that 2% that do probably less than a quarter of them do it … Continue reading “Don’t Be a D*ck”

If you want your magic show to stay relevant, you need to stay on top of what society say is “politically correct“. Yes, there is a place to push the envelope and be edgy, but for 98% of us we aren’t. Of that 2% that do probably less than a quarter of them do it in a way that has a purpose, the rest are just a-holes.

Last week I was in Washington DC and went to one of the Smithsonian Museums and saw this beloved Muppet’s character:

The Swedish Chef has been around longer than I’ve been alive, however it might be time to retire part of his humor. His imitation of the Swedish language borders on not being what’s acceptable in today’s world. If I saw someone doing a Chinese character and they spoke saying things like, “Ching chong, chin chang…” I would walk out of the show. There’s no reason that the Swedish Chef can’t speak actual Swedish. Part of the humor is making fun of a group of people’s language. If you took that out, would it still be as funny?

I get in 1975, it was a bit harder to just learn a language, but now it’s super easy to actually learn a language now. Here’s an example. I wanted to use the Khoisan language in my show, this is the one that has all of the mouth clicks in it. All I needed to do was count to three. I could have faked it and just made random clicking noises, but wanted to do it respectfully and the least I could do was learn to actually do it. It was really easy, and using the actual language was much funnier as it had a sense of build to it.

When something breaks are you still using the offensive and hack line, “Must be made in China“? Here’s why that line is bad, it’s putting down an whole group of people for the laugh, and it’s outdated as the quality standards in China are frequently higher than in the USA. In my show I have a fishing pole that breaks, in 1983 the “made in China” line might have worked, but I want to be better than that. The line I use when it breaks is, “That’s the last time a buy a fishing pole on Tinder…should have gotten it on Plenty of Fish…“. This line puts the laugh(s) on me, and I guess on the fictional person who would sell a fishing pole on a dating website.

Take a look at your show, are there any bits that have aged out of it?