magic trick – Page 13 – MagicShow.Tips

Fight For What You Need…

The way I get a lot of work is by doing showcases. These are things where a lot of acts perform 15ish mins and buyers watch them to decided whether or not to book them. Here’s how today’s showcase wanted to run our music: They wouldn’t let us plug into the board. I had to … Continue reading “Fight For What You Need…”

They wouldn’t let us plug into the board. I had to argue for about an hour with people all up the chain of command to get them to allow us to plug in. The organization thought holding a microphone up to your phone was a viable way to run sound for a show. Doing it that way is your Plan B, not your “professional set up” that’s provided initially.

Finally I convinced them that that was an unacceptable set up. We pay a lot of money to perform in front of these buyers, and the least they could provide us with was to be able to plug into the board. I finally got all of the showcase acts to tell the organization about why the sound won’t work. What changed their mind is when we all joined together to tell them why that set up was unprofessional.

I think I burnt a few bridges with people to get the sound right, but it was the right thing to do. If anyone insists that running sound that way is professional, I’m OK burning the bridge as I never want to work for them.

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?

What’s Wrong With That Act…

Recently I saw an act that is everything I dislike about how people perform magic. They lacked technical skill, knowledge of the trick and presentation. For me it was a trifecta of what I don’t like.

This act did the “Sands of the Desert” trick. This is a trick where you have a bowl of water and you swirl your hand in it and the water turns black. then you dump different colored sand into the bowl and swirl it up. Then you reach into the bowl and pull out handfuls of dried sand that’s all the same color. For the finale the water in the bowl turns clear.

First of all, the performer couldn’t do the trick. It’s not a hard trick to do, and they lacked the technical skill to do it. It was pretty crazy to watch. You really should practice it before you do it in a show. You not only need to know the “sleight of hand” but how and why the props work like they do. That’s super important, knowing why something is shaped the way it is, or how to hold it.

As far as their presentation goes, it felt like they were trying way to hard to put meaning to something. They tried to use the trick as an analogy for the universe. That’s fine, but it lacked conviction and authenticity. It felt like they asked someone to write a script and they read the script. If you watch Jeff McBride do his stuff, you feel that he believes it and he’s trying to open your eyes to something, not just saying big words. He puts his heart into it, but that’s also Jeff, and a piece of who he is.

Put yourself into your tricks, put your heart into it and put your time into it. Dive into the props, the sleights, learn the history of the trick, learn as much as you can about and the story you’re telling. That will come through in your show.

An Idea…

For about nine months I’ve had an idea for a trick kicking around in my head. I keep thinking about it, and that’s a good sign, I just haven’t sat down and put a lot of directed energy into it. The week I’ve started to take action on making this idea a reality. Unfortunately this … Continue reading “An Idea…”

Someone from the audience thinks of something and whispers it into a mason jar and closes the lid. They hand you the jar, you open the lid, listen to the inside and tell them what they are thinking.

Then you write something (unseen) on a giant pad of paper and whisper it into the jar, and they tell the audience what you were thinking. You confirm this by turning around the paper.

There are many variations of this that can happen. Two people from the audience could whisper into the jar and hear each others “whispers”.

The hurdle I’m hitting right now is what information do I want them to whisper? Obviously I’ll need to force the info, so it could be a book, it could be a birthday, or whatever. The one thing I know is that it’s not going to be done with playing cards.

Make It Last!

In the current version of my show I use a things that are printed on paper for gags in the show. The problem with paper is that it doesn’t travel well. You can keep in in an envelope, or folder, but it will show wear and tear very quickly. In no time it will start … Continue reading “Make It Last!”

Tyvek paper is paper that doesn’t tear, and is bit thicker than standard printer paper. I think Tyvek is a plastic, so it also holds up to moisture. If you use anything in your show that’s normally on paper, look into using Tyvek!

Good vs Not Good

I love meeting magicians. When I travel, I make it a point to visit the local magic club, or try to meet up with magicians. Yesterday there was a magician that I hadn’t met yet at conference I was at. He clearly crashed the conference as he didn’t have a badge. I don’t judge too harsh, as I’ve crashed conventions before.

I met him during a slow time for me and asked him to show me a trick. He then proceeded to explain how he normally does the trick as he was doing the trick. “I normally have the person take a card…” Someone who knows what they are doing will just do the trick as they normally do it.

The other thing that surprised me was how sloppy his sleight of hand was. He was trying something fairly technical, but flashed every part of it. I wonder if no one had ever told him he flashed a lot, and big time. This was someone trying to get some professional work and the level he was performing at was at a fairly poor level and nowhere near what it should have been.

It was probably good for him to see the level of the performers in the industry he was trying to get into, however I don’t think he was aware that he had a long way to go. The biggest tip to growing as a performer is to be realistic about your ability.

Give it Context….

A friend of mine created a really interested trick where you bite the head off of a cinnamon bear and restore it. It’s a good trick, but one that really doesn’t have a place in a show…unless you can figure out how to give a cinnamon bear context in your show. I found a way … Continue reading “Give it Context….”

A friend of mine created a really interested trick where you bite the head off of a cinnamon bear and restore it. It’s a good trick, but one that really doesn’t have a place in a show…unless you can figure out how to give a cinnamon bear context in your show.

I found a way to use the trick in a social media video and with a little bit of context, so it’s not just a “here’s a magic trick” sort of video.

For me that’s the challenge is to get away from doing tricks as demos and framing them a little bit. With social media, you don’t have much time to frame them, but putting a little bit on it helps.

Tech or Trick?

I really hate it when people post links to products on magic groups and say things like, “this has to have magic applications“, but then don’t give any of their ideas. They are lazy, and want people to post their ideas. It’s an uncreative person’s way of feeling creative. Right now there are several hologram … Continue reading “Tech or Trick?”

I really hate it when people post links to products on magic groups and say things like, “this has to have magic applications“, but then don’t give any of their ideas. They are lazy, and want people to post their ideas. It’s an uncreative person’s way of feeling creative.

Right now there are several hologram things being posted. These involve a stick with lights in it that spin around and make images. Essentially this is Pixel Poi, which jugglers use. Here’s the thing, the tech is cooler than the trick. I’ve never seen a Pixel Poi routine where the manipulation was what people left talking about, it’s the images. Same with these holograms.

Sure there’s gotta be a way to make the tech cooler than the trick, but I’m not sure it’s worth it. That and the way tech comes and goes, the current holograms aren’t something that’s going to last very long and will feel dated very quickly!

Playing Bigger…

Making the tricks that I currently do play bigger is something I’m always working on. There are a lot of ways to do this, however one challenge has always been card tricks. I don’t do a lot of them in the show, but those that I do are generally limited to poker sized cards.

One trick that I do uses cards in a holder on a pole. This is one of the rare instances where I can use jumbo cards, but haven’t. Last night I 3D printed out a new holder for the trick that will take jumbo cards.

My concern is that the pole won’t be able to hold the larger cards. When the cards on the end, the weight will make the pole bend. I do have a shorter pole than I normally use, and that would help with the bending a little bit.

Larger cards will help solve the problem of cards being visible from a distance.

Three Step Process…

In the last 10 days I’ve been at two booking conferences and I’ve seen a ton of acts! Some I’ve seen more than once, but for the most part I got to see a huge variety of what’s out there. One thing I’ve noticed with newer performers is that they don’t know how to sell a trick or stunt.

It’s a simple three step process. First you tell them what you are going to do. Next you do what you just told them you were going to do. Finally you tell them what you just did.

I know one of the classic rules of magic is that you aren’t supposed to tell people what you are going to do before you do it, so that they can’t “catch you”. This is totally BS, it’s good advice is the trick is bad, but not for doing the trick.

A great example is when David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear.

When he did this, we all knew what was going to happen. That allowed the trick to have much greater impact than if he just raised the curtain without context and dropped it and the statue was gone.

Just remember the three step formula and you’re good to go!