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Bad Magic…

A while ago I picked up a used copy of Howard Hamburg’s D Lecture notes. One of the things the mentions in it was that Dai Vernon didn’t like was kicker endings. Vernon’s thinking was here’s the trick I’m showing you, and now here’s something completely different that doesn’t make sense…ta-dah!

Now let’s fast forward to a magic video that was posted in a facebook magic group recently. Watch this:

Did he get your card?

He didn’t find mine.

Now let me tell you what’s wrong with the video of the trick:

First of all, he didn’t find my card! If you tell me to pick a card and don’t find it, I don’t care what else happens, it’s going feel unresolved.

Next, the switch out of the pocket is sloppy. It may work in a in-person context where you are talking to people, but not in a video with zero presentation.

Finally the reveal of the fan of cards changing is just bad magic. When the hand holding 4 cards drops out of frame multiple times and for an extended period of time right before you reveal the change, it’s just not good magic.

Add these up and it’s a bad presentation of a trick.

This trick needs a presentation that’s not a promise that will be unfulfilled (unless you get lucky). Also, t he performer needs to be aware that their need to keep their props in frame. It doesn’t matter if you don’t need to drop out of frame or not, it detracts from the magic. Or if you do need to move out of frame, try to hide it and don’t to it immediately before the reveal.

Now go out and do good magic.

No Contact, Socially Distant Magic Shows…

This summer I’ve managed to save a few gigs by converting them to in-person, small group, no contact, socially distant magic shows. I’m doing multiple shorter shows for 10 kids instead of one large show for all of them at once. It’s a difference in thinking when doing these.

I’m learning I need to pack a bit differently. The nice thing about doing a 20 minute show instead of a 45 minute show is that I can fit everything into a pretty small case.

Here’s the gear I’ve been bringing:

When it comes to material selection, I need stuff that resets really quick. In the past reset wasn’t a concern as I don’t normally do shows back to back with only 5 mins between them. The shift in thinking from “whatever to make the trick work” to “I’ve gotta reset the whole show in 5 mins” is an interesting mental challenge. Making me think differently is one of the silver linings of not being able to do my show how I’d normally do it.

Working On It…

One of the hardest things about creating magic right now is that due to restrictions I can’t really audience test things. I’ve written about my endings to the three shell game on this blog before and one that I’ve started doing post-COVID is the solid shell game.

One way to break things in are on live streams. My buddy was doing a live stream a few night ago and needed a guest, so I popped in, hung out and worked on some material.

Here’s the shell game from that live stream:

It’s coming along, just being able to do for something and not the wall at home makes a big difference! If you’ve got stuff you’re working on, go out and be a guest on someone’s live stream. It’s a much better space that doing your own live stream show, and there’s a lot less expectation for you to carry the show.

Cee-Lo for Virtual Shows…

One of the tricks I’m adding to my virtual magic shows is Cee-Lo which is my cups and dice routine. One of problems going from an in person show a virtual show is that you can’t move the audience’s focus around as easily. At one point in the routine I need to load the cup and doing it in the room with people there is super easy, however it’s much harder with the focused eye of the camera.

Normally I would load this from my pocket, however that won’t work for the reason above. What I’m going to do is load from the table. I designed a holder for the dice and they will slide up into the cup from behind the table’s edge.

This holder is currently printing out and I’ll try it out later today. This is something that I normally couldn’t use in my live shows because I perform in conditions where people can frequently see behind my table. This is one of the interesting things about working on a virtual show, I can use techniques that don’t work for my in person show.

Make It Easy To Watch!

This morning a buddy of mine sent me a video of a magician doing a card trick and wanted to know my thoughts on it. The thing that stood out to me, and is something that I should have realized before is that most of us are doing card tricks for social media incorrectly.

Many videos of just the hands have them coming down from the top of the screen, or are from the spectators point of view showing more of the magician. If you are doing any card tricks that require you to spread the cards, the indexes are upside down.

If you are someone that frequently handles cards, it’s pretty easy to tell what is what. However, most people are not. If you asked someone to memorize a card and they saw it upside down there’s a great chance they will struggle with it. It’s also visually unappealing to look at. Here’s my suggestion, use a left handed deck of cards.

This cards spread this was a so much easier to identify for someone that’s not familiar with cards. If you don’t spread the cards, like in an ambitious card routine then it’s not really a issue.

Shell Game Ending…

If you read this blog or follow me on social media, you know I’m not the Three Shell Game. I’ve come up with several original takes on the classic trick, which is great for a routine that’s basically been unchanged decades. I just built an ending for the shell game that I think is pretty cool.

Before I tell you what I did, let me tell you the two types of tricks that I think are usually the most lazy ways of being creative with magic. They are items that are hollow and turn solid and items that turn into glass (or clear plastic). Yes, there are execptions, like when Jerry Andrus and Danny Korem first did the Omni Deck. If you take a marker an turn it clear…great, but unless you have a really original take on the switch, it’s just a color change and no different from turning the marker from red to black.

So now, let’s get back to the shell game. Personally I’ve never done the ending where the shells turn solid. Why? I don’t think it makes sense. It’s a kicker ending that’s not really logical and doesn’t really move the ending forward. It’s too different from what has happened the whole time. It’s a “what?” moment because it thinking of the audience has to shift a lot from what was happening the whole routine. It’s almost like it’s the beginning of a new routine.

How did I fix the solid shells? I took it a step further. I used it as the starting point for another effect. Here’s how the routine plays. You do a few shell sequences, then cover a shell and pea with a shot glass. They are mixed around and guess where the pea is. When they lift the shot glass, then the shell, they see no pea, and then they discover the shell is solid. Now it’s a mystery they just discovered. They will turn over the other two shells to check them, and they are solid as well. Having them discover the solid shell is soo much better than you revealing it.

Now for the new ending:

When they look at the shotglass that’s sitting on the table, they see the pea under it. When they pick up the shotglass, they realize the shotglass is solid! The pea is embedded in the solid shotglass!

This is a solid (pun intended) ending for the solid shell game. It takes the routine one step forward to an ending that’s more logical than just the solid shells.

My Cooking Show…

In yesterdays post I showed a gimmick that I was making for a video. This video was made because my brother said I should do a cooking show for our weekly “virtual dinners”. A night before our dinner, I had a ton of ideas and wrote out a rough script, and sent it to a buddy of mine who punched it up. I then built the gimmicks and recorded the show.

Here’s what I made:

At about the 9 min mark you can see the gimmick I posted about yesterday. There’s a couple of other interesting magic effects that happen in the video as well. This was what I found interesting about making the whole video was that the cooking was a frame for magic to happen. It was a built in presentation hook.

It took over 12 hours to make this video, and the sole goal of it was to make my brothers laugh. That’s art, money or longevity of it wasn’t a consideration, it was simply to get a reaction. What reaction are the videos your are posting designed to get?

Take It Further…

If you’ve seen my magic lecture you’ve heard my favorite quote, which is essentially what my lecture is about. If you haven’t, here’s the quote:

Go past crowd pleasing and into real comedy…
Mel Brooks

He says it on Tom Papa’s podcast, it’s a great interview and you should listen to it. In my lecture I use the quote not just for comedy, but for magic. Sponge balls are crowd pleasing, how do you go past that and get into real magic?

Let’s get back to what I’m writing this post about. Someone in a magic forum had posted a picture of the nest of wands comedy prop that was broken.

If you’re not familiar with the Nesting Wands trick you have large diameter wand and smaller wands keep coming out of it. If you’re not familiar with the prop, here’s it in action:

The sets that are common in the USA have one end that’s sealed, and the person who wrote the Facebook post thought that they were broken and need to be fixed. For me whenever a prop breaks, I look at it as a chance to p lay with the prop and figure out things that may not have been possible before. I’ve had a bunch of cool things come out of props breaking and getting a new view of them.

When I was younger and did magic shows at kids birthday parties, I used this prop. However the set I had were made by Tops Magic in Europe. Most people in the USA didn’t like this set of Nesting Wands because they were open at both ends. I loved them because there was a lot more you could do with them. Here’s some ideas:

When the kid tries to “one up you” and restack them, they will fall out the other end.
You renest them and they all fall onto the floor.
You renest them and they slide out the other end and land in your case, but you don’t notice that. Then once they are all in your case, you look at the wand in your hand and see it’s empty. You then look around for where they went.
When the kid hands them back to you, you drop them all over the floor. You pick up the biggest wand and ask the kid to hand you another wand. They do, you put it into the wand in your hand and it just falls out the bottom ( you don’t notice that) and have the kid keep handing you wands and they keep falling through. Repeat till it’s not funny and at that point start holding the wands in with your finger at the bottom. Once they are all nested, let them drop out and onto the floor!

Look a prop breaking as an opportunity to do something creative and new with the prop. Sometimes you’ll just have a broken prop…other times you’ll have gold!

Support Your Art!

This weekend I got to perform at a sideshow festival in New Orleans. I think that performing at or attending festivals is something that very important for performers today. You are supporting innovation in your art form.

When you go to these festivals or conventions as an attendee, you get to see the top performers. This keeps you informed of what level you are at and who your peers are. Knowing what level your show or act is act keeps your helps with pricing and what sort of venues you can be performing at. The acts you see keep you updated with the trends in the industry. What tricks or styles are
common, and once you know the trends you can embrace or avoid the trends.

performing at festivals is a good place to “level up” your show. When other people see what you do and how you do it, you can become the trendsetter. I know the old argument is that people don’t want other people to steal their material. It’s a lame excuse because as a performer you need to do your art where other people will see it. You’ll never know who is seeing it no matter where you do it. Do it for industry and establish it for yourself.

Keep Learning…

Yesterday I was at a class on making silicone molds and using them to cast things in resin. Personally, besides learning the skill, I’m always watching for ideas that I can use during my performance. I noticed a couple of things that confirm my current thoughts on audio and video during a show.

The first thing that while we were in a fairly small and quiet room and there were only 25 of us, it was hard to hear the presenter. They should have been mic’d up. This goes for pretty much anything that’s not a close up gig, you need to wear a mic!

The second thing was their use of video. They had a straight down show from directly above the table with the screen directly behind the presenter.

This is the way to do it. In all of the shows I’ve seen when the action is on a sidewall, your attention is torn between the screen and the presenter. With the action on the screen behind you, it really lets you watch both the same time as both are in your field of vision. This is the way to got for projection.

As a bonus to confirming my theories on audio and video during a show, I also learned to make molds and cast things in resin!