magic – Page 9 – MagicShow.Tips

Using Magic For Good…

One of the cool things about being a magician, is you frequently have the ability to change someone’s day. What I mean by that is showing someone a little card trick can change their mood. Here’s an example, I was stuck in line that wasn’t moving. Someone recognized me a the magician from the show and we chatted for a minute. Then I offered to do a card trick. Everyone in the line went from being annoyed at a non moving line, to laughing and having a good time. One little card trick changed the mood and experience of 30 people.

Sometimes I wonder why so many magicians say they never do a trick for people outside of being paid. Personally I thinks it’s a very self centered approach. Being willing to do a little magic trick, if very different than feeling like you have to do a magic trick. You can say no, and sometimes you’re asked to show a trick and it’s just night a right situation and in the end no one will really gain any real joy from it. But when you know it’ll improve someone’s day, you should do it!

This is part of leaving your mark on the world. Jeff McBride is really into this type of “giving” with magic. It doesn’t mean doing a show, just a quick thing to make someone’s day a bit more fun! That’s why in my wallet I always have a trick that I can do, that’s a good trick, with a direct plot, but also quick. It’s not a long routine, it’s a quick trick. I actually have a 15 min show in my wallet, but usually don’t do the full thing.

Artist vs Craftsman

One thing that I don’t get is the appeal of a coverband to a performer in one. What I mean by that, is your art is 100% other people’s art. You are taking something that someone else did the work on and taking credit. You are relating to the audience through other people’s art, which … Continue reading “Artist vs Craftsman”

This relates to magic, not just music. After David Copperfield did his snow routine on TV, and Kevin James started selling the prop, 99% of routines that were presented were about someone “never having seen snow”. This dumbs down magic. It gives performers a false feeling that they are artists, but it’s also why a lot of magic isn’t taken seriously.

Magicians say they are unique and this is the problem. If you say in your promo you have a unique take on magic, or a show unlike any other and you do standard tricks the standard way, you are doing everyone who is an artist a disservice.

I you are a magician that does tricks the bought and presents them in a way that’s standard, you should bill your show as “classics of magic” or something like that. I know we’re all guilty of having done standard stuff in the normal way, that’s part of the learning process. At some point you have to decide if you’re going to be a 1980’s cover band or Bon Jovi.

Practice Time…

Practicing is something that I’m amazed at how few magicians do. The kinda learn something, then it’s the end. Or the bigger one is when magicians complain that something is hard. That’s loser talk, yes somethings may be hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Everyone wants to be Shin Lim, but only Shin Lim put in the work to be Shin Lim.

In a broad sense practicing can take many forms. It could be working on the muscle memory for a sleight, it could be rehearsing an act, it could be writing a bit, it could be watching a video of yourself performing. There are a lot of ways you can put in the work. All of those things make you a better performer.

Personally, I’m writing this today to motivate myself. I’m in a situation where I have a lot of downtime while travelling to shows. Yesterday was day one of two weeks and at one point I was bored. I’m not bored, I was being lazy. There’s nothing wrong with relaxing, but being bored there is. Once I realized my thought, I picked up a book and started reading, I was practicing being me.

There’s a henry rollins quote that’s relevant to this: “No such thing as spare time, no such thing as free time, no such thing as down time. All you got is life time. Go.”. That’s true. I can spend my time wishing I had something to do, OR I can do something.

10 Card Deal…

When I was a teenager I remember reading Bob Farmer’s column in Genii Magazine (I think it was Genii) on the 10 card poker deal. I would read about it and work through it, but never did it. I played with the 10 card deal again about a decade later when I was learning a memorized deck, as the Aronson Stack has one built into it, but never really did it.

For about the last year I’ve been fascinated with the 10 card poker deal. It’s really an amazing trick that’s built on a very simple method. I’ve ready a lot of the modern works on it, however it appears a lot of the best stuff is pretty old. Bob Farmer put out a book called the Bammo Ten Card Deal Dossier.

This book is full of the history of the deal and most of the published works on the 10 card poker deal. Within it there are tons of routines. I’ve put together a three deal routine using parts of other routines that make the whole thing feel super fair, and each step gets more fair.

My three phase routine is something that I don’t think would play for a huge group in a live setting for me. It’s really a head to head “competition” with someone. However I am working on a stage version of this trick, but I think it will feel different from most 10 card deal routines.

There are tricks that come in and out of your life, that you dabble in here or there. They just aren’t right for you, or you aren’t right for them a that time. Then one day at the right time, you rediscover it and the trick finally works for you (or you for it). I think this is why it’s important to constantly be learning things and revisiting old things.

Themed Show?

Yesterday I went to Luche Libre Taco Shop in San Diego, CA. This is a Mexican Wrestling themed restuarant. One thing is that they go all out with the theme. It’s not just a picture on the wall, it’s all the pictures on the wall, it’s the graffiitti in the bathroom, it’s the toys in … Continue reading “Themed Show?”

Another place I went a few days ago was Hodads in downtown San Diego. It’s also themed out. It’s a rocker/skater/surfer themed, that had a late 80’s feel to it. Once again it was 100% themed.

These were two of my favorite places we ate at this week. Why? Simple, they were fun. They did the theme right. You felt like you were a part of something.

This got me thinking about people who do themed shows. People use themed props, themed costume, or themed patter, however not many people use all three. Typically you’ll have someone that uses two themed things, but not all three.

I think you need to jump in and do a full on themed show if you are going to do one. This is something that really brings the audience into your world.

Creativity Tools…

Lately I’ve been thinking about how to be more creative. My method for creativity isn’t very formal. It’s more of when I see something I think, “wouldn’t it be cool if…” then I try to figure out a way to do that. I’m trying to come up with a better way.

One idea was to have cards with all of the effects in magic.
For example one card would says, “appear” and another would say, “penetration”. Then I’d have another set of cards that would have a list of object. They could be objects that are common in magic like a card, or ball, but then a bunch of less common magic items like a toothbrush. There would be an optional third set of cards that would have items that must be used in the method, like thread or a magnet.

I was thinking of getting an app made for my phone that would randomly pick the effect and objects. This would make it more convenient than having three sets of physical cards, and make it easier to add objects.

I think having a system in place for creativity will help me churn out ideas. The key to creativity is volume, the more ideas you have, the more bad ideas you have. Getting the bad ideas out of the way, to get to the one out of a hundred idea that’s good, hopefully is an efficient manner!

Not So Close Up…

The tend in magic is the choreographed sleight of hand to music, like what Shin Lim did on America’s Got Talent. It’s style that’s been around for a long time, it’s just popular right now. I think of it as something that was a “magic convention act” in the past, and now is a mainstream act.

A couple of nights ago I was lucky enough to see Shawn Farquhar do his “shape of my heart” card routine at a show. It was really great. It hit all the musical beats, it had good visual magic, and overall it’s a great routine.

This kinda proves the theory that I’ve written about before that this style of close up when put on camera is the new stage manipulation act. I think audiences are getting better with watching a live show on a screen. Personally I’d rather watch it without the screen, however to the general public this is an acceptable way to view a show.

Over the last few months I’ve started to think about what I could do for this style of performing. It’s really not what I do, so I don’t know if I’ll ever come up with anything.

Real vs. Manufactured Moments

One of the reasons live entertainment is unique is that anything can happen and each show has the potential to be unique. The problem comes in when you have performers who refuse to go off track, and strictly stick to the script. When you ignore things that come up and don’t, “live in the moment” … Continue reading “Real vs. Manufactured Moments”

One of the reasons live entertainment is unique is that anything can happen and each show has the potential to be unique. The problem comes in when you have performers who refuse to go off track, and strictly stick to the script. When you ignore things that come up and don’t, “live in the moment” you are missing out on a gold mine of stuff that can happen.

One of the things in my show is I have places where the person onstage can have a real moment onstage with me, not a manufactured one. Then I get to play, we can see where it goes. Sometimes it doesn’t go anywhere and that’s the risk, however the reward outweighs the risk.

The only hard part is to recognize when real moment becomes a manufactured moment. This is something that will happen with time. You’ll learn that if you ask a specific question within a certain contex you’ll typically get a handful of answers. Over time you’ll end up with a response to those. That’s when the real moment becomes a manufactured moment. There’s nothing wrong with a manufactured moment. I have a ton of them in my show.

Next time you perform, ask a question and play with the answer you’re given.

The Blow Off

Yesterday I wrote about doing a “spectator as mind reader” type effect and it having to be a clean trick from a method standpoint. The spectator who reads the mind must be unaware of how you get them to reveal what the other person is thinking. Today I’m going to talk about something similar, but the opposite way, where at the end everyone knows how the trick was done. This doesn’t just apply to mentalism, but to magic.

Let’s start with a premise everyone knows, which is paper balls over the head. Personally I dislike this trick, because it has no ending. Sure, you could produce a bowling ball from the tissue at the end or something like that. In its standard for you are basically telling the same joke over and over, there is no punctuation on the trick.

One way some people end it is to reveal the paperballs on the floor to the person. The problem with that is there is a bridge missing, the person doesn’t know how they got there, they just see them on the floor. Did the disappear and reappear there…you miss the moment where they are let in on the gag. Watch Michael Finney do the card on the forehead, it ends when we get to see the person onstage react to the finally seeing the card. You’ll never get the same reaction when the person sees the paper balls, plus they will be turned around looking at them, so we can’t see them.

My point is when you do a trick where everyone knows how the trick works, except one person, you need to completely let them in on the trick. You have to essentially tell them what happened, or they will not react well because they are trying to cross a bridge that’s not there. The challenge is to completely reveal the trick in a second or two. At a glance the person on stage should be able to figure out what happened.

Magically Sound Magic

One of the things about doing magic tricks is that you can do some amazing things and you can do them fairly easily, but that doesn’t make it good magic. What’s got me thinking about this, is that with the internet, magic is very accessible to people that perform other variety acts, and it’s easy to add magic to their show and get a good reaction.

Being able to do a trick, and present it is only part of the game if you want to be a magician. It’s OK to do a magic trick in your show, but once you basically start doing a magic show, it’s time to actually learn how to do magic.

I recently saw a card trick where the performer did the trick in the easiest manner. Fine, but watching I could think of 3 better ways to do it. Three better ways that were more deceptive and none of them that much harder than what he was already doing. He wasn’t in a magic show, he was doing a magic trick within a larger show, so he get’s a pass.

TLDR: if you’re going to call yourself a magician, you need to learn to do magic.