Tag: magician

Not Completely Isolated…

Well, it all turned out alright! Yesterday I had a virtual magic show for a group where initially I was told I wouldn’t be able to see or hear the audience and couldn’t use the chat function for the show…but they wanted and interactive show.

You can read yesterday’s post about it here

I was prepared to treat the show like a live, prerecorded virtual show. However, I was pleasantly surprised when the show started that I was able to do some limited video/audio interaction with the kids!

I went into the show thinking of the old saying, “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst”.

Being willing to take on a challenge helps me grow as a performer. Next time I’m offered a show with conditions like what I was told for this one, I’ll be more prepared as I’ve already thought about it and done a lot of the work!

-Louie

Isolated, Interactive show…

Today’s show is going to be a stressful show. It’s a virtual show that’s for a group that wants and interactive show…but I won’t be able to see or hear the audience and chat won’t be enabled on Zoom. When I was talking to the booker, I clarified that they want an interactive show, but I can’t interact with the people in the audience and they confirmed that was the situation.

There are essentially two options at this point:

  1. Decline the gig
  2. Take the money and do it

I decided to take the show as a challenge to see what I could come up with. I’m treating this show like a live prerecorded virtual show. What I mean by that is it’s the content I would put into a prerecorded virtual show, however I’m doing it live. This opens up some possibilities, like I could roll dice for a random number or spin a wheel to get a random item. While those methods of selection aren’t as strong as having someone from the audience select the item, it gives me options that aren’t there with a prerecorded virtual show.

I have one trick that’s a “touch the screen” style of trick which is a custom version of Interactive that I made that uses Bigfoot sightings. I do have some tricks where the audience has a job at home, but what they do doesn’t really affect me or the outcome of the trick. One of these is the shellgame, which is good because they can play along at home by picking the shells. I’m using my Russian Shell Game for the show as it’s got a fun ending.

We’ll see how it goes…

-Louie

Fun Lecture!!

Last night’s lecture was a blast, it looks like we had 119 magicians attend the zoom meeting! Thanks to Drew Cardella to letting me talk to the group that he hosts every Wednesday.

One of the more fun things about the lecture was towards the end I showed something that was new that I’m working on. It was my Take Out Box production and you can read my previous posts about it by clicking here. That turned into an impromptu jam session with some great ideas. And some ideas that I had thought of and discarded for one reason or another that I’m going to revisit.

During that jam session on the take out production box a well known magician said I should release it soon “before it gets out there and someone else does“. While I agree with why I should release it soon, honestly I don’t like the idea of putting out things before they are ready. It’s a sad state of magic where someone would hear about the idea and rush to beat me to market, however that’s the nature of the business world. I’ve always said magicians need to play business like it’s a real business, that means protecting things with patents, copyright, etc. So it’s really my fault if someone gets ahead of me on putting the Take Out Box Production on the market.

-Louie

Triumphant Flip Off

I’ve been facinated by using the old card revelation where you drop the deck on the table and the top card flips to reveal a selected card as a way to correct the deck for a triumph style effect.

Here’s a video demo of one that I’ve been doing lately:

About a month ago I wrote up a quick outline of the working of the effect:

http://www.magicshow.tips/magic-show-tips/triumph-clean-up/

One of the challenges was figuring out how to do Daryl’s Triumph Display with the deck in the condition that the deck is in for my routine. It’s basically the same as Daryl’s except the final two blocks of cards are hand hand and you rotate your hands palm up to show the face up and face down blocks.

I’m glad I figured out how to do the final display, it just took sitting around and playing until I worked it out, and the solution was soo simple!

-Louie

Old School Road Act Tip…

Every year I spend most of the summer out on the road performing around the united states. Like most people I use my cell phone as my GPS (my car doesn’t have a built in GPS) and because of that, I keep 15 year old Garmin GPS unit in the glove compartment of my car.

It’s been years since I needed to use it, however it can be a life saver if you’re in the middle of nowhere and have no cell signal. Sometimes where the gig is has no cell service or sometimes you’ve accidently done something with your phone and reset your maps apps.

You can get these used for about $20 on eBay, and it’s a handy thing to keep in the car. The few times I’ve needed it, really helped me out! Stay safe out there!

-Louie

Bad Shows…

One thing I can’t stand are magicians who say they always “kill” at their shows. I’m sure there are people that do crush is from the audience’s perspective all the time, but did they honestly and artistically think they did their best every show?

I’ve done shows where at the end I get a standing ovation, and think to myself, “really, that show wasn’t that good”. I’m not saying the audience is wrong to show their appreciation, I’m saying the performer should honestly look at each show. Could you as a performer have done better?

Personally I learn more about doing bad shows that I do from crushing it. You learn or try to learn why things that normally work didn’t. Was it you, was it the audience, was it the situation or a combination of all of them? Then you need to figure out how to make it not happen again, or at least reduce the risk or amount of reasons why the show was bad.

I’m not saying you should go out and do bad show intentionally as a learning tool…but you can learn things by going to an open mic at taking drastic risks with your show. Sometimes something you think would turn off an audience connects…sometimes it doesn’t.

Take some risks…it’s art, not brain surgery.
-Louie

Event Promo Videos…

Frequently I’m asked to make little promo videos for events that I’m performing. Here’s one a made for a gig a few days ago:

They wanted me to thank the sponsors and to do a quick trick. One of my “go to tricks” for situations like that are flap cards for a quick color change. I do the first change in the glass (which as far as I know I’m the first to do) which I think adds to the impossibility of it changing. Then the second is just the toss change.

Having a quick and visual trick you can do for things like this helpful. Also essentially having a formula for doing videos for events, so you’re not reinventing the wheel every time. I just grab my glass and card and I’m good to go!

-Louie

Nightmare Alley…

nightmare alley

Last night my wife and I went out to see the movie Nightmare Alley. It’s about a guy that ends up working in a sideshow and learns to be a mentalist, who ends up making it fairly big, but then gets involved in some shifty stuff and his success ends up crashing down.

It’s interesting what you focus on when you see things in your industry portrayed in movies. The little thing that drove me nuts was in the sideshow scenes, the banners weren’t tied right, or well. When I worked with the sideshow last summer, I would have had to retie them all if I did them! It’s a small detail, and hardly anyone would fixate on that.

The other thing was the mentalist’s name in the movie was Stanton Carlisle, who is a mentalist and I have a couple of his books. I did a little bit of research and it looks like he insists that’s his name, and he didn’t take it from the book Nightmare Alley. Stanton would have been about 20 when the book came out.

Oh, here’s the trailer for the movie:

We had a good time at the movie, check it out!

-Louie

Some Documentation…

Back at the end of October I had won some of Al Koran‘s ashes from the Ken Klosterman auction that Potter and Potter did. About a month ago they arrived,. I got a display, a sealed deck of Al Koran cards and a vial with some of his ashes.

al Koran's ashes

Recently I got a shipping notice from Potter and Potter and I had to wait a few days for the mysterious package to arrive. It was documentation from Ted Lesley about him giving Ken some of the ashes and a little bit about the story behind it!

This letter wasn’t part of auction’s listing, but it was very cool of Potter and Potter to send it to me when the letter turned up!

-Louie