mentalism – Page 12 – MagicShow.Tips

Trapped – Manoj Kaushal’s online show…

The other night I watched Manoj Kaushal’s online show Trapped. A friend recommended it to me, and it’s been generating some buzz with magicians. Here’s the trailer for it:

First I want to say that I bought the cheaper tickets on Stellar Tickets. That means I was just watching the show, not in the Zoom room, so please factor that in during this review.

The best way to describe it is that it’s like an interactive version of one of the Saw Movies. It was live with prerecorded video elements of the “hostages”, etc. Manoj plays the bad guy and the audience has to beat him at a 7 games. Each time we win, a hostage lives and if we lose one game, they all die.

It’s a very interesting premise for a magic / mentalism show, and something were a live stream is the perfect venue for it. I don’t think it would play well in person. Manoj is definitely trying something unique, very different from any online magic / mentalism show I’ve seen.

My biggest dislike was that a lot of the tricks were too magic-y. He does a card trick, and talks about magic. I will say that up front he does mention he’s “a magician…but also has a dark side”. I think the card trick pulls away from the idea of these being games.

Also the odds of the games fluctuate a lot. I think from a statistical stand point the 1 in 52 for the card trick in the middle of the show is the most unlikely to win, then he follows that with something that’s like a 1 in 12. I would have liked to see the odds build get more unlikely as the show progressed.

All of the tricks are good and solid and most rely on a simple principle that’s gained a lot of popularity with the switch to online shows. The way we viewed him on screen did the best and most justified job of using the principle that I’ve seen.

There were a couple of loose ends that didn’t really get tied up, like when someone from the zoom room got kidnapped. I really would have liked for us to play for that person’s life, instead of not really mentioning it again. It’s not just me, in the comments several people asked, “what about john?“.

I paid $15 for the show and for that much, I feel like I got my money’s worth. I also love supporting someone who is trying something different. The show is presented more like an interactive movie than a magic / mentalism show. I’m curious what the general public will think. In the show I watched, I recognized at least half of the people from zoom as magicians. I wonder how many real people are buying tickets?

Handcrafted, Gluten Free Progressive Anagrams

Yesterday we handmade a progressive anagram from five words. If you didn’t read yesterdays post, go and read it, or this won’t make a lot of sense. One thing I didn’t like was that the first YES or NO question have a 60% chance of getting “No” answer. Using the same method to make the progressive anagram, by eliminating the vowels first, but this time examining the vowels, we’ll get a better sequence.

here are the words:

Beer
Agreement
Heat
Bowel
Touch

I noticed that all of them have an E except for one word. If we eliminate the E first, we’ll get an 80% chance of a YES. If we get a NO, we immediately know the word. This is way better than yesterday’s layout. Here’s what today’s flowcart for the same words looks like:

E ————–> Touch
|
Beer, Agreement, Heat, Bowel

I’m going to eliminate another vowel, I’ll do A, as the only other vowel that’s used in the words is O, and that’s only in one word, which would give me a 75% chance of getting a NO answer. The A will give me a 50/50 chance.

At this point we have two pairs of words, so we just need to find a letter that’s only in one word of each pair.

While essentially the same as the progressive anagram from yesterday, this one is slightly better as the odds of getting a YES on the first letter are better and if you get a NO on the first letter you immediately know the word, which is a huge advantage. Also there’s only one word where you’ll would get two NO answers, where in yesterday’s flowchart there were two instances.

Now let’s compare this to the what a computer will come up with. I plugged the same words into a progressive anagram generator and here’s what is spit out:

Essentially the computer came up with the same solution as I did today. the difference was we chose different letters for splitting the last two pairs, but that’s arbitrary. The nice thing about the computer is that it did it in one try, and in about 1 second. Knowing to do it yourself is a solid back up and you understand the process a bit more.

Let There Be Light!

When you’re doing virtual shows, a lot goes into them. More than just the tricks. Someone recently posted their “promo video” for virtual shows. There are some good elements to this, like the people reacting, then some bad elements, like everything else.

Here’s the video:

The big problem with the video is the guy’s lighting is horrible! Yes, I understand that some of the effects he’s doing require special lighting, but he’s not even doing that right, you can light the effect correctly and make it not look like you’re performing in a closet.

Here’s a screenshot from the above video:

Does that look like something you’d pay money to watch?

Not me.

Does that mean it’s a bad show?

Not necessarily.

Right now we all need to learn about lighting, video production, etc and we all need to learn the basics about all of it.

Small Changes…

In the past on this blog I’ve written about progressive anagrams and fishing as a great methods for virtual shows. Here’s another video of me using the Mind Power Deck by John Kennedy.

The small change that I have made in this trick from the video I posted a few weeks ago is that I’m revealing the card before I ask them what card they are thinking of. I think it’s a way stronger trick because I’ve committed to the prediction before they reveal what they are thinking of.

Yes, there are risks doing it this way, but I think the benefits outweigh the risks.

Zoom Fishing…

One of the biggest challenges right now with all of the Social Distancing is breaking in new material. Personally I tend to try to work out things on stage. I try them, I ad lib, I tweak and adjust. Right now some in-person venues are starting to open up and this is great and will make working on new material much easier.

Here’s an early version of a trick that I wrote about a month ago on this blog. It’s using “fishing” along with a physical prediction for the trick.

The big change that I made was that I’m pulling the card out of the envelope before the card is named. I’m taking a risk that the person can totally screw my ending by lying about the card that they saw. However the questions leading into the reveal makes it hard to lie, they just can’t make up a card at the last moment as they’ve already confirmed things about it. That’s not going to stop an asshole from just saying a different card, but it does make it harder.

Perfect Fishing Trick…

Yesterday I wrote about using “fishing techniques” on streaming magic shows, you can read the post here. Today I’m going to deal with a specific trick. Let’s not forget that I think that if you are doing a trick where you are asking questions to figure out what someone is thinking of, you need to have something physical as your prediction. That makes it harder to back track and figure out the method of the trick.

Okay, let’s get to the trick. I just got mine in the mail a couple of days ago and have done it a few times already and it’s playing great. The trick is John Kennedy’s Mind Power Deck!

If you aren’t familiar with this deck, you can show it to be normal, have someone memorize a card and with asking just a few questions you can tell them the card they are thinking of. It’s great! The trick has a built in cheat sheet, but I simply printed out a flow chart and taped it to the wall behind my webcam. This is easier to read that the hidden in plain sight cheat sheet he gives you.

How I add a physical prediction to the trick is I have an envelope that I’m holding in my hand before the trick. The envelope ends up having the card they are thinking of in it. Having the card in the envelope makes it so that someone can’t say, “the magician just asked questions until he figured out the card“. Unfortunately that’s the logical solution that a non-magician would come up with and the correct one. Always add a physical prediction!

Fishing on Zoom…

One of the methods that I still think is a great method for live stream magic shows are progressive anagrams, or tricks that use “fishing“. I’ve written a lot about progressive anagrams in the past, so today I’m going to talk about using “fishing” techniques over streaming video.

When you are “fishing” you are asking a series of questions to determine what a person is thinking of. This isn’t always a linear thing where you ask question A, then question B, etc. The answer to the question or statement will lead you to the next question. Sometimes these are general statements, like “I’m sensing water…” that would cover a range of things like a boat, a fish, or a cup. With something like a progressive anagram you are naming specific letters.

This is a technique used in a lot of book tests. You’d use statements like “your word is a long word…” which narrows down the list. Tomorrow I’m going to write about a specific trick that uses this technique that is perfectly suited for streaming shows!

Force Dice…

Many years ago I made up some force dice for a couple of magic lectures. These dice force two numbers on command. I’ve had a few of unsold sets kicking around my office for a few years. About a week ago I was jamming with some magicians over Skype and we were talking about forcing items online. I remembered these dice and how they’d make a great way to for an object in a virtual show.

Here’s a video that I made that explains how to use them in a virtual show:

The cool thing about these dice and gimmick is that you can let the person change their mind after the first roll and reroll. That makes it seem super fair, however it doesn’t change how the force works.

The leftover batch of dice sold out immediately after listing them for sale. The demand was there and I made a second batch and those also immediately sold out. I may make another batch of the dice and gimmicks in the future. If you’re interested in a set of the force dice, contact me and I’ll put you on the list.

Progressive Anagram Routine…

Recently, I’ve been writing a bit about progressive anagrams and their use in virtual shows over the internet. I’ve come up with a bit of a routine, here’s what my idea looks like:

You put display a coin envelope in your left hand and hold your empty right hand palm up.

“Imagine I have some coins here…nothing crazy, just a penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar and a silver dollar. I want you to look at the coins and since you can’t actually grab one through the screen, pretend to take one.”

You can now lower your right hand.

“Look at it, on the back you’ll notice I wrote the name of the coin on the back. If it’s a quarter, I wrote quarter. On the half dollar I wrote half dollar. Look at the word I wrote, visualize it in your head”

Now we’re going to get into the progressive anagram. How it works is: If you say a letter you move down to the next letter. If that say no, you move to the right. If you get all “yes” answers you end up on the fifty cent piece.

E – Half Dollar
I – A (No: Penny Yes: Quarter)
C – A (No: Dime Yes: Silver Dollar )
F- Nickel
Fifty Cent Piece

You’ll notice in the script I didn’t give fifty cent piece as an option, but I’m trying to foresee someone not listening to me. I have the list above written out where the camera can’t see it. You now know the word, in this example they are thinking of the nickel and they don’t know you know it. Direct attention to the envelope.

“I’ve got a coin in this envelope”

Rip the top off the envelope. Oh, I forgot to mention you have an index of coins in thumb tips out of the camera’s view. For the quarter or larger coins you have folding coins in the thumb tips so that they fit. Once you know the coin, you put on the correct thumb tip. As you rip the top off, you load the thumb tip inside.

“I’m guessing you’re thinking of the nickel!”

They confirm this and then you dump the nickel out of the thumb tip that’s inside the envelope onto your palm and display it. You can now steal the thumb tip as your rip up the envelope to show there are no other coins and then get rid of the thumb tip as you throw way the envelope pieces.

There you go, an easy routine using a progressive anagram and with slight adjustments you could do it in a show with a live audience.

Taking It Further…

In yesterday’s blog post about progressive anagrams, I mentioned a good way to use them for internet shows without any memory work. That doesn’t solve the problem of people not knowing how to spell words. The easy way is to use simple, common words, and not things like astrological signs like, “Sagittarius” which took me 4 tries to correctly spell it before I did a web search to figure it out just now.

The next problem and what I think is the biggest weakness is when you get the letters wrong. There are some instances where you will get no letters wrong, but you can’t count on that. There are also some where you’ll only get one wrong and immediately know the word, which is the problem. It feels like you are doing exactly what you are doing, figuring out the word by the letters.

To remove the idea that you’re just guess based on the letters, you need a prediction. Something physical to show that you knew it all along. This could be a written prediction, or whatever. A simple solution (depending on your words) would be a nail writer. Another easy way would be an index of the words, or multiple out set up.

What the prediction does is makes it harder to backtrack the method. If people talk after the show it ends up being, “If he was just guessing, then how did the prediction match what I was thinking of?” Taking it a step further makes it a more solid trick!