sleight of hand – Page 2

Wrapping Up the School Assembly Tour

The month long school assembly tour is finished! I learned a lot doing the same show 2-3 times a day.

1: Simplify the setup and take down. The fewer “parts” a show has to assemble, the better. This show traveled by car, so it was easy not to have a lot of things to put together, unlike a show that travels by plane.

2: Hold the final magic to display what has happened up high and for way longer than you think you need to.

3: Find ways to be present in your show, and not just a robot reciting lines. This can get hard after doing the show for the 40th time in three weeks. Try to look for real moments that are happening and play!

4: Be on top of prop maintenance. If you notice something wearing out, fix it! Don’t try to get two more shows out of it. It’ll break when it’s not convenient for you to fix.

5: When the school (really the teachers) seat the kids in a way that doesn’t make sense for a crowd, tell them to move them. I’ve had the weirdest crowd configurations, and teachers fight hard to not move kids. I push back, because the audience seated as a group and not a bunch of individual units will make the difference just a show and an amazing show.

It’s great to be back home!

-Louie
Click here for more information about how you can learn this School Assembly Show check out the School Assembly Set!

The Show I’ve Been Dreading!

Yesterday my itinerary had me doing my show that was written for an audience that’s kindergarten to 6th grade for an group of seventh to eight grade kids. No younger kids, just the middle school kids. When I noticed this show on my schedule, I was dreading it.

I’ve done shows for middle and high school kids on this tour, but they were mixed in with elementary school aged kids. You can read about that here.

The show went great!

What I did was start by mentioning that this show was written for younger kids, but if they stuck with me, they’d like the show. The show was rocking! I mostly did the show as written; I did cut a few things that I knew wouldn’t hit for this older group.

This is a good example of why I disagree with people who say, “it’s the journey, not the trick”. The trick needs to be good, and so does the journey. Just because one is great, doesn’t mean the other can’t also be great! Sure, it takes a bit more work, but it’s worth it!

-Louie
Click here for more information about how you can learn this School Assembly Show check out the School Assembly Set!

Any Card At Any Number

One of the days I was performing at the Moisture Festival, there was a delay in starting the show. The producers asked me if I could fill some time to keep the people in the theater occupied. I did my Any Card At Any Number (ACAAN). Here’s the full spot because there’s a joke that’s a callback and doesn’t make sense if you don’t see the beginning before the trick starts.

For me, ACAAN is a great stage trick; it’s solo with just me onstage, but it involves the audience, and it’s a good trick!

-Louie

New School Assembly Show

Well, tomorrow is the first show of my new school assembly show and the first show day of this month long tour! The show is designed to set up and strike really quickly, in less than 15 minutes. The show will run 40-45 minutes in length and will have to play for 150-500 people per show.

Here’s the front of the case:

I have a screen on the front of the case for visuals if the school doesn’t read my requirements list and doesn’t provide me with a projector or TV. The visuals aren’t necessary, but they help make the show feel bigger.

Here’s the view of the back of the case:

The props in the case are laid out for the show. The only thing missing from the picture is my snake box, because it’s not in the case during the show. The snake box sits on a table (provided by the school) during the show.

I’m very excited to see how this plays. This show is 95% new to me. The 5% that’s old are a couple of jokes/gags that I’m recycling. Hopefully, I won’t have to change much. When I was writing the show, I was worried that it wouldn’t be long enough. Now that I’ve been practicing it, I’m worried it will be too long! Having too much material is a way better problem to have than not enough.

-Louie

A Toast to Nick Trost #3

In the book The Card Magic of Nick Trost there’s cool trick called Double Pinochle with an Elevator Finish. Here’s what the trick looks like as written:

It’s a nice change of four cards. What I don’t like about it is that it’s themed with the game of Pinochle, which isn’t as common as it was in the past.

Here’s what I came up with to update it:

The first change I made was for it to use four jokes, instead of two queens and two jokers. Then I used my Elmsley For Video move that allows you to show all four kings when you do the Elmsley Count and not have to show one card twice. Then procedurally, I needed to add a displacement so that I could get a clean display at the end, so I did a weird sort of top change off the bottom of the packet to the top of the deck.

Hope you like my changes

-Louie

Meta Glasses Gag Idea

Here’s a gag idea: You call attention to your glasses and mention that everyone has cameras in their glasses now. You then pull/shake a camera out of the glasses.

That’s it, a quick sight gag.

To do it, the easiest way would be to palm a small camera and produce it. More complex methods would be a camera that collapses. A simple, but pain to make would be a latex or sponge camera.

There you go, if this idea interests you, go out and do it!

-Louie

Spoon Dropper!

One of the things that I need for a routine I’m working on is a spoon dropper. This will allow me to steal a spoon from my jacket. The first idea was just a magnet. The issue that I encountered was that if I moved too much, the spoon would get knocked off the magnet.

One solution would be a stronger magnet, but it needed to be easy to pull off the magnet. What I did was glue some magnets to a bowl of a spoon, then cover that with black fabric.

The spoon bowl’s shape holding the spoon kept the fabric from my shirt/jacket from dislodging the spoon.

This was a fairly simply solution to the the problem!

-Louie

Portland Magic Jam – Day 3

The final day of last week’s Portland Magic Jam had the Paul Draper lecture. He does a choose your own lecture where the audience asks him to talk about things and he talks about what the audience requests.

Then there was a panel Q and A with all the weekend’s headliners.

Then David Kaye and I snuck out so I could take him for the most Portland lunch, which was eating at a food truck pod!

Then the weekend for me ended with the magic contest.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take more pictures of the contest. There were a couple of extra charge workshops going on after the contest, but I had plans with my wife, so I couldn’t do any of them.

The weekend at the Portland Magic Jam was a ton of fun! I wish I could go to more of these, however, my performing schedule doesn’t let me.

-Louie

Dice Cup Chop Cups!

It’s been a while since I’ve made any chop cups, and yesterday I made a batch of dice cup chop cups. I made these to take to the Portland Magic Jam this weekend.

Internally, there’s not much to it, it’s a magnet in a cup. I 3D print a magnet puck, and cover it with the same material that lines the cup.

Then I make a set of chopped dice, so one is regular, and the other has a magnet load.

I’m going to package these with an 8 Ball for the final load and sell them as a set. If I have any left after the Portland Magic Jam, I’ll offer them for sale here.

-Louie

A Toast To Nick Trost #1

Here’s the first videos of what I’m calling A Toast To Nick Trost. These are videos where I do a trick from The Card Magic of Nick Trost as written, and then I do a variation of the trick that I’ve come up with. Usually this is just adding a move or theme that didn’t exist when Nick came up with the trick.

Here’s Nick’s Observation Test:

And here’s my updated version of the trick:

Here’s a quick tutorial of my version:

I think what I like about my update is the final display of the cards face up, then flipping the cards face down to reveal the color change!

-Louie