stage magic – Page 16 – MagicShow.Tips

Applause Please V2

I’m currently finishing up making a few Applause Please V2. These will be completely remote control, so you don’t need to plug them into a wall outlet.

I had the boxes made by Brian Cook Magic Crafter and they look great!

Originally I was against going full remote control as the parts can be hard to replace if something breaks when you’re travelling. However, after enough people had been asking me about it over the years and me finally starting to make some for friends and one for me I’m convinced this is the way to go.

I’ve been using the fully remote controlled one I made for myself since late 2019 and it’s still working great!

-Louie

Are We Still Doing This??

The other day I popped into my social media and it suggested I be friends with this guy. He’s rocking the “Yellowface” to do the linking rings. This a super lazy presentation approach, and definitely not a modern one. He puts on the outfit to do the Linking Rings.

Let’s take a step back and look at him trying to honor Asian culture. He didn’t do any research on it. There’s no evidence that the lining rings came from china (source: Genii online). So aside from the rings being from China, why is he wearing the clothes? Based on this article which reviews him doing the rings, I can’t find any reason why he’s wearing that robe in his presentation. I hope he wasn’t using any of the “I learned this from a great Chinsese magician…Fu Ling Yu” lines.

We as magicians need to move past this sort of stuff. You can do the Linking Rings without putting on robes.

He’s repping the Society of American Magicians in his Facebook cover, which is a bad look for the association.

I will say that I do have an out of context view of what’s happening as I’m just seeing a facebook picture, however the article I read seems to confirm what I’m thinking. In my heart, I hope he’s doing a thought out presentation that’s respectful…

-Louie

King of Conjurers book

Over the last month or so I’ve been trying to get through the book King of Conjurers: Memoirs of Robert-Houdin. This is the biography of Robert-Houdin and for me this is a hard read. It’s probably that it was translated from French and it’s not the best translation is what’s making it a hard read.

It’s an interesting book and one that I feel I should read at some point as everyone loves to quote Robert-Houdin as saying, “…a magician is an actor playing the part of a magician…”

While reading the book, I found this advice (bottom paragraph) about working slowly:

I think he’s right in many instances, but not 100% of the time. Yes, working slowing has it’s place, and most magicians could benefit by working a little bit slower. Someone like Hans Klok whose style working fast works for him.

I’m heading out to a show in a bit and I’m going to try to slow it down a bit…

-Louie

More Take Out Boxes!!!

Woo hoo! The first batch of my Take Out Box has sold out at Hocus-Pocus and I’ve got a new batch of them on the way! Thanks to everyone who has ordered one!

If you don’t know what the Take Out Box is, here’s the video:

What I really like about this prop is that it’s like a classic production box that would have been put out by Abbott’s or Davenport’s, but it looks like something that actually exists in the current world…unlike those older boxes metal boxes, or the ones that have funky Chinese characters on them. However, if you’re into the Chinese characters, you could draw one on it and it would totally make sense on this prop!

-Louie

Audience Interaction Tricks…

Last night I went out to see the band The Interrupters and one thing I noticed was that they use a lot of things to tell the audience what they want them to do. This is something that in my show I try, but subtly. After watching this show, it made me realize that asking an audience to do something isn’t bad. It can be repetitive, but not necessarily bad.

Something like telling the audience how to respond when a trick happens is effective, because sometimes they don’t know how to respond. If you want people to clap along to a song, you need to tell them.

I need to reevaluate my show and look at places where I’m not getting the desired audience response and try to find spots where I can tell the audience what to do!

-Louie

New Book Day!

I’m always trying to expand my knowledge about magic and magic techniques. I just had four news books arrive!

These four books are on vary different things within magic! I think it’s important to be well rounded and know as much as you can about as much of magic as possible. It makes you better in an impromptu situation, and it makes you a better creator.

Knowledge is power and sometimes you can find a technique from a style that’s something you wouldn’t normally do, but can find a way to apply it to what you do!

-Louie

Feature Act Set List

The comedy bar gig I did the other night had a pretty simple set list. It was some stand up comedy, then four tricks and it ran 22 mins. The set list was

Tape Measure Prediction
Choices Routine
Whip Act
Hoop and Cup Balancing

This set list only uses one person from the audience onstage, and that’s for the whip act. This makes for a show that’s much punchier and doesn’t have the dead time of bringing people on and off stage.

The Tape Measure Prediction and the Choices Routine both use people from the audience, but they stay seated. If a persons only job onstage is to pick a card or something very basic like naming a number, I’ve been leaving them in their seats. This saves time if you only need someone to perform a basic task, and breakup up the constant flow of people coming and going from the stage.

Look at your show, are there routines where you don’t need the person physically onstage? Try using them from their seats!

-Louie

Paint it Black!

Over the past few months I’ve written about working on my Pitata Magic Time Hacker routine. One thing I noticed in a picture of it was that the gray hands on the white background don’t really pop visually onstage.

I took a black marker and colored in the hands on one of my clocks:

It really makes the hands easier to see and the clock play a few rows further back in the audience. The bigger issue that I think this trick is fighting visibility wise is glare off of the plastic clock face. I don’t think there’s really a reasonable solution, unless there’s an easily applied anti-reflective coating, but even then I don’t know how much that would actually help.

-Louie

Working Onstage

Years ago I heard Jerry Seinfeld in an interview talk about how comics say they should have fun on stage. Jerry’s thought was you shouldn’t have fun, you should be working your butt off onstage. What I think he was getting at was that there’s actual work at being a comedian. There’s a lot more than simply going up there and having fun.

I totally agree with him, you should always be working onstage, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun or play while you’re up there. Sure there are some acts where looking like having fun isn’t what they’re going for, but the majority of acts aren’t that.

One thing I try to is to look like I’m having fun, and it’s usually easy because I am having fun.

The audience can feel it when you’re having a good time!

Working your ass off on stage can be fun!
-Louie

Manufacturing Magic Tricks

One of the things with marketing magic trick is figuring out the most efficient ways to make them in bulk. Making a single prop is pretty straight forward, you go step by step. When making in bulk the challenge is how many steps per unit do you do before you move onto the next unit.

For something as simple as opening up these Chinese food take out boxes for my Take Out Box trick, I found that doing it in two steps was the fastest and easiest for me. This all goes back to sleight of hand, and the idea of economy of motions.

What’s the most efficient way to move a card to the top of the deck? Is it a pass where you’re moving half the deck or the side steal where you’re only moving one card? A lot of times the situation, your skill level and confidence with the move will dictate which is more efficient.

-Louie