stage magic – Page 40 – MagicShow.Tips

Ball Manipulation Routine

One of the routines I’m working on for my school assembly tour next month is a ball manipulation sequence. It’s going to use sponge tennis balls. I’m choosing these because them fit the theme I’m going for AND they play very big. For the routine I need to steal two balls, one at a time. I don’t want to do pocket steals, and they look bad on stage, the work better close up.

Years ago when I used to do a multiplying balls, my routine had a body steal and I used this holder:

billiard ball holder for multiplying balls magic trick

This one is great and it lays flat after you steal the ball. However stealing a sponge ball is a little different that stealing a ball that is solid. So to experiment, I bought several different styles of ball droppers to play with:

After trying them, I think the winner is the Sponge Ball Dropper!

This has a couple advantages over the other ball droppers, mainly that it’s designed to hold sponge, and not a solid ball. I like the release action being a squeeze and not a pulling motion. Also it completely hides the sponge ball when it’s in my coat, so if my coat opens, you don’t see a bunch of colorful balls pinned to the inside.

My worry about things that have moving parts is that if it breaks and needs repair while I’m on the road, it might not be easy to fix or get another one. I’ll probably travel with a couple of normal billiard ball droppers as back ups and hope I won’t need them.

-Louie

Prestige Mentalism Trick

One of the ways to add a bonus trick to a routine, is to introduce the prop you’re going to use for the routine as part of a prediction. In the school assembly show that I’m working on, I’m doing a routine with a tennis ball and will be using it as the reveal of a prediction, then going into the tennis ball routine.

The way I’m going to be doing this is using a trick called Prestige. This prop is visually similar to Tom Stone’s routine Of Dice and Men. It has 5 numbered options on cards and someone from the audience names one of the numbers and on the back of that is your force item.

I picked up the dry erase version of Prestige, I’m not sure this was the right version as I have a feeling I’m going to have to keep redrawing the pictures on the cards. I guess I could draw them in Sharpie and it won’t be an issue.

The trick comes with numbers that stick to the cards with magnets.

The magnet numbers are used for a bonus trick where all the numbers disappear except for the chosen number. I’m not doing that and having the numbers removable add bulk to the folded up packet and makes setting up a little bit harder.

I took some vinyl numbers and stuck them to the outside of the sleeves.

This has less stuff for me to break, or lose while I’m on the road and a good solution for the routine that I’ll be doing. We’ll see how this trick goes next month…

-Louie

Magic Show Set List

Every show that I do, I write out a set list. This helps me with packing, set up and general planning, like not having similar effects back to back in the show.

Here’s a recent set list for a 60 min corporate holiday show:

I also have notes as to who to thank during the show. By the end of the show, I’ll probably won’t remember the names of anyone helping me out without a note.

I’m always amazed when I work with people that don’t use set lists. But those are usually people who don’t really have a set show and just go up and “wing it” every time. Personally I know my show, but the are many different configurations of the show, I’m not always doing 60 mins for adults, the show length and audience make up changes.

-Louie

Close Up Dancing Hank

Last week in Seattle, he had an ice storm where the city got covered in a sheet of ice from freezing rain. That gave me a day off to play around, no shows or emails to return. I used this time to get to some ideas that have been in notebooks for awhile.

Here’s a close up dancing hank style magic trick that I had a while ago:

@louiefoxx Hot damn, the ol' dollar in the swear jar! #magictrick #illusion #dollarbill #iceday2022 ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I’m also posting stuff on TikTok, so give me a follow there at:
https://www.tiktok.com/@louiefoxx

The ending with the smoke in the jar was an idea I had for another trick that didn’t work out, but added something to this trick.

Is this trick better than a standard floating bill? I don’t know, it’s potentially more workable as there’s less issues with the IT being visible. It could work in a parlor type setting. It would take away my biggest issue with using IT and that’s dealing with lighting or having to cut the bit because you can’t make it work with the existing lighting.

I may play with this a bit more, as the jumping action for me works better with my performing persona that the bill floating.

-Louie
PS I’m aware that this is essentially a smaller version of Sean Bogunia’s Extreme Dancing Hank, but with a different, but similar gimmick and a slight variation in method.

Duane Duvall

A couple of weeks ago Duane Duvall passed. Duane was a huge part of the Portland, OR magic scene. I didn’t know Duane super well, but had plenty of conversations with him over the years. His magic business card collection was amazing!

Here’s bit of Duane:

Thanks Duane for all you’ve done for Northwest magicians!
-Louie

They Eyes Have it!

A few years ago I had a giant production fish in my show. Shortly after I got the fish, I was recording an episode of the Odd and Offbeat Podcast which I cohost with Matt Baker. We did a story about a fish market that put googly eyes on their fish to make them look fresher (you can listen to it here) and that gave me the idea to put googly eyes on the production fish. It made it look a thousand times better.

Right now I’m working on my show for a school assembly tour and I have a smaller production fish in the show. Here’s what the fish looks like when you order it from the magic shop:

And here’s what the fish looks like after adding the googly eyes:

The eye adds a lot to making the fish look real. It also adds a bit of dimension to the fish. Sometimes its small things that make a huge difference!

-Louie

Lasso Card Trick

One of the tricks that I’m planning on doing for the school assembly tour next month is the lasso card trick. Traditionally this trick is done with a force card and a duplicate card, however I’m doing it with a picture that someone from the audience will draw on a jumbo blank card.

I’m also adding a gag to it. The first time I put the rope into the bag, it’s going to bring out a fish! I have one of the small production fish, and I’m not using it’s collapsible properties for this trick, it’s just being used as a fish.

I made a rope that wraps around the fish and will connect to the magnet in the longer rope by the end of the rope. The length of rope that’s around the card has the magnet in the knot. I want to be able to untie the rope from the fish, to hopefully sell that it’s a legit knot for the card.

My seam where the two ropes meet isn’t the best, but when done from the stage it shouldn’t be seen.

The next challenge was to be able to magnet the fish and not the card. My solution was to have the fish upright in the corner of the bag. I simply made a little holder by using the handles of the paper bag and taping them in place.

magic production fish and lasso card trick

So far this seems to work. We’ll see if it lasts for 75 shows. The good thing is that these loops will be easy to replace!

-Louie

What’s Next for What’s Next

Sometimes during my morning writing I will explore ideas for tricks like What’s Next that uses the spot card. This is routine where the number of spots on each side keep changing, then there’s a sucker explanation followed by a series of surprises. The prop in that trick resembles a domino and Norm Nielsen made a version of it that has the correct color combination for a domino. Someone else had made a version of one that’s a cookie with the chocolate chips being the spots.

What’s next is a trick that is perfect for trying to theme, you just need to figure out what the spots are. They could be zits on a teenagers face, or my favorite idea I came up with, bullet holes on a road sign. If you’ve driven in the rural USA, seeing a road sign that’s been shot up is common.

It’d should be simple to make this. Just use bullet hole stickers for the spots on the what’s next card, and cover the white board with art that’s a street sign. I’m going to imagine that the gimmick’s black art to hide the magnets would still work with the bullet holes.

If you wanted to do some work, you could do a kicker ending by building a flap card gaff to one side of it to reveal something.

Honestly I’ll probably never use this, so feel free to make one up. Creating things you know aren’t for you is still a good creative excercise!

-Louie

The Third Row and Beyond

When I was at a booking conference last month, one of the acts that I saw was a magician. He did a sponge ball routine where most of the action happened on the table top.

What do you notice in the picture?

What I see is an audience that can’t see what’s happening. The back two rows are all leaning trying to see through gaps between the heads of people in the front two rows.

In theory, sponge balls can be done “high”, but in practice it’s a “low” effect. What I mean by that, is you can ask the person to hold the sponge balls at shoulder height, but in reality, that’s not a very natural position. They’re going to hold them at belly or waist height. That takes a lot of the visibility out of the trick.

How can you sponge balls play higher?

I have no idea, I don’t do the trick and when I used to, it was close up, not onstage. The challenge is when they open their hand and the balls are there, they will fall, and that makes if very difficult to the audience to know how many balls are there before they fall.

Another possible solution is to not do close up tricks onstage. I’ve been guilty of that, doing close up tricks that translate to a small parlor audience. The success the close up trick gives you for 20-30 people makes you think it will work for 75 or more, and it really doesn’t.

Watch other performers from the back of the audience and make note of what’s visible and what isn’t. It’ll really help you look at your own show and know what plays beyond the second row!

-Louie

School Assembly Show…

In less than a month I’ll be debuting a new school/library show. I’ll be on a school assembly tour for five weeks. The show is called “Incredible Idioms” and is themed on idioms.

The great thing about breaking in shows by doing three a day for over a month is that the show gets really good, really quick…Or you realize by the end of the 5 weeks you don’t like the show and never do it again.

The key to these is actually putting in the work. I’ll be doing a lot of reviewing video and writing every night and the first week or two the show will be rough, but then it’ll be super tight for the rest of the tour. Oh, by rough, I mean just good, and not great. I’ve done school shows for a long time, and have a good general sense of what kids like (but the do surprise me sometimes).

Right now I have a ton of half built props and half written routines. It feels like the show won’t be ready in less than a month, but once one routine gets completed, they’ll all domino into being built.

-Louie