touch the screen magic – MagicShow.Tips

St. Patrick’s Day Magic Trick

Here’s a rough idea I had for a St. Patrick’s Day themed magic trick that’s a “touch the screen” style trick. You’ll need a four leaf clover with the leaves numbered 1 to 4.

The rules are people will jump on leave for each number, the can only go clockwise or counter clockwise, back and forth NOT diagonally. They also cannot pass the stem.

The touch any leaf, then count the number they’re touching, jumping one leaf per number.

They’re not on the 1, so remove that one.

Now they spell IRISH jumping one leaf for each letter.

You can now eliminate the 2 and 4 and reveal they are on the number 3!

NOTE: It might be good add a phase after they spell IRISH, where you eliminate the 4. Then have them spell LUCK, then eliminate the 2 and reveal they are on the 4. That might make it seem more random?

That math seems to checkout, and feel free to use this for whatever…

-Louie

Halloween Trick!

I’ve always said that creating tricks based on holidays is one of the easiest ways to generate content. Here’s an interactive Halloween magic trick you can do at home, just print out the pdf below and follow the instructions

Halloween Magic Trick Download

Enjoy!
-Louie

Projector Bills…

I was scrolling through Instagram last night and came upon a picture of overhead projector bills.

I was thinking of what could be done with these. I think you could create a makeshift projector using the flashlight on your phone. If you combined that with a glass table I think you could do some fun stuff on the ceiling.

One thought was you could do a “touch the screen” type effect with the bills on the ceiling for a group of people.

If you have a $1, $5, $10, $20 and $50 dollar bills and line them up in numerical order, you can do some spell count procedures to eventually force a bill. The basic routine would be:

Touch a bill and spell the value of it (ie ONE), jumping one bill per letter and keep touching that bill
Remove the end bills ($1 and $50)
Spell the value of one of the eliminated bills (ONE or FIFTY)
They are now on the $10

You could then reveal the prediction of having a ten dollar bill in your phone case.

-Louie

Cinco De Mayo Trick…

Yesterday I posted about a way to force a fork that used spelling to work the force. Today being Cinco De Mayo, here’s a spelling force that uses that.

Honestly, I’ll probably never do this, so feel free to do what you want with it.
-Louie

Bigfoot…

Yesterday I finished making a video for the version of Interactive that I want to do. Interactive is a “touch the screen” type of effect, that doesn’t use counting. You can read my previous blog post about it here.

The version I’m working on uses bigfoot images over the background of the Pacific Northwest. In the end the audience will end up on the same bigfoot image and all of the other ones will fade away.

With touch the screen type tricks, something that I’ve learned in virtual shows, you need something physical to end the trick. Something that adds another layer more that you just pushing play on a graphic, or reading some instructions. For me, the physical thing I’m using is a cast of a bigfoot foot print. On the back of it will be the location of where it was taken, which will match the location of the bigfoot that everyone ended up on.

The reveal of the location at the end is a bonus effect. You aren’t doing anything extra to get the final reveal. If anyone thought about it, and you knew everyone was going to end up on the same bigfoot image, then of course you would have known what that location would be. However, in the moment people don’t think like that.

Is this the bonus effect the strongest effect?

Probably not, but in the moment it does strengthen the touch the screen effect.

-Louie

Interactive…

The other day I picked up Interactive by Danny Orleans and Mike O’Donnell as it’s on Sale for 25% off right now. Interactive is a “touch the screen” type trick, however it gets it right. There’s no counting or spelling, which ups the odds of you getting everyone to end up on the right place at the end of the trick.

I got the pro version as it comes with the some tutorials and templates to make you own custom versions. I think the pro version is the way to go, it saved me a ton of time making a custom version. Sure, I could have figured out how to make my own custom version from the basic version, but in time saved, it saved me money.

I’m doing a few library shows in 2022 that are cryptid themed, so I made a custom version of the trick using bigfoot. I’m hoping with the talk up, the trick and the extro that I can get about 3 minutes out of it. I see this as something that I can fairly easily customize for themed virtual events and live ones if they have projection. If you know me, you know I dislike doing tricks that are themed to events…however this is relatively painless and I’m not compromising (much) what I’m willing to do.

-Louie

Another Alexa Trick…

Awhile ago on this blog I mentioned I was working on a trick that used an Amazon Alexa / Echo device. The goal of the trick was essentially a self working trick that someone could do without me, just following some instructions and having an Alexa in their room.

Here’s the final trick:

When I was putting this together, it I was pretty lucky. I put the hats above on note cards. I needed to force the party hat and the four hats I randomly wrote down and the order that I randomly laid them out worked for the math! I still needed to figure out the second count (hat), and once I realized I just needed an odd number, it was a piece of cake!

Have fun with this trick!

Interactive Coin Magic

Yesterday’s post I wrote about someone looking for interactive coin magic. Seeing their post, I created an original trick that would fit their requirements. It’s a coin trick, it’s interactive, in that everyone could follow along from home and it has a magical payout. It’s a “touch the screen” type effect, but the magic ending takes it beyond a math puzzle.

here’s how the effect plays, you have three pieces of paper, one has coins written on it, one credit and the final bills:

Someone touches one of the pieces of paper. They spell the word on it, jumping one space per letter.

You tell the you know they aren’t on the word “Bills” so you eliminate that one and throw that piece of paper away.

Now they spell money (starting on the word they ended on), jumping one space per letter.

You tell them you know they aren’t on the Credit, that means they picked the Coins! You then pick up the paper with coins written on it, light it on fire and produce coins!

In my head this coin production would look like this Tommy Wonder picture:

There you go and original, interactive magic trick that had a magical payoff!

While I personally don’t like the the “touch the screen” type effects, I do think that knowing them and understanding how they work make you a more well rounded magician. It’s just another tool in your toolbox that will help you solve a problem.