This May Save You at a Show

I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched the video on my phone.

I was worried I wouldn’t find it, which would have screwed me on the effect.

Rewinding the video, I watched it again, prop in hand.

Satisfied, I went through the moves a few times without the video.

I had the moves ‘down’ again in a matter of moments.

The effect in question was RD Insta, by Henry Harrius.

If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a wonderful easy full Rubik’s Cube instant solve. And if you feel like putting in a little extra effort, you can pass the cube out for examination after.

I don’t that. As a stage guy, I rarely need or want to let anyone examine props.

But the effect is amazing. It only relies on a few simple moves on the cube.

Trouble is, until this show, I hadn’t done the effect in a couple of months.

In magic, many effects rely on the execution of certain moves in a specific order. Obviously, it’s up to us to remember those moves.

In an ideal world, before every show, we would rehearse each effect until we drilled it into our heads.

When I’m really busy, however, that goes out the window. And as a school guy with nearly a dozen themed shows, I have a LOT of different effects to keep ‘top of mind.’

For some of these, I’ve started recording quick little videos or taking pictures of certain things to help me on the road.

In the case of RD Insta, all I did was hold my phone up to my computer screen as Henry’s instructional video played.

I simply recorded a few seconds of him going through the simple sequence of moves on the cube to accomplish his effect.

Boom. Now it’s with me wherever I go.

That’s not the only time I’ve used this little phone technique.

In a few of my shows, I use Axtell Magic’s wonderful Drawing Board.

In case you’re not familiar with it, the effect is incredible.

You draw a face on the board. Then, it comes to life.

The eyes move. The mouth moves. And, if you’re good at vent, you can have a conversation with the character you just created.

For my reading show, I wanted to draw Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in The Hat and have it come to life.

I’m no artist, but after some experimenting, I was able to draw a fair Cat in the Hat on my board.

At least, good enough that the kids recognize who I am attempting to draw.

For Christmas, I’ll use the board to create The Grinch. For Halloween, I’ll create Frankenstein’s Monster.

In each of these cases, I gotta remember how to draw a character. And draw them at a weird angle as I hold the board.

By their very nature, I only perform the Halloween and Christmas shows during certain times of the year.

The problem? You guessed it. Without a refresher, my drawings turn out to be lumpy misshapen atrocities rather than heartwarming classic characters.

So years ago, I drew my best rendition of each character. Then I snapped a picture of each with my phone.

Again, in an ideal world, I’d rehearse this kind of stuff to keep everything fresh and crisp in my mind. Not to mention that whole muscle memory thing.

I don’t know about you, but unless I’m breaking in a brand-new effect, I don’t start thinking about Halloween shows til around September.

Christmas? I don’t think about my holiday stuff til the end of November.

So these drawings need a bit of a jumpstart in my brain.

When the season arrives for one of these shows, I grab my phone and look at the drawing.

A few attempts usually get me back into the frame of mind to draw the appropriate character for the show.

This is sooooooo much better than trying to retrain myself from scratch on how to draw a famous cartoon character.

I can hear the naysayers out there.

“Boo!” they say. “You should be more of a professional and have your moves down!”

Most of the time I do. And when I do this particular show, I always run through RD Insta a few times just to tighten up the sequence in my head.

I even did it while packing for the show in question.

But hey, even the best of us have a brain cramp now and then, right?

So record quick little videos of key moves on your phone. Take pictures of things you may need to remember.

It might just save your butt at a show.

Have a great week!

--Cris

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