The small show that I’ve mentioned previously is coming together nicely! We’ve put together a few of the illusions and I’ll be in the wood shop within the next 30 minutes to start building my original “Ladder box” illusion. I suspect that this one will take two nights to build but we’ll see how tonight goes. If we can’t build it in time, we’ll have to put it aside and use it for another day. I don’t want to put an unpolished piece in the show.
Ladder box is a pretty cool illusion. It’s based off an old existing illusion but I’ve created by own unique method for hiding the load space. I’ll be sure to post pictures once building has completed.
I’m having a lot of fun working with an entirely new and untrained crew. Sometimes it’s nice to have people coming in fresh with no perceived knowledge of magic and no limitations to go by. The crew completely trusts me and is willing to run with things.
Just over a month to go. We’re down to the crunch! Ok, off to the workshop I go!
As mentioned in my previous post below, here is the video for the Sound Waves Levitation. This is rough and performed by the builder, Jack Murray, in his shop. It will however give you a sense of the power of this illusion for outdoor and small venue performers.
Note: It CAN go faster. This is slow because our trusty builder needed to get building his next project, not practice all day
While I had seen pictures and short clips throughout the building process, I just saw the full presentation video of one of my newest illusions. All I have to say is WOW! Sound Waves turned out almost exactly as Jack Murray and I had planned! The full video for the effect will be available soon once I have had a chance to throw some flashy titles and such on it. I hope to have that up by the end of the weekend. In the meantime, here is the description from www.dream-illusions.com
Sound Waves: A Levitation
From the mind of Chris Stolz and the workshop of Jack Murray comes Sound Waves, a brand new levitation illusion with a reliability, portability and compact construction like no other….
The Oakville Players are pleased to announce that they have teamed up with world class illusionist Chris Stolz to stage a brand new magic and illusion show opening in August of this year on the Sheridan College Main Stage. The show is called “Twisting Reality” and is shaping up to be a real spectacle with several full scale illusions and a local cast of assistants and dancers.
Chris Stolz, is known all over the globe as one of the few illusion designers and magic consultants working in the world today. This gives him an interesting advantage when it comes to creating a show of his own. As a go-to inventor and designer for magicians, he has the opportunity to create his own original tricks and illusions for Twisting Reality. “Because I am creating most of the show from scratch, most of what our audience will see will have never been performed by anyone, anywhere. This is incredibly exciting! It means that we’ll be developing everything from the ground up and debuting it right here in Oakville.”
Alongside the large illusions, Stolz will also be showcasing his sleight of hand skills on video screen. Before moving to Oakville in 2004, he lived in Parksville, BC just around the corner from one of the greatest card magic legends in the magic world: “The Charming Cheat” himself, the late Martin A. Nash. “Working with Martin was incredible. He pushed my work further than it had ever been pushed before. I wouldn’t be able to do half of what I can do today if it weren’t for Marty.”
Twisting Reality runs for 5 shows on the Sheridan College main stage from August 11-14 with shows at 8pm and a matinee on August 14th at 2pm. Tickets will be available at www.oakvillemagic.com
About The Oakville Players: The Oakville Players is a community theatre group based in the Oakville Ontario area. The group produces two main stage productions at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts as a part of the Oakville Drama Series. They are a volunteer organization of people with an interest in theatre, both onstage and off. The Oakville Players is a registered charity and non-profit organization.
About Chris Stolz: Originally from Vancouver Island, Chris moved to the GTA in 2004. Chris is an actor, magician and professional illusion designer and consultant. He has created illusions for magicians and theatre productions in theatres, cruise ships and casinos all over the world. He is a published author on the subject of expert card magic and gambling technique (”Nash Reloaded”, 2005), and studied with one of the top card magic experts in history, “The Charming Cheat”, Martin A Nash. Chris is quickly becoming one of the most well known experts in magic and illusion in North America.
I thought I would share a recent stage effect I put together for a new client, The Oakville Players. For their production of An Inspector Calls, the director wanted to have the girl, who is apparently dead, lingering around the set in a robe. At the end of the show, she was to vanish. This simple solution was what I came up with.
The cloak was made for less than $50 and the workings were simple and reliable. It worked great every single night.
To Built It:
To begin, the costume team made two identical cloaks. One cloak was of course for the girl and the other for the effect. To began by taking copper wire and fitted it inside a baseball cap (with the brim cut off), to ensure that it would hold it’s shape under the weight of the fabric. This was the head.
Next, I took a piece of dowel, cut to the exact length of the width of the actresses shoulders and drilled a hole in each end. This hung by two 15lb test black fishing lines. The strings were cut so that the dowel hung at her exact shoulder level.
Next, I took black gaffers tape and taped big chunks of cotton to the ends of the dowel and in the center to make her a little more 3 dimensional.
Finally, I attached a black line to the top of her head. This was run up to a fly bar, through a carabiner, across to another cababiner backstage and down to the floor where it was clipped to a stage weight.
The Operate It:
During the show, the dummy was held off stage. To work the effect, the end of the line was detached from the weight on the floor by stagehand A. Stagehand B held the dummy. At the right moment, the dummy was released and allowed to swing onto the stage during a moment of darkness (and ample distraction on the other side of the stage). Stagehand A controlled the height by pulling on the line, making sure there was enough drag to stop her from swinging too far.
All that was left was to bring up the special on the dummy and at the gesture of another character let the line go, causing the cloak to crumple to the floor. The cloak was later removed by a stagehand in the blackout. We could have flown it straight up to the fly bar, but there was a scene change anyhow and this allowed them to set it for the next show immediately.
Just for fun, I thought I would post an idea that I had some time ago for Jack Murray’s Kunundrum Kube illusion. The workings and dimensions of the illusion are pretty much identical, with the exception of the added bits. Be sure to click each image to see a larger view as we go along.
The Original Konundrum Kube
The idea, was to put the box up onto a table and add two more boxes, rather shells of boxes, giving you a longer box to start the effect. The assistant would enter the box and the two sides would be pushed in, overlapping the center box and squishing her down. The tube would be put through the front as usual and a much longer pole would be used to spike the box.
Konundrum Variation - Stage 1
Konundrum Variation - Stage 2
What I like about this idea, is that it breaks the effect down into multiple pieces or applause points. While the original is fantastic (and very deceptive), I think that the squish down adds an extra very strong element to it.
I will be the first to admit that while I am pretty well organized (stage management and lighting design make it hard NOT to be), I needed help in managing my client projects. The number of emails and files flying around from all directions was getting a little crazy. In looking at my upcoming year and the increasing amount of business that I have been taking on, it occured to me that I had better start looking for a new way to manage my projects that will benefit me and my clients and keep things on track.
Last night I started testing a project management system and so far, I love it. It will allow me to assign a username and password to a client with which they can log in and see only the projects or tasks that I have given their user the permission to see. They can view the project status, view and upload files back and forth with me, and make comments. This will hopefully not only be great for clients, but phenominal for me as it keeps everything organized and in one place.
I will be finishing testing the system myself over the next week. Once I have mastered the ins and outs, I will be adding a couple current clients into the mix to start using it for real. Once my clients have given feedback, I’ll roll it out for all clients moving forward.
I can’t wait to see the difference it makes, nor can my email inbox…
While you know of course that I work very heavily in the magic and theatrical industries, you may not know that I also work in marketing. Internet Marketing to be specific. I thought I would pass along a quick and very iportant website tip.
The Sales Funnel
While browsing over the websites of potential clients, I am always stuck by how few web designers out there understand the true purpose of a website. Websites are not meant to act as an informational center or digital business card. Websites are meant to be a lead or sales generation tool. If your websites is full of pages, videos and photos with a tiny little “contact us” button up in a corner someplace, you are missing a key element. The Sales Funnel.
The problem that I see in most cases is that websites expect your user to be intrigued enough by your content to find and click the little contact button and reach out to you. Instead, you should be holding their hand and saying, “HEY! Contact me NOW!”. What a sales funnel is, is essentially either a large header, banner or quick contact form focused on getting that lead immediately. Adding a proper sales funnel to a website in this manner can increase your conversion rates (the rate at which the site converts visitors into leads or sales) by 5 to 10 TIMES! NetFlix does a great job of this with their free trial signup option located right on the homepage and then on the side of every other page on the site to follow. They haven’t done anything to take away from the company focus (DVD’s), they have merely made it as easy as possible for you to jump right into the sales process.
Testing
Currently, I am running a test on my website with a featured graphic on the homepage. This banner is programmed to display one of two different images, each with different text. Half of my visitor’s see version 1 while the other half are shown version 2 and the clicks through to the goal page (my contact page) are measured. This way, I can find out which message does a better job of reaching that end goal. Once there is a clear winner, I will be putting the winner up against a new homepage design which will feature a large eye-catching graphic and a form (like the one seen on the NetFlix website) and will compare the two. This A/B testing method, using Google’s Website optimizer tool, is a very simple yet powerful way of increasing my conversion rates one element at a time.
Here are a few other websites with good sales funnels at work:
I hope you have found this to be helpful! While most of what I will write here will of course be focused on Illusions, I may post the odd bit of information like this as well. If you are looking to have your website built or re-built, please Contact Me and we’ll chat.
