Hello Everyone,

I have been performing magic for the public since I was a child and I have always done the square circle. Now at 21 I still feel that the square circle is a wonderful effect but I would like to make the prop look less "propish". Does anyone have any ideas or have seen untraditional square circles?

Eric Redman

Mark Wilson has a neat design in "Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic." It's still "propish" but it looks appropriate. The outer box has stars on it and hinges open and the inner tube looks like a magician's top hat. It's called the "Alakazam Hat."

I've always thought it had a cool look.

Michael

Thanks Michael,

I have Mark's complete course already but it has been years since I looked at it. I will have to revisit. Thank you

Hi, Eric, and welcome to the Café.

Your question has been addressed before, and it's a good one. The short answer is that a SC is just a box with a tube inside. That's all it is. Now, looking at your onstage character (who you want your audience to think you are), you need to think in terms of what this guy would use.

If we go by your photo, which is all I have to go by, I'd say this guy would use something clean and contemporary. Look through some current upscale magazines and look at the product ads. Then look thru a retail catalog from a company that specializes in "modern" products, such as IKEA, Sharper Image, Brookstone, Neiman Marcus, and lots of others. Find something that could become a box with a tube inside and use it as a take-off point to create your own SC.

For the long answer, you may want to check out my column here in the Café, in the Buffet section. I've written several pieces on prop design and how to make your stuff fit together visually.

Good luck!

I built a square circle and along with it I made plans with pictures. If you are interested drop me a line!

As for looking propish, I usually explain to the kids throughout my show that there is magic in the air all around us. At the end of the show when I use the square circle I introduce it as a magic air conditioning machine. I explain that the air gets sucked through the vent (wire mesh at the front of the box) and down through the tube, where it traps the magic air and produces things. As I am giving this bogus explanation I am showing both the box and the tube empty!

Mike

I have just put together a fast paced production routine that was originally inspired by a piece of music I heard... The music is a techno song with lots of sci-fi quotes and sirens... I felt it reminded me of a nulear plant or even a sci-fi lab. I made a square circle that fits this idea quite well! The square is done in black and yellow (the whole unit is bright canary-yellow with a black frame around it). The front design is basically a frame with a caution-tape pattern and a removable piece of plexi-glass with a bio-hazard symbol on it (a large sticker). For the circle, I had a metal shop make a miniature 55 gallon drum barrel (More like a 5 gallon drum now)... I painted it blue to look like the real hazardous waste barrels... I even put some HAZMAT placards on it and stencil-painted the word "DANGER" across the side... The whole illusion sits on a matching base that is on wheels (looks like a Malloy's Pro-rolling table base) and has a diamond-plate steel top on it... As far as production items, I produce two 6ft. chrome poles- each with a blue beacon-light on top (those are mounted to two separate portable bases I've made and painted flat-black), silk streamers are produced, three glowing balls - to juggle, a foulard with the bio-hazard symbol on it, and a luminescent green-Zombee Ball (to be finished soon!), and for the finale, a red beacon light to fill the whole inner circle- is produced by lifting both the square and circles...

I will get pictures soon if anyone would like to see this...

Bryan

Thank you all for you help.

George I am interested in the Buffet section you were talking about. I look foward to reading your material.

Around 1980 I made a SC that the square was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. My circle was in the shape of a typical cooling tower of a nuke plant. I produced many "drums" of nuke waste, green day=glo blotched hanks, irridescent glitter spewed out and then a rat was produced telling of the near meltdown due to rats chewing the wiring at a nuke.

Your juggling the green balls and bio hazzard stickers with flashing red light sounds great.

Dr. Solar

I am in the process of making a SC right now and have a few ideas as to what I want it to look like. I am leaning towards a Chinese motif, so my prop will look like a prop for sure. I have asked a few people here at the Café' and they have been a very big help. I really like the SC because, to me, it looks like a magic prop and not something that you just had lying around.

If you're going for a Chinese motif and you're okay with it looking like a magic prop, a fun thing to do might be to design it as an "antique" SC from the early 1900's, when a lot of guys were doing a "Chinese" act. You can find books on antiquing and distressing at craft supply shops and home improvement centers.

Bryan;
I love the idea of a HAZMAT Square Circle. I am responsible for much of the safety training at work and your idea would be perfect for our HAZMAT and HAZWOPER training. May I please "borrow" your idea? I have made several SCs in the past and have a picture in my mind of your design. If you have any photos, however I would appreciate seeing them.

Thank you. .....Doug

Contrary to the popular trends, I find this to be a most refreshing thought!!! This kind of attitude is what will really put the fun back into magic for generations of new audiences.

Just a gut feeling, but I think StevenMT seems to have a pulse on the essence of what is good about propish props.

Used without this regard, an odd prop is often a horrible choice... in a world of magic by and for straight-line thinkers. Granted, there IS something to be said for squeezing the abnormal out of the normal. But sometimes that contrast is the only redeeming quality in the effect. In the quest for a firm attachment to normalcy, many tricks are developed by those who have long forgotten some wonderful pleasures from being otherwise, if they ever knew it at all.

Propish props used intelligently can stir interest and anticipation. Selected carefully, the effects produced with them defy logic... not a bad element in a magic trick. The creation of fantasy and wonder are respectable goals. Too often, I hear negative comments directed toward props, when it is most likely the manner in which they are used that should take the full blame.

~michael

Michael,

I'm with you on that one. Pilot error is what's wrong with too many props. That plus "one size fits all" can kill the entertainment value of anything.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

Michael-

Hear, hear!

As long as a prop's presence can be dramatically justified, it's supposed function becomes secondary... particularly in a world of fantasy and illusion. I've yet to hear the performer who begins a routine with, "I have here an ordinary Zig-Zag cabinet..."

I for one really love performing the Pom-pom pole, simply because of its inherent uselessness!

I think where the arguement against "proppy props" has merit is where it is finished to look like a stenciler's afterthought. Tacky props can bring down a performance, but certainly no faster than poor showmanship!

I agree with you too that the creation of fantasy and wonder are respectable goals, but I would actually take it a step further to say that they are essential goals in today's world!

Agreed that poor craftsmanship and finishing can ruin a prop, but that is pretty much true with anything that has to be built. Aesthetics are, on the other hand, a matter of artistic interpretation. I find it hard to justify an argument against somebody else's taste in things that please them.

More to the intent of my original point is that magic does not have to be born from the normalcy of the world. The effect should be inconsistent with applied rules and expected behavior, but that is in spite of the prop.

Take the most outlandish prop you can dream up, and use it to create an effect. If the prop's design gives the effect a method that defies detection, and gives true conviction to the magic, then why should that be any different than a similar effect emanating from something that people see everyday? NOW it's up to the pilot to bring it home (to bounce off Bob Sanders' comment!). Sometimes the audience won't care if the magical secret can be attributed to the prop, and I contend that properly managed, the audience may come to not suspect the prop, regardless of it's degree of nearness to normalcy.

Dr.Seuss created much magical whimsy with things that were anything but commonplace. His works were popular for a reason.

So, what are magicians trying to do?... create illusion, fantasy, wonder, and MAGIC? If so, I hardly understand the rejection of things abnormal. I see the magical experience as completely contextual... and because of this, I see no rules (or trendy guidelines) that cannot be broken.

~michael

So if we are going with proppy Chinese props, take a standard square circle and rework it to be a distressed antique as suggested above. Then take the outer cylinder and make it into a length of bamboo, maybe even sculpting the surface with epoxy putty or resin. Then make it look old. Then you have a length of magical bamboo kept in a kind of relic cabinet.

That sounds like fun!

I have performed with another magician who has a Dean's box. It's just a beautiful piece of woodwork. He doesn't explain what it is. I really like it and so does the audience. I never heard anyone complain that it's not an ordinary wooden box with circular holes cut in the sides.

Yours,

Paul

Ok now I feel the pressure..Hehehe..There is something about a "Prop" that looks magical. I used to do a Temple of Benares back in the 70s and it for sure looked like a prop. Now if I was going to do a sub trunk I would want it to look like something I use to store stuff in. But when it comes to some of the smaller stuff, SC, and other production boxes I want mine to look like the old stuff brought back to life. I was brought along in my magical career by an older man that has unfortunatly passed away, and he instilled in me an old-school(for lack of a better term) design for my act. HE was helping me to develop a Chinese act with full costumes and oriental looking props. I am trying to rebuild that act in part to pay homage to him but also it was fun doing what little of the act that I was able to put together back in the old days. Wow did that just make me sound old??

Just my 2 cents

Steven

Thank you, Michael! Right on the button!

Paul, I've come to expect no less than fun from you! Would love to see your show sometime!

Steven, I envy you!! I wish I could have met your mentor.

George, Thank you! Your words have inspired me more than once.

~michael

Frank,

I like "the creation of fantasy and wonder are respectable goals, but I would actually take it a step further to say that they are essential goals in today's world!" Lucy is redecorating our Alabama house. With those goals, you'll simply have to see it. We even have live unicorns in the yard.

Bob and Lucy Sanders
Magic By Sander