I had an idea for an effect where I pluck lights out of the air, show them to the audience, and stick them into a jar. The story behind it is collecting "fairies", or "Magic motes", or whatever will resonate with the audience. I accomplish the first part using the Rocco D'Lite, and it works just fine. I need some technical help getting the lights from my hand into the jar. The idea is that it's a walk-around act, and I'd like to be able to do it from multiple angles, hence the jar. Ideally the lights in the jar would have some kind of motion. The end result would look like one of the firefly jars you can buy for your patio, but I need to be able to add and subtract lights on the fly...

Any thoughts?

The Bag o Lights trick does that, but the bag is translucient because of all the parts. You would need a modification to use the parts.

When I was a kid, we used to catch lightning bugs and put them in a jar. I concluded that lightning bugs smelled like pickles.

Sounds like Terry Evanswood "Firefly Fantasy"

That's funny. My uncle was a pickle manufacturer and said the jars would work well, to collect bugs.

I thought the same thing.

- Donald

Thinking using a translucent jar will give you the most options and wouldn't necessarily detract too much

Thanks for the info so far, everyone. I did a Google search for Terry Evanswood's "Firefly Fantasy", and couldn't come up with anything. I had the idea myself a few months ago when I was playing around with my D'Lites routine. Eating and snorting and sneezing the lights round and round doesn't really fit the persona I'm working on, and I thought "catching" spirits out of the air and putting them in a jar was much more fitting.

Special thanks to you, Jay -- it looks like that effect will be the perfect starting point; I'm sure I can modify the "bag" on my own.

Anyway, I also saw a Jeff McBride performance where he did something similar with a lighted wand, plucking the lights out and placing them on the end of a fan. It was very impressive, and very well done. McBride is one of my favorites; I saw this particular perofrmance on YouTube.

Oh! and thank you too, Raven: I was thinking about a frosted glass jar for the same reasons. Glad to see I'm on the right track!

I think that Terry Evanswood performs 2 versions.

One for his year-round show, that uses jars, lites, several assistants, etc. with a nice finale of hundreds of lites above the audience. They catch the fireflies and put them into a jar, and you can see them fall / move within the jar.

When I saw him perform in the summer of 2013 (his show at Wonderworks in Pigeon Forge, TN), he was using the Owl City song, "Fireflies" as background music to the piece. It fit really nicely!! This is a signature piece that he is well known for... there's a photo of it on his show poster, etc. I don't know how long it's been a part of his show (maybe several years).

Today, I also learned that he does it in his Christmas show, and I saw a video clip on his website. In that clip, they were dressed in different costumes and had boxes with a clear front (looked like an adapted Bag-O-Lite prop) instead of jars. I'm not sure if they used the same piece of music for that show.

I also saw a photo today from Brad Ross' summer show in Branson, MO. It looked like he also performed a d'lite / firefly type of routine, using jars to catch the bugs / lites. I think that Jinger was his consultant for his illusion show. I'm not sure about the specific routine or music that Brad uses, as I didn't see his show.

- Donald

Whoa imagine making a link between a Dlite and fireflies. I sure about 18 754 magicians thought of this, all at the same moment. Furthermore I don't know of one 6 year old who didn't put fireflies into a glass jar. Not much of a stretch there. I think a more original idea would be to us a Dlite and pluck the light off of an elevator panel...oh wait.....

John

Terry's Firefly a fantasy is a great act! It is so cool to watch, and he uses the Fireflies song from Owl City. Great combo.

Is there a clip of Terry Evanswood "Firefly Fantasy, iam just adding some of Jay scott berrys light ideas to my show.

Melinda Saxe did "Fireflies" in the early 90's with her script written by Gary Ouellette and I believe Don Wayne worked out the method and logistics. It was quite a production with heavy use of Black Art. I saw it in the early phases and when polished. It was very moving . I don't remember how the jar worked but it was pretty simple.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and advice. I'd love to see Terry's show, but the plugin is making me login to Vimeo and I don't have an account at the moment. I'll have to check it out soon, though -- it sounds like a truly magical experience.

Just an update for those curious: I got the Bag-O-Lites at my local shop, and the re-arranging of the electronics is VERY straight-forward, and requires no electrical experience -- just a literal re-arranging of components (and a soft touch). The jar is coming along nicely: I ended up going with more of an occult-theme, and will be papering the inside of the jar with little strips of parchment that have spooky symbols written all over them. The overall effect will be the same as with the frosted glass, though -- just a diffusion of the lights, and a way to hide the components. I just downloaded the font I'll be using, and glued the re-arranged components into place a few hours ago using rubber cement for flexibility & durability.

I'm using an 800ml Wide-mouth "Ball" (Mason) jar, with the two-part, screw-top lid. I placed another piece of parchment with a larger sigil across the top; it looks very prominent and official, and should do well to further hide the components. Some red sealing-wax, a length of gnarly-looking twine around the mouth, and some beads should really create the effect I'm looking for. I know it's not likely to be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm sure my fellow Cellar-Dwellers will get a kick out of it.

I'll be sure to post some pictures of it once it's all finished!

These are up for perchase:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rII10nJfzYc
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ4AxPB7GQ8

Nothing a little technical hacking can't solve.... Anyways just a thought.

Jay Scott Berry used to, and still may, have a product that would work for you. And you wouldn't need the D'lite. It uses a little LED flashlight and you collect them in a bowl as you produce them. I guess you could use a jar instead of the bowl. They come in multiple colors too.

Cracker Barrel sells the Firefly in a mason jar.

Rats. Now that I see those firefly jars in action, I think that's quite a bit more like the effect I'm going for. Granted I can't get individual lights going one by one, but the movement in the jar is what sells it for me.

So, while I'm a little perturbed that this project has suddenly doubled in price, I'm glad I've found a solution that works. I plan on finishing the jar anyway, and I'll still post some pics here when it's all done, which it should have been ages ago, but life happens to the best of us.

Thanks for those links Isaiah.

Anyone got the Bug O lites in red from Randi.