Paper Bag Trick

You don't have to just use tissues in the trick. You can use this bag to change many objects into something else. For example, you could put two loose shoelaces in the bag and they come out tied together. You could put torn pieces of a card in and bring out a restored card. This is a utility transformation device. Professionals use this regularly in their acts. Check out Jeff Hobson and Oscar Munoz for their takes on it.

Everything you need to know about the construction of the bag is on the video. What you don't find there is a very useful tip that many, many magicians don't know, which is a shame because it can be used in probably - I'm guessing here - about half of the routines you will probably do in your lifetime of magic.

It involves showing a bag empty. How many times have you seen a magician with a change bag, or a coin purse, or a drawer box - or any one of the many boxes and bags that we magicians use to do our tricks - and the magician says, 'Look, the bag is empty.' He then displays the open bag or box to the audience to prove that it is in fact empty. Well of course all that does is make the audience suspicious of the bag. Why would you need to prove to someone that it is empty?

Here's The Big Tip!

If you want to prove something is empty, empty it first. By that I mean, have your bag or box full of things that you can take out, one by one. The obvious things to put in the box are the other props you need for your trick. In this video, it is the dirty tissues. I could have started the paper bag trick with the tissues on the table, but by having them in the bag, with 'washing' written on the bag, I was able to take them out and just drop the bag mouth open towards the audience. This action was enough to subconciously say to the audience, 'the bag was full and now it's empty.'

So if you are doing a kids routine with a change bag, stuff it full of props or toys and just say 'who's been filling up this bag when I wasn't looking', at the same time emptying the contents.

If you have a gaffed card in a card box, just by emptying the cards out you have implied the box is empty. Just think about it for a moment. Everytime you do a card trick when you don't have a special card in the box, would you prove to the audience that the box is empty? Of course not. Everyone just assumes the cards are out so the box is empty.

Check out the video and if you have any ideas, you can upload them onto your own Magician School page by using the uploader below the video.

More tricks like the paper bag trick back at Julian's Magician School