Hi there.

I was wondering if the angles at birthdays (children on ground) would make it difficult to perform the mirror box. I am looking to add a rabbit into my show (he should be coming next week) and I would prefer not to use a production device that uses the same principle as any other effect I perform. I currently don’t have the production for him so if anyone has experience with it in this venue please let me know what your experience was.

Thanks for the help

I use a rabbit wringer as a production in b-day parites. You have to watch angles (high and low, not left and right) but other than that it works just fine.
Marc the Magic Man

I alos use a rabbit wringer and it really is not that bad. I have not really ever had too many problems with it. I also perform it at large festivals with many different angle problems and have also not had much problems with it. The idea for me is to not draw a lot of attention to it. I actually open it up for a second as I am staring out at the audience and talking with them. It takes the heat off the prop as well. It is a useful misdirection that works really well for us. It also does not have to be open for any long length of time to get the idea that it is empty. We also must remember that as magicians we tend to think like magicians instead of a laymen. We just sometimes overthink our stuff way more then we sometimes need to. =)

Kyle

Ryan, I use Abbott's Elusive Bunny Box. Any production device of this type might be problematic in certain situations, but the Elusive Bunny Box is about as good as it gets. The main thing to watch with this type of box is lighting. Since the top is covered, all you need to do is make sure to watch the front lighting. With the proper lighting the Elusive Box box super deceptive! I have heard that Chance Wolf's BA is really good too. I have lined some of my production boxes myself and made them far, far better. In fact, the Elusive Bunny Box is the only production box of this type that I have bought and not felt I had to line/reline it.

Using a mirror box is possible, but it is not my preferred production device. In the right situation they can look deceptive enough, but showing the box empty by opening the front door, then producing the rabbit from the top always seemed questionable to me. I use a mirror box to change the color of a bunny, but not as a production.

Regan

Thanks for the info so far guys. My query comes from not wanting to use my Funhouse to produce the rabbit, I would like to continue to use it as my final piece of the show in having the birthday child help me produce a gift for them. I’m trying to find a production device that doesn’t work the same way or have the exact same look to the production. Otherwise I would purchase the abbotts box in a second. Another item I have thought about purchasing is the dove to bunny cylinder. Its a nice looking production but its three times as much as a mirror box would be. Heck I may even just use my rabbit pan for the time being.

Regan brings up a good point which I had forgotten about. I also never quite understood opening the front door but priducing from the top. It never made sense to me either even with my rabbit wringer. Because of this, I do not produce the rabbit from it. He goes in and gets flattened and my reasoning for opening it is to figure out why the smoke (fog) and sounds are coming from the front as if trying to fix it. The door opens and I actually palced in a small slinky so that it appears as if the grears are all messed up.

This not only gives me a reason to open the door but also covers the illusion much better for me. Because I perform a lot outside, I understand what regan says about lighting. I have to be careful with it. But with the slinky idea, it works really well. IOt still shows it empty enough and gives me a reason to open the door up and take it out. Once it is out I am looking at it and not the open rabbit wringer which takes heat off of it as my wife takes it off stage for the reappearance else where.

Thank you Regan for raising that point. I had forgotten all about that as I developed my routine years ago and it just has beocme second nature.

Kyle

Sorry Ryan.....I didn't know you had the Funhouse. A rabbit pan is a pretty good alternative. It is different, and you could relate it to trying to bake the kid a big birthday cake or something along those lines.

Kyle, I think with the Rabbit Wringer there is a lot of things going on inside that box! (LOL) I think the reasoning behind the doors seems much more logical. With the standard mirror box though I always felt as though the audience might question the need for the 2 doors. Or at the very least they will wonder why they never actually see the bunny inside the box. With the right presentation I'm sure that even a standard mirror box could work out well enough. I just like my Elusive Box better.

Regan

The "mirror box" I used for many years has a mirror that drops down, resulting in a "visible production." I consider it a really wonderful prop, even though it needed all sorts of reinforcement to be really road-worthy.

It's a Daytona Magic "In a Flash Appearance" - see it HERE

Regan: You are right in that regards. At least with the standard presentation of the rabbit wringer it gives the illusion of something going on and it does seem a bit more logical because the rabbit enters and once it becomes flat there is a reason behind checking out why. I just never liked restoring it from the top lid again. To me it never looked all that good.

Kyle

I use the wringer solely as a production -- a "clippo" rabbit (I've shortened the kned with a hoperation) goes in the front, the "restored" rabbit comes out the top. There is also the move, which I only do occassionally, that lets you wiggle your hands in the box, but the angles with kids sitting on the floor are usually wrong for me to do this as well.
Still, by sticking to production, rather then vanish, then production, the audience doesn't have too much time to reconstruct what I've done.
Marc

Marc: I think the rabbit wringer can work either way. I think the part that makes sense is that it is done once. meaning, you either place in a flattened rabbit and produce the rabbit or you reverse it but not both. To me reversing it with the same prop just never looked as good. I would much rather reproduce it in something different. Good thoughts. =)

Kyle

Hey, Ryan: I started using a Duck Bucket to produce a bunny rabbit and one day just for fun, tried a "Bunny Hutch" which I picked up from Daytona Magic http://daytonamagic.net/customer/index.c......Id=12457 Now, it's the only bunny production I use. Lighting and angles are not a worry, and I have the birthday kid actually within 1 foot of the hutch waving the magic wand to produce the bunny and even that close, they don't see a thing. (You'd have to be standing directly beside the hutch, looking from the top down to even have a clue how it works.) I've had parents come up after the show and indicate they knew a real live bunny was going to appear, and they'd watch closely and simply had no idea how it appeared. For me, it's been a very easy and extremely well received effect.

Also, for what it's worth, I do several gag bunny productions over the course of my show, kind of a running gag....from a sponge bunny out of a hat, a "grey hare" from an adult volunteer, a silk duck/bunny from top hat, to a stuffed bunny from a drawer box, to a smaller stuffed bunny from a small mirror box, and multiple colored bunnies from a Rainbow Rabbit Production gimmick (also from Daytona)...the kids are wondering if they're EVER going to see a REAL BUNNY and when the birthday kid finally makes "POCUS" appear in the finale effect, on the third try (after two failed attempts) with the Bunny Hutch, the crowd goes wild.

The whole bunny production thing has just grown a little bit here and a little bit there to the point that it's a central theme allowing for a great running gag and ultimately a great callback at the end to a REAL BUNNY. Good luck with your new bunny!

Ross, I have that box too. I like it a lot better than the standard mirror box. My only fault I have with it is it's size. If it were shorter I would love it and it might be one of my favorite production boxes.

Regan

Jim Gerrish has a "Chocolate Bunny Box" in his Hardboard and Duct Tape Magic Show section on my site. The box has a stove element on top (non-working- it's just an illusion!) and he uses it to melt chocolate bits and turn them into a chocolate bunny (and this is just the time of year to load up on chocolate bunnies!). Then the bunny is placed inside the empty "oven" to bake it into a cake but something goes "wrong" and it turns into a live bunny instead. No mirrors, no angle problems, and costs under $20 to build it yourself. Or you can just turn it into a standard Bunny Box with the drawing, or a Santa's Mail Box, or use other imaginative ideas of your own.

It's heavy, it's not assembled to "take the abuse," and it's made of particle board. But with a few 2" shelf brackets to brace the corners, a window-sash catch instead of what they supply, and some paint, you've got a gem. Looks a teensy bit "steampunk," but I can perform well enough to make them forget about that.

MY beef with other boxes were that they were far too small for the average rabbit (even a small breed).

Why not use a square circle? Mark Wilson's original bunny production is for sale - this would be a great prop, plus you would own an "original".

Jim