talkmagic.co.uk

Hello,

I am putting together an effect at the minute and i wanted some of your opinions on the third phase of the routine.

Basically the effect goes like this:

I have 5 envelopes. I put one aside and focus on the 4 other (empty) ones. I also have four coloured cards. Each card has a number between 1 and 4 on it. I ask them to put a card in each envelope mix them up and decide on a colour and to hand me that envelope flap side down so i can't peek inside. I then proceed to tell them what the colour is. We continue to do all of them until he/she has one envelope left. This colour he/she holds is shown to be predicted from the start in the fifth envelope discarded at the beginning.

I then lay all four colours out in the order they picked each one which shows a random sequence of numbers e.g 3241 and i hand them an envelope from my pocket which contains this sequence predicted as a finale.

Phew. My question is does the third phase seem a bit redundant? As i have already told them which colours they have selected as the routine goes a long and i've shown them a prediction showing which colour they would be left with does this suggest that i knew the sequence before hand without the aid of the final number sequence? Is the third phase irrelevant or not needed? I quite like the idea of having a kicker ending further cementing the impossible implications but I'm not sure if it adds anything to the routine. What are your opinions?

Seems okay to me, and there are quite a few effects out there that have kicker endings that really are just restating the prediction/outcome. Derren Brown's effect with the photos in The System does this.

From your write up this phase is fairly brief, too, which is a help.

I like that third phase, it's a nice kicker ending that'll have the audience wondering. Keep it I say

I agree - keep it. Maybe appear to finish after the second phase and then, after a pause, reveal.

Thanks for your help guys

I think the third phase would be the great entertainment for the audience and they would love it, so according to my opinion just keep it and get full feedback from the other magician about that.