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Jay Sankey has a similar effect on his Kaleidoscope DVD, called Supercool. Michael Ammar wrote about the same kind of effect in "The Magic of Michael Ammar" called Card Cubes.

Did it really take that long to make the block or did it just take a while to make the mold right? Also I've been trying to think of a good way to let the spectator tear the card him/herself completely and make it appear as if I haven't ever had any contact with either of the pieces. Is there any way you might suggest going about that? Maybe a way to instruct the spectator so they will tear it the way you want it to be torn.

Yes, it genuinely took 3 weeks of trial and error as getting the ice as clear as possible was a big issue. The molds were just simple tupperware boxes.
We tried various techniques - doing it thin layer by thin layer, putting the card in with the water and hoping it freezes properly and clearly. They all went wrong in that every time we took the blocks out of the freezer, they would crack. In the end we did two half molds and put the card in a sandwich configuration. We then crushed up ice and filled in the gaps. It worked well, but wasnt as clear as I wanted it to be. To get it as clear as we could, we were boiling water, using pure water, de-ionised water etc.

Not recommended unless you have a TV company giving you a good budget and 500,000 viewers!!

Mark

Just as a thought, I believe Marc Oberon reveals a card in a crystal ball. I know this is taking away from the ice idea, but it means less storage issues ect and you can reveal it in many ways. As a thought you could mod a contact juggling ball, that way with some practice also reveal that in a flash way, but now I am going on a tangent...


Chris Tennant

Michael Ammar has an ice effect called Fists of Frost in Easy to Master Cards miracle (Vol 9). Card disapears, reappears in a match box, is put into a glass, water poured in the glass, water ices and selected card is revealed into the block of ice. The block is then put into a self seal bag and handed to the spec.

There is also a sugestion in the DVD how to get the ice to be more transparent I think.

The limitation I see with this is that the spec may suspect there is a duplicate.

I think it would be nice to get a corner torn and kept by the spec, so he/she can match the torn card and torn corner when the ice melts.

There's a thread on here about a gimmick called "intercessor" which may help.

For those of you who havent seen my ice routine....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWaHo5pFfeU

Always good to see a 'recap' of that one !

So, Mark, just to clarify (yes, i wanted to say recap but you beat me to it)... You've done a trick with a card in a block of ice right?
Just want to make sure that point is really driven home!

Card, ice, fire, twins... or at least one of them...

Hey mark just watched your routine. Gotta say I love it. Thats so close to the effect I was thinking about. I've also been thinking about doing something like that but with a bottle of beer instead. The card would be revealed inside a sealed bottle of beer while the beer was liquid, but then have the beer freeze with the card inside it as a little extra twist. What do you think? Maybe overkill? I'm not sure if it would be better to have the beer freeze in full view so that the spectator can watch the freezing action. Or to have it freeze under cover. Any suggestions/comments?