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Hi, my names Steve and this is my first post! I’m a professional Multimedia developer and I’ve been doing magic for about 6 months. I’ve been developing a mentalism effect for the last 2 months that uses a mobile phone. I’m very pleased with the feedback I’ve been getting to the effect so far and it seems incredibly strong. In fact, it gets a better reaction than any other trick I do including “The ID”.
I know of Derron Browns’ “guess your ringtone” effect and others that involve dialling or texting to reveal the thought of card but this one is different. Does anybody know any other effects that use a mobile phone that I may have missed (from websites, lecture notes or videos I can buy)? I’m just trying to establish if my effect is an original by finding out what’s already out there so any help would be really appreciated.

what is the actual effect of your trick?

Many effects could be produced with the method I’m using but here’s one. This is just the pure mechanics of the effect with no banter or presentation and I’ve named it “The Camera Never Lies!”…
Hand the spectator a pack of cards, get them to check they all different and then shuffle the deck. Ask them to hand you one random card, face down from the face down deck. With your mobile phone, you take a photograph of the face of the selected card (card face is obscured from spectator). You put the card back in the face down deck, get them to shuffle the cards again and hand the pack back to you. You then give the spectator your mobile phone and get them to hold it face up between their palms. You then spread or fan the cards face up and ask the spectator to think of any one of the cards (no force, a complete free choice). They name any card and you then ask them to lift their top hand and look at the screen of the phone. On the screen is the picture of the selected card you just photographed and it matches the card they are merely thinking of.

As I see it, the key strengths to this trick are: Absolutely no force used at any point. No switching of any card(s) as you really take a picture of the card they handed you. Trick can be done again straight away with a different result and zero set-up time. Uses standard mobile phones and with enough practise, works 99% of the time but if the trick should fail, I’ve also come up with an O.K. “out” using your trusty ID. No stooges or assistant used. Everything can be examined.

I welcome any comments and keen to find out if it’s been published before

That sounds a marvellous trick, so hows it done?

I have been studying the subject of 'mobile magic' (Good name for a book eh?) and to me that sounds original. Of course you can change the whole feeling of an effect like that by just changing you patter slightly.

stevesusername wrote:I know of Derron Browns’ “guess your ringtone” effect and others that involve dialling or texting to reveal the thought of card but this one is different. Does anybody know any other effects that use a mobile phone that I may have missed (from websites, lecture notes or videos I can buy)?

Hello there.

Telephone psychic card prediction is a shocker. You have someone make a free card choice for all to see. Then you call your "psychic" on the mobile. You hand the receiver to the spec and the "psychic" names the card. It's even better on speaker phone.

Get a copy of Lewis Jones / Jack Avis - Ahead of the Pack.

They have loads of cool stuff in there. Plus Mystral (which uses a mobile phone).

Also, Lewis Jones has a Person-To-Person Telepathy book - all phone type predictions - I don't have this, but i would imagine most of those use normal phones!!

Thanks for your help, all. I'm off to Glastonbury ( as a punter, not performer) and plan to try the effect out a a few people to get some more feedback.

If you have unlimited minutes on your phone you could call a friend before you start the show and leave the line open with them listening, after the card or whatever is named hang up as you pick up the phone then have the spectator dial the number and ask for the card. This is even stronger if the person on the phone answers question other then just the name of a card. Have the answers written on a board as the person making the call reads off the answers, you check them off.

i saw a trick with a mobile phone done on television once, but unfortunately i cant remember who it was performed by.

It was in a train station and it involved secretly sending a picture message of the chosen card to somone planted on the train, then they stuck that card on the inside window of the train

That was a show where they revaealed the secrets

It was on ITV about 18 months ago, cant remeber either. Didnt give too many great secrets away though, which was good, phew.

Mark

Er, it was the BBC actually! The link to the discussions of that first program is http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic1632.p ... rets+magic but more info emerged after the recent second show which was considerably better IMHO as there was no silly panel of 'celebs' trying to guess how things were done. The story is that the BBC were frightened stiff of a proper magic show (something to do with the legacy of Paul Daniels, all the years he spent at the Beeb, and the apparent fixation with reality/makeover shows) so they would only consider commissioning a magic show with an 'angle'. The idea to do a spoof Secrets Revealed show sounded good enough to the Mandarins at the Beeb but they missed the point that, having seen the silly stuff, there would be a few proper magic routines to finish off. There are some more shows planned but they're unlikely to be at more often than 12 to 15 month intervals. The bit of 'trivia' I like (courtesy of John Lennahan) is where the Magic Circle were accusing Etienne Pradier of giving away the secret of the coin vanish by using aluminium foil shells which were swiftly rolled up and ditched. He explained to them that it was something which had been developed especially for that program and wasn't giving away anyone's secrets but the Magic Circle decided that it such a good idea that it ought to have been treated as though it were a secret and therfore not revealed. Doh !!!