I want to put an effect called the Oscar or Phil trick into a street act. Basically a spectator is asked to mentally select any card and the magician writes his prediction down on a piece of paper. The spectator names his card (say 7 of hearts), the prediction is revealed and "Oscar" is written on the piece of paper.

The magician then says that he names all his cards and brings out a deck where "all" the cards have names written on the back. Finally the spectators card is found and it has the name "Oscar" written on it's back.

The great part of this trick is that the magician can have a great deal of fun in first going through some of the names on the other cards. One can make jokes related to the names or do impressions, etc. I think it would play very well.

The problem arises in that the selected card will always be "Oscar" (or whatever name you choose) and that could be a potential problem doing repeat performances on the street?

Do you guys think the repetative nature of street work will be a problem with this effect?

I considered making up a few decks so the revealed name would change. How many versions do you think one would need?

How many you will need, will depend on how frequently your audience repeats (returns). If you have good traffic and turnover, you don't need to change it. (Unless you get bored with it)

If the audience is mostly repeat individuals, you almost can't begin to guess how often one or more will have seen each of the variations. So in that case, I don't know that you could ever have enough different ones.

I would probably go with 3 or so. Just for change of pace.

But if you like Phil, and Oscar, and the audience impact of them, Paul Harris has a new effect coming out soon (That is all I can say about it now...and I don't have a date for it yet.) that you will LOVE.

It has the same ingredients of the basic selected card, which the audience picks "freely". It truly appears as free and fair as you can imagine, and I assure you that the first time you see it, you will not feel forced or otherwise directed and will wonder how it worked.

I can't say any more about it, (It is hard for me, but I really CAN keep a secret... I CAN keep a secret... I CAN keep a secret...) as it isn't available yet, but there are a number of specifics about it (easy working, convincing, great audience impact) that really make this an excellent effect for closeup or Street.

It is just way cool. And I expect to use it on the Street a lot.

BroDavid

BroDavid, sounds cool can't wait to see more about it...


As for the Oscar trick, once you own it, it should be easy enough to make 2 or 3 more extra cards so you can repeat the trick with different endings.

Were can I buy this trick? Oscar I mean. It fits into my act very well! I would have to change the names to fit the streets of Sweden, but if it is easy to construct new decks, that couldn´t be a problem, right?

/Ark

Arkadia,

After talking to Kaliix, we figured out that Oscar is not that same as the effect I thought. You could check out Phil and/or Grandpa's Deck. Both are silimar, but different effects, read the descriptions...

Link to Phil

Link to Grandpa's deck

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I don't suggest you show all the fisrt bunch of cards. I have just seen this trick performed and the guy who did it when through the first third of the deck calling out their names. What happened was that the chosen card was actually found in that third and we did not meet with the name Phil before. That makes it weird and makes people wonder. Just my thought.

I always have a safeguard name so that when I show that name it reminds me that only one more card can be shown. I do this effect with a gospel application.

Don't worry about it!

The second time they see it they'll be even further in the ditch...same name, different card.

Personally I don't do the bit where all the cards have names on them....I have it where only ONE card has a name, AND a different color back.

Arkadia,
I believe the Oscar trick normally comes with the names already on the on the deck. David Acer has a version of the effect (it's a 2way prediction of a name and a card). You get a deck with no names on it, so you can put your own/Swedish names on it.

I just remembered - the effect is called Nomen Omen.