I would like to know how you card manipulators know when you are running out of cards and while producing cards from the back palm? In all the material I have on producing cards, it was never mentioned how to tell that the finish of your supply is nearing an end and you have to either replenish or get ready for your finale.

I find this unusual to not be mentioned by anyone, as when I was working on my manipulations, I found myself in a sleight panic. I for sure did not want to peek or stop and count the cards.

Has anyone come up with a workable solution?

I am by far no expert at all... I have started to load a curtain number of cards in each load and only have so many loads. Now you have to count in your head as cards fall. This may not be practical, I have not performed yet or video taped this. I have just messed around with it. This is where I am having my trouble...the placing of the loads and the timing of getting them...

No you can't count the cards, you have to concentrating on your audience.

There will be an audience? Boy am I in trouble...lol

Back when I was doing my cards-and-birds act, the card routine was fed by three loads, each one using half a deck. The routine was set up so I produced the same number of fans at each point every time (I seem to remember it was four or five), and they were huge, almost a full circle. There was no need to "keep track" of what was left: I just did the same thing every time.

I practiced that act until I could do it in my sleep (and I probably did), so, like Bill said, I could focus on the audience.

I don't do Card Manipulations of this sort but could you use another back design towards the end of the routine, same color but clearly different up close?

If you can't see a difference because of focus or lighting maybe a tactile signal like a different brand of cards that are more or less stiff than the bulk of the card supply could work.

Let us know if you find a solution.

-Mary Mowder

For it's worth, Bill, I plan my routine ie. I know how many fans/singles I want to produce, where and when, with each load. In this way I know that I can concentrate on the selling and not worry that I do not have enough cards. In other words, the 'counting' is done when planning the routine.
I drop (more or less) the same amount each time.

Hope that makes sense!

Dave

I have pre-counted stacks for steals at deliberate locations on my person. I don't produce endless streams of cards, but move through thoroughly rehearsed sequences with the cards, so the act is the same every time down to the number of cards produced.

I strive to avoid monotony. With fan productions I fan only what I will throw and it is easier to control the number of cards fanned and dropped. And I simply produce the same number of fans each time.

I have also experimented with tabs in certain places for back palm fan productions. This way you have full control of the amount of cards fanned, and there is no split because it occurred in the fanning process.

There are certain parts of my act where a specific sequence needs to finish at a certain part of the song being played. I have freedom to relax and work without constraints within these frames of time, interacting with the audience, but I always frame the applause cues and certain poses at these particular points.

I don't know if others work within such rigid a framework but it is my way of feeling confident because I always know were I am and I can forget about what I am doing because it is an exact sequence of events each time. It is then a matter of making it seem spontaneous during every performance. But I find this more appealing then the apprehension that Bill speaks about.

For single productions you can have specific cards near the end of your palmed sack so you know when you are coming to an end to save enough cards for a full fan or any other approach that fits your particular style of magic.

It was always my predilection to work this way from a young age because I would see acts like Lance Burton, consummately polished and I figured you arrive upon such a refined act by consistent rehearsal.

Consistent, being the key word for me.

But then again I have OCD that only leaves me alone if I channel it constructively. lol.

I generally produce a fan, split it, then produce a second fan. You can see part of my manipulation routine at
http://users.erols.com/parmenides/Magic/cardproductions.mov
It's a .mov file, and it plays fine on my iMac as I'm typing this. I have no idea how it might play on a Windows machine, though.

I know from constant performance and practice that I can consistently get two fans and some singles from one stock of cards. Any more than that and I think the audience would catch on to the secret.

I demonstrated backpalming once in the backroom of a magic shop and some non-manipulators swore that--in a sequence like the one in my videoclip--I produced at least a half dozen fans. These guys were box magicians, so they had no real background in manipulation.

I know I quote Henry Hay a lot, but I do think he had a firm grasp of the psychology of deception. On page 7 of _The Amateur Magician's Handbook_ he writes:
-----begin quote-----
Suppose you vanish four or five small oranges, and then catch them from empty air--a modest little trick that you can do before you are halfway through the section on hand magic. If you are any showman at all, ten to one that people will honestly remember that you caught half a bushel of grapefruit, and piled them on the stage.
-----end quote-----
However, even after finishing the whole book, I don't think I'd be able to vanish four small oranges and then reproduce them, and Hank considered me to be one of his better students. But I do agree that the mind deceives itself. I think, too, that if you produce, say, two stocks of cards (for a total of four fans and some singles) and follow that with some card flourishes and exhibition card fans, that the lay mind will be confused and the next day think that the cards used for the spring flourishes and exhibition fans were magically produced from nowhere as well.

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

Sonny thanks for that clip (played well on my iMac too). You are very smooth and polished.

I totally agree with your and Hay's take on audience perception and memory (or misperception and false memory). I often got praise for magically making fans of cards appear then have the fan back patterns change with the wave of a hand. My exhibition fans were openly made and not produced in anyway.

I can vanish one orange if I'm lucky. LOL!!

Although I do not consider myself a big time manipulator I do several routines with cards. and although I i have never needed to count or do anything else as I am doing something like a back palm productions as I just feel the cards and can tell where I am at.

however early on I would always use an ACE as my signal that the next card was the last one before I produced a fan. so I always loaded my cards and placed an ACE in the proper sequence and when I see it I know where I am at.

hope that helps

sam

I used a ploy similar to Sam's. I always preferred to produce numbered cards rather than face cards, usually with more clubs and spades than hearts and diamonds just because the black pips show up better from a distance. But in one stock of cards I would place a single face card after all the numbered cards, followed by maybe eight cards from a fanning deck that had seen its better days, arranged so that the backs would appear in a pattern when produced and fanned. While producing singles from that final stock, when the face card appeared, I would know that now I could produce a colorful fan of cards to provide variety in the appearance of the fans that had appeared earlier at my fingertips.

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

Practice and constant performance. Also, not ramming card manip down people's throats for too long helps too.

Ahhhhhh, this is a wonderful topic if you are into card manips. I reckon its a little known secret if you work hard at card productions. I have what I call "card counting". It applies to this very topic. It is the ability to know how many cards you have backpalmed based off of the FEEL of cards in your hand. Literally, just by knowing thyself, thy routine, and thy cards, you will develop the ability to know exactly how many cards you have in your hand. With this information known to me, I know when its time to start to vary my production technique. Example, if I have the feeling of 10 cards, I know I can get away with at least 2 more split fans. after that I know its time to start some slow single productions....something like a million dollar production (Frank Garcia, etc). I came across this idea because after a series of split fans I wanted to then produce three cards, one after the other, without dropping any cards. the illusion was 3 cards just popping out in my hand, then drop all three together as the end. to do this, I would need to know that I have 3 cards backpalmed. thus beginning my work on card counting as it applies to card manipulation.........that was a mouthfull, errr, handfull.

to conclude, you CAN estimate within a card or two, how many cards you have backplamed based on the feel, the thickness of the stock.

the seed of all this was planted upon watching Jeff Sheridan.

Great topic Sonny. When I did my card manip act, I didn't need to worry about counting as I generally did split fans and very little single card productions. Like everyone else, I produced the same amount of fans each time. If I split off a different number, it didn't affect anything as I only used about three fans per load.

However, now I am working on the Perfect Production and it seems that counting is important. I would like to end up with the same amount of cards each time because I want to produce them from each hand. I planned on doing a few split fans from each hand and then go into the Perfect Production. As I am practicing, it seems I am getting a different number of cards each time. So, I can see where keeping track is important.

I like the idea about using face cards and number cards to keep track.

Here is my solution:
I've been doing card manip. for awhile and I have noticed that when I start running low I can feel it. I do a few split fans then produce cards from both hands. In my left hand I produce from front palm and my right hand back palm. If I feel that I'm running low in back palm I keep producing until I reach the last one. At that point I use McBrides move called McBluff.
In my personal opinion, if you think your running low learn the McBluff, it will save you in a bind.

It is all in practicing for me. With single productions I practice by counting the cards so many times, it just comes natural with my positions too. When it comes to the Split Fan, each fan might be a card or two off, but I still have enough to do the amount of fans desired.

What about the use of music and coordinating the end to a certain point you recognize. I use this method in my close up work.


Harris