David Blaine On Jimmy Kimmel Live
David demonstrates his impossible looking disappearing cards trick on Jimmy Kimmel Live television show
Effect : Performed to great effect on David's real or magic special, this amazing magic routine is done in two parts. The first part involved the spectator, in this case, Jimmy Kimmel, been given a Sharpie pen to hold. Jimmy is then invited to select a seemingly random card from the deck. He then picks the seven of spades.
He is invited to show his selected card to the audience, sign it with the Sharpie and then place it back in the middle of the deck. He is then invited to examine the Sharpie which has the "seven of spades" printed on it where there is normally the Sharpie logo. Jimmy then signs the card and inserts it back into the middle of the deck. The audience are then asked to choose any other suit rather than the suit of the chosen card to eliminate.
Hearts are chosen. David then appears to miraculously shrink the deck in his hands. When the deck is turned over, only the hearts suit are present as well as Jimmy Kimmel's chosen seven of spades. As you can imagine, this gets a spectacular applause from the audience.
Method : You can watch the performance on the video above.
Then we will attempt to explain the basic mechanics of the trick.
A card is forced on the spectator. The magician quietly gets rid of some cards in the pack ( either in pocket or under table or other method). This should leave them with just one suit of cards ( in David's example, the suit is hearts ). Using a basic principle of elimination questions, he is able to influence the choice of cards to hearts.
The convincer in this effect is continuing to make it look like he is still holding a full pack of cards when in reality, there are a lot less. You will find a more in depth explanation below and a video explaining how the remaining cards were made to look like a full deck.
So, How Was This Trick Done ?
The main part of the trick is the disappearing deck part. The beginning part with the Sharpie logo is a great addition to the routine though and enhances the main routine.
The beginning of the trick with the Sharpie routine would involve David forcing the seven of spades on Jimmy. There are various methods of forcing a card to choose from. Its best to find one or two that you are comfortable with.
The card is then signed by the spectator and then returned to the deck. ( Here is where a little good fortune and misdirection come into play ).
David asked the audience to choose a suit other then clubs to eliminate. The audience fortunately chose hearts, after which he quickly continued shrinking the deck to reveal that the deck now consisted only of the hearts suit and Jimmy Kimmel's original chosen seven of clubs.
Had the audience chosen either diamonds or clubs then David would have adjusted his patter to say " OK well get rid of that suit, choose again " . Effectively manipulating his instructions so no matter what, he would end up with hearts as the remaining suit.
Where the magic happened was that in a moment of misdirection, David would have possibly switched the full deck for a previously prepared and positioned section of the deck containing the hearts cards ( and Jimmy's signed card ).
A cunning method of getting rid of the unwanted cards and making the remaining cards look like a full deck is demonstrated in the video below
The disappearing deck described above is a clever card magician sleight perhaps best illustrated by The Russian Genius in his card magic trick tutorial video shown below.
To conclude, this was a very slick card routine from David Blaine and this standard of entertainment is what keeps him up there with the best magic entertainers in the world today.