The berglas effect- How is it done?

[zoobyshoe]

If you watch the video, Bohkara, they demonstrate the trick twice with two separate audiences. Participant #3 is obviously not the same man in both performances.

Also, there seems to be no opportunity for #3 to find and palm a card at all in either performance. Both hands are visible at all times.

 

[Bhokara]

I disagree. Note especially that the four criteria state only that Participants 1 and 2 are not stooges. Participant 3 is identified as a "spectator." That's a loophole you can drive a truck through.

In both videos, there is extensive palming of the cards going on.

Ask yourself, "Why do Participant 3 in both performances hold the card deck in two hands with one hand over the top of the deck"? Why can't the card deck stay on a flat surface? Why does it have to be held in two hands by Participant 3?

Watch the YouTube video again:



Now stop the video at 4:37. Participant 3 moves his left hand over the deck, while at 4:38, the magician makes a jerky motion with his upper body and both hands of the exact type which evolution has trained our eyes to move to automatically.

Participant 3's hands remain over the deck until 4:41.

If the deck were already in the correct order somehow for the trick, wouldn't it be much more of a show to leave all the cards on the table, and have Participant 3 reach down with his thumb and forefinger of one hand and daintily turn them over one-by-one?

There are thousands of professional card sharps who can palm a matching card onto the deck at 4:37. And there are thousands of people who can professionally disguise themselves.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ManOfAThousandFaces

The simplest explanation for how this trick is done within the confines of the four criteria (Participants 1 and 2 are not stooges) during the second performance on the YouTube video is this:

The magician calls out a random person to be Participant 1 and name a card. The card is named. The magician's assistant has an organized deck secreted on his person, and pulls out the matching card. The magician gives him plenty of time to do this while selecting Participant 2 and bantering with her. Then and only then is Participant 3 identified and anybody notices him in his boring white shirt and boring white hair. He comes up on the stage, picks up the deck, and at 4:37 palms the correct card onto the top of the deck when the magician pauses in the counting for the Big Reveal and makes a classic audience distraction motion at 4:38.

Presto. No paranormal activity, no mental powers of suggestion, no memorization of card order, and Participants 1 and 2 can indeed be anyone on earth.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The magician calls out a random person to be Participant 1 and name a card. The card is named. The magician's assistant has an organized deck secreted on his person, and pulls out the matching card. The magician gives him plenty of time to do this while selecting Participant 2 and bantering with her. Then and only then is Participant 3 identified and anybody notices him in his boring white shirt and boring white hair. He comes up on the stage, picks up the deck, and at 4:37 palms the correct card onto the top of the deck when the magician pauses in the counting for the Big Reveal and makes a classic audience distraction motion at 4:38.

OK. This makes perfect sense. He locates and secretes the proper card way before anyone is even aware of him. Then with 'conventional' sleight-of-hand, he produces the proper card at the proper point in the count.

As to the disguise though, I'm sure you're wrong, and I say that from personal expertise with theatrical makeup. I was a theater major in college and I became quite good at character makeup. I can do foam latex appliances, and hair ventilation for beards, moustaches, and wigs. I was good enough to get paid professionally to do that here and there. So, in my expert opinion participant #3 in the second video is absolutely not the same man as #3 in the first in makeup. It's not that you couldn't convincingly make the first look like the second, the difference is textural. The second #3 is much older and I can see his face hanging as he bends his head down to look at the cards in a way you can't achieve with foam latex. A foam appliance has no weight like flesh and exhibits no pendular properties. You won't observe the appliance reacting to gravity as the actor moves the same way real flesh does. No matter how good all other considerations are, there are two tell tales of an appliance. I just mentioned one, and the other is that you won't see changes of complexion due to emotion: the face of an actor wearing an appliance won't redden with anger, or pale with shock. You will see those things on a good actor without any makeup, though.

Regardless, I think your explanation is perfectly plausible if we remove the limit on how many assistants he has. It could be he has two, or three, or it could be he can tap into the entire body of professional magicians who are sworn to secrecy about the explanations. I don't know much about that world. I'm really, really confident in saying he must have at least two. (Not that that guarantees I'm right. Just saying my opinion about the difference between the two #3's is well informed.)

A girl here (here in real life, not here at PF) taught me a baffling trick whose explanation I could never, ever have figured out in a million years. It is so simple it's amazing. So, I'm aware of the fact that the way these things are done can easily be counter-intuitively simple. If yours isn't the right explanation, I'd bet the real explanation is even simpler than you suggest.

 

[collinsmark]

Participants 1 and 2 indeed are not stooges, and they can be randomly chosen from the audience. They are unimportant.

That assumes that the person who made the Youtube video actually knows the trick and is telling the truth. I'm not convinced of either.

Previous comments regarding the unlikelihood of conspiracy and the inability to keep secrets ignore the unrelenting motivation of a struggling actor to get a stamp on his or her SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card (or in this case the equivalent actors guild/union in the UK -- I think it's AGGB or "Equity" or something like that).

Participant 3 is the magician's permanent paid assistant, a card sharp with the kind of sleight-of-hand skills in palming cards that make most card tricks work.

That's also a possibility.

But I think the simplest solution is at least one of the participants is an actor who is either (a) a struggling/unknown actor who will bend over backwards for to get that notch of experience recognized by the actors guild/union, or (b) an already famous actor who's a SAG/AGGB/Equity/Union member who's taking one for the team.

Would they keep it a secret? Of course. Future hope of fame is motivation enough (not to mention there's probably a contract involved too). Do you think a struggling actor will sell their hope of fame for a few bucks, knowing that there would be practically no chance of them ever landing a role again [not to mention a lawsuit for breach of contract]? Not a chance.

All it takes is a stacked deck, and a simple algorithm that maps a card to a number. Or to make it simpler, both participants I and II could be actors, and nobody has to do anything in one's head.

That, or participant III could be palming cards. But in the second presentation in the video, that didn't seem to be the case.

Either way, somebody's in on it.

 

[lendav_rott]

I want to do that trick more than once while reshuffling, only then would I believe in magic. Sadly, there is no such thing as magic :<