Sweet skills for poker night...

THX1138

THX1138

Well-known member
Okay, nothing here except a little showing off with the cards. No edits, no fancy lighting, no titles... just one constant locked-off shot of my hands and a deck of cards.

ant0mic inspired me with his contest short. I mentioned to him in that thread that I do some sleight-of-hand, so I thought I'd share.

This is a classic effect. It's pure sleight-of-hand (hence the absence of cuts which would induce suspicion) with a standard deck of poker-size playing cards.
Starts with a couple of fancy cuts to locate the aces and then the magic.
Enjoy.
Let me know if any of you guys ever need a hand double (like John Scarne did for Paul Newman in The Sting) or a magic/card consultant.
http://homepage.mac.com/elanindustries
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

Fixed the link.
Not the greatest compression in the world. It may take a minute.

By the way, when I said there were no cuts, I of course meant no camera cuts. I do, indeed cut the cards.
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

ok...i NEED to know how you did the last trick..plz tell me...my AIM sn is Streetsk8erdc, if u dont wanna tell everyone...i play poker all the time and would love to wow my friends with some of these tricks :)
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

i first saw David Copperfield perform the ace popping trick.
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

Damn man, very impressive. It's funny, I've been a magician for about 2 years now, and finally got away from those forums, switching to this and other filmmaking forums... Now I see a magic post.

Haha, anyway, great job man... I've shot some close-up magic stuff with the DVX too... its fun to do.

Nice handling... Elmsley count was smooth ;D
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

Hey meauxfeaux,

Have you ever seen a movie called 'Shade' - If your in to insane card tricks gambling and ...Sly Stallone Check it out!
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

Thanks for all the props guys.

DvPixl, Copperfield performed his version of this effect (which dates back at least to the 19th century) a couple of years ago. It was very good, I thought.
The one I did here most closely resembles Ricky Jay's stylings. You guys all know Ricky from just about any David Mamet film and several others he's done since. Ricky is one of the best card men in the world and is an expert on magic history as well as odd performers from the last century or so.

Drummerboy678, nice to hear there's a fellow prestidigitator in the group. Thanks for the kudos on the Elmsley (originally the Ghost count). Did the Jordan slip past you?

NickMilo, I did see Shade. I thought as a movie that it was so-so. The interesting thing about it is that the guy who made it is a close-up magician. It was his first script and somehow he got it into the right hands and was able to sell the script and direct. R. Paul Wilson, Earl Nelson, and Jason England were all technical consultants on the film. All excellent card guys.

P.K. Gillock, I suck at poker... really (wink).
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

wow! i'm all teared up! :'(

i inspired somebody!!!! i need to call my mother!

mofo! that was AWESOME! i used 3DStudio MAX in poker night....what did YOU use? ;D

Magic is so cool. too bad i cheat.
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

Thanks ant0mic.

I used 28 years of hard-earned skill.

Curious... you did your movie on FCP, right? But, 3DS Max is only PC. Are you moving between platforms on your projects?
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

That was awesome Meaux! Close up slight of hand and card tricks are my favorite. I think all that stuff the big guys do on stage with their cables and cranes etc is all boring. (except Penn & Teller...love those guys)
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

both platforms. si

i'm 95% mac. 5% windows (for 3DS - too many years invested to bail on it yet) too busy to learn Maya.
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

[quote author=P.K. Gillock link=board=Clips;num=1106356101;start=0#8 date=01/22/05 at 02:50:42]Mental Note: Never play poker with MeauxFeaux.[/quote]


dam it PK! You beat me to it... I was about to say that too. ;D
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

ant0mic,

I'm curious, is it a pain in the ass using both platforms? What's your workflow like for adding 3DS Max stuff?
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

no problem at all. i just render out of Max 720x480 with the correct aspect ratio (.9 for 4:3 or 1.2 for 16:9, i think - i have to check the math) as a quicktime using Animation Compressor with Millions+ (giving you the all important alpha channel)

i then drag it over the network, import in to Final Cut and check the clip as Anamorphic if need be.

i've tried both 24 fps and 29.97 fps. 24 is a little more tricky, because when you drop it in your 29.97 timeline (to match 24p - i havent done 24pa with frame removal - although i should try) you need to make sure your cg footage is in sync with your pulldown, otherwise you'll get double frames of cg that are shifted from your double frames of dvx footage. make sense?

then render and make about 500 changes because i'm never happy with anything i do.

i realize that's a wordy response. so in short.

render out of max - transfer over network - import into final cut - render - place 3rd in the december contest

;D
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

verry nice! I know some slight... maybe I should post some stuff... or maybe write a magician into my next short ;D
 
Re: Sweet skills for poker night...

Man I wish I could do magic. Chicks dig guys that can do magic. I loved the colors in that by the way.
 
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