“Portraits” is a deck of cards that features 52 digitally drawn celebrity figures. These celebrities are from movies, music, sports and politics. Although the deck has 52 cards, none of them contain any playing card index.
The deck also contains 26 red back cards and 26 black back cards. In the 26 red back cards, there are 13 male celebrities and 13 female celebrities. The 26 black back cards also contain 13 male and 13 female celebrities.
There is a simple marking system from the names of the celebrities that cue you whether this card has red or black back.
You are also supplied with a double back red card, a double face Spiderman card, and a prediction card with a crib for 16 names on its back.
The backs of the following cards are marked subtlely: Daniel Redcliffe, Albert Einstein and Queen Elizabeth II.
You are given a link to a 1 hour 30 minutes turotial video that explains a total of 10 effects to be performed with this deck. Unfortunately, this video is not downloadable.
Among the effects taught are 2 “Out Of This World” tricks. One version is by Paul Curry, and the other one is from John Kennedy. In the John Kennedy’s version, a spectator decides which celebrities to invite to her party, as well as to her spouse’s party. It turns out that her guests all have red backs and her spouse’s guests have black backs. In the Paul Curry’s version, you can either deparate the cards into male and female celebrities, or separate them into back and red backs.
There is Simon Aronson’s “Shuffled Bored” effect where you predict the number of face down cards, the number of female celebrities in the face down cards, and that they are all singers. However, the spectator finds Hillary Clinton among the female celebrities. Hillary Clinton is not a singer. There is a twist at the end where you also predicted that Hillary Clinton “used to sing in the showers”!
“Quadriplex” is 16-card folding effect created by Nick Trost, where cards are randomly mixed face-up and face-down by a spectator. 3 cards are finally found to be face up, and they match your prediction.
“Impossible Movie” is where a spectator randomly cuts a deck to determine which 2 celebrities would act in a popular movie. The 2 celebrities turned out to be Tom Cruise and Beyounce. Your prediction is the poster of the movie “Titanic”, but with the actors: Tom Cruise and Beyonce. You are provided with a QR code to print this special poster of Titanic.
In another movie prediction, the entire deck is randomly mixed face-up and face-down. All the face-down cards are then eliminated. This is continued until only one card is left facing up. It turns out to be Spiderman. This matches a prediction in your mobile phone which shows the movie poster of Spiderman.
There is also a baby gag of the spectator’s selected celebrity.
In “Crazy Casting”, a spectator selects a main cast, which happens to be Robert De Niro. Using this card, the spectator finds 2 more celebrities in Bob Marley and Beyonce. Your prediction is the movie “Pirates Of The Caribbean”, and this features these exact 3 celebrities as actors. Again you are given a QR code to print this special movie poster.
“1 In 3” is a take on Bob Hummer’s Mathematical 3-Card Monte. 3 red or 3 black back cards are used. The faces of the cards are not shown. With your head turned away, the spectator remembers one of the cards, and then mix up all the cards. Despite this random mixing, you are able to tell which card is the spectato’s selected card.
The final effect is called “Impossible Conditions”. A small packet of 16 cards is mixed up and a card selected by a spectator and turned the other way around and re-inserted into the middle of the packet. All this is done with your head turned away. You then turn around, and divine the selected celebrity.
The digitally produced pictures of the celebrities are simply gorgeous. Because there are no playing card indices on these cards, using them to perform standard card effects does not cause your audience to consider them as card tricks at all.
Although 10 tricks are taught in the tutorial, you will be able to come out with your own effects, once you understand the make-up of the entire deck. The only downside is that the video tutorial is not downloadable and you have to key in the link as well as the password everytime you wish to watch the video. (Rated 5/5 stars)
