All in all, it was... long... And was like a really bad twist on an already good plot, kind of like what "digital remastering" does to everything it touches.
To elaborate:
I watched it twice and what I got out of it was this: "Hey I've got a deck of cards, lets talk about something that few people think about or even consider important in character development, our favorite cards." Alright, what laymen ever thinks about that? Then you continue to do so: "Alright cool, now I'll find MY card (and suspiciously neglect to even mention yours) and after removing it from the deck, I will then place it back into the deck with no explanation whatsoever. Are you following me here? And the confusion still continues with this: "Cool, cool. now that I've cut the cards in half, I'll check to see if the cards are separate (again, why?). Alright, they are. Now, lets play a guessing game that eats up entirely too much time... (not to mention the fact that your spectator doesn't know why and by now is thinking "Why did I let him show me a trick?")." THEN, after doing some bulls**t math problems, you "miraculously" land on the card that just so happens to be the named card that we named oh, four f**king minuets ago. "TA DAAAAAAA!!!!!"
Now that I've been a constructive ass, here is what I recommend:
The main problem through the entire trick is that it makes no sense whatsoever. You may think this is because the trick "just isn't that good", but its sure as hell not that, that's for damn sure. You may think I'm just an ass and tell me off like you know the game better than I do, I'll leave that up to you. Now ill tell you where the fault lies (process of elimination may have made this clear): the problem is you. Period. Through the whole trick, all you did was go through the motions and do a half assed narration of this "trick". But it could have been worse, you could have dubbed your voice over with music, been less clear with... anything, and made the spectator do the math at the end (that would've been the cherry on top).
DO these things:
1) Establish a setting for any effect (like gambling, card cheating, luck, mystery, etc.).
2) Be overly clear about what you're doing and WHY.
3) Make sure you mention the cards involved before, during, and before the reveal of the effect.
4) become more involved.
Don't do these things:
1) Do a trick.
2)Pretend you're Teller.
3)Burden your spectator.
4) Pretend that what you did was anything greater than a coincidence.
If you have any questions, PM me.
