Howcast
The best source for fun, free, and useful how-to videos and guides.
Learn how to perform coin and card magic tricks from magician and mentalist Jason Suran, who walks you through the steps in these Howcast videos.
Transcript One of your biggest tools as a magician is misdirection. But it’s not enough to make someone look away. You have to give them something else to look at. Right now we’re going to go over a few basic pointers to help maximize your misdirection with your audience. One of the biggest things is …
Transcript This next move here is called the Spring Flourish. It’s a great move. Looks just like this. Right? Just like that. Now, it doesn’t really do anything. It doesn’t shuffle the cards. But it’s great as a moment of misdirection. It’s great just as a fancy little thing to throw into your act. And …
Transcript So this is the ribbon spread. it’s a great way to kind of enhance your card magic and really add a nice presentational flair to it. The way it works is you just set your cards down right on the table and you just give it a nice little spread. Just like that. This …
Transcript Magic is just like anything else. It requires practice, practice, and more practice. There’s just no way around it. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t start getting things right away. Some of this stuff takes time and some of it is just about building up muscle memory. Some ways you can maximize your …
Transcript Alright. Now one really cool move you can do when learning to handle a pack of cards is called the Packet Toss. Now you can use this move to cut a deck of cards, or you can do it just to look fancy. It’s not that hard. Here’s what you do. Basically, you’re going …
Transcript Everything I’m showing you today is stuff you could pick up a deck of cards and start practicing right now. There’s no substitute for going online, looking up your local magic store and heading over there. You’ll find tons of books there, great resources, DVDs and most importantly, you’ll find other magicians who’ll be …
Transcript The famous magician, Howard Thurston, once said, ‘A magician is just an actor playing the part of a magician.’ Your tricks and your effects can be spectacular, but what audiences are going to remember is you. One of the things to start thinking about once you’ve started to acquire an array of effects to …
Transcript What we’re going to do right now, it’s called coin rolling. It’s a nice little flourish that you can do with pretty much any coin that fits your hand well. I’m using a little half dollar here because it’s a little bit easier to see on camera, but you can do this with a …
Transcript So right now we’re going to learn how to throw some cards. I don’t know if anybody was like me growing up watching X Men wanting to be Gambit. I thought this was the coolest thing. It basically works just like this. You just take a card, right? You hold it right between these …
Transcript Magician: So you’ve got a quarter there. You can check it out if you want to, nothing, nothing, nothing going on. Do you like it? Shiny? Alright we’re going to try something really cool with this. This is one of my favorite things to do with a quarter. You take a quarter and you …
Transcript For me, the cool thing about magic is that it challenges the audience to rethink kind of the world around them. It’s about storytelling but it’s also about showing something they thought was impossible or that, you know, they might not have ever imagined before this. And to me, that’s one of the most …
Transcript Another really cool way that you can fan out these cards is called the one handed fan. It is exactly like it sounds; it is a fan with one hand. Now the way that it is going to work, here I will show it to you guys really quick. It is just that. It …
Transcript You know, I think it’s important that there always be a little bit of magic out there, that people can just kind of, you know, go out there and do a search and learn for themselves. I think that’s how to get a new generation of magicians. You know every time I think there …
Transcript Alright, next thing we’re going to learn is the kick cut. It’s really easy to do. It’s a great move, and it’s just a nice, quick way to cut the cards. You can do it while you’re talking to the spectator, while your explaining a trick, and this is how it’s going to look, …
Transcript You might not always have a table. You might not necessarily wanna do a standard bridge shuffle. A really great way to shuffle the cards up nice and quickly is what’s called the overhand shuffle. I’m gonna show it you right now. It’s really easy. It’s just [card shuffling sounds] that. That’s the whole …
Transcript If you want to add some flare to your card magic, one great way to do it is with a little move called the Charlie Cut. The way it works it’s just basically a one handed cut. And it looks just like that. You can do it over and over. You can speed it …
Transcript I only have a joker; a joker. Okay, cameras rolling. This is the 3-card Monte. All right; you guys ready? Action. And how long have you lived in New York City? Six to seven years. So you’ve been here a little bit. Have you ever seen anybody on the street every playing a game …
Transcript Alright, you guys want to see a really cool magic trick? Yeah? Alright, let’s try it. Go ahead and take any card you want. I don’t care which. Okay. Got it? Take a look at it. Show it to the camera. Alright, good. Alright. May I? Alright, we’re going to take this back, and …
Transcript Alright guys, we’re gonna do a card trick now. But I need your help. Would you guys like to help me out with this one? Alright. Who wants to be my helper? You wanna do it? Alright. I’ll tell you what I want you to do, alright? I’m gonna fan out the deck, just …
Transcript Man: You guys want to see something cool with a coin? Boy: Yeah. Man: All right — my grandfather actually showed me this one, right? All you do is, you take a coin right? And you just rub it from one elbow to the other. This is a really cool trick that my grandfather …
Transcript Jason: Now Anne would you help me out with this one again, I guess these are all stand alone. Now Anne would you help me out with this one? Anne: Sure. Jason: Would you just go ahead and shuffle those cards, and as you do I’m just going to make a little bit of …
Transcript Hi. Would you guys like to see a really cool trick? Alright. This is one of my favorites called The Two Detectives. I’ll show you why. What I’d like you to do for me is I’m going to turn around, and I just want you to take any card that you want. It doesn’t …
Transcript The next thing we’re going to learn here, guys, it’s one of the oldest effects in magic. Everyone’s seen their grandfather do it at dinner. This is how to make a coin disappear. It’s really easy. I’m going to show you how to do it. You’re going to use a move that we magicians …
Transcript Jason Suran: Ann, would you help me out with this one? Ann: Sure. Jason: All right, great. Go ahead and select any card that you’d like from the entire deck. Got it? Ann: Yes. Jason: Memorize it and show it to the camera. Perfect. Go ahead and just place it right there on top …
Transcript Ben Nemzer: I want you to do me a favor. Would you help me out with this card trick? Ann: Sure. Ben: Great. Go ahead and pick any card you’d like. I won’t look. All right. Would you do me a favor, just take a look at it. Look at it, look at the …
Transcript Man: So I was going to do a card trick for you guys. You guys want to see a card trick? Children: Yeah. Man: But I don’t, I don’t have any cards. Oh! You know what? I’m a magician. So we’ll just pull one right out of thin air. Do you guys like that? …
Transcript Jason: Alright. Now this is a great trick. This is called Poker Player’s Picnic. Can I ask you something? Have you ever played poker? Woman: No. Jason: No? You’ve never played poker? Woman: No. Jason: You didn’t seem like much of a card player, but I think everybody’s kind of gotten a knack for …
Transcript Magician: A big part of magic is letting your spectator choose a card, right. Because as humans, we trust in our free will. I got this theory that people don’t make decisions by accident. In fact, I don’t think people make decisions that are all that random at all. For instance, I’m going to …
Transcript Speaker 1: So I’ve got a lovely assistant here. Would you do me a favor? Speaker 2: Sure. Speaker 1: Would you go ahead and cut the cards wherever you like? Great, just like that and then we’ll take this packet here and we’ll mark the place where you cut. We’re going to try …
Transcript Speaker 2: So you guys know that there’s nothing more magical than the written word, right. Well, I’ve got 13 cards here, ace through king, and we’re going to try to find each of those cards using only its name. We’ll even shuffle them up a little bit. Good? Now, what’s the first card …
Transcript This is the amazing vanishing pen cap trick. Are you guys ready to see it? What we’re going to try to do here is we’re going to try to make this pen cap disappear. But you guys know every magician needs a magic wand. So, we’re going to use this as our magic wand. …
