The Foreground Prediction

Friend-of-the-site, Seth Raphael, posted a cool video chat prediction effect on his patreon account. (It’s free to watch.) And in that same video he also previews something he’s working on with other friend-of-the-site, Marc Kerstein. This site has some fucking smart friends.

Check out the video here to familiarize yourself with it, then I’ll give you my thoughts.

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You’re back? Just a minute.

Sorry, I was eating a turkey leg.

Okay. Here’s what I would do. It would be the same set-up as Seth has in the video but with two additional things. First I’d have a piece of double-stick tape on the front of the prediction. And I’d also have a Sharpie on me.

I’d say,

“Here is my prediction. It will never leave your sight. Now, if you were here in person, I would have you put your finger on it, so you’d know I don’t switch it or do anything funny with it. But since we can’t do that, we’ll put a sort-of virtual finger on it.” I’d ask them for a two digit number or a simple shape or something and I’d draw that on the back of the prediction card. That’s their virtual “finger on the back of the card.”

Then I would go through with the effect as Seth lays it out.

This fully justifies bringing the back of the card up to the camera. “As you can see, this is the prediction that was in view the whole time with your crescent moon shape on the back. And on the front… the card you named, the two of clubs.” The mark justifies the handling and the presentation justifies the mark. There are no loose ends here.

And the double-sided tape allows you to toss it in the air and handle it very freely.

If your intention is to predict a card over a webcam, this is pretty damn good.

You could also probably do it with a business card and have any word or number predicted.

Everyone thank Seth for being a nice boy and sharing his idea with the class.