High-Speed Cardistry Shot in Slow-Mo. No CGI, Strings, or Magnets | RISE | Cardistry by Virtuoso

Don’t just watch this. Experience it for yourself. Check out our Cardistry cards and tutorials at https://learnmore.thevirts.com/rise

Email: weare[at]thevirts.com
Instagram:   / thevirts  

A note from The Virts about "RISE":

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from shuffling cards over the past 14 years, it’s that you only get better at Cardistry as you repeatedly push yourself beyond your limits. The byproduct of that, of course, is dropping cards - again, and again, and again.

Today, after 14 years... we still drop our cards all the time. Sure, we now drop our cards less frequently; but no matter how much better we’ve gotten, bending to the floor and repeatedly picking cards up covered in dust (and hair) never gets any less frustrating.

Over the years, we’ve come to establish a bit of a love-hate relationship with failure. We still don’t like it, yet we’ve also come to recognize that if we’re not dropping our cards enough, we’re also not going to get any better at Cardistry. And in that sense, we’ve come to find failure rather beautiful.

RISE was birthed from a vision of ours to capture this intriguing beauty of failure.

Envisioning a juxtaposition between clean forms and abstract swirls, we pictured cards being manipulated with impeccable technique - abruptly interrupted and exploding out of the very hands that shuffled them.

We imagined them rising from the ground; the cards fluttering through the air in slow motion, dancing like the leaves in the Fall... and returning to our hands - perhaps forming imperfectly at first, then progressing with each step taken, and finally, displayed in all their glory.

Yet our stubbornness as Cardists doubling as filmmakers resulted in a few interesting restrictions that we imposed upon ourselves:

If this “Fall” vision were to be captured, it would have to be done with no CGI. Everything had to be filmed in-camera and performed by ourselves with with a real deck of cards.

Next, there would be no use of green screen, compositing, or other camera trickery. The furthest we agreed upon was the reversal of several scenes - and only if they genuinely added to the story we wanted to tell.

And finally, the cards used could not be gimmicked in anyway - no strings, magnets or anything of the sort. If what we envisioned could not be accomplished by our technique, then the idea was scrapped.

Thankfully, after months of planning, testing, and of course...failing, we finally had the opportunity to transform our vision into a reality.

Through the use of a Phantom high-speed camera mounted on a Bolt Cinebot (thank you Shooting Gallery Asia), and the help of a leaf blower or two... Rise was born.

We truly hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it for you.

The Virts

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RISE feat. the FW17 Virtuoso deck
Credits:
   • High-Speed Cardistry Shot in Slow-Mo....  

Cardistry Credits:
Cardistry performed by Virtuoso (The Virts):
Huron Low (Black Zip Jacket, Dark Green Sweater)
Daren Yeow (Black Buttoned Jacket, Grey Polo Tee)
Kevin Ho (Black Trench Coat, Blue Denim Shirt)

Cardistry and Card flourish move list (in order shown):

Indice Fans (classic)
Anaconda by Bone Ho
Stairmaster by Kevin Ho (credit to Birger Karlsson and Kenneth Aidan Foo)
Ninja Spring Grab + Replacement by Virtuoso
Flicker by Huron Low + Rev 2 Twirl by Daren Yeow
Flicker Shot Behind the Back by Huron Low
V Cascade by Daren Yeow
Aerial Combo Sequence by Huron Low (Kick Cut Flip, V Flip, by Huron Low, Railslide Flip, Aerial Cut by Dan and Dave Buck)
Buzzsaw by Brendan Conner
Anaconda by Bone Ho
Mind Eraser by Kevin Ho (credit to Chris Kenner and Huron Low)
Satellite by Kevin Ho
Tornado Deck Split by Kevin Ho (credit to Bone Ho)
Piano Cuts by Andrew Avila
Yo! variation by Daren Yeow (credit to Lee Asher)
Waterwheel by Huron Low, Daren Yeow, and Elijah Cai
Indice Fans (classic)

Video credits:
Video concept by: Huron Low, Daren Yeow, Kevin Ho, Jeremy Tan, Joshua Tan of Virtuoso
Director: Huron Low of Virtuoso
Director of Photography: Jeremy Tan of Virtuoso
Video Editor: Daren Yeow of Virtuoso
Lighting by: Jeremy Tan of Virtuoso
Color Grading by: Jeremy Tan of Virtuoso
Crew: The Shooting Gallery Asia
Wardrobe Styling by: Shu Juang

Music Credits:
Music: "Rise" by Virtuoso
Music composed and produced by: Roland Lim of Virtuoso
Audio Post and Sound Design by: Roland Lim of Virtuoso
Audio samples from Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins"

Special Thanks to:
The Shooting Gallery Asia: Seb Tan and his amazing team (shout out to Ahmad Rafa'ie!) for making this #Cardistry shoot possible.
https://www.shootinggalleryasia.com/

RISE feat. the FW17 Virtuoso deck by #thevirts
   • High-Speed Cardistry Shot in Slow-Mo....  

Don’t just watch this. Experience it for yourself. Check out our Cardistry cards and tutorials at https://learnmore.thevirts.com/rise

#cardistry
#thevirts
#cards
#decks
#virtuoso