It’s Magic! Documentary ‘Lost in the Shuffle’ Explores the History of Playing Cards
Poker couldn’t be played if not for playing cards, but as a player, ask yourself – how much do you really know about the 52-card deck you probably take for granted every day? Do you know the story of how those cards came to be?
Well, that is the premise of a documentary that poker players might find interesting. Lost in the Shuffle explores the history of playing cards against the backdrop of magic. In it, world champion magician Shawn Farquhar reveals the tantalizing clues to a Medieval cold case murder hidden among the Jacks, Queens, and Kings.
Here’s a synopsis of Lost in the Shuffle:
For almost as long as there have been cards, there have been card tricks. In the hands of a magician, a simple deck of cards takes on a life of its own and is elevated to an instrument of wonder and awe. Seen through the eyes of some of the world’s best sleight-of-hand artists, Lost in the Shuffle is a loving look at how playing cards have become synonymous with magic and the mysteries hidden in their art.
Two-time world champion Shawn Farquhar takes us through six countries as he both tries to prove his theory that hidden in the art of every deck of cards are the clues to the conspiracy to kill a French king in 1498, while simultaneously creating a brand-new routine that tells the real story of Charles VIII’s untimely demise. Workshopping different elements of the routine with four top magicians, the film pulls back the curtain on the creativity, ingenuity and psychological tricks the modern magician employs to make us all believe in the impossible.
Other magicians featured in the documentary include Alexandra Duvivier, Juan Tamariz, Michael Vincent, and Richard Turner.
While the documentary, which is available to rent/buy now on iTunes or YouTube (or find physical copies on Amazon), isn’t about poker per se, there is enough overlap with playing cards to pique the interest of any serious player.
Q&A with Jon Ornoy
PokerNews had the opportunity to chat with the producer and director of Lost in the Shuffle, 49-year-old Jon Ornoy, who is originally from Toronto but has lived in Vancouver for nearly three decades.
He made a career for himself in the film industry, spending 10 years as a camera assistant to directing his first short back in 2007. Since then, he’s on to produce and direct four more shorts and three features that have played and sold internationally, with Lost in the Shuffle even receiving the rare honor of having been screened on Air Force One!
As Ornoy said, “I enjoy making both narratives and documentaries, but have been focused more on documentaries lately because there are so many fascinating stories out there just waiting to be uncovered.”
Here’s a look at PokerNews’ full chat with Ornoy.
PokerNews: What inspired you to make Lost in the Shuffle?
Jon Ornoy: The journey to making this film started for me in September 2019 when I saw that world champion magician Shawn Farquhar had opened up a little pop-up space not far from my house, and that there were still tickets available on my birthday. It was a tiny theatre, so everyone was about ten feet from the stage and he really did a fantastic job blowing our minds, so much so that I was motivated to email him a few days later to invite him out for a beer with the promise that I wouldn't ask him for any of his secrets.
"I'm very grateful for the way the magic and playing card communities embraced and supported our efforts."
Fortunately, Shawn's a really friendly and approachable guy, so we started hanging out occasionally, and it was during one of these meetings that he pulled out his laptop and showed me a PowerPoint presentation that he'd put together for a TED-style talk he wanted to do at an upcoming magic convention. This Court Card Conspiracy, as he called it, immediately grabbed my attention because I loved the idea that the clues to a cold case murder could have been hidden for centuries in some of the most famous art in the world, and I could see the potential for exploring this with a film.
I've been a life-long fan of magic, and as an artist, I'm frequently fascinated by the creative process of other artists. Making documentaries is a lot of fun because it gives you an excuse to immerse yourself in a world for a period of time, and I'm very grateful for the way the magic and playing card communities embraced and supported our efforts.
How long did it take and can you describe the process a bit?
From when I started to research the film to touring it with Shawn across North America was about five years all told. The research phase, which took me deep into the histories of both playing cards and medieval French royalty, came at the beginning of the Covid lockdowns, which was actually pretty good timing since it gave me a project at a time when there wasn't a lot else for me to focus on.
Once I had a pretty good idea of what the story structure was going to be and we had commitments from our incredible line-up of magicians, the next big challenge became putting together our financing, and as is the case with most indies, this was the longest stage of our production. Filming itself took place in March and April of 2023 and saw Shawn, our crew, and I travel over 27,000km to film in ten cities across six countries, including Canada, the US, Spain, Belgium, France, and the UK.
It was a real whirlwind of a trip that presented its fair share of unforeseen challenges, but our crew really bonded as a family through that process, and the whole thing was a lot of fun. Post-production, which involved doing all of the animation, as well as cutting together all of the live action material, took about nine months, and the film premiered in May 2024 at Hot Docs, the largest documentary festival in North America.
It’s not about poker per se, but what could poker players and fans take from the film?
There are a few reasons why I think poker players and fans will enjoy this film. First, you guys spend a whole lot of time staring at cards, but probably without knowing much about their history or why they look the way they do, and not really appreciating the significant cultural impacts they've had.
"We can walk away from the film with a whole new appreciation for this common, everyday object that we look at so much that we don't really see anymore."
This leads to our second hook, which is that if we can walk away from the film with a whole new appreciation for this common, everyday object that we look at so much that we don't really see anymore, then maybe we can also apply a similar set of fresh eyes to other things in our lives that we take for granted.
And lastly, we've got Richard Turner. If you're not familiar with Turner, he's one of the world's foremost card mechanics and the official quality control guy for Bicycle despite having been completely blind for decades. He's one of the most interesting people you'll ever meet and does his second deals so smoothly that even with our cameras focused on his hands, you can't see how he's pulling it off.
What inspired you to do the Kickstarter campaign?
We ran our first Kickstarter campaign as part of our initial financing efforts for the film and as a way to gauge the market interest in our topic, and it was a big success on both counts, as we brought in about $80,000 from over 500 backers in 20 countries. The primary perk that we offered our backers was limited edition decks of cards that Shawn designed especially for the project and that he also uses throughout the film. We only made 1,500 of these, and we sold the last of them during the film's theatrical tour in 2024.
Thanks to this strong demand, we decided to run a second campaign for a new version of these decks earlier this year, and that was a big success as well. All of the magicians in the film said that these cards are among the best they've ever handled, and as a special bonus, we've also now augmented their back designs a bit to add markings that identify exactly what the volunteer for your magic trick is holding.
We've also limited these to a run of only 1,500 decks, and there are still a few available that we are selling from our store now.
Do you have any other projects in the works? Any chance you might venture into the poker world?
I'm currently developing three different documentary projects: one on the parole system, one on North Korean hacking, and the last looks at whether all of our cognition and emotion just comes from our brains or whether our bodies play a role as well.
Although I'm not actively involved in the poker world myself, I'm sure that there are all sorts of fascinating stories out there that would speak to a larger audience as well, so if anyone wants to share their ideas, I'm all ears!
*Images courtesy of Jon Ornoy.
