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JamieD Inner circle London 1798 Posts |
ULTIMATE SELF WORKING CARD TRICKS VOL. 2 REVIEW
Ad copy: Featuring creations from some of the greatest minds in magic, Ultimate Self Working Card Tricks Vol 2, is jam packed with incredible card tricks that require NO sleight of hand. Following on from Bigblindmedia's biggest selling release of all time ('Ultimate Self Working Card Tricks Vol 1), this is a project stuffed with do-able, AMAZING tricks!! The nine stunning routines on offer prove that it's not HOW the trick is done - it's 100% about WHAT your audience perceives. None of these tricks require sleight of hand, but they are absolutely, mind fryingly awesome. Some of the methods are so devious that you'll fool yourself when you perform them. From John Bannon's self working, instantly resetting packet trick 'Poker Pairadox' to Ryan Schlutz's three phase masterpiece 'Sensational' to Peter Duffie’s ingenious ‘FourMost’ – these are tricks that you will perform again and again and again. So grab a deck and join your hosts James Went (from the smash hit BBC show 'Help, My Supply Teacher Is Magic'), Liam Montier, Iain Moran, Ryan Schlutz and Owen Packard, and prepare to learn some of the greatest card tricks ever invented. TRACKLISTING – 1. Mind Mirror (Jack McMillan) 2. Convergence (Cameron Francis) 3. Stock Exchange (John Guasterferro) 4. Sense-sational (Ryan Schultz) 5. Poker Pairadox (John Bannon) 6. Four Most (Peter Duffie) 7. Password Fallacy (Jim Steinmeyer) 8. Amara Rises Again (Ryan Matney) 9. Blind Choice (Roy Walton) REVIEW: For those who own the Ultimate Self Working Card Trick Vol. 1 DVD will appreciate the sheer volume of powerful practical card magic on one DVD. Nearly every effect on the first volume, I could see myself performing and have at some point. When you thought the first Ultimate Self Workers couldn't get anymore, you get smacked in the face with a steel fist of awesome! This DVD is not only a great follow on to the first in the series but in many ways surpasses the first! The magic on this DVD really is the ULTIMATE in self working effects. The DVD production as per the usual BBM standards, once again show why Big Blind Media are regarded as the best UK magic DVD production company. The lighting is cool. The setting is wicked and to keep you amused, not only does it have the likes of Liam Montier, Ryan Schlutz, Iain Moran, James Went and Owen Packard presenting and having a lark around, but they have the ever popular, leather clad model quality ladies producing £10 notes from their... Ill let you watch the DVD. So onto the magic! Each effect begins with a quick look at the inventor of each trick. A lovely touch if you ask me. Its nice to find out about the people behind the effects and also, where the trick originated from and where you can find out more about the effects of that magician. JACK MCMILLEN The first effect is Jack McMillens ‘Mind Mirror’ in which the spectator freely selects a card and without intervention from the magician, she legitimately shuffles the cards. The magician then spreads the cards face up and is able to tell the spectator what her card was. The method is absolutely brilliant. There is a sleight set up but this can be done during performance for those with culling ability. But for how fair this effect looks, it is totally worth it. A brilliant brilliant effect which I'm not has many more applications hiding within. CAMERON FRANCIS Next in the spotlight is ‘Convergence’ by Cameron Francis. This is essentially a quirky any card at any number. Two decks are introduced. One is selected and one placed aside. The deck is opened and a card fairly selected from the deck. The magician then explains that he has drawn the numbers 1-52 on the backs of the cards. A second card is freely selected for its number. The second deck which has been lying in view throughout is opened. The magician counts down to the selected number to find the selected card. Now I'm not really into the ACAAN plot but this is dynamite. Presentation wise, the numbers on the backs of the cards help keep the spectators engaged whilst the dealing happens, the anticipation of what number is going to come up is brilliant. Equally, method wise, it is genius! You practically have to do nothing. It is all in the hands of the spectator and always works beautifully. The spectator has free choice over which card which is also a nice touch. This is definitely worth a look in. Cameron has come up with a brilliant solution for this great version of the ACAAN plot! JOHN GUASTAFERRO Next in the driving seat is an awesome effect from John Guastaferros ‘Stock Exchange’. In this effect, the spectators freely shuffle the deck between the three of them. The deck is reassembled. The magician laces down two prediction cards on the table and cuts the deck in two piles. The spectators then mix the cards on their piles face up and face down and also swap cards between each others piles. The top cards of each pile are turned over and shown to match the two prediction cards! The magician then shows that both piles have reset themselves and are both now all face down. Lastly, each pile is turned over and seen to be all red cards in one pile and all black in the other! This is definitely one of my favourite effects on the DVD. It. Is. Just. AWESOME! It is so incredibly simple and yet totally fooling. If there is a magician fooler on the DVD, this is it! There is a full deck set up for this one but god is it worth it! It is a very hands off effect and the mixing seems completely fair. It is incredibly well structured and as per usual with John G’s magic, he has added that One Degree to an old move to make it even more fooling. You MUST learn this effect! RYAN SCHLUTZ This is a brilliant effect from Ryan Schlutz called ‘Sense Santional’. Three spectators are each given a section of the deck to freely shuffled. The deck is reassembled and further shuffled together. This seems totally fair and totally random. The spectators are handed some card each and each person selects a card. (one person just thinks of one card) The cards are never touched by the magician and are again mixed into the deck. The magician then reveals each persons card. This is the James Bond of card tricks! Totally fooling in so many ways. The effect really comes into its own in the final phase. Essentially, during the effect the spectator has taken a small stack of random cards (which are truly random) and just thinks of one of those cards. They are then legitimately mixed into the deck. You have no control over those cards nor do you know what any of them are. Using Ryans brilliant methodology and routining, you can then reveal that thought of card with 100% accuracy! If you think there is some hidden system going on, I assure you, it is that clean. You can even have them lie to you. Giving them 4 random cards and asking them to lie about one of them. There are some great presentational hooks here and it is just a terrific piece of magic which is just as fun for the magician as it is for the spectator! JOHN BANNON John Bannons ‘Poker Pairadox’ is up next and as per usual with Bannons work, it is dynamite! The magician introduces a packet of cards wrapped in a £10 note. The cards are shown to be 8 pairs of poker hands. In fact, they are all of the Jacks, the Queens, the Kings and the Aces. They are spread and shown to be totally mixed up. Furthermore, the magician shows each pair individually to further cement how mixed up the pairs are. The spectator then picks one of the card and turns it face up. She taps the top card of the packet and when the card is turn’t over, it matches their selection. Then, each individual pair is turn’t over to show they have all matched up to their mates. This is another one of my favourites from the DVD. Mostly because how simple and direct it is. The method is great. The set up takes seconds and is pretty much instant reset. The effect is snappy but totally baffling. I have seen versions of this effect over the years which seem to use counting and lots of procedure. Not in this case. It is performed as you read it. A totally brilliant quick effect that showcases John Bannon as one of the very best card magic creators in the world. PETER DUFFIE ‘Four Most’ by Peter Duffie is a brilliantly routined effect in which each spectator is asked for a money note. Each spectator calls stop as the cards are dealt. There note is placed on top of their stopping point to mark their position. The magician also does this with his own money. Whoever has cut to the highest card gets to keep all the money. Each card is turned over at the same time and found to be the four Aces! Everyone is equal and therefore, every gets to keep their own money! I think you’ll agree, from an entertainment perspective, this is brilliant. When money is in play, there is always going to be a bit more excitement. Method wise, it is dead simple and requires very little work on the behalf of the magician. The end kicker of the four Aces is genuinely surprising! Its not what you’d expect from this kind of routine. If you do want to con your spectators, It can easily be played with so you win all the money. *wink*. JIM STEINMEYER ‘Password Fallacy’ is one of those rare effects that can be performed through any medium. Great for TV, through webcam, radio and even face to face! The spectator is asked to grab 9 cards from his deck and to shuffle them and hold them face down. They must then remember the bottom card and think of a password. Whatever they want. They must then spell that word (in this case ‘beard’) in order to loose their card in the packet. Now the magician is going to hack their password. He asks them to spell ‘My Password Is’ and then spell their word. Although the magician has no control over the length of the word chosen, the selection is found on top of the packet! This is my favourite effect of the DVD! I love those kind of magic but its hard to find versions of it that are truly fooling. On the DVD they mention having a number of spectators all doing it with different passwords and each of them still end up with the card on top. It is a dynamite effect and great for show reels and a way to get your customers involved before they book you through your website. Ill definitely be filming it for my site over the coming weeks. It is absolute gold! RYAN MATNEY ‘Amara Rises Again’ by Ryan Matney is a brilliant story style effect in which an old royal is buried in a tomb and the spectator will discover who it is. A card is placed inside a card box and the spectator fairly deals down to a random point in the deck. Using those cards,s he deals three random piles with different amounts of cards. Each pile reveals something about the royal. If it is a King or a Queen. If it is Black or Red and lastly, what suit it is. Surely enough, it is bang on! The card is revealed to be the Queen of Spades. As a final kicker, you show they have dug down to her sisters. Each pile is turned face up to reveal the other Queens! I know I keep saying it but, this is awesome! Method wise, it is so deadly simple and get so well structured and routined, it would be a mistake not to perform it. There is a sleight set up but once done, ALL of the work is done by the spectators. Once the piles are down, the magician uses the piles in an ‘he loved me, he loves me not’ flower petal kind of way. It is just a beautifully structured routine which can be presented however you want. To be able to do such a strong effect from a normal deck should literally not be allowed! ROY WALTON Roy Walton is a legend of card magic and ‘Blind Choice’ shows why Roy is so well loved within the magic community. In this effect, the deck is fairly shuffled and 5 spectators are given 4 random cards from the top of the deck. Each spectator is asked to place one of their cards, sight unseen on to the table. They are then asked to place another card onto the first, but his time look at the card being placed down. The remaining two card are collected from the spectators by the magician and placed in a pile on the table. Each tabled pair is turn’t over to show that each spectator has matched up the colour of their pairs! (each spectator has either two red or two black cards). The magician then furthers this by picking up the face down pile of cards and deals then into two random piles. When they are turned over, he has perfectly separated the colors of the piles. We all love the ‘Out Of This World’ plot but there are so many people that know of it and know its method including Laypeople. There are also so many versions of it that require so much procedure and set up, its hard to remember. Although this version does require a full deck set up, the effect works through clever routining and wording. This means that, the magician has very little to do! The method is absolutely genius and the final phase in which the magician separates the colours of the final pile of cards, requires no memory work and no memorised deck or anything of the sort. This is a stunning effect and one that will definitely be working its way into my working set! FREE PDF BBM have also put together a free PDF! ‘Abibliophobia (the fear of running out of reading material) has two additional effects from Liam Montier and Cameron Francis. These are also both amazing routines and are an awesome little freebee from BBM! So there we go! That is my in depth review of Ultimate Self Working Card Trick Vol.2! If you have any other questions, just shoot me a PM and ill happily answer them. This is a must have DVD for magicians who not only enjoy and perform card magic but also for those who want to discover some brilliant card methods that they possibly hadn’t come across before! It is available here: http://www.BigBlindMedia.com Jamie Daws
TORCE - VMRS - DARK SERIES
www.JAMIEDAWS.CO.UK |
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JackMagic Inner circle 1982 Posts |
What he did not mention is that is is NOT available yet it is The dreaded Pre Sale item only
Anyone that gives a review of an item not out has of course been given the item as a Free Gift so I will always wait for a review from someone who has paid for the item and does not want to upset anyone with a bad review (while this might not apply with this item , this does happen a lot on the Café) |
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magicbern Inner circle Hong Kong, China 1220 Posts |
That's a bit presumptuous of you! Perhaps it's better to check the background of the reviewer? In the case of Jamie Daws, he's a reputable magician who has put out many great tricks including SCARED! I actually appreciate these pre-sale reviews as it hope me to Decide whether I want to get a new product - before others do
Also I believe in the integrity of the originators too who usually don't mind criticism and are magnanimous enough to accept honest comments - be they positive or not - so long as they come from people respected and knowledgeable in our field. |
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Zombie Magic Inner circle I went out for a beer and now have 8733 Posts |
OK, they had an annoying trailer, but were kind/smart enough to show a routine on another clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla......i4h1aByA JamieD, thanks for your review. The dvd has some of my favorite thinkers/performers on it! |
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george1953 Inner circle Mallorca (Spain) 5943 Posts |
Got vol. 1 will be first in line for vol 2, any idea when it will bbe available ?
By failing to prepare, we are preparing to fail.
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Zombie Magic Inner circle I went out for a beer and now have 8733 Posts |
Their site says release date is June 17th.
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richard_mentalism Regular user 146 Posts |
Quote:
On 2013-06-01 19:52, magicbern wrote: I do not think that JackMagic needs my defense, but his comment is very right in general. Note that he has mentioned that "this might not apply with this item". Also he has not "attacked" the reviewer in any way. His main message is that a review from someone who has paid for the item is expected (maybe also not) to be more objective than from someone who has received it as a free gift. I personally have enjoyed very much Ultimate Self Working Card Tricks Vol. 1 and tend to order Vol. 2, but will definitely wait for unbiased reviews before I decide. |
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richard_mentalism Regular user 146 Posts |
Quote:
On 2013-06-01 08:21, JackMagic wrote: I assume that you meant to say "...someone who has paid for the item and does not MIND to upset anyone with a bad review". |
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JackMagic Inner circle 1982 Posts |
Quote:
On 2013-06-01 19:52, magicbern wrote: First of all I did say "while this might not apply with this item" The fact is as it is Not yet out , so the person has been given the DVD for Free, while he might have a good track record , so have a lot of people who simply post on the Café , one person always says everything that it is the best thing and a lot of times , I have been very dissatisfied , when questioned the person at a later time , they normally say it's a great item but does not fit his style, while the old pals act does help to shift products , I still like to wait for a review from someone that has paid for the item and not been given away as a free gift. |
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JamieD Inner circle London 1798 Posts |
Hey guys,
Totally agree with everyone and everyone's views and thank you magicbern. I appreciate when people look into the reviewer a lot. In my experience, someone who is trying to flog a DVD on the behalf of a company would usually simply create a short endorsement or comment. Not many would spend an hour and a quatre writing a full in depth, no thrills review. The other thing is, the material on this DVD is actully brilliant! The Only one I wasn't to keen on is sense sational but the method is SO clever that it is hard to dispel it as a brilliant effect. You just have to look at the list of names on the DVD and that alone should speak volumes. Even more so then my review! Not to mention its produced by big blind media. Arguably, the most reputable producers in the UK! Ther arnt going to put something out unless its 100% awesome! I hope either way people read my review and realise that it is simply a display of respect and praise for what really is an amazing product! Jamie Daws
TORCE - VMRS - DARK SERIES
www.JAMIEDAWS.CO.UK |
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Markymark Inner circle 1686 Posts |
Well it's hard to go wrong making a dvd with such great inventors of card magic.
I think it's precisely because you took over an hour writing a useful in depth review that you will help sell it.
''In memory of a once fluid man,crammed and distorted by the classical mess'' -Bruce Lee
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lunatik Inner circle 3225 Posts |
Considering how great the first DVD was, I'll order the next one without any reviews. Jaimie's review was just the cherry on the icing!
"Don't let your Dreams become Fantasies"
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J-Mac Inner circle Ridley Park, PA 5338 Posts |
Jamie,
Yes, Vol 1 of this series was very popular, and you did indeed spend a good bit of time on your review, for which I thank you. That said, there really should be a disclaimer contained in all reviews where the product is provided free to the reviewer. I am not saying that is why you wrote a positive review; just that ALL such reviews should contain that type of disclosure. While you are being honest here, I have seen many others where that was not the case. Thank you. Jim |
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NYCJoePitt Special user 558 Posts |
Quote:
On 2013-06-02 18:06, J-Mac wrote: Amen, Jim. I was going to write what you said, but you wrote it much better. And especially in a place like The Magic Café where we are a stickler for details and like a dog with a bone. Full disclosure is the best policy unless you want diversion from the main topic. PS. I will probably buy Volume 2 as well, Volume 1 was awesome. |
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Amazing Magic Co Inner circle 1712 Posts |
V1 was great, so they have definitely earned my patronage for V2.
Dan. |
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duanebarry Special user 883 Posts |
Disclosure of the reviewer's relationship to the producer would be appreciated, and should be the expected norm.
This includes whether the product was a free review copy, but would include any personal friendship and/or professional relationship as well. A professional relationship could include prior reviews given in either direction. |
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Casshan Loyal user 283 Posts |
Well I know I'm getting this for sure it sounds awesome and I had no disappointment from vol. 1
You can call me Cash!
Email: casshandw@gmail.com Facebook: Casshan Wallace Twitter: @Casshan_Wallace Instagram: @cash_magic |
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motown Inner circle Atlanta by way of Detroit 6127 Posts |
Perhaps BBM would consider giving review copies for this latest release to some people who don't have any connection to BBM in any form. This way they'll get some impartial reveiws in addition to Jamie's.
"If you ever write anything about me after I'm gone, I will come back and haunt you."
– Karl Germain |
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Liam Montier Loyal user 297 Posts |
Odd turn this thread has taken!
Just to clarify a couple of points - I hooked Jamie up with a free copy of USWCT 2 because he is a friend of mine and he very kindly helped me put together the bonus PDF for the pre-orders. So, it wasn't technically a 'review copy' for a reviewer, but a gesture to a friend who helped me out. However, and I can't imagine this is news to anybody, but proper reviews like you read in magic magazine, or genii, or genii online, or magicseen etc, all come from free products. It's pretty standard practice in this business and every other, really. Anyway, to get back onto topic, I'd be happy to talk about the USWCT 2 and answer any questions. All I will say on the subject is that it is (in my opinion) easily as good as the first one, and personally, I think it's even better. Cheers, Liam. |
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sbays Inner circle Burbank, CA 1065 Posts |
This is just silly. The whole "they should advise us if they got it for free or not" is nonsense. Does what they paid for it have anything to do with the review? Nope. A review is simply ones opinion. Nothing else. I have read bad reviews of things I found to be genius. And vice versa. I'm far more interested in hearing an articulated review, and why they feel it is good or bad. Then I can make a decision to buy or not to buy. The uses that just because they got it for free, their review will be dishonest is just lame. If a reviewer is shady or has a secret agenda, then that's what you will get regardless what they paid for it.
Vol 1 was very good. I use a couple things from it regularly. If I get 1 thing I will use from a DVD, I'm happy. I'm looking forward to vol 2.
"Opportunity may only knock once, but temptation leans on the doorbell."
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