Just received my package yesterday and went through most of my material and all I gotta say is WOW. The tricks, flourishes, and other stuff that is taught on this well-produced DVD are all fresh, innovative, fun to perform, and visual. The packaging is the best by far that I've seen for a magic video and even includes a small booklet that is a good introduction to the videos. All the tricks with the exception of one can be done with a completely borrowed, shuffled deck and the one trick that needs a dupe has a method without the dupe that's a bit harder. The tricks are very visual and most have even fooled me the first time viewing. Best of all, the tricks are all different from one another so you are not getting repeated or similar effects. There are revelations, transpositions, mindreading, productions, packet effects, vanishes, sandwich effects, and more. Some of the effects are pretty easy to do for a novice card handler and some are hard even for card vets but the tricks are so fun to practice that you don't even notice the difficulty. The new flourishes are very impressive and are a step above the flourishes seen in the System with some new ideas not seen in flourishes before and are very impressive. Everytime I see the performances for the flourishes I see something new that I did not see the previous 4-5 times. The everythingelse section of the DVD teaches the basic flourishes (hot shot cut, faro, sybil, charlier, etc.) to those looking to brush up their basics as well as a few new color changes, valuable finger exercises, subtleties that will help your routine, new card sleights, and some of the old Buck Twins flourishes explained. For all those who have viewed the system and did not like the teaching, Dan and Dave go through step-by-step in detail on all the sleights needed to perform the effect or flourish. For nearly 6 hours of high quality video, $85 is a steal, let alone $57 on penguin with free shipping. This DVD will take me a long, long time to learn and master everything I want to perform and couldn't recommend it enough for the card guy looking for some highly visual magic and flourishes from a borrowed deck and is also looking to take their card magic to another level.

Great review, I just ordered this from penguin and ill also post a review when it comes.

I agree. This is the best DVD set I have seen in a long time, and I can't recommend this set enough. There is so much on here I don't have time for one of my usual DVD reviews yet, but when I have time I will!

I picked this up as well and agree that it's very good.

A few thoughts:

First, I am not a flourisher, so this purchase was something of an extravagance. I'd love to be able to do some of the fancy cuts on disk two, but, realistically, I'll probably at best learn only a couple of them over my lifetime of owning this DVD. But I liked the combination of tricks and flourishes promised here plus the "Flourishes 101" section, which I figured would help me nail some of the basics, so that's why I bought it.

That said, "Flourishes 101" is probably the least interesting part of the disks. There are about 20 flourishes "explained" here ranging from simple dribbles to the Hot Shot Cut, but the explanations are just about 45 second or a minute-long sequences shot from different angles showing the move being done with occasional moments highlighting a particular finger position. Given the choice between having this material on the disk or not, I'd obviously take it because it is nice for reference. But if you're a beginner thinking you're going to pick up the Simple Switch from this disk, well, it's ain't going to happen. However, one thing this section did underscore for me was that this isn't rocket science, and that all the teaching in the world isn't necessarily going to help you nail something that's inherently knacky. In a strange way, the lack of teaching here was helpful it made me realize that more teaching is not the answer -- practice and trial and error is.

What is good about "The Trilogy," aside from its very elegant production (all the way from the packaging and design to the menu creation and camerawork), is the simple beauty of the Bucks' handlings and their confident, straightforward presentations. Often times watching a magic DVD can be like being trapped next to someone you don't want to talk to on a long airplane ride. (I think there are good magic teachers and then there are those whose personality just isn't suited to repeated viewings at home of complicated moves.) For guys whose forte is flashy cardwork, the Bucks are surprisingly cool and understated about the work, and for me that's an appealing quality. It will take me a long, long time to crack even a fraction of the material on these disks, but I'm not going to resent the time I spend doing so.

As for the magic, it's mostly in-the-hands, visual and very direct. A lot of two-card transpositions and routines involving sandwiches and changes, and many of the individual tricks here would make nice moments in longer card routines. There are a couple of easy tricks, like "Subway," which is just a streamlined sandwich effect credited to ideas by Frank Garcia and Earl Nelson, but most stuff here is intermediate to difficult. More specifically, to make this magic look as good as these guys do, you have to have a real smoothness in your card handling. If you, like me, like to patter for a moment while grabbing a thumb break, that won't do here. The Bucks have laced these tricks with flourishey (but not too much so) moments and flowing presentations. I particularly liked "Deja Vu," which combines an ace production with a sandwich plot and really fools with its transpo of the ace pairs from the table to the hand.

Another good thing about "The Trilogy" is that these routines taken together use a lot of moves. The crediting is great on "The Trilogy" (credits appear both on screen and in a more detailed form in the accompanying book), and the names that come up are people like Earick, Aaron Fisher, Lennart Green, and Chris Kenner, among others, so that should give you an idea of the type and skill level of the sleight of hand here. Not all of these moves are taught as completely as one would like, but because the camerawork on "The Trilogy" is so good you at least have the beginning basis for figuring them out. (And, in other cases, the teaching is quite detailed.) While in some magic books or DVDs a number of effects are created out of the same moves, that's not the case here. In fact, if you have a problem with one move there's probably another taught you can learn to make the routine still work anyway. A lot was new to me on these disks, and the Bucks' original moves have some very clever thinking behind them.

In addition to "Flourishes 101," the third disk has some miscellaneous stuff like a false table cut, some more productions, a couple of changes and riffs on another Buck cut, the Molecule (which, annoyingly, is shown here but not thoroughly taught).

In short, while I'm not going to be running out this weekend and blowing my friends away with this material, I will be returning to these disks again and again over the coming months so as to master a few of its many good routines and flourishes. Because I think I'll actually enjoy spending time with these disks during that process, I rate "The Trilogy" very highly.

My jaw dropped while watching the demo. These guys are exceptionally talented manipulators. Glad to hear the dvds live up to the hype.

This is definitely on my wish list, and fingers crosssed I'll get it for my birthday which is in 2 weeks! I'll post my thoughts on it then.

It is true about a lot moves being knacky. I find that as long as your finger positions are exactly the same as demo'd in a dvd or written in a book it just takes practice and you work it out from there.

all the best

dan

Very tempting indeed . . .

$57 from Penguin? I'm reading $63.75?

Is there some kind of special going on?! LOL

Still. $64 compared to $85. I might take the plunge

$57 from Penguin? I'm reading $63.75?

Is there some kind of special going on?! LOL

Still. $64 compared to $85. I might take the plunge

If you're a returning customer Penguin offers a 10% discount, bringing it down to $57.

Thanks bugjack! Much appreciated.

[by the way - sorry for the double post above.]

I tested 3 of the effects (hoffzy osbourne, collectors, tivo 2.0) ive been practicing on at a gig this weekend and I received excellent response. a person in the audience thought I had a gimmicked deck so I gave the deck I was using away and they are convinced I switched the deck or something. this material is really, really powerful card magic...if youre a card guy, especially if youre into impromptu visual magic, this is for you.

Just a question... how is this "powerful magic" when the audience simply thought you had used a trick deck?

Like I said on another post, absolute favorite handling of the hoffzinzer ace problem found out by these guys! the cool thing is, most the work is done after the tricks middle(other than the change that is) and the ending is in specs hands!

[/quote]

Just a question... how is this "powerful magic" when the audience simply thought you had used a trick deck?
[/quote]

The audiences minds couldn't comprehend what I was doing was with a regular deck of 52 cards that they were handling, making the magic that more powerful. Don't most objects appear to be tricked or gimmicked unless they are examined by the spectator? Isn't magic most impressive with regular objects that have been closely examined and are/appear to be normal? Isn't the point of impromptu, ungimmicked magic to do things with object that the audience didn't think were possible, that couldn't have been done without gimmicks? I may not be understanding your question...
My point was the effects on this dvd look impossible with a standard deck of 52 cards, and the audience believes that the effects must use a trick deck because they don't see how the effects I was performing were possible with a normal deck of cards. that's why I gave the deck away, to prove to them it really was a normal deck and not just gimmicks.

Must be powerful if by just using a normal deck of cards, spectators are convinced it can't be a normal deck. They don't believe what you are doing is possible with a normal deck, yes it is

The point Alex is making, if I'm not mistaken, is that there must be some presentational issues if the routines leave them an out other than "he must have used magic". There are two different but related accusations there -- the use of a trick deck, the fact that the magician is able to switch out the trick deck. One of the pitfalls of flourishy manipulative styles of magic is that spectators are inundated with proof that you're able to do a lot of amazing things via skill. It's great for the ego if people think of you that way, but it's not necessarily magic. If you don't mind playing at that level with your audience, though, then I guess there's no problem.

Darwin ortiz wrote and wonderfull essay about displaying skill in his book Scams and fantasies. He made and excelent point that displaying skill at right time doesn't take anything out of your magic if its correctly presented. He said something like even if you do 8 packet sybil type of cut and 2min later float the deck while standing 5 feet away from it people cant just take it as another display of skill. It is just too impossible.

Now Darwin doesn't wrote too much about when to use flourishes in routines, but in my opinion most XCM like Buck twins are using em at wrong time and for wrong reasons.

For instance they tend to use flourishes to reveal lets say a sandwich that has selected card in it or four aces. It just says there is nothing magical about this card ending up between the jokers or me cutting to aces. Its just something, I just did some clever way you don't know. Take some better constructed sandwich effect like Aaron Fisher one or Ortiz one. The card end ups there between pretty much test conditions. In other version completely at spectators hand! Now you could do 5min of crazy stuff before that and people still coundnt ignore it by saying that your just fast. Same with basic ace cutting. If you do some sybil prodution to card player they might be impressed a little by your skill, but if you do some normal non flourish ace cutting for em, like Marlo estimation aces, they are stunned. This is cos they can imagine what they could do themselves with that skill.

Also there seems to be way too much flourishes in XCM guys repertoires. Bucks have released now like what, 5-6 tapes? Tudor same amount, De´vo few and all amateurs many more. For what? I will tell you something you might have never realised... It becomes dull to watch after 3-5min if your not into it yourself. You gotta admit it, do you like to watch jugglers for more than 10mins. I don't... It gets repetetive. Same way as does normal card manipulation in contests. Once you seen one, you pretty much seen em all. Its same with XCM, once you have seen few cuts, you have seen em all. Laymen don't give a *** if you cut deck to 16 piles five different ways. They don't see the difference between the cuts. They look all the same to em. Magicians tend to forget that laymen don't see what we do every day and they don't see the difference in our tegniques if we use pass, cull or so on.

Of course everything I have written can be easily countered by just saying that you perform card magic purely by the displaying of skill. Then its fine I guess and it becomes the ego thing that was mentioned before, but it becomes complicated issue. Cant say how Buck twins describe magic but at least for me it seems that for they its just ego thing.

And also, if you put a decent magician, who has clue what he is doing, and worlds best XCM´s to entertain an real lay audience in social gathering or real gig, I would bet all my fortune that they like the magician better. XCM is fun to watch for a very short period of times but it becomes "Watch what I can do and you cant" way too easily and that doesn't sell you to your possible customers.

Or as Jamy Ian Swiss put it:
"Have you ever thought that you could be performing for an surgeon or president of Fortune top 500 company. Do you think he goes to bang his head on the wall at come just because he didn't learn how to cut deck to 16 pieces. If you do you are kidding yourselves."

Everything is Contextual.

"Ancient Wizards would draw out Arcane symbols in the air to make their magic work. As we all know some of the greatest tools for wizardry at the time were the tarot cards from whch the modern day deck of playing cards comes from.

When used in conjunction with one another, these cards of power and these
arcane hand movements...An incredible magic was brought forth."

A 10 - second justification of the flourishes that I tend to use if I
decide to throw in some killer stuff to keep myself entertained.

If you are doing 'magic' with cards, be honest with yourself. No intelligent adult believes that what you are doing is 'real magic'. They know is is sleight of hand and skill.
Therefore flourishes, if not overused are perfectly acceptable. If you really think that it takes away from the 'magic' you are doing, you are kidding yourself.
If anything it makes it nicer and more interesting to look at. Especially when you are in a club and have no choice but to perform without speaking.

I love the Buck twins work. But I still prefer Daniel Madisons stuff. He's a genius.