Ok, so first off, why did I buy "Frozen"?

I recently just heard of this trick, and I picked it up really as a curiosity. Here is the breakdown:

Performance:
Before the DVD even goes into live performances of this effect, you see a title screen video which looks like this:
There is a quarter on a table, Adam Grace's face is right above the quarter, he blows on it, and it FREEZES OVER, extremely visual. First impressions are "AWESOME I can't wait to do that".

You find out later you can't actually do the trick that way, unless you're doing it in front of a camera. 0/10

The street performances are ok, but I personally don't find a balled up napkin to look very appealing. I guess it's good if you're going for an "Edgy, Bare Bones Street Magician" type of effect. Perhaps you could substitute this with a silk? I haven't tried that yet. 6/10

Secret:
The secret to HOW this works is actually really cool, and quite fun to play around with. Never would have discovered this on my own. 10/10

Practicality:
There are two versions of this trick that you can perform for an actual audience. First let's go over:
The "Balled up napkin" effect. You ball a quarter up in a napkin, you blow on it, cold mist appears, the napkin is opened to reveal a frozen quarter.

Once this trick is set up, you have about 15 minutes to perform it. Um....what? That severely limits where you can perform this. You definitely can't do it on the street for all sorts of random strangers, unless you set up right before you meet them. Even to put this in a show would require that your show is under 10 minutes long. I suppose for walk around it is quasi practical, but it is certainly less than ideal. 4/10

Version 2, the "blow on and freeze" effect
This version is "impromptu" except that you pretty much have to "Be like Batman" -joe pon
And you really do to. This is as much of a set up if not more than ultra smoke 2000, definitely more than the black widow, so it's not really impromptu. The set up isn't even the frustrating part, it's that once you're set up, you still can't do this effect on a table, you have to do it on the floor. "Everyone, bend down while I blow on this coin" 4/10

Overall impressions
A review:
The Secret: very cool, neat idea, dangerous if you're not careful 10/10

The Actual Visual Effect: This trick LOOKS great...on video 10/10

Practicality: This trick is simply not practical, and I have seen my share of impractical effects. It's more of an idea than anything else. It's a cool idea too, it's just not really workable in the real world. 4/10

If you're curious about the secret, then you won't be disappointed with this DVD, because the secret "stuff" is pretty neat, and lends itself to lots of experimentation and other applications, but it is dangerous if you're not careful.

If you want to be able to walk up to anyone, borrow a quarter and do this effect "David Blaine Style" or you want to throw this into your act you will probably be very disappointed, because of the time limits on the trick.

I will say that I enjoyed watching the DVD, and I will continue to have tons of fun with this idea, and I have spent far more for much less in the past.

Thanks for reading.

-Jordini

I'm agree with you.....
it looks good on video, but it's not practical.....
If you have your own TV show or TV series for street magic, this trick would be works great.....

If you perform in restaurant, the Napkin version is usuable and a great one. But, you have to go "backstage" for a reset...

I don't own this and don't know the secret. However, is it possible that a set up can be done in front of the spectators as part of another trick or disguised in some way, so that you could really do Frozen anytime, anywhere, at any point in your show? Sorry for the overly long question.

Here is a load of info and improvements

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......&start=0

-J-

And in short, mumford, no.

I just saw Brian Brushwood perform what I think was FROZEN on a beer cap on an episode of Scam School. Can you do FROZEN on a beer cap? Would it be the same thing as doing it on a coin? He did not use a napkin. He just put a beer cap in his hand and blew on it and it frosted over. It looked way better than any of the demos for FROZEN, so I'm not sure if it was the same effect.

Brian said it was Frozen on the forums.

Yes you can do frozen on a coin, but Brian "cheated" in that he set it up right before they started filming. You can't actually present it the way he did it for real people.

I was thinking about getting FROZEN based on the way Brian presented it. What exactly will I NOT be able to do? Use a beer cap? Place it directly on my hand? Get it to frost up as much? I'm honestly not fishing for methods, just wanna know what was staged. Thanks!

Brian, as stated already, cheated by setting it up before turning the camera on. You would not be able to do the bottle cap without exposing the trick. You will not be able to do it to a coin in your hand without taking a serious chance of frostbiting yourself. The set up was what was staged. Time is essential to the set-up, especially directly on a coin or bottle cap. You would have to set it up within seconds of performing it, which would not be possible without the audience seeing you do the dirty work. The only way to do it like Brian is to expose the trick in front of your audience. There is a set-up that is required. This is the reason most perform the napkin version. However, the napkin version has it's limitations as well.

Hope that helps NYCJoePitt

Thanks so much Dan, I am beginning to understand the timing issue perfectly now. Too bad I can't do what Brian did... cause it looked so cool! Pun intended as well

Glad I found this thread, because the video had me going...

So it's basically a pipe dream?