Have you been on the sherry ?

Ben

Shhhhh. Let's not tell David Regal, Brad Henderson, David Acar... they may not know.

:nose:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BofddwtPBPw

Guys thanks for all the kind words. But I shouldn't have gotten into a discussion about Joe. I don't know him and have nothing against him. Nor does he know me. He was simply commenting on what he saw. I never meant for any of this to get personal and my crack about him having a grudge against me was uncalled for.

Anyway, I'm glad people are finding some value in the material. Means a lot to me.

I said some not all, but if you want to take what I said literary then my point is proven!

I have the highest respect for David Regal, Brad Henderson and David Acar, that wasn't my point!

Ben

That would be funny in another life hahahaha !

Oh the irony.

Ben

Benmagic1, I tried in every way to make my post funny. It wasn't meant to put you down or say you were wrong. It was just in good fun.

I myself only agree on what I like. Love reviews, they are fun to read. But even a top performer/reviewer, I don't always agree with. Not 'cause I just like/dislike something, but I will perform it. I know when people are being polite or are throw for a loop.

As the ancient Greeks would say: Kudos, dude. I mean that without a trace of snark. Folks, Mr. Francis is serving up some cool, refreshing enlightenment, and there's enough here for all of us.

Better late than never, I guess.

If you're interested, I can recommend a good chiropractor for the whiplash you must be suffering from this sudden reversal....

I have not seen this yet but I am sure it will be fantastic. I have never yet been unhappy with anything Cameron has put out.

Joe Diamond has always given my products negative feedback as well. Fair enough but enough people seem to enjoy those. As a worker he has also given neagtavie reviews to some of my favourite material from others. And this material is gold to me.

Pinch of salt springs to mind.

Cant wait to see it.

Lee.

At £21.99p it's not a lot to pay for a dvd with 14 good card effects(some of them being very good). Cameron is right there is no filler!

I can't understand the negative comments about his performance or any of the material. As I am not a know "magic convention" performer my opinions probably don't count for much, but as I make my living performing close up magic full time in the 'real world' I know what is strong for a lay audience and what is good. If I didn't people wouldn't re- hire me.Out of the 14 effects( all good) there are at least 8 that I would consider using. Why ? High impact, simple plot, entertaining,easy to get in and out of.Here are 4 favourites, not in any particular order-ZOMBIELAND,GETTING EVEN, INTERCHANGELING,KILLER TRIFECTA.

Well done Cameron 10 out of 10.
Mike Donoghue

I see that now, sorry Zombie Magic, no offence taken.

I have just watched the DVD again and I really cannot see how Joe Diamond came to his conclusions, I really can't. I have also been on to My Lovely Assistant and read all the reviews Joe has done on DVDs and tricks I own, again I cannot seem to agree with him on many of his reviews. He has dished out bad reviews on a number of tricks I make a part time living with.

While I agree everyone has the right to their opinion, what I take offence to is when someone says a trick is so bad it is not doable, a review should state that it is *not doable by the reviewer* but someone who has more experience could perform this non doable trick. That of course will not happen because this would take guts on the part of the reviewer, that isn't going to happen is it!

Ben

After doing the Underground Jam dvd Joe expected to be approached to do a solo release as he had now become a 'name'.

That never happened, hence why you see venom in his reviews of others work. Especially when it's on dvd!

I'd like him to release something of his own. Come on Joe, show us what you can do if others work is so appalling.

Total nonsense Jamie.I read all of Joe's reviews and they are fair and informative.
He does rave about great dvd's. It's just mediocre products he has a little bit of venom for.
The John Armstrong 'Out of this World' he mentions IS very good.So he does'nt just slam products.

I'm with Jamie on this actually...

Mr Diamond has slammed a lot of products that I've thought outstanding and raved about products I've thought were poor. This being the case, I personally wouldn't take any notice of his reviews. Of course in the past I've disagreed with other reviewers too, but not as consistently as I have with Mr Diamond.

Back on topic, I am a Cameron Francis fan. While I haven't seen this DVD yet, I have read a lot of the effects in print and I'm sure I'll like the DVD! More importantly, I KNOW I'll see material that I'll be able to use!

I went to the My Lovely Assistant site and read through some of Joe Diamond's reviews.

He gave a great reviews for Wayne Houchin's Sinful, two Cody Fisher releases ( Counterfeit Money and Restaurant Opener ).

He gave a VERY bad review for G's The Corner Project.

I have those and agree with the reviews. The My Lovely Assistant reviewers don't sugar coat the reviews. It's rather refreshing than the Café ones that say "10/10, all killer material". I immediately think "they have their friends helping out".

What we need is a review show that reviews reviewers.

Nah, let's just watch them all at least a few times and decide for ourselves if whe find them helpful or not.

Personally I want reviewers to give good solid information and I want to hear their personal opinion. But their personal opinion is the least important to me. If the reviewer says "This item requires a jacket and I just LOVE it" I'm not going to buy it because I don't wear a jacket.

On the WPR they railed about how bad a rubber hammer looked and that they would never ever use such a thing. But at the same time they showed the hammer and at stage distances it looked quite convincing. So regardless of their opinion you actually learned that the hammer looks pretty good at stage distance.

Something that I, and others, have to keep in mind is that reviewers are just people. As much as a good reviewer should be able to review something on it's own merits, taste will definitely come into play. There's no way it cannot. There are many reviewers whom I admire for their objectivity but I have yet to find one reviewer with whom I agree with 100 percent of the time.

Last year while thumbing through an old magic mag, I read a review of a book that really surprised me. The reviewer, whom I have a lot of respect for, absolutely trashed the book. Now, that same book is considered a modern classic and the magician who wrote it is known as a master of close up magic (i'm not going to name the book so please don't ask). Like I said, tastes vary and some material just won't speak to certain people. I know I have a sort of quirky style. Some like it, some don't.

He can be known as ' Classy Cameron Francis"!

The whole point of a review is to say whether the trick or tricks are of any use and if they are worth the money. I could not give two hoots about the performance or whether the performer or inventor of the tricks are any good. For years and years all I had to go with were written instructions and even then most were badly written !

I own a number of DVDs where the inventor is a genius but could not perform in front of a live audience and I didn't like their style, I am grown up enough to know that this doesn't matter as I don't want to copy them, I want to add my own stamp to the tricks.

Reviewer's should start to look at whether the tricks are of any use and not whether they personally like them or not, or whether they like the inventor or not. It certainly looks like to me that there are a number of reviewers who are out to promote themselves by knocking good products, surely an honest review would garner more respect and we wouldn't be having this debate.

Bring back written instructions and stop the spoon feeding, at least this will get magicians to start thinking about their presentations and stop the clone magician scenario from spreading even further ! Okay that would be too drastic but we must stop the spoon feeding of magic.

I do know that there are some really bad tricks on the market and some real stinkers and the truth should be known, what I do not agree with is when good tricks get put down because the reviewer doesn't like them personally, we all know that a good performer can take most tricks (not all tricks as even a great performer cannot make a stinker good) and turn it into a master-class of entertainment.

A good reviewer should forget about their own style of performance when analysing a product, they should think about of how the trick would play if any of the other thousands of magicians were to use it, this would certainly apply if the reviewer wasn't capable or didn't have the skills to do the effect they were reviewing. I have read or seen bad reviews because the reviewer lacked the technical and presentational knowledge required so they gave the product a low score, this is just not exceptable !

Getting back on track, Cameron your DVD is top stuff, I am using Zombieland and Interchangeling which are great tricks as most of your work is.

Ben

Excellent post, Ben.

Thank you.

Jim