This thread isn’t about Brett guys. Don’t give him the attention he want.

That’s another way of looking at this, Ceierry. And you have a very valid point. On the other hand: when you are aware of this you stand up against this behaviour with your wallet. Since knowing about this I have chosen to buy Svensations, the A4 Svengali Notebook by Alan Wong, etc. Excellent quality and made by a guys that behave in a way that I can appreciate.

A friend of mine showed me this product of João Miranda. I think it is very well made. I had a very close look at it and yes - nothing to see. Nice. For close Up the reset would be a bit too long for me (In my field I am working), but as a stand up piece - perfect. My 2 cents only. Best wishes! T

You're welcome, tomd! Could you repost the link you shared, as it seems to be incomplete?

My bad mate.

Here you go: https://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/view......&start=0

No man.
Because I wrote something before I will this time jump in and say that an one-sided ''I call 'em as I see 'em. No BS.' attitude doesn't work anywhere.
Except maybe in already totally polarised situations.
There is no middle ground in your logic and the way you think you want to have this discussion.

You should have thought about moving along earlier.

Same here!

Man, I kinda bummed because before the all the inflammatory language knocked this conversation off-course, we were having a nice discussion about Metal Phone, how it compares with IR and the matchbox versions, what category of effect this is and how the different presentations of this trick affect the spectator's perception of the magic?

Let's get back to that discussion...

I'm curious if removing the metal and screws designed to look like a camera lens would affect the perception of this "engineered"? Likely not due to the metal still being sized perfectly to the case, thought all versions suffer from that same perfectly sized flaw.

Any of these effects seem to suffer from the same flaw, at least to me, which is that the block of metal seems incongruent. The only reason it seems to be there is to prove that the penetration phase was supposedly impossible. The trick isn't really a transformation effect because the original item (phone/cards/matches) is never shown. It can't be an appearance because the container was never shown empty. Even the penetration effect seems a little weak to me anyways, because the spectator never actually sees what is being penetrated until the end. At that point, either the block appeared after the object was removed from the hole, or the object penetrated the metal block but either can be true which muddies things initially. I suspect most magicians play this as a penetration. But it's not really. Maybe it's just my perception, but a penetration effect usually is clear about what is being penetrated. A magician may cover said object to penetrate it (mirror, coat thru jacket, balloon, glass, card, table, etc.) but WHAT is being penetrated is most always clear, obvious and generally is shown prior to the penatration. It is not the so in MP, IR or the matchbox version. Additionally, the effect points directly to the method. IMHO, YMMV...

The "Camera" supposedly is part of the secret for the locking mechanism. So can't remove it, unfortunately.

I agree it’s been a very nice and elaborate discussion. I also feel like I said all I have to say about this. So thanks for your points of view, gentlemen. It’s been a pleasure.

I kinda had a feeling...

I may be wrong as I don’t own this but I thought the reason for the “camera” was to take some of the heat off the set screw on the bottom edge which is actually what locks the phone’s movement. I don’t think it would be too much exposure for Joao or a phone owner to clarify this.

This (as with IR and matchbox) and numerous effects that do NOT look or seem normal, and make no sense....

As long as you have fun. And entertain your audience. You are good to go. Move on to the next effect.

I know for me, no one overthinks or questions me or says that the block isn't real, and no card deck/case would be metal, or those red soft ball thingys make no sense, what are they??? Or why would you put a half dollar through a table? on and on...

If they go home and think "I know Mike did something with that block for the card to go through it! I know it!!!
That's great! They're thinking of me and my performance. Who cares!


This absolutely makes ZERO sense to do. But I can't wait to get mine! And do it!!!!
I sadly have to wait until July!!!! Noooooooooooooo!!!!

My IR has been (and will continue) to be a GREAT effect that WORKS! This will too!

I also truly appreciate everyone thinking critical on this. Discussing how thy don't see how it makes sense and their thoughts. That's what the Café is all about.


Mike

. I second this.

That about sums it up for sure. Well said.

Exactly Mike , you should be able express your opinions positive or negative .
Otherwise there is little point in having a discussion on a product imo Gaz 🙂

When in April do the pre-orders go out?

Is it April yet 😁, Waiting patiently.

NM

@Joao - How is the availability looking right now for the July batch? Last I heard it was at 50%

Also, do you expect any delays as a result of the Corona Virus?

First, I don't know why people are surprised by Brett's behavior, he has always behaved like this. I have seen him personally attack so many creators it makes me wonder why people are so surprised when he does it to Joao? If he is not tied to the profits or the creator in some aspect, he's not polite and shows his true colors.

We should not forget that people were doing "svenpads" long before him and referring to this idea using the term "sven" and "Svenpad" but when Brett decided to do it, he trademarked the name and threatened to sue anyone who used the name to market their own product. There were E-books that talked about how to make a svenpad that were out years before Brett's products that were taken off of the market because of his threats.

We should also not forget that when John Van Der Linden created some original ideas for the svenpad, Brett wanted to produce John's products in a professionally printed svenpad that he could profit from and John Van Der Linden said no because according to him, Brett was going to overcharge and hoard all of the profits. Did Brett respect John Van Der Linden's wishes? No, he went ahead and printed them anyways. He claimed that he only printed them for people who already had purchased the download from John Van Der Linden but that does not justify him. Those were individual people who had purchased the download for their own individual use, according to copyright laws, it did not give Brett the right to profit from them. When John Van Der Linden objected further, he was removed from the Svenpad facebook group, and according to him was threatened with a 2 million dollar lawsuit from Brett's lawyer.

Morally this is wrong but again, why are we surprised? This is what happens when someone who is not creative in the least bit, nor original and who doesn't care about the art, sees magic as an opportunity to profit rather than a way to express themselves through their art. Brett said that Joao thinks more like an engineer than a magician, well it becomes glaringly obvious that he thinks more like a corporate business man than an engineer, a performer, or a magician.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, lets stop being surprised by his behavior, ignore him, and get back to Joao's wonderful product that he has invested a lot of time into and deserves a lot of credit for creating.

_____________________________________________________________
Having said that, lets get back to the product at hand. I recently purchased it and am waiting for it to come in the mail. I went round and round in my head as to whether this was worth $350 and whether it was worth waiting 2-3 months (I know, can you believe it?!?) to receive in the mail. Joao is from Portugal, so after shipping it could be close to 4 months before I receive it in Minnesota.

What budged me on this and made me order it was not just that I was bored during this isolation period that we are all going through, but that two thoughts came to me. The first thought that crossed my mind was when I saw James "The Amazing" Randi on TED Talks. He had fooled me and the rest of the audience by coming out with eye-glass frames but with no lenses in them and using a beard trimmer as a microphone. His talk was about assumptions that we make which cause us to be deceived. He said, "You probably think that I can see you, wrong - these are empty frames, I can't see you. I know that you are there because I can hear you." He then said, "you probably think that this is a microphone... wrong again... it's a beard trimmer. It works good to trim a beard, not so good as a microphone, trust me I have tried it." James Randi was invoking a great principle and I was happy to have been fooled by him because I made many assumptions. When I saw this on the Wizard Product Review, the idea of putting a card through a phone was unappealing to me. It was the same ol nonsense that we have seen before and in fact everyone, including non-magic folk have seen before. What fooled me was when David Penn turned over the phone to reveal a block of metal. Therefore I disagree with others who have said that it would have been better to be a cell phone rather than a block of metal. This will hit much harder, the problem is that many of you are thinking like magicians, not laymen.

The second thought that came to me was that this would be a great way to open up a metal manipulation (and bending) routine. If you truly could move metal with your mind, why is it limited to wimpy forks? I have never had this problem but many magicians (or mentalists if you prefer) have said that their audience was not impressed with their metal bending BECAUSE THEY ARE WIMPY FORKS that anyone can bend. I have never had this problem so I think that it might have to do with how it is presented and how the routine is structured but I thought that this metal phone would be a great metal manipulation opener. Think about this for a second, long before you bring out the forks, spoons, nails, etc. you open with metal phone. You convince your audience that you are able to manipulate the metal to the point that a card can pass through it, then you go into bending forks, and all of that other stuff. Nobody will say "can you do it with a solid block of steal" BECAUSE YOU ALREADY DID IT and they were able to examine it. How awesome is this?

In full disclosure, I have not received mine yet but if it is as good as David Penn said that it was and presented it on the Wizard Product Review, I think that it will get fantastic reactions and it will be worth every penny. I will post and updated review after I receive it. If it doesn't live up to the expectations, then you can rest assure that I will sell it at a discounted price tag but I think that the chances of that are extremely low.

Sincerely,
The March Hare