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The Effects

Sweet Sensation – a packet of wine gums is used to manipulate one of the most unexploited senses, that of taste. Five volunteers are to imagine a sour taste, however one will imagine a sweet taste you divine exactly which spectator is imagining the sweet sensation.
Transmission – A drawing duplication that is real time, no impressions, no pre show, no stooges. You send an image to a random volunteer in the hope that they will receive your thought. You repeat the process a number of times matching image after image to an astonished audience and a baffled volunteer.
A Card in 52 – A word in Thousands A direct card divination combined with a triple book test and you don’t even know what page or book they are looking at.
£1,000,000 Serial Killer – A volunteer is asked to take part in a challenge guessing game of which hand holds the prize. They win every time, as a finale not only do you divine the serial number on their £20 note but reveal an incredible coincidence never seen before.
Thief In The Dark – Four drawings unseen by the performer, each placed sight unseen into envelopes, yet you locate the owner of each drawing and finalise by duplicating the final drawing that remains sealed inside of it’s envelope. Inspired by Larry Becker’s Sneak Thief but using a totally different principle. A Killer packs small plays big effect.
Staple Gun Roulette – Four un-gimmicked industrial staple guns, one genuinely loaded are used in a psychological killer routine where the audience gamble with their choices. Three staple guns are fired over their hands whilst the fourth is fired into the back of wood to coincide a seriously tense piece of mental theatre.

A performance of Glimpse is also included but without the explanation

Cost

£75 for all four volumes or £28 each
http://www.alakazam.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000 ... 1190#a1190

Difficulty

(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)
1 – these routines all rely on performance.

Review

I bought this four DVD set in Alakazam’s Christmas sale and have only just got around to opening the first volume despite meaning to open them much earlier.
For some reason I expected Marc to be older – I don’t know why. His appearance is a little on the sinister side with dark swept back hair and a pale complexion but his performance style I found interesting. He appeared very confident and relaxed in his performance where some performers appear a little tense. However, I found the routines on this volume to be a disappointment for a variety or reasons and not having too great an interest in mentalism type routines was perhaps a disadvantage when viewing.
The routines are relatively easy and use a number of well known principles that many mentalists will no doubt be familiar with already. The routines may therefore appear to be of more interest to those who are looking to learn some material to get them started in mentalism.
They are well taught and the performance footage is also well filmed so you do get to see what the routine should look like in front of a real audience. Filmed in a hotel function room, the audience is rather thin on the ground with perhaps no more than 12 to 15 people present. Their reactions didn’t appear to indicate that they had seen something with the WOW factor.
A number of these routines rely on there being two or more participants which may not suit everyone. Also, a number of them were tediously drawn out with far too much audience direction, patter etc. that an inexperienced performer would possibly struggle. Even Spelmann’s smooth presentation style becomes tedious after a time with some of these routines.
The best routine shown on this DVD by far is ‘Glimpse’ but unfortunately this requires a separate purchase as the explanation and gimmick isn’t included.

Overall

6/10

If you’re interested in learning some psychological magic / mentalism then there has to be some better learning material out there somewhere. I doubt that those already having some experience will find this DVD of little interest.
Let’s hope that the next three volumes hold more interest.

I was a little dissapointed with the whole set aswell actually but there is one routine on one of the dvd's called 1-52000000 but it's an absolute gem, an amazing effect and one of the best routines I have seen.

I'll watch out for that one

The full DVD set was originally reviewed here.

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic3812.p ... t=spelmann

It should not be any surprise that I really did enjoy them. I think Marc Spelmann is one of the most exciting Mentalists out there at the moment and I have been very privilidged in that I have seen many lectures and performers live. He has that persona" that for me means he can sell it, plus I find him a very funny guy.

I did a search and couldn't find a review but that's not uncommon

I found Marc an interesting performer and judging by his we site he has impressed many a famous name. It was just the material that I found below par.

I'll watch the next one and perhaps do another review to add to the debate

Hi,

I have to say that this is probably the DVD set that I would keep if I were only allowed to have one for the rest of my life. I thought it was fantastic, particularly when compared to the Banachek set which I bought with without hesitation only to find that it was hardly worth watching. I'll have a spin through the four discs at some point and list out the effects that I think are best. It's a shame that the effect that opens this set, 'Sweet Sensation' with the packet of wine gums, is one of the worst in the entire series. However, there are some real gems on them and also some great techniques that help you think of some of your own effects.

James

dat8962 wrote:I found Marc an interesting performer and judging by his we site he has impressed many a famous name. It was just the material that I found below par.

Now you see, that's where I am totally the opposite... I found the performances drab, and almost tiresome, but the effects I found had potential.

Marc's pseudo-charisma seems almost barely rehearsed, and although I think he must be a hit at his shows, this doesn't come over too well on DVD explanations. Add to this the ever-condescending undertones of Nurdy Nardi and you're left with something which in my opinion would have served much better as a book.

I partly agree with seige. I didn't find the performances over the four DVDs that special, but I thought the effects themselves were (largely) good.

I'm not convinced it would have been better as a book, simply because of things like metal bending, which I don't think come across very well in print.

dat8962 wrote:
I found Marc an interesting performer and judging by his we site he has impressed many a famous name. It was just the material that I found below par.

Perhaps I should qualify my statement a little more. I especially used the word 'interesting' when describing his performance and I couldn't say with one viewing that it was either good or bad based on my normal taste. There was just something sort of surreal that I couldn't quite put my finger on which in itself made it interesting as often I study the performance and delivery more than the actual effect itself.

I too found the performances tiresome in the main but put this down mpre to the material than to the performance. The routines just aren't my cup of tea.