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4xFour by Dave Forrest, DVD

Content
CUTTING KARDAMENA
ACETRA-ORDINARY
CUT AT ONCE
SPLIT ACES
8 OF 2 KINDS
INSTANT ACES
MATRIX ACES
PRIMARY FOUR

PLUS:
‘THE AUSSIE CUT’,
‘THE CAVIAR CUT’
AND THE ‘F.M.O.B COLOUR CHANGE

and a little bonus!

See an exclusive preview at:
http://www.bigblindmedia.com/assets/movies/4x4_trailer.wmv

Cost
£14.99 DVD from http://bigblindmedia.com/ , available from Monday 29th Oct, 2007

Overview

Oh dear.

Dear oh dear.

Dearie oh dearie dear.

Dave and Owen from BigBlindMedia have done it again. Fresh from a lunatic asylum and simmering on something I can only imagine as a cross between Special Brew and straight-up fresh Sativa comes Dave Forrest as you've probably never imagined him.

He's suave, he's sophisticated, he's debonair...

No... hang on. That's the Cardini DVD... more about that later.

Back to 4xFour...

The marketing splodge says "Have you ever needed four of a kind? In the midst of rubber gloves, blowing bubbles, cross dressing, male pregnancy and erotic pictograms, Dave Forrest and Owen Packard will walk you through 8 varied methods to do just that in ways that will ensure your audience are gob-smacked!"

OK... let's just take a look at four phrases from that quote:

Now then, I dare say at this point you're wondering what this has to with magic in any shape or form. Four of a kind? A kind of WHAT!?!?!?!

Well, of course, we're talking about four Aces, four Kings, four Court Cards or the other myriad of 'fours'.

Yep... that's right... in case you didn't realise, your humble deck of cards contains four groups—clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds... meaning there's four of each card.

Whether it be for productions to start a trick, productions to end a trick or simply a neato little flourish, there's EIGHT variations on finding, producing and displaying 'four cards of a kind' on this DVD.

Oh... and for those dE-lusionist 'Erdnase Addicts' out there, Dave demonstrates what I have to say is one of the most puzzling colour changes you are likely to witness for some time... the 'FMOB Colour Change'. Fans of Dan & Dave and the likes would probably gladly pay the £14.99 alone for this one effect.

First up: the magic
A little bit of everything here... misdirections, sleights, tomfoolery. Some you will recognise, some that's brand new.

As usual with Dave's creative noggin at the helm, the effect names are obscure, and generally give you no idea of what the effect is about. His naming conventions remind me a little of Marlo on acid. And that's a good thing!

So, I am not even going to go into any detail at all for each effect, except to say, the DVD does exactly what it says on the tin. (Well, outer box, actually).

This is a cool set of 4 card reveals, wrapped up in sugar coating and presented humourously (more about this shortly).

Filmed with excellence (as usual from BBM) in both terms of angles, quality and clarity. And a fabulous little auto-rewind feature—which at first I thought would become annoying—you get to see the same important bits over and over. This is great, as it really does drive-home the effect or the sleight. And makes learning these a breeze.

Talking of learning, there's nothing on here that you will find issue with (aside from perhaps a card spin). 90% is usable, learnable, and easily absorbed... whilst the other 10% is a bit more knacky and will come with time.

A nice refresher for experienced cardies, and a great resource for new magicians... because not only is this going to blow you away in terms of value, but it's also going to teach you a LOT about presentation and handling.

Overall, for the magic, I give this a solid 9 out of 10. I am only dropping a point because NOTHING is perfect.

Production...
Super-slick editing, filming, music and production. Although diverse in content, the handling of direction and timing is great. Filmed in what looks to be an industrial unit, the whole thing is well lit, with great sound and crisp clarity.

The boys done good again. But, there's a horribly repetitive inter-effect cut sequence which lasts a few seconds whereby the most memorable part is Dave springing cards into his eye... Although this was funny the first or second time, it did start to get in the way of the viewing experience. One slapped wrist, chaps!

A nice and shiny 8 out of 10. It would have been 9 out of 10, except that I dropped a whole point for the cut sequence—which in the end became a bit like Chinese water torture.

So, onto...

The comedy...
"Comedy?" I hear you cry... "But isn't this a magic DVD?"

Yes. It is. It's a very magical DVD indeed. And for reasons I cannot explain, I actually enjoyed this more for the entertainment value than the magic value. But that's just me.

An observation in over 20 years involvement in magic is that generally magicians are just regular people. They have normal lives doing normal things. They take out the rubbish on the same day of the week, and they have the same frustrations as you do with the rising price of fuel. And yes... at some point in their lives, they've had to come to terms with puberty.

Being predominantly sheltered from the visual splendour of 'real magic' as a beginner, I was mostly resigned to books and VERY expensive VHS tapes of American artists teaching me how to become a conjurer. It was at this point that I had assumed that all magicians wore suits and Simon Templar rollneck sweaters, and they all went back home to their dark little rooms and studied dusty tomes of mystic texts, handed down for generations.

Well... it's not like that. Not at all. Your average magician is creative, whacky, humourous and eccentric. Most 'creative' types are. Just have a wonder around TalkMagic and you'll find that most of the magical genius on here is counterbalanced with a certain degree of insanity.

And boy, does Dave go the full way to proving it! This is done via the vehicle of a comedy double-act between him and the off-camera (for a change!) Owen Packard—which I can only describe as a mixture of Peter Cook/Dudley Moore crossed with the Two Ronnies (Yes, sounds bizarre, but you will have to buy it to understand). They DO come close to crossing the line a few times, and sadly there are some 'expletives deleted'... and it's not long before you start to wonder just how much of this was intended as a good laugh, or a serious magic project.

Sounds dodgy? Well, a little tacky, I guess. But no more tacky than, for instance, the Sankey/Sanders sessions. I won't call this comedy genius, because it isn't. But it had my wife and I giggling at the sheer insanity of it.

Counterbalanced by the great magic, this is a solid wadge of entertainment that makes the X-Factor look like a tinned mushrooms advert.

However, and this is a huge shame... but if the humour isn't your cup of tea, you will absolutely hate this DVD. You will see narrow-minded flaming of 4xFour on every magic forum across the globe in the coming weeks, I am sure. But they will be certainly talking about the humour, not the magic.

So, the good bits...
The clear, concise way the magic is taught
The periodic lapses of sanity
The magic
The sleights used
The NEW sleights used

And, the bad bits...
The humour may not appeal to all
The repetitive, stuttering cut scenes and inter-effect sequence where Dave blinds himself
The fact that Dave is a better magician than me
The fact that I wanted his 3D picture book to be real Sad

Overall...
This DVD is aimed at the 'middle of the road' of card magic, I think. It is difficult to ascertain whether or not it takes itself seriously enough to be called 'Great card magic', or whether the whole thing is just one of those reflective 'personal pieces' for Daves' memoirs.

Either way, there's something new for all on here... and although there's no TRICKS as such, the open-minded and creative cardie will find enough in here to inspire and perhaps lend a hand in their next big thing.

I can safely give an 8.5 out of 10 for this. Not the most wholesome production from the BBM stable so far, but if you like Dave and you like a bit of a laugh, this is a great interpolation of magic and mischief.

And at £14.99 it's more like a stocking filler than bank-breaking disappointment.

My advice is give it a go. Like Dr Pepper says, what's the worst that could happen?

Now... where's that Cardini DVD... time to put a bit of normality back in my life!

seige · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:45 am Post subject:

Footnote:

I will indeed be giving a morsel or two away about the effects/sleights/moves on here... but I wanted to have a go at them before revealing...

More to come on that!

Farlsborough · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:03 am Post subject:

I applied for the competition but I never win anything so it's likely going to be full price for this wee lad. Sad

Still, £15 is not a lot, although I think they need to go back to school because 4 x 4 = 16, not 8... we're being ripped off!

I'm really looking forward to this. Dave's "Trickery" was one of my favourite purchases, he pitches stuff at just the right level - not boring or obvious, but straight-forward enough to be realistically used by intermediate card users like myself. Actually, it's more like he uses straight-forward sleights but combines them to make quirky routines, making most of his magic feel very fresh.

I'm not just a BBM fanboy, honest - I've seen the McBride DVD and to be honest it's not my bag - I actually don't think the strength of the effects always warrants the complexity of the method, and there's also a bit too much table work - but I am looking forward to this. I often skip effects that start with "remove the four aces...", partly because they can seem a bit cliched ("great, another gambling theme... no, I don't play bl**dy poker...") but also because thumbing through the deck to find them just feels a bit... slack. By finding four of a kind in a visually appealing way which instantly kicks off the magic, I think that's a much better springboard into any four of a kind routine.

I'm not giving up hope for that competition though... Very Happy

P.S. Also, I love the humour of the BBM stuff... makes a real change from the Ameriqueens who are, in general, impressively dull in their explanations given their ability to entertain. Confused

Beardy · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 12:00 pm Post subject:

I saw the trailer, and the colour change, and tell me it isn;t what I think it is?

seige · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 12:04 pm Post subject:

Beardy · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 12:08 pm Post subject:

not the ego change, can't remember the name. The change where you "camo the card" with your arm, before a "flap" or the fingers (I'm trying to be explicit...if that is teh right word...and failing dismally as you can see)

bananafish · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:15 pm Post subject:

I echo what seige said - and I will add that Dave is an awesome performer when you seem him performing close-up in person.

Johnny Wizz · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:54 pm Post subject:

For a relatively inexperienced magician, where would you rate the difficulty of these tricks against something like Simon Lovells Million Dollar card magic - which I cope with quite well?

seige · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:59 pm Post subject:

Well, this is not really magic as such, this is 'utlility'.

As for Lovell's stuff, if you like Simon, you'll love this!

As I mention above, this is kind of 'middle of the road' in terms of audience. The skill level is based on that... i.e. a beginner may think it's impenetrable, and a pro may find it simplistic.

LeftEye · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:02 pm Post subject:

I need to clear one thing up first. Does it teach a way to get four of a kind from a shuffled deck whilst you are riffle shuffling the cards?

I only say this because I saw a video a while back of some bloke doing a load of riffle shuffles and pulling off four of a kind from the top.

seige · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:06 pm Post subject:

LeftEye · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:09 pm Post subject:

Oh I know this, but from a shuffled deck? You could cull the four of a kind to the top but I like having options Smile

Thanks for the reply by the way

seige · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:14 pm Post subject:

LeftEye · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:26 pm Post subject:

I don't think what I'm referring to is a basic sleight. Vernon talked about it on one of his Revelation DVD's and I have only seen one performance of someone doing something like it.

Spec shuffles cards and gives them back to performer. Performer riffle shuffles the cards face down a couple of times. Turn over the top four cards and they are four of a kind. You can do it as many times as you like.

I don't know if this is going off topic? If so, ignore me.

seige · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:30 pm Post subject:

Ahhhh...

Yes, there's two ways to do this as I am aware, and yes, you're off topic Wink