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The Effect

The DVD follows the highly acclaimed Joshua Jay on his Methods in Magic tour of the UK. As the tour name suggests, this lecture focused on the methods of developing magic tricks and gives an example of a trick developed with each method.

The tricks are as follows:

HEIGHTENED SENSES - a brilliant (and EASY) piece of mentalism that plays for crowds big and small.

THREE COIN VANISH - A squeaky clean three-coin vanish. Simple and visual.

A.C.A.A.P.N - A selected card appears at a named page number in a closed book.

DISCRETE DISPLACEMENT - it's a force, a control, a switch and MORE!

VEGAS VISIT - Sam The Bellhop meets Six Card Repeat

SPLIT DECISION –Even though two spectators misremember the same card, you find “both” cards and create a most impossible object.



BONUS ROUTINES:

BACK IN TIME (with Jay Sankey) –An in-the-hands Triumph routine that defies the laws of time.

I DREAM OF MINDREADING (with John Lovick) - A card location wrapped in a touching story about doing magic for a blind man.

TOTALLY TRIUMPH – A flourishy way of straightening out a pack of cards…and producing the four Aces.



Cost
22.99 from BBM (www.bigblindmedia.com)



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)

Some 3's, some 2's and some 1's


Review

Firstly i have to say that when i started to watch this i was really pee'd off. Not due to the content but it listed the tour dates, and i missed both of the Cardiff one's!, on a serious note i really enjoyed this dvd. There are lots of little bits of interviews with Joshua and they're really helpfull, giving insights into all aspects of magic and his opinion's on some other more obscure topics (such as which other magicians he could take in a fight).

The DVD shows that Joshua has a really relaxed stage manner and is a very funny guy, so its not hard to see how he has risen to the top.

Right, the tricks. I think the ones listed first are demonstrated live in the tour venues and the bonus routines are done just for the camera:

HEIGHTENED SENSES - a quirky routine, and as the dvd cover and website chooses not to give too much away, i dont think i should either. Put it this way - its cunningly clever and probably something that i would perform, but to friends rather than at a show as it needs what i consider to be an odd prop.

THREE COIN VANISH - I've not really given coin magic a lot of time yet so i dont think im the best person to review this as i cant really compare it to anything, but this seems to be very nice vanish.

A.C.A.A.P.N - Does what it says - any card at any page number! Very nice but does need some setup.

DISCRETE DISPLACEMENT - I love this effect - its one that can be copied almost instantly and is very diverse.

VEGAS VISIT - a very nice story to go with an altered 6 card repeat.

SPLIT DECISION – This is one of my faves and a lay audience would be left reeling, picking their jaws up from the floor.


BONUS ROUTINES:

BACK IN TIME (with Jay Sankey) – As in the description above, this is Joshua's take on Sankey's 'Back in Time' Triumph routine. If you dont already perform a triumph effect - this is really good, if you do - you might want to tweak it into this.

I DREAM OF MINDREADING (with John Lovick) - The first trick on the DVD and its a worthy opener.

TOTALLY TRIUMPH – Again some lovely moves involved in this routine and definatlely something i'll be attempting.

As i hope ive shown - i really like this DVD and the effects on it, but i do have one criticism. Without saying which effects (as it may reveal something about them) there are only 3 (out of 9) that can be done with a standard pack of cards and standard coins. Although this is noted on the rear cover, its right at the bottom in smallish text, and this isnt on the website at all. Im not saying that this will prevent me from doing these effects but i think it should have been made more clear.

Overall

8/10 (worth a 9 but reduced due to the amount of gaff's and gimmicks used)

It's worth noting though that the premise or the DVD isn't just to learn a bunch of tricks, but more to analyze the construction of them so you can start to create our own, hence the title.

Teach a man to fish....

'tis a great DVD

sorry if that sounded negative - it wasnt intentional

it really is much more than a 'heres some of my tricks' DVD

"Teach a man to fish....." ..... and he'll sit on his a*** all day next to the river drinking beer.... (I'm sure that's the rest of that quote isn't it?)

I really enjoyed this DVD. As mentioned above, it's more than just a collection of tricks. It's a properly presented lecture dealing with the thought processes behind ideas and presentations of the tricks shown. I found it really relaxing to actually watch and enjoy a magic dvd all the way through without feeling the need to jump up and get a deck of bikes or some coins.

BBM have done an excellent job once again with the production: nice editing between three separate performances freshens things up and stops the dvd from feeling stale. Lots of funny interludes and close up explanations of things round of an excellent package. Joshua comes across as someone who really cares about what he is doing and is a very likeable guy.... He might look about 12 years old (I'm only jealous...).... but he really knows his onions!!

As Frankie Boyle says, "Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Give a man a fishing rod, and he'll burn it for firewood...

...or he'll swap it for a fish."

I know you don't want to tip any methods, but is there any chance you could indicate which ones use gaffs? Or at least, how many of the effects use gaffs? I realise that the tricks themselves are perhaps not the focus of the DVD, but still - you want the tricks to be strong too, and if there's anything I hate it's spending money on a DVD only to be obliged to go out and spend more money... "here's my presentation of the mindpower deck...", "here's the routine I use with The Extractor..."

Vegas Visit and Split decision require props bought from Josh. The coin routine used a standard coin prop.

Take care, Ian