REVIEW: Cultural xChange 2 by Apollo Robbins and Shoot Ogawa

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REVIEW: Cultural xChange 2 by Apollo Robbins and Shoot Ogawa

Postby dynamiteassasin » Dec 2nd, '04, 00:28



CULTURAL xCHANGE 2 by Apollo Robbins and Shoot Ogawa

This is Apollo and Shoots second video together and as usual, the results are asounding.
These two guys have really brilliant minds in magic that's why the magic they create is totally visual and to the point. Their magic hits the eyes so hard that it looks like you're in a twilight zone.

Here are some of the effects and I'll give my opinion and description on each.

SON OF RECAP- This is Apollo's handling of a routine popularized by Gregory Wilson called recap. With Apollo's handling, the pen and the cap appear from different places and finally in the spectators curled elbow. This handling is sleightly different from Greg's handling but it is totally worth the practice.

COIN TO GLASS- Another effect from the mind of Shoot. This effect alone is worth the whole video. Not the traditional coins to glass. It has shoots flavor in it with a kicker finale. You must be able to muscle pass to complete this routine.

HEEL TAP- "What the hell?" was my reaction when I first saw this move. Imagine having a coin in your cupped hands, you close it for a split second with a tap of the hands and instantly, the coin changes to another object. It looks like trick photography but it is not, just pure sleight of hand. This is a very useful utility move by Apollo.

IMPOSSIBLE CHANGE- A very visual Matrix effect that requires practice. An idea of Shoot.

KELLY IN THE BOX-This is Apollo's signed card to box using pure sleight of hand. The handling is so easy but as always requires much practice to get it right.

GREAT TRIUMPH- Probably the longest routine in the video. Shoot has devised this triumph where a red deck changes to blue (or vise versa) and all the faces turn blank except for the two chosen cards. Worth learning.

PERP TO POCKET- Apollo's Sandwich effect using the 4 Aces. He adds his pickpocketing flavor in it where the selected and signed card vanishes from the aces and appears inside his coat pocket. A very cool card effect that gets very good reactions.

NO STEAL MATRIX- A very easy Matrix effect beginners could instantly do. Very startling to the eyes too. An idea of Shoot.

KELLY CUTS ACES-Apollo's version of Spectator Cuts the Aces where the whole deck could be brought back to its original order. Useful if you use a memorized or stacked deck.

GAMBLERS TRANSO-A transposition card effect where the 4 Jacks change places with the 4 Aces in the spectator's hands by Shoot.

TIP FLIP-Stretch out your fingers because this routine requires very serious coin work. It is an instant vanish of a coin that is clean and a reappearnce of a coin where the coin jumps out from thin air.
Another very good coin routine by Apollo

QUICK MATRIX- A standard Matrix with a quick ending by Shoot.

TRAPEZE TRIO- This is partly coins across and partly 3 fly. This coin routine by Apollo can be done surrounded if you put the right thinking on it.

8 WAY CHANGE- A series of color changes in finding 2 selected cards. A nice touch to the classic Erdnase Change where instead of changing it once, you change it 4 times. An idea of Shoot.

2 BE GONE (TWO VERSIONS)- Both versions have the same effect. A bare handed production of 2 coins and a bare handed disappearance of the 2 produced coins. This routine is taught by both Apollo & Shoot. Both have different handlings that are a bit similar. This routine looks really good, very startling.

I recommend this video to those who have a background in coin magic. Beginners would have a hard time in my own opinion if they jump start to this video.
The video was shot professionally and Apollo and Shoot are very good teachers.
I give it a 9 out of 10.

dynamiteassasin
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Postby bronz » Feb 4th, '07, 18:37

Having heard good things about this DVD I picked it up a couple of weeks ago. I must say it didn't disappoint at all. Pretty much all the routines will require quite a bit of work but when you get them down.... beautiful.

The card stuff wasn't to my taste but then again not much card work does excite me at the moment, if I bothered to learn it I could certainly predict good reactions. In places some of the material also seemed to fall into the category of 'clever' rather than impossible, the Tip Flip being a case in point. It's the sort of thing you see and think 'that's skillful but I know the coin's somewhere in his hand' instead of 'where's that gone?'. After all, if you're genuinely showing your hand empty you display it fingers spread palm up and down, you don't contort your digits as if you're trying to make a particularly elaborate shadow animal. At the end of the day you could do a spider vanish and get a more inexplicable result.

Having said that the ideas and routines presented here are lovely and visual, often look impossible and require the entire gamut of spectator handling without verbal patter (they are designed to mostly be performed in loud environments where speech is partially redundant) and the way that Shoot handles tricky angles in the coins to glass by clever spectator control for example is worth watching the DVD for. That's often said but it's often true too, particularly in this case.

The artist who does not rise, descends.
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