The Effect
From the creator of Sinful, Stigmata, Indecent comes CONTROL. Cause your heart to slow down... and completely stop. An effect that has been developed and refined over half a decade of careful experimentation and performance in WH's professional repertoire. CONTROL is beautifully simple and strikingly powerful.
Cost
$29.95
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 + performance factor
Review
Being a well-known cheapskate, the initial $30 threw me away and there is no way I would buy a one-trick DVD (which is quite famous these days). Although cheap, I am generally a loving and caring person
. Because of this, a good friend saw this product in a hobby store about a week ago and she remembered me. So she bought it and surprised me with a present worth $30. That's what you get for having very thoughtful friends and for being kind (generally).
I know, $30 is quite expensive for being a casual gift. Fortunately again, this product was in a rack beside David Stone's Real Secrets of Magic DVDs. She initially planned to buy volume one but got turned off by the $40 price tag and ended off with this. I cannot complain, beggars can't be choosers.
Enough with the intro, here's my review:
Video/Audio Quality:
I had to admit that this DVD is well made. As expected from companies like Theory 11 and Ellusionist, they can come out with good production value (to justify price? Hmmm). To simply put it, the video and audio quality is top notch. The MTV style of filming is obviously directed to the younger audience, but it is top notch nevertheless.
Performances:
There are two performances by Wayne on this product. The first one was in a small christmas party (in which many of you have seen already in the previews) and one is made way back when he was filming Stigmata. Wayne made reference to the older video and explained how he changed his style from there. There is also a good performance of the "Invisible Palm" effect that will be shown on the upcoming Astonishment DVDs by Paul Harris.
Tutorial:
Aside from all the presentation videos and bonuses, the actual tutorial alone takes about 45 minutes long. Of course, this involves the Control effect plus Daniel Garcia's Stop (Heart stop). They really narrowed it down to every detail and I think this is where Wayne's good at.
As you can see, the Control effect is so simple that you would pull out your hair and say "Why didn't I think of that?" Somehow the same reaction I had with Kevin Parker's Passing Thru. Wayne did warn everybody to drop any objects that you can hurl on the screen before he explains the secret. It is actually simple and it is not the traditional pulse stop. Without giving away the old technique, I'd say you can do Control on your birthday suit (although I definitely would not recommend).
Why did the tutorial took almost an hour? Because the effect is not about the technique itself, but how you perform it.
Honestly, this puzzled me. Why would they sell this through Theory 11, in which basically targets the young audience? You know what I'm talking about...the effect is really based on performance. I don't think kids would normally pull this off. Or even if they can do it well, the credibility of a young person gaining such a skill of "stopping his/her life" is quite funny.
Going back, Wayne and Daniel is obviously having a good time (so many outakes as well) but the explanation is detailed including the preparation, proper presentation, and backup plans if things do not go well. They spent almost an hour on it, so you know that they covered almost everything here.
Effects:
So there is Control, Daniel Garcia's Stop (which was kinda akward to perform since you would place your spectator's head on your chest to hear your heartbeat) plus a time stop which closely resembles Banachek's. Sad that Wayne failed to credit him on this. However, research was made to credit the history of the pulse stop. Wayne even gave reference to Lee Earl and Luke Jermay's products if you want to develop the effect even more.
Overall
Not recommended for everyone. Even though the technique is very simple, pulse stops are not simple for the laymen...so credibility is really a factor here.
As a product, it is well made. I believe $29.95 is still expensive for me, dropping a few bucks would make it really worth it.
If ever you're a young trailblazer and wants to buy this effect. Try doing a classic force to a spectator first and rely everything else to presentation and patter. If you can amaze people with that (without using "KEWL" tricks like Stigmata or Bullet coin in bottle) then you can go ahead and buy this. The credibility factor is still a letdown though.
Rating: 8/10
