talkmagic.co.uk

Richard Osterlind - No Camera Tricks
L&L Publishing
£60

Difficulty: Variable, but requires more balls than digital dexterity. I'd say 2-4

WHAT THEY SAY:
What magic and mentalism on television should look like!
This incredible DVD set features Richard Osterlind as the star of three simulated television shows. Watch Richard dazzle the audience with real-time, mind-boggling mysteries and, as the title of the set implies, there are absolutely no camera tricks, stooges or pre-show work! What's more, this broadcast-quality material can also be used on stage and for close-up performances.

These are secrets of the highest quality with everything from the latest innovative ideas from the fertile mind of Richard Osterlind to some of the most cherished hidden mysteries from other masters. Not only will you receive a wealth of astonishing and usable material, but it is presented in one of the most entertaining formats ever attempted in the magic instructional DVD genre. This is Richard Osterlind at his highest performing level!

Additionally, you will see the commercial "bumpers" that feature Richard performing live in a restaurant and other public places-real-time performing under real-world conditions! See why Richard always shines in the numerous other "bonuses" contained on each disc!

Richard Osterlind has been a top corporate mentalist for over three decades. His travels have taken him from Beijing to Bermuda, Monte Carlo to Mexico City, Calgary to Kona. His level of sophistication, integrity and humor create an environment that has impressed audiences around the world. He is constantly invited for return engagements by the CEOs and event planners of the Fortune 500 companies he has amazed!

Jim Sisti is a successful East Coast magician specializing in both stage and close-up entertainment. He was the creator and editor of The Magic Menu periodical and has contributed columns and articles to a good number of magic's leading publications. He also has an extensive background in broadcasting.

Both Richard and Jim feel that all TV magic and mentalism should be free of camera and editing tricks. This was always the unbreakable rule during the Golden Age of Television. Together, they conceived the idea for this DVD series in order to demonstrate that a television performance can be intriguing, amazing and entertaining without outside help from the special effects crew!

Within these shows you will find no camera tricks, no strategic editing, no stooges and no pre-show work. In addition, all of the material was performed live without any retakes.

This is truly magic on TV - not TV magic!

DISC 1 - SHOW ONE
(2 hrs 10 mins)

ZODIAC REVOLUTION - Bob Farmer's classic zodiac sign revelation done in a new way that will startle you in its directness. Richard guesses the zodiac signs of six audience members using nothing but a pad and pencil!
SWAMI BIRTHDAY/STENO ESP - Richard correctly guesses a person's exact birthday and follows that by predicting the random thoughts of three audience members. In this second demonstration, no forcing is involved and all three choices are totally free!
LIQUID METAL - Richard continues his metal bending legacy with five (yes . . . five!) more demonstrations of spoon bending. In one, a spoon actually visibly bends in the spectator's hand!
DIGITAL FEEDBACK EXTRAORDINAIRE - A digital calculator effect that duplicates the gimmicked versions using a legitimate calculator right out of the package in a drug store! You can throw away your forcing calculators as this does the same thing!
PEGASUS PAGE - Richard considers this to be one of the greatest effects in magic! With the permission of Art Emerson, the original Pegasus Page is presented to a stunned group of spectators. A selected page vanishes from a book being held by one person and reappears between two pieces of cardboard held by another spectator!

DISC 2 - SHOW TWO
(2 hrs 6 mins)

RICHARDWAVE - Brainwave has always been considered one of magic's best effects. Here is Richard's version where any card named is the only red-backed card in a blue deck. To top it off, there's a "kicker" that adds another 100% to the effect-the deck is given away at the end! It is totally ordinary!
RUBIK'S CUBE - You won't believe your eyes as you watch Richard solve a legitimate Rubik's Cube-while totally blindfolded!
CLEARLY MIND READING - Another one of Richard's fabulous ideas for doing a complete thought reading act! This is a "new" idea that Richard published over 20 years ago and is basically unknown!
THE POKER DEAL - Watch Richard use his Breakthrough Card System to perform a poker demonstration that looks like it came out of the movie The Sting!
SEAFIRE SEQUENCE - For the first time, Richard presents his famous Seafire Sequence book test on video. Now you can see this classic effect performed with all the little nuances! There are over six separate climaxes!

DISC 3 - SHOW THREE
(1 hr 41 mins)

DRACULA/ERRATA BOOKTEST - The Dracula book test by Alexander Black is fully explained and combined with Richard's now famous Errata ending. See how incredible this combination of effects is!
20 CARD TEST - This long-forgotten effect from The Jinx made Al Koran famous. Twenty people select cards and Richard finds them all while completely blindfolded! It's an anytime, any deck miracle!
THE ORIGINAL TCB ROUTINE - Richard performs a classic piece of mentalism that brings down the house! Seven people select objects from a transparent bag and everything is predicted! You will understand why Richard loves the classics!
VOODOO - This eerie and forgotten piece of magic is performed at midnight on the back deck of the L&L studios in a chilling demonstration different than anything you have seen before!
THE ACID TEST - Not for the weak of heart! Richard performs his classic Acid Test where, while totally blindfolded, he drinks the one glass of milk from among four others filled with Liquid Drano! See how Richard builds the suspense and shows how this type of "death-defying" mystery should look!

WHAT I SAY

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Richard Osterlind, so buying this DVD set was a no-brainer. I've had it for a few months, and have gone through it many times, picking out bits and pieces that might fit me best.

All in all, I'm very impressed.

The talk-show style setting of the performance pieces is rather contrived and comes across as a big fake note to me, but the routines themselves are, with very few exceptions, incredibly strong.

As always, Osterlind is a fine performer and a good instructor. In either hat, you can't help but be drawn in to his enthusiasm for his work. I was kicking myself for not seeing through many of his effects on this collection, as I'm already very familiar with some of the methods, but the routining and presentation is so strong as to keep me off guard. Others, however, seemed a little too transparent though, and appeared to be the result of a five minute brainstorm on how to present particular dealer items in a new way.

Disc One starts modestly, with a couple of effects that have already been discussed in one form or another on Richard's other DVDs. He does us the courtesy of presenting new handling on this disc though, and I was especially taken with the squeaky clean force-free method for Steno ESP. Liquid Metal (not to be confused with Morgan Strebbler's routine of the same name) offers some gorgeous metal bending effects that I've yet to come close to emulating. Pegasus Page is a lovely effect, but a little too prop-dependent for my taste, while his new take on Digital Feedback with a borrowed, ungimmicked calculator is absolutely ace.

Highlights of Disc Two include a remote seeing effect in which a Rubik's Cube is solved blindfolded, and the great Seafire Sequence book test. Also good, but not to my taste is an ungimmicked take on the Brainwave deck and a Poker Deal routine that I would never find an appropriate context for. Clearly Mindreading isn't explained at all in L&L's blurb - in short, it's a small-scale Q&A routine that plays extremely well, and involves much less fuss than many other approaches.

On Disc Three, we get Al Koran's 20 Card Trick, which I hadn't encountered before watching this, and it's a killer. Some memory work is required to pull it off, but it's possibly my favourite effect on the set. There's a nice twist on the dracula Book Test, but I'm up to my ears in book tests, and this one still didn't seem special enough to shine over the ones I'm already working with. The Original TCB Routine and the Acid Test are a little disappointing, and both make heavy use of Richard Osterlind's retail products. The TCB Routine just comes across as flat to me, while the death-defying premise behind the Acid Test does nothing for me, and once a spectator even suspects the secret (which isn't a difficult leap of logic to make), all the impact is lost. Voodoo, on the other hand, is a lovely piece of scripting. It's not a routine that will fit with many people's working environments, but if I'm ever asked to perform a spooky after-dinner stint in somebody's home, I'll certainly work this one into the act.

At £60, I think I've got a bargain, as there's a shedload of great material here. Not all of it is my style, but the stuff that grabbed me grabbed me hard. One thing I'm aware of with Osterlind's style is that effects can take a little while to get going or reach their punchline. That's fine if you have the audience on your side - and Richard is a very genuinely likeable character - but I often feel that I need to sandwich his routines with shorter, snappier effects - or at least something that has several punches along the way. Great as this material is, I feel that I need to earn my stripes with the audience before presenting it to them.

So if you're like me, this won't be the be-all-and-end-all of your mentalism shows, but it'll give you some of your strongest material.

It's one of the best DVD sets I have, and I'm happy to give it 10/10.

Wow! Great review!

I have looked at this many times whilst browsing on various magic sites and wondered whether it justified the £60 price tag. It does from what you have said.

Thanks for the review.
It was a no brainer that I'm going to get them at some point too. I can't believe I've held off this long. I'm sure I'll reread your review a few more times, but even if you had said they weren't any good I'd probably still get them anyway. He is pretty dependable.

It's a very good DVD set, but a lot of the material was stuff I had seen elsewhere. The discussion of presenting magic on TV was in one of Richard's books. Most of the effects were in the instructions for his marketed items, taken from his various books, or even from other sources, such as 'Practical Mental Magic'.

There are real gems in there, but some require access to particular props (although you can buy substitutes, or make your own in some cases). The TV show format is a little forced, and it looks like a really low-budget show!

The real point is twofold:

The first seems to be to get a bit more mileage out of already published effects. I don't hold this against Richard, as this may be an effective showcase for some of his marketed items. Someone might not want to spend a large chunk of money on the Stainless Steel Blindfold without seeing it in operation first, for example. This was also something that happened with the additional three volumes of 'Mind Mysteries' he brought out.

If, however, you're like me, and you've already got all the items, you might feel a little short-changed and also disgruntled that the secrets of these items are revealed. I didn't feel this personally, but it's a possible reaction. I love Richard's material and I am more than happy to support him by buying it. All of it.

The second point is that it shows you really don't have to 'cheat' the audience at home to put together an effective mentalism show. There's no need for pre-show, or dual reality, or clever editing. Not only can the studio audience see something that looks the same as what the TV viewer sees, it really is the same.

A good point, well made.

Does anyone know if the Bonus disc is available seperately? I am looking to put a hypnosis show together and would benefit from seeing how Richard Structures his.

I already have the 3 disc set, so getting one from L & L isn't really an option ;(