talkmagic.co.uk

The Effect

Claims to get you from beginner to pro with sponge balls.The 'final word' on sponge balls. Even includes 4 super soft balls, which is nice.

The DVD is split in to different sections: palms and concealments, Vanishes, Productions, Loads and Splits, and Routines.


Cost

£14.99, I got mine from alakazam

Difficulty varies, but mostly 2/3
(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)


Review



I've played around with sponge balls for a while, with nothing other than Mark Wilson and some imagination, but this is the first time I've looked to anything specific to learn about them.

And to be honest, I'm not sure I learnt a whole lot that I hadn't figured out already. Having said that, there were quite a few subtleties that I'd never thought about, and a lot of the loads and splits were quite fun.

Jay's a pretty good teacher, does the moves a few times from different angles to let you see what's going on, explains things well without going on and on.
His performances are ok, he's good enough at what he does, way better than me. His audience management is nice to watch, very natural. I was impressed by how he comes across to couples, which can often be a challenge.
Though he has a strange and rather annoying habit of sticking his face in front of the camera after an effect.

After watching through it, I was quite indifferent towards it, then I went in to the bonus section and watched the 'behind the scenes with Gary Darwin' bit. Wow. I learnt a lot more in this half hour than the rest of the DVD. Gary's laid back and funny as ever. I would have been quite happy just watching this part and leaving the rest of the DVD alone. Worth the price of the DVD. He goes into the theory of sponge balls, and different ways that magicians view them, before going in to some retention vanishes (as well as a cool way to turn a card in to a sponge ball) he created and finally a few routines. Better than anything else on the DVD.
Gary and Jay seem to get on well too, which makes for good watching.

The four sponge balls that come with it are of the 2 inch 'super soft' variety, which I'd never used before (I have 1.5 inch normal ones, so bigger balls than what I'm used to...boom boom). They're quite cool. I think I prefer the ones I'm used to though. The super soft ones don't pop back to shape quite as fast as the others.

Overall

Overall, pretty cool. If you have no experience of sponge balls, this will be awesome. Buying the balls will probably be a fiver anyway, so it's a good starter kit. Takes you from a basic finger palm to full routines and it's quite well taught.
If you've been using them for a while there's maybe not much in it for you (though there is a lot, so there might well be), but the section with Gary Darwin is just fantastic.

I'm happy with it.

Oops, just come across two other reviews of this...

Sorry bout that one...

Still a good review, I have the Encyclopedia of Sponge Balls by Magic Makers, which I think is a little clearer.

Chris Tennant