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Hi! I dont know, is this right place to this, but hope so. Well, i am really interested about magic, specially card magic and have already these dvd:s for ellusionist: Ninja 1-2, Crash Course 1-2 and Inside magic and Card Ninja for another seller. I am really liked these dvd:s and get many many good stuff. But i am read reviews and comments about these dvd:s and they are not received high rates. So what i'am asking, what is "good stuff", if these are not? Sorry my bad english, but hopefully you understand enough. Thanks!

If they do what you want then they're good stuff. Any book, prop or DVD is only as useful as the person who uses it and it's all very much to individual taste.

I'm guessing these dvd's are only teaching tricks rather than techniques, well only techniques relative to the tricks and probably in brief. With that in mind I guess I'll be the first to recommend 'The Royal Road To Card Magic' by Hugard and Braue. This is the ground floor in your journey to build up real skill in card magic.

On another note, what Mandrake says about the dvd's is correct but the reason they might be getting bad reviews is because of the people who put them out on the market. People like Ellusionist largly market to children who are only interested in the new flashy thing that's out at the moment, so lots of their products are just re-hashed tricks that are usually over priced and are falsly advertised.

I'm sure that you will be pointed in the right direction of some great card magic resources.

I have the R Paul Wilson DVD set of the Royal Road to Card Magic - it's not cheap but he demonstrates everything very well. It's a 5 DVD set that covers more or less the whole book. If you prefer learning from a DVD, that could be the way to go.

forget the royal road. i doubt all the guys suggesting it here have studied it seriously. its boring and not fun. get your hands on a premium DVD which teaches you techniques, routines and is not too hard to learn. check up John Carey,Cameron Francis, Lee Smith. The truth is that they all suggest you books like the royal road (where most card dvdś actually come from) to make themselves look good coz people who study from books are considered to be serious students of magic aka magic geeks. Most of us are not such geeks and dont need to be. Get a premium DVD and learn some practical magic instead. Which is much more fun and in some way more practical (in the DVD you can actually SEE the effect being performed). Dont underestimate the knowledge that you can get from a book, though.

K

Royal road is a great book, one that you will useful for a long time (and which I refer to almost daily, not just to look like a serious student of magic!), so I recommend picking it up!
A lot of people may not like Ellusionist but the Crash course DVDs are a good way to jump straight in, the tricks are pretty simple so you can get started straight away. Brad Christian is unintenionally funny all the time but he shows the moves clearly and is interesting to watch, something very important in a teacher. More advanced magicians may not think these DVDs are good but for a beginner they are very helpful, and even if you know all the stuff on them they are easier to sit through than a lot of other instructional DVDs!

kaala wrote:forget the royal road. i doubt all the guys suggesting it here have studied it seriously. its boring and not fun. get your hands on a premium DVD which teaches you techniques, routines and is not too hard to learn. check up John Carey,Cameron Francis, Lee Smith. The truth is that they all suggest you books like the royal road (where most card dvdś actually come from) to make themselves look good coz people who study from books are considered to be serious students of magic aka magic geeks. Most of us are not such geeks and dont need to be. Get a premium DVD and learn some practical magic instead. Which is much more fun and in some way more practical (in the DVD you can actually SEE the effect being performed). Dont underestimate the knowledge that you can get from a book, though.

K

That's.....actually quite rude

...And one helluvan assumption, too - please don't be so impolite in future, Kaala. Thanks.

oerihgiuegegfviuhadfvb!!!!

i always recommend the royal road. Its where i started, I don't recommend it to 'look good', i recommend it because i found it perfect for learning basic sleights and tricks when i started and from what i've seen on this forum it's the same story for many other magicians.

This really isn't the place to be poo-pooing the royal road, my guess is that there will be many comments echoing the opinions of me and magicrob in the next couple of days.

*takes Royal Road and rides off into the sunset to live happily ever after*

magicrob wrote:

kaala wrote:forget the royal road. i doubt all the guys suggesting it here have studied it seriously. its boring and not fun. get your hands on a premium DVD which teaches you techniques, routines and is not too hard to learn. check up John Carey,Cameron Francis, Lee Smith. The truth is that they all suggest you books like the royal road (where most card dvdś actually come from) to make themselves look good coz people who study from books are considered to be serious students of magic aka magic geeks. Most of us are not such geeks and dont need to be. Get a premium DVD and learn some practical magic instead. Which is much more fun and in some way more practical (in the DVD you can actually SEE the effect being performed). Dont underestimate the knowledge that you can get from a book, though.

K

That's.....actually quite rude

...And one helluvan assumption, too - please don't be so impolite in future, Kaala. Thanks.

I agree. This book is a great place to start and is widely agreed upon by possibly 99% of the card magician community. I'm sure that 99% aren't trying to just appear smart. It might be a little bit dated in the way it's written but the infomation contained is invaluable, especially to someone who is a beginner. I'd say that any great card magician and even aspiring great has studied not only Royal Road but also Expert Card Technique, Expert at the Card Table and pretty much anything they can get their hands on. When it comes to stuidying magic, knowledge really is power. Perhaps you will learn this soon and stop holding yourself back. I'd say that although a picture equals a thousand words, there is more knowledge wrapped up books than in your precious dvds.

Just think a little before you post and definatly don't make assumptions like people who recommend Royal Road probably haven't really read it, this is quite an insult considering I'd say almost everyone on this forum would recommend it.

Enough said.

Lance Burton started with that book. Nuff said!

Kaala
The Royal Road has been recommended to me by (among others) Roy Walton and Paul Wilson. The same (R) Paul Wilson who teaches the book on the DVD set I mentioned (though he recommended the book and didn't even mention his DVD set), who is currently producing The Magicians on BBC1, who created The Real Hustle, and (more pertinently) who is an absolute joy to watch performing an entire show of sleight of hand card magic. I assume you don't need to ask who Roy Walton is - not if you're interested in cards.

Have I studied it seriously? No. I'm still studying it (seriously) both in printed form and via the DVDs, and probably will be for many years to come. And in keeping with the above post by hds02115, I also have Expert Card Technique, Erdnase and CCM&S, the little book by Jerry Mentzer to dip into when I need to.

Yes, there are other ways to learn card magic, but I think you'll find there's a reason that RRCM is so highly recommended.

Ian

Oh, and magicrob is right - there's really no need to be rude.

When I first started getting interested in magic I was recommended the Royal Road so I went and bought the book, as a beginner it's helped me more than I could have imagined. Like the other members here have said, I also didn't buy it to seem like a serious student, I bought it because I was told it had excellent information and would act as a great base on which to build from. Which for me it has been.

It takes you from the very basics like learning different shuffles and cuts, all the way up to sleights that are going to take quite an amount of practice to perfect. I'm not sure what more a beginner could want.

Royal Road is a good book, and I do perform material from there (tricks) and have learnt plenty of moves from there too.
Now You See it, Now You Don't is a good book too, with lots of pictures.
Good card DVDs, as mentioned included John Carey, Lee Smith, etc...
and if you're a bit more advanced then John Guasteferro has some good material.

I too have learnt from Royal Road, it is a great book IMO.

As for DVDs i like Complete Card Magic with Gerry Griffin, it was a 7 DVD set when i got it, i believe it has been condensed to 4 now. There are some real classics of card magic on here, plus sleights, shuffles etc

Also check out Born To Perform with Oz Pearlman - another good starting place.

Daryl - Encyclopedia of Card Sleights is a 8 Vol DVD set and i think it is mint. Very expensive but well worth it. Clear and easy to follow, it teaches moves rather than tricks but does give a few ideas of how to use them in a trick ( now its time for a trick break ).

I am dyslexic and find it very hard to learn from books so this was the way for me too go.