Iain Moran's Covert Magic
Available from www.bigblindmedia.com
For a remarkably low £22.99 (available April 2, 2007)
Media
A very nice, highly professional and well produced DVD... what you would expect from the Owen Packard stables. Beautiful filming, crisp editing and good unobtrusive soundtrack. Oh, and you also get a pack containing just about every gaff needed to perform these miracles!
Contents (I'll detail these effects later on)
- 1. Snap, crackle and pop
2. The covert card
3. Birds of a feather
4. Kick to the head
5. Altered aces
6. Triumphant
7. Selection erection
8. Card highway
9. Sandwich III
10. Coin-ageddon
First Thoughts
I've already heard of Iain (some of you will know 'Hole Sensation), and I know he's a bit of a card wizard. He mixes in very esteemed magic circles, and is a bit of an award winning UK gem.
If you've not seen or heard of him, check out his website at www.iainmoran.com and get a bit of background. This guy is good. Very good.
My first thoughts when I put this in the DVD player last night was "well, the 'gaff' cards look kind of normal, let's see what he does with them".
So, convincing Mrs Seige that this was important enough to warrant watching on the big telly, and managing to get her to sit and watch (well, she was only missing CSI), we settled down with a bottle of Chilean red and began to enjoy the show...
The Review
Well, I would firstly like to sum up my review in an odd chronological order. But I won't, because that would spoil it. But I'll put a bit of the ending first—which is 'Stop reading this, and go and order a copy'.
Now, let's get down to business...
The DVD started playing... very nicely produced. Greeted as always by sharp, contemporary graphics and music. No fussy menus, just straight into my favourite DVD format for magic... STRAIGHT PLAYTHROUGH: PERFORMANCE THEN EXPLANATION.
The first effect, 'snap, crackle & pop' introduces Iain and our host for the show (well, most of it!), Owen Packard.
What I was about to witness in this opening effect was a single trick which is so commercial, and so visual, it was worthy of being a standalone purchase...
Imagine four face-up cards in a 'dream of aces' plot, sandwiched between four pairs face-down indifferents laid out on the table matrix style. With a move which is visually eye popping, Iain magically removes the face up cards and makes them visually pop into the centre of the matrix, one by one. And guess what... it finishes clean. It's hard to explain the sheer beauty of this in words, but the cards literally do just 'appear' from nowhere, and are genuinely shown to have vanished from each pile. The explanation reveals some very crafty sleight of hand, and although it seemed extremely complex, when I tried it out later on (obligatory) it was actually pretty easy to get to grips with.
In covert card, I witnessed another miracle, with Mrs Seige commenting 'Well, if you could do that I WOULD be impressed'. I agreed, I would be impressed too..
A card is randomly dropped face down to the table, a 'mystery card', and left in full view for the remainder of the trick. A card is then selected by the spectator and signed. (There were two speccies throughout, I am thinking this is Mrs Packard, and a certain Scottish chappie who isn't such a bad cardie himself
.)
Using the four queens as a vehicle for this super-cool transpo, no other cards, the signed selection is placed amonst them and almost instantly vanishes. Just four queens remain. The mystery card, which has been in full view, untouched, since BEFORE the signed selection was even mentioned, is turned over, and IS the signed selection.
Almost too clever for words. And the method isn't a brain buster either. But this requires you to make a gaff, which will take all of 5 minutes. But believe me, for this effect, it's worth it.
Birds of a triumph... Well, I've seen more variations on the classic triumph plot than I've had haircuts, and wasn't really expecting much. But what I got from this was another stroke of genius:
The deck is SHUFFLED by the spectator. This is important to remember. A selected card is put back in the deck—fairly. The deck is then cut, the two halves reversed, and Faro shuffled into one another in a fair and square in-air Faro weave—leaving half the cards face up, half face down, all interleaved.
Instantly, the deck is spread showing all the cards to be face-up again, with the exception of one—the selection.
Pretty normal, as far as triumph routines go... but here's the twist. The selection is returned to the pack face down between two 'noted' cards, and with a little magic, almost in an instant, the deck is spread to show that there are now FOUR face down cards between the noted cards... the selection, and it's matching value from the other thee suits. A total and complete baffler.
(PS... keep your eye out for a crazy dude with an advertising plug behind the cocktail bar!)
A quick pause for breath, then straight into kick to the head, a very bizarre sandwich routine. Two red aces (A for Assistant!) are removed and tabled, while two spectators select and remember two more cards. The two cards are lost in the deck, and found by the two red aces.
But, as I've come to expect on this DVD already, there's a twist: at the end of the effect, the four cards—two aces and two selections are segregated from the deck, and shown to the spectators—who are handed their selections. Iain is holding the two face-up aces.
In a split second, the two spectators are asked to turn over their selections, and incredibly, THEY are holding the aces, and Iain is holding the selections. FANTASTIC.
Altered aces was perhaps what I found to be the weirdest effect visually, as I had absolutely no idea how it was done. Basically, eight cards are used: the four aces and four random black pip cards.
I won't go into great detail here, but basically there are a lot of transpositions to keep your eyes on, and wait for it... a kicker ending... the four aces become four jokers right before your eyes.
Triumphant is self evident by the title, but again, there's a kicker twist to this one... A blue deck is shown and a card is selected and returned. The cards are mixed face-up into face-down (standard triumph stuff) and then almost instantly spread face-up, showing one blue back up amonst the faces. The selection, of course.
Only just when you thought this was a normal triumph effect, the deck is flipped over and shown to contain all red backs.
It doesn't get much cleaner or visual than this, and it cleans up easily too, allowing the red deck to be used straight after.
Selection erection—re-named by the Scottsman (is it Dave Forrest per-chance?) in the DVD from something mundane like 'rise surprise'. This is a cracking little rising card effect, which has a selected card returned to the deck. The deck is placed down on the table, and then ribbon spread. With a little wave of the hand (which Iain sometimes refers to as 'casting a shadow over the cards'—which reminded me SOOOOO much of Ammar!) the ribbon spread starts to tingle, and a card starts to poke out from inside the spread, gradually coming almost all the way out.
Again, simple, classy and clean—the clean up for this leaves the entire deck usable afterwards.
Card highway... I really liked this one, as it's something I've actually been trying to work on myself for years—a clean multi-signed-card-to-pocket transpo. In this version, four kings are removed from the deck. Four aces are then removed and signed, and the four kings are placed in Iain's four jacket pockets.
The four aces are taken in the hand and the magic is already done... one by one, as the cards are counted, the kings (which WERE in the pockets) appear in the spread of aces, replacing a face-down ace with each count of the cards. And of course, the signed aces are cleanly shown to be removed one at a time from the jacket pockets.
Sandwich III. By this point, I admit I was a bit overwhelmed. I wanted to grab a deck of cards, so I did. And I was playing with them. So I admit, my attention wasn't fully on this effect. This is basically a super-visual 3 phase sandwich trick, using the two jokers to repeatedly find the card, with a rather slick kicker of the card finally appearing face down in the face up deck. Very nice.
Coin-ageddon
After a miraculous behind-the-jacket transformation of our host Owen Packard into a cosily wrapped Dave Forrest, Iain goes straight into Coin-ageddon... a 3-fly explanation with a twist. The coins finally vanish in a puff of handkerchief!
Poor old Dave had a fit of the giggles during this, but Iain managed to ride over this. I had to say, I laughed a lot and I just wish I knew what Dave was laughing at! A great little finishing effect though.
After Thought
Super, lovely, great, smashing.
Nicely performed, clearly explained, and a good deal of the required gaffs already supplied for you!
What more can you ask?
If you like cards, and you get kicks out of Duffie's work, then Iain's DVD is right up your alley. Visual, slick and extremely well thought out.
This, for me, is the best DVD release of 2007 so far. And I'll be watching again until I have two of these mastered. It's strong magic, and will easily find a slot in your repertoire for at least ONE of these effects.
Difficulty: 4 (Advanced sleights and deftness required for most)
1=Even I can do it, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)
Rating.
Overall: 9.5/10, Value for money: 10/10 (although, I will admit, I had a pre-release copy, so I didn't actually part with cash—but I would gladly have paid the asking price)
Bottom Line.
As I said earlier, chronologically I spoke out of turn. But stop reading and go and order. This is great, great work.
Not recommended for 'quick fix' magicians, but certainly a worthwhile purchase if you want to see some really slick and memorable stuff, and some real genius card handling at work.
