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Does it Teach Mercury? or do you have to buy that seperate?
Thanks
SnIcKeT

no,

I'm affriad you have to buy it seperatly

OH man! Thats alright thanks for the replying!

the army of 52 dvd is not worth getting, trust me, all you do is look at the cards, thing of what you could do with them, and do it. be the magician

how do i gain access to the tutorial file sharing section? anyone know?

thanks

magicmarley wrote:the army of 52 dvd is not worth getting, trust me, all you do is look at the cards, thing of what you could do with them, and do it. be the magician

You want them to do a rain dance or something? Read the rules dude

magicmarley wrote:how do i gain access to the tutorial file sharing section? anyone know?

thanks

Sir Digby, I believe you meant to quote this, but missed.

sleightlycrazy wrote:

magicmarley wrote:how do i gain access to the tutorial file sharing section? anyone know?

thanks

Sir Digby, I believe you meant to quote this, but missed.

Just spotted that now lol

i thought the dvd was pretty good and humerous, obviously the gaff deck is not for everyone and some people say it wasnt worth buying, but i think it was aimed mostly towards beginers who may not feel confident just yet to make there own tricks and so on.

The gaff deck is great and many uses are bubbling through my brain. This DVD I'll give a miss though as I should imagine it would be stating the obvious to those who have some experience.

Now if Dave Forrest brought out a DVD with some effects he'd thought up using this deck then I know it would be full of ideas I wouldn't have even dreamt of...

In case anyone is interested, Burning Card Magic have an offer on this DVD at the moment: buy Army of 52 and get a free Black Tiger gaff deck. £18 + p&p. I've not ordered from BCM before, so I don't know how reliable they are. Seems like a good deal, though, if this is your thing.

http://www.burningcardmagic.co.uk

Greetings! I'm new to the forum here, but not to magic. I wanted to give my unbiased review of Ellusionists Army of 52 DVD.

I bought the DVD today since I've started using my ghost decks again in my performances. The ghost decks fit my gothic performance character better than a standard deck of cards.

First off, I should be clear about one thing. If you are new to magic, have never performed for an audience outside of close friends or family, and you don't know what I mean when I make referance to "Royal Road" or "Expert at the Card Table" then you will probably find the DVD Highly useful resource as it will show you some potentially stunning effects. If you have been around the magic block once or twice then this DVD will be a large waste of time and money, and it will be obvious from the moment you put it in.

For my first point of the review, I'd like to focus a bit on Scripting. Love me or hate me for this, but your acts SHOULD be scripted. You should be worring more about how to gell with your audience than what you're going to say next. With that being said; the DVD focuses on one of Ellusionists performers soley for the entire DVD. Justin Miller. Not that Justin is a bad artist, but he can't script an act for c*** (not the best) and his Neo/Matrix street persona image doesn't help his often clueless performances of the miracles he's presenting. At one time he out right tells a spectator that he doesn't have a 5 of clubs in his deck when at the start he presents it as a "normal" deck. What "normal" deck WOULDN'T have a five of clubs?!

If you are going to present any material from any of their gaff decks then the presentations should be thought out. What you say should have as much meaning and fluidity behind it as what you physically do. The value of the DVD comes in learning the slights that could potentially be applied to certain gaff cards to create certain types of effects. Really, this DVD isn't a stand alone. This should help inspire you to think, not teach you a new rutine or three. Because of this this DVD is really for the amature or begining performer.

The moves discussed in the DVD are all for the most part very basic. The Classic Force, A DL, A Classic Colour Change, A Riffle Force, et cetera. While Justin does explain them all slowly it leaves the more advanced students of the art hanging . On the positive side, you do get an inside look at the "Shape Shifter" move which is sold on another Ellusionist DVD for about $30. Honestly, Justin doesn't do this move any justice. You see the mechanics when he performs "at speed." Honestly, learn it. Use it. It is a killer colour change. I digress.

The DVD is 90 minutes in length and for about 80 of those minutes the DVD focuses on the Ghost Gaff Cards. There is a small sub section at the tail end that reviews the black tiger gaff deck and it's applications. The good news is the Black Tiger Gaff deck does have about 80% of the same cards as the Ghost Gaff deck. The other 20% with what you learn in the DVD and your own imagination you should be able to handle yourself. There is a Red and Blue gaff deck in publication now, but they weren't available at the time of the DVD's publication. While I've not seen the sheet list for either deck (and I'm sure they are identical except for the colour backing) I'd be willing to bet my left ring finger that the same advice would apply for them as well.

There is a minor miss billing on the credits, not that it makes THAT much of a difference. The DVD bills Justin Miller ~and~ Brad Christian as the DVD stars. Brad is seen once or twice working a camera in the demonstration section and never shows up again in the tutorial. I only point this out because Brad is better at presenting magic than Justin (again my opinion) and I was let down to not see his input on the cards or their potential, or handeling.

Minor tirade here about the cards themselves. The cards in all the gaff decks as well as their "normal" deck counterparts are amazing in finish and handeling. You just need to justify spending almost $7 dollars a deck for something that you can get at cosco for the same price, but 11 more of them.

The DVD sound and picture clarity is great. The tutorial section is well explained. I didn't feel for one second that I was 1) being talked down to, or 2) watching something under explained (as Brad tends to do sometimes, and brushes it off with "press rewind"). The quality of the camera handeling is superb.

The Price. I paid $29.95 for the DVD. IF I didn't have 25 years (13 professional) in the art I would probably say the price was well worth it. Experts or Advanced Amatures will feel cheated. Really, if you know what you are doing, you don't need this dvd to figure things out. Just watch the demo on www.ellusionist.com a few times and you'll come up with your own handeling.

The trick executions in the DVD I thought were hit and miss. While some of the effects are great as is, others will leave you wanting to develop your own handeling. As well they should. I thought Justins presentation of his four ace assembly including his "improved personal" handeling held nothing magical in it at all. TOn the positive side, the Pip Matrix was great!

The difficulty level of the DVD is Beginner. Anyone of any skill level should have no difficulty in learning to performance speed the tricks and moves discussed within the DVD with a few hours to days worth of solid effort and practice.

Overall on a scale of 1 to 10, (10 being the best for money and value) I would give the DVD the following ratings:

Beginners/ Novices/ Hobbiests/ Amatures: 7
Advanced Amatures/ Advanced Hobbiest/ Professionals: 2.5

Would I recomend this DVD to a friend? No. Not unless they didn't know what a pharo was. Then I might.

snicket wrote:Does it Teach Mercury? or do you have to buy that seperate?
Thanks
SnIcKeT

it does not but some of the gaffs included in the deck can be used for mercury if you don't mind experimenting until you figure it out(I did)
As a matter of fact, the 4 ace trick he does seems to be based somewhat on Mercury, only his version doesn't seem near as magical

Also, as a beginner, I enjoyed the DVD. Before seeing this, I never thought about doing all my get readys before the fact, rather I would do them as I was talking and it was considerably more noticeable(like picking up a DL whilst the spectator is staring at my hands) I also didn't know how to do the paintbrush change or the "Deck Flippy thingy move" as he calls it. So I took a lot from this DVD though I can see how anyone with experience could say it isn't worth the money.

The only downer is that the ghost deck is $30, which is way more than I like to spend. It also made me want to pick up a mini and perform the deck switch he does, though my crowd control skills need a wee bit of work before I attempt that

As a beginner I got a lot from this DVD and found it quite inspiring, to be honest. Shapeshifter is a great little move. Some of the routines have given me good ideas and I always enjoy seeing OTT audience responses to some of the moves. It's also got some funny moments like the girl in the COLT45 demo who doesn't seem to know what card she picked or what "clubs" means, almost accidentally sabotaging the trick.

I can see that it wouldn't do a lot for anyone experienced in card magic, but for a beginner I'd give it 8/10 (as long as you've got a Ghost Gaff to go with it).

I have both a ghost deck and a ghost gaff deck being delivered in a day or 2 and i want to know if there is another way of learning how to do the tricks shown on preview videos rather than buying a dvd which costs more than the ghost deck and gaff deck combined. I've already bought a Black Scorpion deck before this one and i don't think that i can part with that amount of money right now. Help me please