talkmagic.co.uk

The Effect:

Gafftastic DVD by Liam Montier (Big Blind Media)
http://www.bigblindmedia.com/Gafftastic.htm

Cost:
£17.99 = £1.50 P&P

Difficulty:
(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)

Hmm... 2 and 3.

Review:

THEY SAY...

GAFFTASTIC is a collection of mind frying, easy card magic using special Gaff cards. All of the required gaff cards come free with the DVD. That’s 13 cool gaffs printed by the USPCC!

Presented by Liam Montier (the magical equivalent of popping candy), GAFFTASTIC is a seriously exciting proposition, crammed to the gills with reputation making routines!

Gafftastic features:

The Chosen – Eliminate cards from a small packet until they match a selection, before eliminating the rest of the packet for good!

Mass Hippy-Nosis – Hypnotise a spectator into seeing their selection in three places at once. Or has their mind just gone blank?

Laser This – Splitting cards has never been so quick and easy, as a laser slices a card right through. Fear not – we can fuse it back together in a jiffy!

Four Eyes – Demonstrate that you own special glasses that allow you to read marks on cards. Well, you don’t really, but they don’t know that.

Off Colour – A cheeky demonstration of how hard it is to find a selected card, even when it looks easy!

Twisted - Show how cards can be squeezed together and pulled apart at will. Watch it – it can break the cards!

Punched – A lucky card, kept on your keyring, changes places with a spectators lucky card just because you liked their one better.

Beauty Spot – A small circle, clearly drawn on with a marker pen, visibly and visually becomes real in this piece of eye-candy!

PLUS BONUS TRICKS

Flink – Show how bad printing can be on the faces of some cards by rubbing it clean off. And you should see what it does to the BACKS!

Blush – A clever ‘wild’ card routine based on several Stephen Tucker ideas, this is a cool effect with an examinable ending.

PLUS WICKED WORLD BONUS TRICKS!

These two non-card effects were originally recorded for “The Wicked World of Liam Montier” but – they simply didn’t fit on! Our loss is your gain!

Air-Zooka – Use a mini Air-Zooka to force air BACK into some packing bubbles, with this crazy off-beat effect and classic (and easy!) handling.

Upside Frown – Visibly ‘Turn that frown upside down!’ on a stickman drawn on your business card, making an ideal handout.

But it doesn’t end there. Included FREE on the DVD is a PDF of Liam’s smash hit ‘Cherry Cola Queen’ booklet. (Simply pop the DVD into your PC, right click on the DVD-Drive and click ‘EXPLORE’). Cherry Cola Queen features 17 routines over 48 pages, and originally retailed for £10/$20!!

GAFFTASTIC - TWENTY NINE slabs of magic loveliness, THIRTEEN gaff cards and a whole heap of smiles!

I SAY...

First off, I can't believe that this hasn't been reviewed before. But, I've searched and searched and I can't find a mention of it anywhere on TM. So, I feel I sort of 'have to' review it.

Well, as you can see, you get a pile of stuff here. They're practically shovelling it onto the DVD - but this is definitely not shovelware: it's a typically well-produced Big Blind Media DVD, proper Bike gaffs cards, lots of tricks, and a .pdf that was a saleable item in its own right.

I won't go through all the tricks one by one. Some are very nice (I especially like Flink, for example), some are - IMHO - not so hot - and for some I'd say it's greatly a matter of taste. I hate to make a comparison with 2wo Faced (http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic15196.php&highlight=2wo) but - DVD, from BBM, focusing on gaffed card tricks - it's seems impossible not to. So: I felt 2wo Faced was better - simply, that there were more strong tricks on it. However, that's not to say that Gafftastic isn't well worth watching, also I'm possibly suffering from a slight bias. You see, I bought Gafftastic thinking that ('easy' 'gaff cards') it might provide some tricks for my eleven-year-old son - who is interested in magic, and knows some tricks I've shown him, but is essentially the kind of unskilled eleven-year-old you'd see on the Sorcerer's Apprentice. And it didn't. My fault, possibly - three DLs and an Elmsley count are probably considered 'easy' by most so that's fair enough; but they're well beyond my youngest. (Actually, I don't consider them 'easy' either: my pass is sublime, my Convincing Control sweet, and I'll happily cull before throwing in a butterfly cut for colour... but I won't do an Elmsley count: it's too easy to screw up, and I've seen only a few people, ever, do one that looks completely natural. But that's just me.) Anyway, perhaps it's worth taking into account my disappointment that Gafftastic wasn't entirely suited to my specific desires; other eyes might view it from a more favourable position.

Still, as I say, it's very much worth a look (there are several tricks on it that I'll do), there's a generous amount of magic included, and you get 13 gaff cards. My mark could well reflect that I'm the worst person to review this DVD. So why did you make me, eh? Surely, someone else has this too?

Overall:

7/10

It seems a bit of an odd decision for BBM to release this when they already have Dave Forrest's 2wo Faced. Isn't it just more of the same sort of thing? A DVD of tricks using gaffed cards? With respect to Liam, it's not exactly an original idea. I think if you're going to do something that has already been done before, you better make damn sure it's going to be superb, original material that hasn't been seen anywhere else. Otherwise I think it's a pointless exercise. And judging by your review, it doesn't sound like Gafftastic is all that, at least not compared to 2wo Faced. But then again, if gaffed card tricks is your thing, then you're probably going to love this DVD. Horses for courses and all that.

I've just re-read that paragraph and realised how harsh it sounds. I don't mean it to sound as bad as it does! I'm just in the mood for typing right now.

This is my problem here. I'm really anxious not to give the impression that this is a bad release. It's not at all. It's also about as far from one of those terrible Fleece the Noob affairs as it's possible to imagine (you know, where someone releases, say, a single effect by, say, Annemann, and charges twenty quid for it). This is original material, lots of it, and you'll certainly come away with some things you'll want to do. Plus you get the gaff cards. (2wo Faced focuses, natch, on two-faced cards - Gafftastic uses a wider selection.) (Um... though 2wo Faced does come with the Force Gimmick gaff card too, if I remember correctly.) (Ugh. This is turning into 'Dave Forrest: he's lovely, he is.')

If you came home and found this product lying on your vitrine or escritoire you'd be more than happy about it. It's well produced, no cash in, Mr Montier seems like an extremely nice chap, it gives generously, and you'll take away something useful. The unfortunate thing is that it wasn't exactly what I, for specific personal reasons, would have liked. (2wo Faced isn't full of eleven-year-old boy tricks either, I should mention - but I didn't think it would be.) Also, though I generally avoid gaffed cards myself, I recognise that they do have a place; however, I vastly prefer gaffed card tricks when the spec never realises the cards are anything but normal. It's personal taste again, but effects where you end up having 'fused two cards into one' - i.e. you hand out a d-facer at the climax - are generally not to my taste. Finally, while I enjoyed watching the tricks, there was no point where I went, "Ha! That's fab!"

So, even though there's nothing wrong with Gafftastic, and plenty of things that are right about it, simple honesty insists that I can't give it more than 7/10. Really, no one would be happier than me if someone posted a reply that read 'I've got Gafftastic. I didn't buy it for my young son, the tricks are of just the kind I like, and the only sleight I can do is the Elmsley count - which I do marvellously. Brill! Gafftastic is the new 2wo Faced!'

I know exactly what you mean, SB. My initial post was a little harsh, I concede.

Hey guys,

I also purchased Liam’s Gafftastic and I think its fantastic thinking. There have been hundreds of “gaff” selection books and DVD’s throughout the years each bringing their own style to the collection of gaffs we have available. Liam’s thinking in this DVD is awesome. Some effects are, granted not as strong as others but when you buy these sorts of DVD’s you don’t expect to use all of the material on the DVD. However, I use and perform quite a few of the effects from this DVD and they have gotten me paid gigs and brilliant reactions. Any DVD or Book you purchase that are aimed at magicians, will obviously use well known sleights and moves that most magicians know about. Therefore, I think the decision to buy a DVD like this for a youngen may have been an unwise move. Not to say however, it would be nice to keep it in a cupboard one day when he is more advanced. In terms of moves like the elmsley count, I have been performing card magic since the age of 6 and the elmsley count was one of the first professional sleights I learnt. I believe it’s one of the most easy to perform counts in existence as long as you practise. (This is as opposed to things like the Jordan or Hammond counts which are hard to keep smooth) But I think this DVD has some awesome, solid magic on it and you WILL use some of the ideas on this. Everything is brilliantly explained and the DVD quality is as usual top notch. Take from it what you will but unfortunately it won’t be what everyone is looking for and it’s impossible to please everybody.

Best Wishes all,

Jamie Daws

Phew - thanks, Jamie. I'm pleased and relieved that you chipped in with another point of view. I think the true value of reviews at TM (or anywhere, about anything) isn't solely the review itself - any review, no matter where or by whom, is no more than a personal opinion. What makes a review truly useful is when it's combined with the various responses it provokes.

theres also this on the BBM site:

CAMERON FRANCIS' 'KILLER GAFT' - WITH 16 FREE GAFF CARDS!

too much too soon?

I suspect (it's seemed like this to me for a while) that's there an increase in the proportion of effects that use gaffs or gimmicks being released, and I don't believe this is accidental. I think the fact that, if someone releases a book, manuscript or DVD, then some despicable and sweaty little onanist will put a pirate copy on the Net the moment he's found the time to take his hands out of his underpants has led to a shift. Companies feel that releasing something that relies on included 'items' undermines the value of pirated versions. The train of thought they're trying to set up being 'Even if I could buy the required items separately, I would still have to buy them - the pirated DVD (or whatever) is useless on its own. That being the case, I may as well buy the real product.'

I have no 'opinion' about this - other than anything that renders pirates useless, even partly, is super as far as I'm concerned - but I do sense that it's a trend.

are gaff cards the new coin in bottle?

rvoice100 wrote:are gaff cards the new coin in bottle?

I think magic is rather like fashion in that respect.

Interesting discussion.

I shot Killer Gaft last summer. Liam had already shot his gaffed card dvd. It was, to be honest, kind of coincidental. We just both happen to have a lot of ideas with gaffed cards and Owen was game so these two projects came about.

I will tell you that 2 Faced, Gafftastic & Killer Gaft are all very different. Yes, they all use gaffed cards. But our styles are varied. They definitely all have out respective stamps on them. I love Dave and Liam's dvds, btw. More than once, I would watch some of the effects and think, "Dang, that's good! Why didn't I think of that?"

I don't think gaffed cards are the new coin in bottle. There always has and always will be tons of stuff released that uses gaffed cards. Liam and I are just obsessed with them, that's all.

I suppose it could simply be one of those 'The Idea's Time' things - like when there's suddenly three films about time travel out at once, or multiple novels set in the Roman Empire published almost simultaneously, or etc. (I just, BTW, got a promo email from a magic shop announcing the release of Army of 52 and the Ultragaff DVDs.) It's the randomly generated result of a complex zeitgeist, so it is. Thus are we all sweep up; helpless Poohsticks in the irresistible and unfathomable current of history. I feel frightened and alone.

Anyway, Killer Gaft does look appetising, Mr Francis: the very best of luck with it.