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Cody Nottingham New user 68 Posts |
So, my friend Lloyd Barnes recently put out a dvd on EnigmaLTD. As friends, he shows a lot of his material to me because I’m honest about what I think. If its junk, I say “Lloyd, this is junk” that simple. Because of that he sent me a copy of the dvd and I decided to write a review. I’m going to give my honest opinion once again, but instead of just giving it to Lloyd I’ll be saying it in front of all of you guys. Don’t worry, I’m not sugar coating anything just due to the fact that there is going to be others seeing it. This dvd is a massive 4 hour, 2 disc dvd, and yes….I sat through every minute of it. I’m going to tell the description of what Lloyd says about it and then give my own opinion. Note that although I have seen some of the material on here before its release, I haven’t seen most of it until I watched the dvd. Its going to be a lengthy read, so lets go ahead and just get into it.
Steadfast – Melt a ring off a rubber band in three phases. *My opinion: Now, this will not be a magician fooler, but this will be a great trick to do to laymen on the spot. What more could you ask for than a visual trick done with the spectator’s ring and a borrowed, examinable rubber band? The first phase the band is pulled through the band with some minimal cover….kind of cool. The 2nd phase the band comes off the band with no cover….impressive. The last phase….the ring is on the band and the ring/band is on the spectator’s finger! Yes, their FINGER! One strand at a time, the band comes off. Can’t get more powerful for a laymen than this. Rating: 8/10 SloMo Sandwich – Visually see a card slowly appear between two sandwich cards. *My opinion: Gimmicked? Yes. What kind of gimmick? I can’t say but I can tell you that he gimmick will not take you but about 3 seconds to create and be ready for this. Not much to say other than the fact that it really looks like a selection is melting between 2 sandwich cards extremely slowly….very simple and convincing clean up that you do right in front of the spectator. Everything is examinable after the trick is done as well as before. Great trick. Rating: 7/10 Covert – Lloyd’s take on the classic card to wallet plot. *My opinion: This for me is super simple. Now, I can say that this is my least favorite trick on the set. Why? I don’t know. It just is. Lloyd says that it kills when performed for laymen, I can see that happening, but its not for me. Rating: 5.5/10 Sweet Columbia – Visual change of a cup full of sugar into coffee grinds. *My opinion: For me, performed the right moment, this is probably one the most visual tricks that you’ll ever perform. No, you won’t perform this at your next gig. Lets say that you got some friends over and you ask if they want some coffee…of course they do, but not thinking you don’t have any, so what do you do? You put a sugar in a coffee mug and hand it to them. They look at you like you are an idiot and that’s fine. You take the mug back and stir it up by moving your hand clock wise and they visually see it transform itself into coffee. NO COVER. I about blew a gasket when I saw this. You’ll fool yourself when doing this. Amazing…..amazing. Rating: 9/10 Three in the Bed – A selected card appears sandwiched between two cards inside the box. *My opinion: This effect is strong, great for walk around/table magic. You take 2 mates and put them in a box together, have a selection made and signed, the selection goes back into the deck and that’s it. You open the box, the SPECTATOR pulls out the 2 cards and their selection is now in-between the 2 cards. Really nice effect. Rating: 7/10 Pure – A color change that looks like real magic. *My opinion: This has been done before. The Bertram change, the Polaroid Change, but I think Lloyd has formed the same principal into a more natural, less angle sensitive, chest level change. Great take on the concept and a lot of good tips. Rating: 8/10 Moonshine – An abstract and fooling coin vanish. *My opinion: This is also something that has been explored and published before, but Lloyd’s take on that concept. As always he credits the ones before them. Again, I’m not a huge coin person, but for someone who is, this is something worth practicing because its very well thought out and pretty fooling. Rating: 6.5/10 Spare Change – Melt a borrowed coin through the bottom of a coffee mug. *My opinion: Guys, this is stupidly simple. This is dumb simple. This is so good. The trick wouldn’t fool anyone. I wouldn’t perform this to kids. Lloyd’s tweaking, his psychology, his thoughts, the psychological audio touches that he has put into this fooled me so bad and I felt stupid after the explanation. This is basically what separates a poor creator and an excellent creator. This guys, is SO powerful….I’ll perform this all the time now. I’m giving it such a high rating because it may not fool you when you see it, but he practicality of this is just amazing. Rating without Lloyd’s touches: 2/10 With Lloyd’s touches : 8.5/10 Sign Vanish – An extremely Natural coin vanish. *My opinion: Not much to say, it’s a coin vanish. Don’t expect to show your magician friends and fool them badly with this, but for a laymen….yes. All done at the finger tips with no weird or unnatural moves. Rating: 6.5/10 Loophole – Link and unlink two borrowed rubber bands together. *My opinion: When I say this, it reminded me of Slink by Garcia. Yes, it is similar, but Lloyd credits as always, but the hookup is more different than Garcia’s and more open. He doesn’t put Garcia’s down because it’s the basis of which he created it. Very nice, very open. I perform band material. Linking wise, I perform some Garcia’s Slink, some Marcus Eddie stuff, Melting Point, and now I’m performing this. Easy to do, very visual, and also fooling. Rating: 9/10 Glimmer – A hyper Visual coin through glass. *My opinion: This is a coin through class that is very visual. I’ve done the plot for years now. I think that this is a great way to accomplish the effect. The concept may have been one before, but again, with Lloyd’s touches on this it makes it entirely new effect. Rating: 8/10 SandSwitch – One of the most natural looking switches of a sandwich card you’ll ever see. *My opinion: Knacky, but well worth it. I’m a card guy and I don’t find this crazy challenging, but I do find this probably the most natural way to switch a card in-between 2 sandwich cards. I really like this. Rating: 9.5/10 Scarlett Utility – A powerful Utility Move. *My opinion: Basically the description says it all. It’s a powerful utility move. This can be applied to so many different routines that you already use or use it to create new ones, don’t worry, Lloyd later on shows you multiple routines using this. Rating: 8.5/10 Face Off – The Ace of Spades visually changes between two sandwich cards. *My opinion: Stupid name and Lloyd says so himself. This is one of the tricks that uses “Scarlett Utility” and it’s a great effect. I can’t really describe it in detail other than that. Its one of those things that you’d just have to see. This is nice and visual, and I LOVE sandwich tricks. Rating: 7.5/10 Only 2wo - Copper silver on steroids. *My opinion: As I said earlier, I do some coin work but not much. I’m not a coin guy. This fooled me. I think this may be one of the strongest things on this set. I love it. This is one of the things that I will perform and that says a lot because it has to be really strong coin material for me to use it. Its not too hard, it is extremely visual, but will take practice to get everything down with misdirection and time. Rating: 9.5/10 Harvey Change – Two cards visually change at the same time. *My opinion: Uses the Scarlett Utility move. This is a very visual double card change. Now, most double card changes are tough, they use complicated setups or you can kind of see what is going on unless you have put the time and effort into making it look flawless….this, no. With practice you could do this (if you are a card guy) in minutes and make it look good in now time. For what it is, I think its great. Rating: 7.5-8/10 (hard to decide) Looper – Transpose a selected card from between two sandwich cards. *My opinion: This reminds me of “Face Off” (not the movie, Lloyd’s effect a couple tricks back). You’d have to just see this one. It’s a fantastic transposition effect where the card between 2 sandwiching cards change with no cover. Once again, this uses the Scarlett Utility. I think this is something I’d commonly use. Rating: 8/10 Bankrupt –Melt a straw through a borrowed bank note in two visual phases. *My opinion: For an impromptu version of a classic effect, this is it. Easy to do, the setup can be done in the matter of 1-2 seconds with the spectator’s borrowed objects. Great idea and what it uses to accomplish this effect is invisible. Rating: 9/10 Barrel Change – The original slow motion color change. *My opinion: Now, it may or may not have been done before Lloyd sometime or another, I’m not really sure. Lloyd says above that it is the “original slow motion color change” and yes, I seen Lloyd do it years ago and others have done it after him. He has great tips on how to do this better than others that I have seen. Its a very slow and visual change of one card to another. I think Lloyd has thought this one out more compared to others who have release similar changes to this. This isn’t something that I would perform on a regular basis though. Rating: 7.5/10 !@#$%^& – Four Jacks visual vanish one at a time from the deck. *My opinion: Uses the Scarlett Utility and I think is a fantastic take on the “The Queens” by Bill Goodwin. Unlike others this is very open, nothing to hide, quick, and I think takes you off guard. You don’t really expect what is going to happen. Rating: 9/10 Conclusion: Now, it may seem that I have been generous with my ratings, but I haven’t been. I can assure you that and anyone who has this dvd can back me up on that. This dvd is full of practical, impromptu, slightly gimmicked, real world working effects. I can see anyone who buys this using at least 4-5 effects off of this. Why this wasn’t released earlier? I don’t know. I’m glad that its taken Lloyd this long to release it because there is a lot of thought that he has put into this to make it what it is today. This is one of the best DVDs that I’ve seen put out since Garcia’s 4-6 DVD set. I’m also looking at this material not as what it is now, but also what it can become. Do you have any idea what me, you, and others can do with this material if we adapt it to our routines, tweak it, switch a few things around, take out what we like out of a trick and add something new, create a new trick with the concept of what we have learned from this? Seriously guys, I know you work hard for your money, but instead of buying an overpriced smoke gimmick, buy this for a fraction of the price and make your magic more powerful. I’ll leave you with the link to the website, you guys decide, but for the price…this can’t be beat. Good luck. Overall average rating: 7.9/10 |
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