On 2008-04-17 13:19, Gospel Dan wrote:
Doesn't FREE mean legally as "without obligation to buy or purchase anything"? Many years ago I worked for a marketing company who got a call from the BBB in regards to the sale pitch staff were using. "If you purchase this today, you will receive this absolutely free!" The BBB had received complaints so they contacted our manager to inform them that the legal definition for "Free" is without obligation to buy or purchase anything. This was about 20 years ago. I have seen so much advertising using the word free that it has always made me wonder if our company was the only company ever picked on for that.


I apologize to anyone who took my post too serious. Again, I was just bringing up something that happened to a company called Nor-Pac Marketing that I worked for 20 years ago. I thought it was ridiculous that the BBB made us get rid of the word free.

I think I'll go back from under the rock I came out of now.(lol)

Well, I received my "Bundle" yesterday and I didn't win anything free... Just some extra newspaper for shipping. But I do have a review of the stuff (as mentioned in the card forum)...

I will do my best to remember "everything" from yesterday and going thru the DVDs and cards. Let's start with the cards...

The cards, I feel, are worth every penny. Daniel and Wayne have really thought out some great things with some of these cards. Some stuff is just way better than the others BUT almost all of it is gonna be different from what you already own. My top 6 gaffs thus far, just off of watching and handling them briefly would be (in no particular order)

- Lottery Card
- Battery Cards
- King/Queen Grouping Cards
- 8C Revelation Cards
- "Card Stab" Card
- Card Stack for disappearing "thought" of card

The other cards are good too just these would be my favorites right now. The quality and finish of the cards is top notch. The design of the cards will work with multiple sleights so you are not limited to flipping the card one way or showing it another. You have a lot of possibilities here (5/5). As for the DVDs...

I feel as a consumer that all 3 DVDs could have been compiled onto 1 DVD maybe 2 DVDs in a one case, 2 disc type of set. I was also disappointed that there was not more "live performances" for people not in the know. I mean if these cards were "real world tested" for quite some time, to make sure they were the optimum gaffed cards, don't you think there should be some of that footage?? Even other magicians reacting to the gaffs would have been nice. Nothing wrong with the banter between Daniel and Wayne but it was like every other segment had some inside joke that took away from the presentation. A lot of extra info could have shortened the DVD and made it more cost worthy to the consumer. Why not some more footage like on the "Guerilla Loops" DVDs of lay people who work at Ellusionist to get some more peopel reactions.... (3/5)

The overall teaching of the routines and sleights and thought process behind the card developments definitely makes up for the issue above. Daniel and Wayne are at the peak of their game in explaining the stuff. They go into full detail and cover all of the different nuances that may occur or you may think of doing. They have 2 different styles of performing and 2 styles of acheiving the desired effect. So you have 2 ways for a majority of the effects to happen. The DVD is setup so you see Daniel, Wayne, or for the most part Both performing the routine. The next segment is the actual gaffed cards used and the thoght process and psychology and such behind them and the setup. The third segment is the actual working behind the routine. A nice and easy way to navigate thru the DVDs if you want to see somethign specific. And again, no 45-60sec "Here is the card". Full, in depth detail and workings. Daniel and Wayne behind a bar 2 on 1 explaining. (4/5)

The overall DVD quality is great. Very simple and friendly menus (although that darn theme music is really starting to get to me - anyone else )and creat camera shots and the appropriate angles when needed. You can defintely tell that they made sure that they put the time in necessary to get a great, overall produced product.

All in all, I would give this "Bundle" 4 stars out of 5. The cost and "bundling" would be the determining factor for a better rating. The deck is a definite 5 out of 5. A big thank you to Daniel and Wayne for releasing this stuff to the magic community. Definitely pick up the deck. As it stands right now, the bundle is a decent buy b/c it is only $90 for 3 DVDs and a full Gaffed Deck. So as someone mentioned in this thread earlier, it is like $30 for the deck, and $20 a DVD. I am not regreting my recent purchase (except for that theme music..... )

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Justin

The posts regarding "Free" made me think of an annoying mattress company in California. The commercials always ended with the guy saying "We'll beat any offer or your mattress is FREEEEE!!!"

I always thought that was so ridiculous. I can see it now:
"Hey, your competitors sell the same mattress for $200 cheaper then you."

"$200??? I can't beat a price THAT low so I guess you can have the mattress for free."

That ad probably works because the world is full of idiots.

Wow, an actually review of the product. Thanks Justin for the free review.

No Problem. Once in a while I am good for something on this here Café!!!

Cheers,

Justin

Great review Justin. Could you let me know how long each DVD is. From your review, it's sounds like the investment is worth it.

Looks like a decent package. I am going to work on some of the stuff I have already purchased and maybe look into this later. Has anyone bought the I hate david Copperfield trick.

If you are looking for that effect pick up the Magic for Mortals DVD it at least has a couple more tricks on it for the extra $15.(Retail or $10 at Penguin)

MIRACLES FOR MORTALS: Killer Magic for the Rest of Us
Volume One
by Geoff Williams

Volume One Contents:

ELECTRICAL ARTLET - Boom box cord too short to reach the wall outlet? No problem; just draw an outlet on a pad of paper, plug in the cord and the music starts right up! Based on a Fantasio effect and used with his permission.

UPLOOPTED - A horizontal card levitation that looks UNBELIEVABLE!

THE "I HATE DAVID Copperfield" TRICK - Based on "Close-Up Illusion" by Larry Jennings, a card VISIBLY MELTS through another. The visuals here go WAY BEYOND the original.

THE OMEGA BET - Based on the Karl Fulves effect, Bob Wagner has turned this into a KILLER piece of entertainment, a 5-phase whirlwind of fun for everyone in the room! A random spectator decides the final, and most impossible, bet of all. The routine uses my false overhand shuffle (which is quite easy but appears totally fair).

MORE ON "OIL & WATER" - Sam Schwartz's wondrous 3-phase, 8-card O & W routine with NO SLEIGHTS! NONE! Thanks to Sam for allowing me to include this gem with minor handling changes.

MIRACLE COIN VANISH - This gets GASPS from spectators. Looks like real magic. (Note: a jacket or sportcoat is required)

JUST A BIT MORE ULTIMATE THAN JOHN MENDOZA'S "ULTIMATE TORN & RESTORED CARD" - The name says it all. In an e-mail to me, Mr. Mendoza (a close-up DEITY) said he thinks more of this method (of his trick which appeared in "The Book of John") than any of the "piece-by-piece" restorations out there. You're clean at the first and clean at the end. As a bonus, it's SUPER EASY to do even though the card is SIGNED ON BOTH SIDES!

Volume One Bonus Effects:

INVISIBLE DECK FINESSE - Makes using an Invisible Deck more fun than ever (and the reset is DURING the routine).

FORKLIFT - Move silverware with your mind!

4-WAY COINCIDENCE - A reworking of a stunning prediction routine by John Murray from "Card Cavalcade 3" by Jerry Mentzer (included with Jerry's permission). Use a borrowed, thoroughly-shuffled deck. There's only one real "move" (which is laughably simple).

But back on topic of anyone who has the dvds how is the content of them? Is it just obvious effects for the gaffs or is there any thing completely off the wall in there?

I've just posted a full, very in-depth (over 4000 words) review of the complete DVD trilogy and the deck itself in the DVD section of the review part of the board. I cover every trick on each DVD, as well as offer some general thoughts on the project.

Mercury52 went above and beyond to give a detailed review of what can be found on these disks: http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......orum=111

I have only been involved in magic for about two years, and I have many Ellusionish products. Brad is everywhere in Ellusionish DVDs, but I have never seen or heard of him outside of Ellusionish. Is he any good?

I am expecting my DVD set with Deck on Thursday, and hopefully I learn a thing or two from it. Again, I am legally deaf and been trying to get "E" to subtitle their DVDs, but as far as I can see they have not done it yet. They told me they would look into it, but I feel they have not made any honest effort to subtitling any of their DVDs. Sometimes I feel they don't give a **** about the deaf community. I am angry about it, and yet I continue to buy their DVDs. I saw the preview on the web site with DG laughing it up with what looks like his parents, it truely annoys me to watch that when you can't hear what they are saying. Who cares if they can laugh, who wants to watch that with no sound? The trick(s) better be good!

This will be my last DVD from the Big Famous Ellusionish if I have a hard time figuring out what they are doing on that 3-DVD set. I have had enough of their LAME excuses.

Hey madkiki sorry about that no subtitling thing. That would really suck to not be able to understand what they are saying on the DVD's. Someone should invent a hand held speech recognition device that you could place next to your computer or TV's speakers and it would convert the sound of people speaking into text on to an LCD, if it is not already out there.

Anyway, I ordered the 3 DVD's and actually won a signed ultragaff deck (signed by both W:H and Danny) plus a sealed ultragaff deck which is pretty nice. When I went through the cards in the signed deck I noticed that eight of them were cut off center so that you had parts of two cards on one card. Anyway it made those cards useless to anyone but a collector of E errors (and I do not know any of them). I contacted E about the error cards, sent them a picture of them, and they sent me another ultragaff deck while letting me keep the deck that had the error cards most of which are normal. So how is that for getting my moneys worth?

As for the product I think the cards are great and the DVD is well made and has a bunch of very nice effects on it. I think that Wayne and Danny do a little too much joking around which makes for a lot of filler. It is kind of neat to get a sense for how they are when they are just hanging out and they do give some good tips as they wonder off topic often. If you are a fan of those two guys you will most likely enjoy the DVD set.

Because of the nature of gaff card tricks I will likely only use one or two of the effects on the DVD's in my routine at any one time. I don't want to be known for being the guy with gaff cards. Luckily a few of the tricks are such that the spectators never know that any gaff cards were used which is ideal.

One other negative I can point out is that the effects covered on the three DVD's are not listed on the DVD's or the cases. So if you remember a cool effect from the DVD's (but not which DVD it was on) and want to go over the handling of that effect again you have to 33.3% chance of picking the right DVD the first time and a 50% chance of picking the right DVD if the first DVD you pick was not the right one. The good new is that by the third pick, if you were paying attention to which Volumes you have already look at, you have a 100% chance of picking correctly. Or you can do what E should have thought to do and label each DVD yourself.

As noted elsewhere the DVD set does not cover an effect for each card in the Ultragaff deck. Wayne and Danny do go over some quick ideas for how the other cards could be used and encourage you to come up with your own effect with them. They also hint that they may release more ultragaff card effects "underground" to the magic community in the future which sounds like a great idea to stimulate more sales of the ultragaff deck in a year or two. I could also see them putting together a follow up DVD with ultragaff card effects invented by the rest of us. E would be smart to have a competition where its members could send in all of their ultragaff card effects and ten winners would get their effects on the follow up DVD and maybe get a signed free copy of the DVD or a T-shirt or something.

that's what I don;t get about this special types of gaffed cards. if they know your using a "gaff" card, wheres the magic?

I didn't think this needed to be stated, but perhaps I'm wrong. Consider the following.

Imagine a lay person watching a magician perform with a deck of cards. Let's say a magician takes the selected 3 of hearts and smears the ink across the face.

In the mind of a lay spectator, the thought isn't "Oh, he switched my card for this GAFFED card that has smeared ink on it."

No, instead, the thought is "He took my normal 3 of hearts and smeared the ink across the face."

Do you see the difference? The magic is the surprise that somethiing has happened to the absolutely normal card that I have just held in my hand.

I agree. But I think it is important to use a simple red bicycle deck when doing any gaff card tricks. Use any of the fancy Black Tiger Split Ghost Zombie type decks and the spectator will immediately start to question the deck. Red Bicycle deck. Plain, simple, everyday, common, NORMAL!

The other use for the gaff card trick is humor. A number of the tricks on the Ultragaff DVD set are more humor based (like Sexy and Dead Cell) then shock and awe mind blowing. Sometimes it is fun to lighten things up a bit between the mind blowing stuff.

It's too bad that they force feed you 3 dvd's to get an idea of how to use the entire deck of cards.

No matter how good some of the effects are, how many gaffed card tricks do you really want to do?

I personally don't want 3 dvd's worth of material when I'd probably only use maybe 3 effects. And that is not counting the gaffed card effects I already own.

Ex: Three card Monte, Sidewalk shuffle, King Stab.

I bought the CAJ deck and harldy ever use those cards. But they were fun to look at, but then the novelty wears off pretty fast.

I am not sure the location or a pint of beer nearby was a good idea. Are they saying we have to be drunk and stupid to use these gaff cards? They were both clowning around a lot as if they might have been drunk. I think it is disrespectful the way they filmed these instructional DVDs. It is too bad I could not hear a word they said the entire 3-DVD set, had to use my eyes and get the impression that they were drunk as skunks.

Could someone please interpret what they said the entire 7 hours? HEY, I have a great idea, try including subtitles!

The tricks were pretty cool though, and I am planning to go out and use them. I won't be bar hopping to entertain people, I will just go out and meet ordinary folks who are willing to see some good old fashion magic.

Have fun!

Can someone tell me what sleights are on the dvds? Im not a very advances card magician I know the basics and somemore, but I cant afford to buy other dvds to get the sleights needed.

Of course a spec is not going think "gaff card".
They will think that the card is "real".

I am not saying this is always the case but 95% of the tricks i'v seen with these types of gaff cards are poorly constructed and I think its a real issue, to think otherwise is to think people are complete idiots