Right, we have general summaries in these reviews, but no indication on how strong the individual effects are, or how difficult they are to perform.

Frenchdrop: the majority of explanations are done by Dani in English... and though it's somewhat broken, the material is completely communicated.

bugjack/theinternetguru: reviews are on their way regarding difficulty/effect/spectator reactions - I needed a few days to try some of this stuff

Some quick thoughts on the set after the first sit and maybe can set some expectations.

First I've found Dani DaOrtiz to be even more charming than I first thought and I've heard nothing but good about the man himself. Britland's piece in this month's Genii calls him 'happy-go-lucky' and he's right. He's charming, warm, funny and intelligent and it comes through in his performing persona, while teaching or speaking with Luis 1on1.

You'll be able to completely understand the ideas and concepts he's trying to get across and the user has the option of having the subtitles run even when Dani's speaking in English. Watch the 2011 EMC discs where Dani is teaching one of his effects. That should provide you with some idea of his command of the language and the type of teaching he does on this set.

As for the impact of the magic my jaw was dropping quite a bit during the performances and explanations. As to the difficulty of the sleights they're all "very easy" (it's what I believe is an unintentional running joke throughout the discs).

Seriously though even the self workers are going to require effort so I'm not sure what the concern is. Do you have to be a move monkey? No although Dani employs some not east to do well sleights (pass, picking up / placing down doubles, etc). In fact Dani's explanation on perfecting the picking up of a double from a tabled packet and snapping it to show as a single is to do it 1000 times ("it's very easy").

If you're looking for something to add to your show next month I would pass on this set. However if you're looking for someone to share with you field data on timing, focus, attitude, human nature, behavior patterns, perspective and psychology in the art of magic then these are a must have DVD set.

I think that puts any concerns people might have to rest Tony. Gold on these dvds I tellz ya, pure gold.

John

I eccho what john has said, there is great stuff within these dvd's, the imaginary deck!!!! wowsers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How is the ACAAN on this dvd set?

I have ordered. As a mentalists who enjoys effects with cards, this looks like it could have some important material.

@brehaut: look at the "imaginary pendulums" routine in particular... I thought it wouldn't fly, but have since fooled SEVERAL magicians with it. It's phenomenal.

@atucci - I would disagree - in that some of the things on this DVD set could definitely be added to the set next month. Especially the semi-automatic effects. I didn't see those requiring much, if any "effort" on a technical level.

Twin prediction is awesome!!!!!

102 - technical skill sets are only one piece of an entire performance, no?

Especially with the tricks on disc four (semi-automatic) where the technical skills may not be as important as in some other tricks it's the persona of the magician which will make these successful or not.

Dani is sooooo strong that he can and probably does influence an entire room to focus or look away at the appropriate time. For someone who's not as forceful a personality it could spell disaster, don't you think?

Here's an example from disc four: Three Opportunities - at least two critical points in the trick where subtlety (first instance) and misdirection (second instance) are needed otherwise the 'secret' is very transparent. Since neither critical point requires a knuckle buster move I'm afraid many magicians will underestimate how important these points are to the success of the trick. To underestimate the importance of these points is an invitation to exposure or at a minimum suspicion by the spectator.

For me self-working or semi-automatic don't translate to easy.

Atucci - I completely agree - technical is only one component.

However, if someone is performing often enough that they HAVE a show next month, I'd presume they have SOME level of performing persona.

In addition to which, the routines don't need to be performed EXACTLY as shown - for example, in 3 Opportunities, the first "subtlety" could just be a simple peak. In addition, the second instant, has SO much misdirection due to spectator's reactions, there's not much to worry about hiding... (at least in my experience in performing the effect).

I do agree, self working or semi automatic doesn't necessarily mean easy... but in the case that you want to add something to your show next month, these effects aren't impossible to add, with the appropriate time spent working on them. The underestimation of the importance of presentation is prevalent throughout the magic world and in my opinion the underestimation shouldn't factor into the rating of a trick's "difficulty," though presentational ability definitely does factor in, as I said in the beginning of my difficulty rating post. (add 1-2 points to any rating I gave for presentational aspect/smoothness).

At this point I'm pretty sure we're in violent agreement...

-Raahul

-Raahul - yes and thanks for the conversation.

Tony

I had a pleasure of seeing Dani constantly in the past six years or so because his connection to fat brothers so I was already familiar with most material on this dvd set.
What most reviews tend to do here is just hype hype hype, buff, buff, buff and disregard all the negatives and there are plenty on this dvd set as well...

It was already mentioned in this threat but "this is easy" is rather constant phrase heard in this series but also one of the huge flaws... Most of the technical stuff isn’t teached very well. If you aren’t already familiar with most of Ascanio’s double card handlings you will be left wondering a lot how your supposed to handle doubles so freely. Also Dani is an expert with table doubles (lifting two cards from tabled packets with fast and ease of lifting one card) and it isn’t really teached here either. Dani just says "its easy, do it"... This same attitude is seen on many other harder moves. This might be huge problem for some people who are not advanced enough technically. However, as mentioned in most reviews, Dani's routines aren’t really that advanced or hard really.

Other thing is that Dani is still mostly jazzing when he does magic. He likes to improvise and that can be seen in his work a lot. There really isn’t many real performance pieces and interesting presentations on this DVD set. He has his reasoning why he performs like that but in my eyes it also causes a risk of being viewed just as a guy who does card tricks instead of card magic.

Also he is known a lot as magician’s magician and for a reason! Although he has some routines and ideas that would fit any professionals repertoire (triple intuition, triumph for example), there is also tons and tons of routines that I would never do for laymen in paid gigs (chink a chink with cards, four fly and so on). After all, in paid gigs they are against all the classics of card magic.

That said Utopia is one of the most refreshing dvd set on card magic that has come out in recent years. You get a lot for your money and the vol.3 will become the future reference on any sort of psychological or timing based force and is must study to everyone! On this third disc Dani has finally revealed his systems that he uses to fool magicians in conventions all around the world. He has made most 60-70% certain verbal and timing forces 99,9% surefire and with his outs they are 100% sure making em usable time after time again in real world. Most of the concepts on that disc can be applied to also non card items.

Juha-Matti

I hope so I haven't seen any pre orders on an uk sites yet ? Might order from Penguin.

Yeah I ordered from penguin, I ordered on a Friday and they came the Monday, super quick!!!

Wow that's really quick Think I will order from penguin Thanks

You will love the set it is great!!! especially triple intuition, absolutely superb!!!!

Here is a way to sum up this dvd set in one word AWESOME! I highly recommened this dvd set to anyone! The content on here is of the highest quality.

No signs of other magic dealers carry this one except Dani's site and Penguin at this moment, right?