Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Keep On Loving You by REO Speedwagon
Let's take a look at three things:
- The DVD
- The Gimmicks
- The Ad Copy
The DVD
This DVD is about 872 hours long . . . It's full of tons of information. It's well produced; the effects are well taught; the handling is very clear and the instructions for repairing or creating a new gimmick are very clear and easy to follow. The menu is easy to navigate and read . . . so production quality, teaching, etc.: all top notch . . . 5 stars.
The Gimmicks
The gimmick is very well made, and I imagine had to be hand made which means that thousands of these things were hand crafted for this project. My gimmicks were excellent and worked perfectly. It took me a little playing around to get familiar with their functionality and timing, but 10 to 15 minutes of fiddling and I was there.
They're very durable and will likely last (as the ad copy claims) over 100 performances. You receive two gimmicks and the stuff to make about a dozen more if you wanted to. The two gimmicks you recieve allow you to do two different effects. There's the standard Hawk and the "Lucky Card" version. The standard version is angly, and requires a small amount of "clean up" at a point where the pressure is somewhat "on." This method, I think, is almost not doable. It certainly cannot be done close up. It's very angly.
However, the "Lucky Card" version is killer. Super clean, and no pressure on the clean up; plus it has a good presentational hook. This is by far the best method. Plus, it's totally angle proof and the deck is instantly examinable right after the effect happens. It's very practical and very doable.
Ad Copy
The ad copy claims and video demo are pretty accurate. The only sort-of exception to that is that the one version (non lucky card) is a little angly, and during the two times the show the vulnerable moment, they obscured or blurred the footage a little bit. I think had they not done that you would likely have seen the gimmick, so points lost for that.
I should be very clear: when you see that card appear on top of the deck, that is exactly what it looks like in real life. It just "appears" there. It's pretty amazing. The problem that after the card appears, some clean up needs to happen, and before you clean up, you're vulnerable and in a very angle sensitive setting. That part was very much obscured in the trailer . . . that's a big deal to me. It's very misleading. In low lighting situations, the angle sensitivity is nowhere near as much of a problem, but I just felt like the trailer left out some critical information causing it to be misleading.
However, that's the method I would not be using anyway. I'd much rather use the lucky card version. That's the version they should have put in the trailer. It's a much more pure effect. There's nothing to hide; it's totally angle-proof and totally clean.
I've seen a couple of reviews that said it was too much work and effort to get the gimmick working and the extra prep needed, etc. I honestly have no idea what they're referring to. There is no extra effort needed to get the gimmick to work. It comes 100% assembled and fully functioning. You just have to do one thing which takes about all of 10 seconds (literally) to do, and when you see what that one thing is, you'll realize why you have to do it. It's not the kind of thing that could be done ahead of time. The gimmicks are both very easy to use, handle and manage, so I'm just not sure what the other reviews were referring to in that regard.
Final Thoughts
When you consider that you're getting tons of instructions, two very well made gimmicks along with the stuff to make more all for $40 bucks, that's a pretty solid price.
Final Verdict:
3.5 Stars with a Stone Status of Gem.