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Nicholas Lawrence & SansMinds Magic: Split Second Review

One DVD, one gimmick, one simple arts and crafts project and $30 bucks. Is it gem or is it rubble?

Effect

Right from the ad copy: "Imagine being able to pull out a SINGLE bill from your wallet. Give it a twirl. The bill turns into a full deck of cards!" That's the effect.

Method

The method relies on a simple gimmick that you'll need to make with the materials provided. You supply your own dollar and your own deck of cards. Everything else is included. There are two handling techniques taught. One is where dollar comes from your wallet, and another where the dollar is just in your pocket. If you do the wallet version, the gimmick is attached to the wallet which would make it a little bit awkward to use it as a normal wallet at the grocery store or something. However, it's nothing major.

If you use the method where the dollar bill is just in your pocket, then this not a problem. The angles are not too bad. Assuming you're right handed, the left side is the bad angle. Your audience must be directly in front of you and to your right. However, on the right side, you're vulnerable for a moment when you're getting the wallet or dollar out of your back pocket. It's a brief second and is at a time when nothing has happened yet, so it's pretty safe. Plus a slight turn of your body can solve this as well. The gimmick works fine. It'll take a little bit of practice to get used to it, but it works very well and is very visual.

Ad Copy Integrity

The written ad copy is actually accurate. The only thing I'll point out as clarification is this statement: "This effect works with any currency that has a width that is equal or reasonably larger than a deck of cards." This is true. However, the money will need to be trimmed down to the same width as the deck of cards, so if it's too large, then trimming it will, obviously, make the note not look right. But if you're currency is wider than the box, but narrow enough that you'll only need to trim the border of the bill, then you're good. Also, you can simply use a currency from another country that works. My understanding is that Nicholas Lawrence uses American Money all over the world.

The video trailer . . . well. There is one iffy part, and one inaccurate part. The iffy part is at the beginning when the performer brings out his wallet and flips it open. I'm 99.98% sure that he is not holding the gimmick. The wallet is laying too flat on his hand.

To further add to my suspicion, they're showing the removal of the bill from the wallet from the wrong angle. In the DVD, Herman very specifically says that when removing the bill from the wallet, you need to do it with that side (the right side) away from the audience. Further, you'll notice a cut right there from when he opens the wallet to when he removes the bill.

The next shot shows him holding the bill in such a way that it's wavy and curved at the back. With the gimmick in place, you can't hold the bill like that, and even if you could, from that particular angle, you'd see the gimmick. Then there's another cut. This time he is holding the actual gimmick. All this stinks of the fish to me.

Later in the trailer — this is the inaccurate part — there is a part where he shows a dollar bill on both sides. You cannot do this folks. Make sure you watch the video review of this one. I'll be talking more about that in the video.

Product Quality

The DVD itself is extremely well produced and easy to navigate. No issues here.

Final Thoughts

This is another case of a very good product that has some misleading moments in the ad copy. This is not a fluke. This is a pattern. The visual change shown on the ad trailer is exactly what it looks like in real life. It's the removing of the bill from the wallet that doesn't look the same. By the way, removing the bill from the wallet looks fine when you do it from the correct angle, so there's no need to hide that in the ad trailer.

SansMinds posted a reply to a recent review of another SansMinds product that had a very misleading "thing" in the ad trailer. This is a quote from their response: " . . . for ALL our trailers, there are always artistic or conceptual cinematic shots to make it visually interesting/engaging to watch. That's very consistent with all our trailers. It just goes with the conceptual pitch."

I'm okay with that if it doesn't inaccurately represent the product. The shot of them turning the dollar bill around is, I'm assuming, what they would consider an "artistic cinematic shot." I'm not sure what this does to make the trailer more interesting to watch. The only thing it really does is lead the viewers to believe that you can show both sides of the bill when you cannot.

The other issues, I can't prove were cheating, and I'm might even be wrong. Maybe they just got some perfect camera angle that is just at the perfect sweet spot where you can show the dollar without exposing the gimmick. However, based on the handling of the gimmick myself, I don't believe that's the case. But since I can't prove it 100% I'm not sure if it's fair to dock the final rating. If I were rating just the product without the ad copy issues, this would be 4.5 to 5 stars (leaning toward 4.5). However . . .

Final Verdict:
3 Stars (barely) with a Stone Status of gem (with a tiny g that would be a lot bigger if the ad copy were more accurate)