Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Nights I Can't Remember by Toby Keith
Review of Travelling Deck 2.0 by Takel:
One DVD, Two Gimmicks and a whole lot of ideas . . . is it gem or is it rubble? Stay tuned . . .
Effect
Many effects can be accomplished with the supplied gimmicks. Here are some highlights. Hold the deck in your hands and squish it between your palms. Nothing is left but the selected card. Make the box vanish/turn into a joker. Make the deck vanish completely in your bare hands. Turn a deck of cards into a dollar bill. There's more, but that should be enough to give you a sense of what's possible.
Method
A very simple gimmick makes all this possible. The gimmick is very easy to use, and is already pre-made. That's a huge plus in my book. No craft projects. You get two gimmicks. One that is meant to look like the back of a playing card and one that is meant to look like a card box. The one that looks like a card can be shown very freely after the vanish takes place. However, the card box one cannot. The card gimmick can be shown front and back after the vanish. The card box gimmick cannot. However, they both have their place, depending on the effect you're doing.
One thing that is a little bit of a concern is that this is very angle-sensitive, depending on which effect you're doing. Some of the effects require you to be directly in front of your audience head on, much like the angle of the video trailer. Some of the effects, however, are pretty angle-proof. It all depends on the handling you use and the effect you're doing. The effect that I would do (vanishing deck) is very angle-safe, and very easy to do. The final word on the gimmick/method is that it's very effective, and very easy. You'll need to put in some practice, but it's not very hard at all.
Ad Copy Integrity
The ad copy is very accurate and very honest. The only thing I feel needs mentioning is it would be easy to infer from the ad copy that you vanish the deck and the box in one "go" or in one routine/effect. It doesn't quite work that way. You'll do one or the other in the routine, but not both at once. You, likely, however, could work it so that you vanish the box at the beginning of the routine after you remove the cards. Then later at the end of the routine when you're done with the cards, you vanish them. So in that case, you would be able to do both in one routine . . . just not back to back.
Product Quality
The gimmick is very well made and very durable, and will likely last a long time, especially with the tips they give for taking care of the gimmick, modifying it, repairing it and building new ones. You can very easily make a gimmick that matches whatever back design you prefer. In fact, you can easily modify the supplied gimmick to match your favorite back design. Changing the card box gimmick, however, is another story. They don't show you how to do it, and it's not as straightforward as changing the back design is. It's still possible, but again, it was not taught, and likely won't be simple.
The material on the DVD ranges from crap to really good. It appears that once they discovered the gimmick, they decided to come up with a bunch of stuff to do with it. Many of the ideas are half-baked, and some of them are way more complicated because of the gimmick. For example, the color changing deck uses the gimmick. However, you could do the exact same effect using only a single extra stranger card (i.e., a card of a different colored back). Instead, they use the gimmick as a stranger card, which makes no sense. But on this same DVD with that crappy idea comes this wonderful idea: a modification of the gimmick that lets you do a barehanded complete vanish of the deck. In the traditional effect, the deck doesn't completely vanish. There's always one card left. But this bonus idea allows for a complete vanish . . . and you can do it completely surrounded and completely naked. It's very clever.
There were several places during the studio performance where the gimmick was clearly being exposed to the spectator (another magician), but the magician played along like it wasn't being exposed. That's a bit annoying because it can't be performed like that in the real world. In reality, those effects, though doable, are much more angle-sensitive than shown in the studio performances.
The productions quality was actually pretty rough. The menu was good, but the sound was awful. I had it on full volume and I could barely hear it. Also, the three magicians who performed and taught would often trail off and mumble during explanations, leaving it pretty much impossible to figure out what was said. That was very frustrating. Also, they claim that this was shot in HD. I can't prove that it wasn't, but if you watch it, you'll question that statement.
Final Thoughts
This is a solid method to do a lot of effects. If you liked what you saw in the video trailer, then know this: you can easily do every one of those effects with this gimmick. Just be aware of the fact that the angles in some cases are a little bit restrictive. If you don't mind the terrible audio quality - I was still able to figure everything I needed to do to perform the effects - then you will likely feel you got your money's worth for sure. Though the audio was crap and there are a couple of less-than-well-thought-out ideas, for $29.99, the gimmick alone is almost worth it. Add to that the handful of good ideas on the DVD, and you've got a pretty solid product.
Final Verdict:
4 Stars with a Stone Status of Gem.