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Rise Review

One gimmick, 70 minutes of streaming instructions, $100 bucks and one Rise Review. Is it gem or is it rubble? Stay tuned to find out.

Rise Review: Effect

You "find" a crushed Red Bull can on the ground. Then you stomp on it, and quickly lift your foot. Visually and instantly the can appears to un-compress. It's a completely sealed can that can immediately be handed out and consumed by the spectator. You end clean.

Rise Review: Method

The method relies on a very simple and clever gimmick that you are supplied with. It takes about 1 minute to customize it to your body. That's a one time prep. Then each day before you go out, you have about a 5 minute set up that you'll need to do to be ready to use it throughout the day. You will have to supply two Red Bull (or other similarly shaped) cans. One remains in tact and is the one that appears as the un-crushed can. The other you will need to drink and create a gimmick out of the can. It's easy to do and takes about 5 to 10 minutes. This is a one time prep.

Setting up the first gimmick to match your body takes one minute one time. Preparing the second can takes 5 to 10 minutes one time. So a total of 11 minutes of one-time preparation. Then each day that you use it requires a 5 minute "before I leave the house" set up.

The gimmick does most of the work for you. There is a little bit of timing that you'll need to practice. It only took me a few tries to get a good rendition of the illusion. There are two restrictions. First, the angles. Imagine a clock face painted on the ground where you are to perform. You are standing at 12:00 with your left side facing toward the 6:00 position. Your audience can be standing anywhere between 4:00 and 7:00. Anything wider than that, and you'll be exposed. The angles, audience size, and restrictions are about the same as the Balducci Levitation.

The second restriction is your wardrobe. If you perform in shorts, you'll have to pass. If you wear skinny jeans . . . first of all, stop wearing them; you look ridiculous. Secondly, you won't be able to do this effect. If you were straight leg jeans you're good. He suggested that jeans or Docker style cargo pants are preferred over slacks. However, I did it just find with slacks. The other wardrobe restriction is your shoes. You'll need to make sure you're wearing shoes that are not high-tops . . . just standard height shoes must be worn.

The only other consideration is that it's a little knacky/fidgety to get the right feel for the gimmick. At first, I kept having the problem of the un-crushed can "appearing" while I was walking around. However, after a few attempts, I was able to stop that. But, I will say, it may be the kind of thing where you don't load the can until right before you plan on performing the effect. That way you're not walking around all day with a secret can. It only takes a half second to load the can. You have to do it privately, but it's super easy.

Reset is only seconds. You have to do one little thing to your shoe to make this work. More on that in the ad copy integrity section below.

Rise Review: Ad Copy Integrity

The ad copy has three issues ranging from small to medium to large. First, the small issue. The ad copy claims that there are "Over 90 minutes of streaming instructions, tips, bonuses & performance ideas." Nope. It's only 70 minutes. I'm not sure where they got the number 90 from.

The medium problem is the claim that you don't need to alter your shoe. That's not quite true. You have to permanently affix something to the inside of your shoe to make this work. It's a small something that is supplied, and you'll never notice it when you're not wearing the gimmick. However, this means that you can only perform the trick when wearing that particular pair of shoes.

There are two ways around the permanent nature of this preparation, neither of which is mentioned on the video. They are ideas I came up with on my own. One of the ideas is more obvious and will likely be thought of by anyone who watches the video. The idea is simply to buy (from a craft store) a few more of these "things" that you have to permanently affix to your shoe, and put one in each shoe.

The third, and largest, offender is the video ad trailer. From 5 seconds to 8 seconds, they show a crushed can that is apparently dropped to the ground and then restored. Nope. That can that they show is clearly . . . clearly not the special gimmick that you need to use for this effect to work. Seeing that can in the trailer led me, and likely you, to believe that the crushed can is able to be shown on both sides openly and fairly. That is simply not the case. There is a way to show it both sides, but not as cleanly as that.

Then at 9 seconds to 10 seconds in, a crushed can is dropped to the ground. The one dropped to the ground is the gimmick. They switched it. I imagine that there is a clever way to switch out a real crushed can for your crushed gimmick, but it was not taught on the video. However, this is the kind of thing that is not needed to be shown openly. I'll show you the gimmick in the video, and you'll see that it can still be handled relatively openly. However, the absolutely did NOT use the gimmick in the 5 to 8 second points of the ad trailer.

The rest of the ad trailer, however, is absolutely 100% dead on. 17-ish second mark where the can appears is exactly and I mean exactly what it looks like. The illusion is absolutely incredible. They could have easily left out those three seconds in the video and you'd have a perfect ad trailer.

Rise Review: Product Quality

The gimmick and the materials supplied are excellent quality. The gimmick is very clever and very well made. They used to grade materials that make everything smooth and easy to handle. It's clear that a lot of time and thought went into the creation of this product. The training video is a little bit awkward at points. It was very unscripted, and Sean Scott seemed to struggle to find the right words to say often leaving him rambling and repeating himself. I mention this because it does impact the quality of the material taught. Had it been more scripted, some missing details might have been better covered.

For example, he had a troubleshooting section that was only a 3 minutes and 15 seconds long and did not cover the main issue that I think most people would need help troubleshooting . . . keeping the can in place all day. Instead it is was a section that had nothing to do with troubleshooting. It was all about methodological techniques and set up, and maaaaaaaaaaaaybe presentation. There was one point in this section that he was trying to show something related with the shoe that would have been made infinitely more clear by merely removing his shoe. The whole time I was willing him to remove his shoe by chanting "take off your shoe" over and over again. It didn't work.

Some ideas and tips on how to be able to not limit yourself to only one pair of your shoes would have been nice. As it is, the instructions basically have you held hostage to the one pair of shoes that you "set up."

Long story short — too late — the instructions were good. They covered the basics, and certainly enough for you to be able to do the effect, but the lack of preparation that is glaringly obvious prevented this from being great/excellent instructions.

Rise Review: Final Thoughts

Let's take a quick snapshot here. The method is solid and legitimate. It works very well. It will take some fiddling and practice to get it right, but it's very much doable. The ad copy had one major problem in the video trailer that is very, very misleading. Sadly, the rest of the video is tainted because of this. If you can look past that, everything past the 8 second mark in the video is dead accurate, and legitimately represents what the effect looks like.

Finally, the instructions were good and teaches you what you need to know to perform the effect. However, there are some pro tips and pointers that are clearly missing. For the price, I would expect more preparation and better scripting of the instructions.

There is no doubt that if you like this effect, you will be happy with your purchase. The question you have to ask yourself is if your wardrobe and budget permit you to do this effect. If it does, then your $100 bucks will be well spent.

Rise Review Final Verdict:
3.5 Stars with a Stone Status of gem.

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