While I try to reserve my curmudgeonly tendencies for the gospel magic and mentalism forums, this sounds absolutely awful.

Could we please have an actual review of this product instead of people bashing a product they haven't even seen.

Thank you!

It has only a little over a month since they were shipped. People may not have them yet. There was a postal strike.

I ordered this on Nov. 8 from Magic Pro Shop and it showed up here the next day, Nov. 9. I checked the free shipping option that said it would take 5-8 days and it came the very next day! Wow! Unfortunately I won't be able to spend time with it for 2 days, but I'll keep everyone posted.

I bought the second dvd and I liked it. I thought Party Animal was one of the best purchases I made all year. I perform mostly mentalism in a walk around fashion but it is also good to have some nice card routines that are quick and powerful for loud occasions, which Party animal was filled with useful materialand Dowden is a great perfomer and teacher. His new set are much the same. As I said I only bought disc two so I cannot speak for the disc 1. The second disc has a great OOTW from a suffled pack. I love OOTW but soemtimes during walk around this can be a long rick, but Dowden uses a simplified version which is as powerful as the original. Dowden mixs in a little comedy and fun patter each trick. Sometimes magician get lost on how good simple tricks are to lay people. Disc two was good and I can say I have used a couple things off it already. Ryan

Yes there was a postal strike, but it only affected us for a few days and everything has been back on track for a while now.

Ryan, glad to hear your comments, any chance of a full review from you??

all the best

dan

Any reviews?

Well I saw the trick listing and the effect "ripped" sounds exactly like "will the cards match?" I am anxious to hear/see a review as well.

Ripped was, in my opinion, the best effect on volume 1. Volume 2 had more stronger effects, overall. Volume 1 had one trick that really combined two other tricks, so it was really just a variation, not an entirely new effect. Some of the effects were really just pick-a-card revelations rather than structured effects; this diminished the value of the set, in my opinion. To my knowledge there were a few other easy-to-do effects that are very strong, stronger than some on this set, that I thought would be on, but weren't.

A few glitches - volume 2 referenced an effect from volume 1 on the menu, and also had a effect with a completely different name than what is listed on the back of the dvd.

Crediting was a bit scant, only 6 tricks were credited, for example Out of This World to Paul Curry; however Matthew used a variation that I think is attributed to J.C. Wagner. I think there could have been more follow-through for the history of the effects rather than just a few written lines in the rolling credits at the end. I didn't do a trick by trick comparison but I suppose there really are only 6 tricks along with some card revelations and variations to bring the total up to 14.

Perhaps you could argue that calling someone on the phone to reveal a card and calling someone on the phone to reveal a card's location are two different effects in the mind of a spectator, but to me that's a stretch and I would not have them listed as two completely different effects. Using a phone to reveal some information, to me, it's one effect with two slightly different revelations/handlings.

Some of the tricks require a setup or some preparation (very easy though), so I wouldn't say this set was entirely impromptu. To be fair, they never said completely impromptu but that's the impression I had before watching them. I think the majority are impromptu, though.

Overall, this set was just *okay*, but I felt it could have been a lot better with a stronger selection and presentation of tricks. Not all 14 are the strongest effects you can do, although I do agree they are easy. These have more value for an absolute beginner than somebody who knows a bit about card magic already (and I don't mean someone very advanced). It's good to know these tricks, but besides knowing them I didn't feel there was very much added to my existing knowledge (except maybe for Ripped, for which the principle should have been explained a bit better). Of course, your opinions may differ.

Thanks for the review.

Like this dvd as well

full of simple stuff but with hard "punch"

get it

Andre

Having bought party animal I thought this would be a good investment, however this was not the case for me.example the effect called listen ear is in fact an old trick better known as al korans lazy mans cards trick which I found to be the case with all the effects,if the effects were given there original names or the name they are commonly known as I wouldn't have bothered getting them as I already knew 99% of the effects.
I'd say this is very misleading to just give an old effect a new name but that's just my view.

1 Deck ,14 Tricks 24 Hours by Matthew J. Dowden
http://www.alakazam.co.uk (and other places)

How Much: £15 per volume (two volumes)

What You Get:
Two DVD’s (although they can be brought separately).

What the critics say
These DVD’s have already attracted a fair amount of controversy – not to mention criticism.

The main point seems to be that as professional magicians we shouldn’t be advocating anyone go out and perform a trick just 24 hours after learning it (let alone 14 tricks!).

My answer to this is that those that make those criticisms almost certainly do not own the DVD’s in question and they are in fact missing the point.

Possibly this isn’t totally their fault though, as on the whole I tend to agree with the general sentiment. I do believe though that it is not the DVD itself they are criticising, merely the title, and perhaps the concept that the title implies.

I do work professionally and I do own both these DVD’s. I freely admit that I was initially a little dubious about how useful these DVD’s would be, however having now watched them I will say that they are undoubtedly a very worthwhile addition to my collection.

Who is it aimed at?

To clarify for those that are still unsure – the point of these DVDs (as I see it) are twofold.

a). On the simplest level – they are a set of DVD’s aimed at the same people that buy Steve Beam’s “Semi Automatic Card Tricks”, Nick Trost’s “The Card Magic of Nick Trost” or indeed, Karl Fulves’ “Self Working Card Magic”.

All books incidentally that I am proud to own myself. However, as much as I love books, the advantage this set of DVD’s has in that you see a consummate professional like the very charismatic Matthew J. Dowden out there in the real world performing the effects to a real public (by which I mean genuine members of the public and not the usual L&L style crowds we sometimes get on other DVD’s). (Not that I have anything against L&L audiences. I love them all. Truly I do)

What I am trying to say is that all the effects get great reactions, proving that the strength of an effect has nothing to do with how difficult it is to perform.

b). Now a DVD of Semi Automatic card magic is by itself a good enough reason for many people to buy these DVD’s, however as someone once said before me, “It goes further than that”.

The reason Matthew gives for the DVD is that it is also useful for the professional close-up worker as a set of really powerful backup effects that can be performed anywhere, anytime (even if need be, with a borrowed deck of cards) when you are in a situation that requires you to perform for longer than you anticipated.

Imagine the situation. You have been paid to do an hours close up magic at tables. You were anticipating 6 minutes per table, and to keep pocket space low you have the bare minimum on you. When you arrive – you find that in fact (due to cancellations) there are just two tables, and suddenly you need to find an extra 30 minutes of magic from somewhere. I am confident that I am not alone when I say that I have on occasion found myself in a similar situation.

Or perhaps, you are at the bar after the gig, having a quiet drink when you are inundated with requests to show something else.

In any of these situations, or 1001 similar ones, all of the effects on these DVD’s will suit, and being easy to perform, makes them very easy to remember.

The Review

All the effects talked about on these DVD’s are strong, especially (but not exclusively) from a layperson’s perspective. In addition, all the effects are easy to perform and even better, easy to remember.

So going back to the title briefly (”1 Deck, 14 Tricks, 24 Hours”), I doubt there is any professional card magician out there who couldn’t learn all these effects in 24 hours, but more importantly, I am sure they would all be happy to perform them in a real world situation after that time. There. I said it. Am I evil incarnate now? Will I be shunned by the magic community? Have I lost all credibility? I do hope not.

I admit that most of the effects were not new to me, but that didn’t put me off in the slightest. Why? Well simply because over the years I have for whatever reason, one by one put them aside and forgotten about them. I see now this is sacrilege. A huge waste and above all, a *** (‘scuse my French) shame.

As with Matthew Dowden’s other DVD “Party Animal”, this set has renewed my enthusiasm for card magic and although quite possible few of these effects will appear in my regular 6 minute close up sets I do know that I will be performing all of them over and over again as time goes on.

They have been forgotten once, but not again.

The only criticism I have is that more of the effects weren’t credited. I always think that is a nice touch and a shame when it isn’t done.

The Bottom Line

All in all, I have no hesitation in thoroughly recommending these DVD’s to everyone from the rank beginner, to the full time professional. It is not often that I can make a recommendation quite as weeping as that.

Well done, Matthew J. Dowden.

obviously that should have been sweeping and not weeping - although by the sounds of it - for some of you at least weeping may be more appropriate...

Take some classics, "invent" some new names for them, give no credits at all
and produce a nice dvd )

is this the new magical way to make money ?

some of the effects are not too bad, but sorry, hate it to see weelknown
cardeffects reinvented

I JUST read this post and thought it was interesting... Matthew is really a top notch performer and creator. I was a bit surprised by some of the negative comments. Look at Card College Lite by Roberto Giobbi. Giobbi is the consummate artist and thinker but in his book he took virtually self working plots and showed how they can be miracles. If you missed this book you missed a real goldmine. Look at some of the work by Daryl in this self working genre. Daryl, Paul, Harris, and others are geniuses at refining, removing sleights, etc. Some of the best plots are self working and take NO "hard work". This scares some magicians as it makes the line between magician and laymen that much thinner. They can't hide behind sleights but have to concentrate on performing, knowing who they are and what they can pull off, relating to people, etc. But many of the best creators in magic understand that moves can be used for personal mastery but many non move effects (self working) are what appear to be "real" magic to real people.

Tim

Card College Light is an excellent book, I have nothing against self-working simple card effects. My comments were on the quality of those effects; just because an effect is self-working doesn't mean it must be a great dvd. It had potential to be a lot better.

I think this has needed to be done for a long time. I'm all for this project.

I've just received the first RSVP newsletter which included the usual links to various demos from the DVD's on offer which, of course, included this one. I was extremely disappointed to see a FREE video of the method of how to perform "Mate" which was essentially "Gemini Twins."

I accept that the email went to magicians in all probability so the exposure was limited. But I ask what right they had to broadcast this to all and sundry?

RSVP have put out some very good DVD's recently but it appears they are now on the bandwaggon of the double DVD where one could have sufficed. Personally I steer clear of them and this is no exception particularly now I've seen what's on offer.

Tut tut!

I have several RSVP DVD's and find them to have top notch performers and beautiful production qualities. On their double DVD's, I haven't found them containing filler material.

I don't have the e-mail in question, but if it is sent to magicians and contains links to their products, how is it exposure?