I was unable to find a review of this ellusionist DVD on the site, so I figured I would post one.

This is the first product I purchased from ellusionist, and it remains one of the best products I have purchased from ellusionist, despite the fact that I personally did not obtain much of value from it. I am not a huge fan of E, but do believe this DVD delivers what is promised: a decent array of effects, covering cards, coins, invisible thread, and more, to get the beginning magician off the ground. That being said, it is definitely a product for the BEGINNER. Anyone who has spent much time in the books will know most of these effects already. That’s right – none of these are original effects. Nor are they new. These are tricks that have been around for awhile, and, for the most part, have stood the test of time.

So, what do you get for your $50? In order of appearance, the effects are as follows:

Burned: This is a basic handling of ashes on the arm. The spectator picks a card and writes its name on a billet. The billet is then burned. When the magician rubs the ashes on his arm, the name of the card appears.

GlassStinger: This is the old glass through table trick. The magician covers a glass with a napkin, places the glass (with napkin covering it) over a quarter on a table, lifts the glass to check the quarter, returns the glass to the table and then crushes the napkin to reveal the glass has penetrated the table.

SickAces: This is a very basic cutting to the Aces routine. The spectator makes four piles, moves some cards around, and lo and behold, the top cards of each pile are turned to reveal they are Aces.

TraceUnseen: This is a card to anywhere effect in which the spectator selects a card, the card is revealed to have vanished from the deck, and then is found in an impossible location, such as the spectator’s pocket.

Merger: A hole is torn into a business card, it is placed on a string, the spectator holds the ends of the string, and, under cover of a scarf or napkin, the magician removes the card from the string.

TrickSwitch: This is another name for “Designed for Laughter,” an effect out of Royal Road employing the glide in which the magician appears to get the spectator’s chosen card wrong, but then turns out to be correct.

VoodooZone: This is a basic handling of CardWarp by Roy Walton. A card is folded in half, placed inside another card, and appears to turn itself inside out.

Go Inside Sugar: This highly creative name says it all. A borrowed quarter is placed in the magician’s hand with a sugar packet. The magician closes his hand, and when he opens it, the quarter is gone. He tears open the sugar packet, at which point the quarter appears to fall out.

George’s Old Trick: Not really a trick, but instead a demonstration of the Down’s palm.

One Hand Coin Table Vanish: Another name that tells you all you need to know. A method of vanishing a coin with one hand by rubbing it into the table.

ChanceZero: Another name given to “Out of this World” by Paul Curry. A red and black card are dealt face up to the table. The spectator is asked to deal out cards face down onto both piles in a seemingly random fashion as the magician mentally guides each decision. The piles are turned over to reveal that the spectator has dealt only red cards to the red face up card and black cards to the black face up card.

Print: Self-printing business card by Michael Ammar. A business card is shown on both sides to be blank, but then appears to print itself as it is passed through the magician’s hand.

Melted: A finger ring appears to melt off a string as the string is held in the spectator’s hand.

Balducci Levitation: The most well known and versatile of the levitations. David Blaine made his career off this. The magician stands at an angle and with his back to his spectators and appears to lift a few inches off the ground.

Vegas Card Change: A demonstration of the Downs top change. The bottom card is pushed over face up, the deck is turned down and the magician appears to set that card on the table, but it is then turned to reveal a different card.

Floating Dollar Bill: This is, duh, the floating dollar bill effect. Basic handling, but with an impractical setup.

Brad Christian also demonstrates and teaches a few card and coin flourishes, as well as the Erdnase color change, the spin color change, and the throw card vanish.

Overall, I thought the teaching on this video was above average, but without much in the way of presentational advice or nuance. Brad goes through what any beginner would need to know to perform each effect. There is no real discussion of routining and not much in the way of patter, but with a little practice, most beginners should be able to perform these effects without difficulty. The question is whether this DVD merits the $50 ellusionist is asking for it (and this was a promotional price!). While this is generally good material, virtually all these effects can be found much cheaper (in some cases, even free) in other sources.

I should note that while the production values of this DVD are very good, it appears amateurish in other, often unintentionally humorous, ways. You can definitely see Brad Christian going for an “urban and gritty” feel. He employs tight shirts, industrial settings, and black draped models of varying degrees of attractiveness but uniformly poor acting skills reading cue cards about how cool “Street Magic” is and how you can use it to become a local god in your neighborhood. If you’re a completist intent on owning the entire ellusionist canon, you will definitely need this DVD.

So, bottom line: ellusionist fanboys and beginning magicians with more money than time, this product is for you. For those of you at intermediate level or beyond, you’re unlikely to find anything here you don’t already know and almost certainly not enough to justify the high price tag.

I have ths tape somewhere I have to see this! $ 50 is a lot for tricks you would learn for $2 in late charges at the library.

I always thought that the title was misleading. It should have been named: "Family Fun magic for the beggining magician".

I don't see myself performing Salt shaker, sick aces, merger, etc... on the street... do you?

I think Inside Magic is what a DVD with the title "Do you want to do Street Magic" should have been.

Aside from the above, a problem I had was that most of the reactions were tepid, at best... perhaps deservedly so, but it definitely made the effects seem less appealing.

I wish the review had been written the day before I bought it but thanks for a good review anyway. I guess I could give it to my daughter as a belated Christmas gift. She says she's gonna be the next "Marina" Copperfield.This might give her the start she needs.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the name of this DVD is, in my opinion, misleading. "Street Magic" connotes walking up to someone on the street and performing a trick for them. This is the type of effect popularized by the David Blaine specials, upon which this DVD is clearly intended to capitalize. But you can see from the list of effects that many of these effects require a table. Furthermore, some make use of lapping, which is simply not possible in a street magic situation. Other effects, while technically possible as street magic, are simply impractical in that format. Those are better suited to strolling at a party or in a cabaret setting. What is true of all these effects is that they are relatively easy to learn and perform and, with the exception of one, require only items most people would have around the house or could pick up at their local drug store.

HTDSM (How to do Street magic) is an early offering from Ellusionist and the production standards are light years away from what you will see today.

Today, we use High Def Cameras and producers with producing experience and directors with directing experience. This is as good as you are going to see anywhere...most likely several steps above anything you are going to find elsewhere.

Take it easy,

RJohnson

Nice review. Thanks.

It sounds like this just might be a good DVD for me to recommend to serious beginners. I know there are good arguments about it being better to learn from books, but I disagre with them in this case. Most of the effects descibed on this DVD review I read about in books when I was a teenager (millenia ago!), and at the time I did not really have a sense of what it would look like to perform them. This DVD seems to address that need.

I think the guys at Ellusionaist are doing a good job. They have brought very high production values and thereby raised the bar for magic websites. They care about the magic itself, as well as about making a successful business. I agree they are largely aiming at teenagers who want to get some respect in the 'hood. But so what?

-Kim

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this DVD to beginners who are visual learners, as it certainly does what you say: allows them to see these effects performed with visual instruction. My only real complaint is with the value for the average magician, considering that almost all these effects are in the public domain. But as you point out, that does involve, as the Clampetts might say, "book learnin'." I would agree that there is a value to seeing the effect rather than reading about it, and that for some people, that can be enormously important.

-Aah,memories , my first instant downloads when it first appeared .

I just bought and watched the DVD, partially based on this post. As a beginner I enjoyed it very much and picked up some good insight into the nature of the effects being done. I am about to begin Mark Wilson's Complete Course and this DVD was a nice taste of some things I'm sure he'll cover in more depth. I must say, it did strike me as a bit odd to place women adorned in such odd costumes in between each section..........

Thanks for the review. I have not seen this, but it seems that the title is misleading. If I wanted how to do street magic dvd's, I would recommend the Cellini dvd's, which I have seen. There are a gazillion and twelve dvd's out there on how to do tricks...but that is not how to do street magic. The Cellini dvd's give you the real work.

Bob Phillips

Wow. Extremely expensive product and what you get seems to be stolen or public domain stuff. $50. Wow.!!! Unbelievable.

I guess the extra $43 added to the pricetag was because it was called "Street Magic"?

they should have called it freeway magic and charged $60.

.. or autobahn magic and charged $80.

.. or rocketship to outerspace magic and charged $99.95

great marketing tho. I'll give them that.

This was the first magic DVD I ever bought. At the time, I thought it had some good stuff, and a bunch of crap I'd never use.

Now that I've been around quite a bit more, here's my opinion: It has a bunch of stuff which will be interesting and educational to a complete newbie who wants to get acquainted with random effects. The only thing I have against it is that (as noted above), all the effects are old tricks with new names.

I have no problem with the fact that they're "old tricks" -- I have a problem with the fact that they are renamed and uncredited, making it difficult (at best) for an interested beginner to expand their knowledge. I have no doubt that this was intentional -- you are expected to buy this, then accept Ellusionist as your sole source of learning magic. Every time you can spare another $30 - $50, just buy another one of their products.

It is certainly overpriced, but I do think that Brad Christian is a very good teacher, so there is that value beyond the effects taught.

Overall, I'd just encourage any new magician to try to find magicians, IBM rings, SAM assemblies, and magic shops in their area. You will be guided to the appropriate materials for your interests and skill level. If you are isolated and unable to do that, then buying Ellusionist products wouldn't be your worst choice.

I'm speaking from experience. I had been interested in magic for some time, but believed the rumor that you couldn't learn except from another magician. I met a magician and asked him to teach me, but he said he already had one apprentice and could not take another. He refused to teach me a single thing. I found Ellusionist online, spent a lot of money, and started to learn things. Now, I'm a member of an SAM assembly, vice-president of an IBM ring, member of the Denny & Lee Magic Club, and I'm working on putting together a restaurant act. I've also spent thousands on books and DVDs (mostly books) and have a nice magic library.

Had I found my local magic shop first (and the IBM and SAM guys who meet there), it would have saved me a lot of time and money. If you know enough to have found the Café, you will do yourself a favor by bypassing Ellusionist and just talking to the experienced people here.

I agree with you all!.Something that strikes me as being rather shameful though is
re-naming well known card tricks that were named by the creator's as 'Card warp'
and 'Out of this world' and calling them 'Voodoo zone' and 'Chance zero'
I know the company have come on since then but I would like to see the 'hip'names for these tricks dropped from the covers.

Great, balanced review; thanks for that. Also couldn't agree more with the observations about this DVD.

BUT, the Ellusionist marketing machine made this one a "must have" for my son
last year when he seriously got into studying magic. All he asked about was getting this DVD, so I "scored" one on eBay for roughly $20.

At the same time, I got him the Basic Card Technique by Richard Kaufman DVD, since he really seemed to like card magic. All I can say is that "How to Do Street Magic" whet his appetite, but now that he's serious, he spends a lot of time on the Kaufman DVD and our copies of Tarbell and Wilson. So, in my mind, for his purposes, it was money well spent and would have been at $50.

I agree with this. It's a good DVD for someone who is truly interested. I only hope that somehow that person also has access to other materials which list references. It's the built-in "dead end" feature of the Ellusionist products that I despise.

Since you already had Mark Wilson's work and the Tarbell course, you already had everything your son needed to get started. But most people would probably get a lot more mileage out of those things if they had a nice video to get them going.

I am happy to hear that these meet the needs of the beginner. My qualms is in the marketing. Calling this a "how to do street magic" video is wrong. My definition of street magic is not running up to a stranger on a street corner, hounding them with a trick, then running away (or the "staged" celebrity if you have your own TV show). I believe that street magic comes from the likes of Gazzo, Cellini, or Jeff Sheridan, and a "how to" would cover the inner workings of that, and is not just another tape of teaching tricks, especially old tricks that have been renamed to sound "cool" so that they will appeal to prepubescent males.

Bob Phillips

You're right -- the naming is misleading or unfortunate, depending upon your view.

I highly recommend that everyone check this out if they have not yet. It's an essay by Jamy Ian Swiss on "Street Magic" in general, with some digs at Ellusionist in particular. I, for one, subscribed to the magazine after reading it. If that's the kind of content they provide, I don't want to miss out.

http://www.antinomymagic.com/swiss.htm

If you read the introductory post in the section of the forum called "The Sidewalk Shuffle," you will see that many of us have the same concern about the hijacking of the term "Street Magic."

As long as the purchaser understands what kind of magic is represented here, there is no real problem. However, I don't think people should need a DVD to learn how to do these simple tricks.

Maybe this speaks more to the educational level and intelligence of the market.