First the good...
The hanky prop is very cool and spectators will have a hard time immediately
knowing what technology is used for the gimmick. It's just not common yet.
The ghost affect
with the live video recording feature of the phone is really cool seeing ghostly images fade in and
out (when you follow the easy instructions how to do so).
I like this prop just for the
cool factor.
The bad...
You NEED a camera phone with a flash for this to work. Using
your own phone it's easy to force activate the flash, but not all phones have a flash and camera
lights usually only activate in very dim/dark lighting unless you handle a spectator's phone and
change a setting to turn on the camera light.
Realistically, you'll also need to perform
using the spectator's phone. If you perform on your own phone, I guarantee the spectator will
believe you're using a special app -- significantly diminishing the effect.
I really don't
like that the Tenyo Logo is on the prop. It takes something organic and diminishes it a little. The
readable logo is unfortunately on the important non-gimmicked corner of the hanky. I'm thinking of
how to get rid of it. (Cut, bleach or sharpie it out? Or just show upside-down or thumb-cover it?)
The ugly...
The spectator CANNOT be allowed to handle the hanky. Worst case, the
spectator crumples the hanky and possibly damages the gimmick. Best case, they will definitely find
how the hanky is gimmicked via sight and/or feel. And even worse, since the hanky has heat on it
being the main prop, they're going to want to examine it. This is different, for example, than
Future Puzzle by Tenyo (which btw has it's own quirks, but is AWESOME and inexpensive), where the
box is shown as empty and can be thrown aside while putting together the puzzle.
The
gimmick in the hanky is much more visible than one would expect. I have performed for people with
good vision in certain light and they can see "outlines" on the performance side of the hanky that
they should not see! Busted. The spectator must NOT be allowed see the backside of the hanky since
the gimmick is fully visible there. This is a problem since you really should at least flash the
backside of the hanky showing to the spectator that there is no funny business there. I've used
performance workarounds, but I would prefer to start the performance with the hanky face down. This
problem really irks me. The backside of the hanky should be completely opaque and hide the gimmicks
fully. The effect would have not been compromised.
I also really think that Tenyo should
have included a non-gimmicked handkerchief that could be swapped out and man-handled...again,
considering the hanky is the main prop. This would even allow a second picture to be taken again
freely (if attempted by the spectator) that showed nothing on the ENTIRE hanky - hence enhancing the
mystery.
Two stars because of the gimmick visibility issues and the significant limitations
because of that. Unless you want to experiment with something cool, I can't recommend for purchase.
Including a non-gimmicked hanky would have brought this up to 4 stars.
6 of 7 magicians found this helpful.
This is a borrowed phone effect, and for that reason - most modern day audiences think you're really
doing some big time magic in manipulating their phone. (You just need to make sure their phone has a
flash)
It plays well with kids and adults - and the what I injected into the trick was I
pretended that I just needed to take a picture of the cloth to activate the ghosts inside and then
predicted their card - which they worked hard to shuffle back into the deck.
After they
were wowed by the prediction - I handed the phone back, but with it still turned on to the person
who loaned it to me. Just as people were asking how I did the trick, the phone loaner went nuts
about the picture they saw. I looked confused, "So, I guess you didn't believe me when I said I had
help from ghosts?" And then everyone scrambled to get a look at the phone.
It was a very a
fun, simple trick - a beginner can do it. Plays great with kids - but fools adults as well.
I feel it should be called Ghost Handkerchief.
It's really easy and since the instructions
aren't in English - here's the fun way I figured out how to do it.
Audiences sometimes like
seeing magicians mess up - and this is a fun one where I purposely tell them I haven't performed
this in a while and if I mess up when naming their card not to tell me the name of the card & to
give me another chance.
An audience member selects a card (via a force) - shows everyone I
then tell them to shuffle it into the deck and lose it. I purposely mess up in naming the card (I
already know the card since it was forced) & told the group (which had some kids in it) that I have
a handkerchief which is haunted and that the friendly ghost inside helps me out when I need it.
I say taking a picture with the phone helps wake up the ghost - so, that's why I need a borrowed
phone. And then after I take the pic and guess the card correctly they're impressed - but as I
return the phone to the spectator - I say - "Remember, it wasn't all me - the ghost helped out as
well," and show them the image on the phone. That reveal played really big as everyone wants to
check out the phone and is in awe.
In a fun way that picture is a takeaway for the
audience member as well - as it's on their phone.
Really the only thing you need for the
trick is an audience member that has a phone with a flash on it - which is pretty standard - but
imperative for this trick.
This trick is good for magicians of all ages - and is easy to
perform. The only skill you truly need is to be able to force one card - there's a ton of ways to do
that so pick your fave. The handkerchief also has some mentalism abilities with an arrow - but I
haven't thought of what to do with that yet.
It's an unusual trick and a fun one at that.
I recently saw one of my Magician friends, who is also a street performer here in Las Vegas, perform
with this. I immediately ordered it from Penguin Magic the next day. It is a simple trick to
perform, but I have been getting great responses to it every time I perform it. Another Great Tenyo
product.
Enjoy the ghost camera trick,although I had to come out with my own routine. Cause everything was in
Chinese. But beside all that great trick.
This trick is absolutely fantastic! I have used at several high end corporate events including a
trade show and conference and it always accomplished the desired reaction. The fact that it uses he
spectator's phone is brilliant! This trick is a worker. If you get paid to entertain real people
then this is a great trick to have in you r case.
This is a Tenyo item that will actually fit in your working set without looking "prop-y". The first
time I used this, it killed.
Since we live in a world were everybody now shares every
photo they take online, this could be used as a tool to spread word of mouth about your act. Have
the spectator hold the handkerchief and take a picture. Just an idea.
This principle I've
seen used in magic once before a few years back, but how it was used then was very limiting.
I've modified mine so I can quickly identify which image I want to display without too much
handling of the handkerchief.
The only downside, not even a downside, more like a wish.
They should have made this double sided, and card reveals only. This could have provided up to 8
card reveals possible instead of 2.
First off, not really cool with the title---U basically get a cloth, should be ghost image or xray
cloth, but I digress.
This uses CAMERAFLAGE technology that first appeared back in 2007.
So you force a card and magically an image appears of that very card on the cloth. The cool part is
that the image can't be seen easily with the eye but ONLY on camera.
Now that bad parts-the
cloth is super thin, which means that images can be seen with any amount of light from the back of
the cloth. At certain angles the card images can also shine thru in MEDIUM light levels. So cloth
is not angle proof or fully examinable.
There are no english instructions included, you
have to download those.
You also have to orient the cloth the correct way, spectators can
see the image on their view screen, they must have the flash on when taking a picture.
Aside from those minor "people managment/misdirection" issues the effect is kinda cool.
This might have been cooler if they made a black T-shirt with the selections, they could have
included an ESP symbol-look for this technology to appear in the near future.
Since there
is virtually nothing like this available at this time, I would recommend this effect.