Yeah I understand that people usually start learning magic when they are young so the dvd needs to be accessible to them there may be a better be a way to make it so adults can learn as well.

when Oz pulled out the $100 for the paper clip trick I almost sensed Jessie saying in her head "Oh can I get paid and get out of here now."

you do realize it's a beginner dvd right? i think magician's force, force and reveal, and coin from ear are excellent to include for beginner dvd. why wouldnt they be? they're good enough that people use them and simple enough for a beginner to understand and want to do.

For those bitching and giving poor ratings because these tricks aren't new material and can be found from other sources, NO [edited] DUMMY THATS THE POINT. If I'm not mistaken, these tricks were hand picked by Oz and the Penguin crew because they are the best audience-tested, hardest hitting, easy-to-learn effects. You can't hand pick something when it hasn't been created yet...and if its NEW material then it cannot be audience-tested right? This DVD is for BEGINNERS. Everyone should already know most of these effects, and if you don't, you are probably a beginner yourself.

I think this truly is the greatest BEGINNER magic DVD. I got it for free and watched the whole thing. Obviously I already knew how to almost all of the tricks, but Oz has lots of good tips and tidbits of knowledge. If you have a friend that is interested in magic, letting that person borrow this DVD is probably the best way to get him started.

10/10 for what it is, a collection of the best audience-tested and easy-to-learn tricks that are already out there...for NEWBIES.

I agree, Jeffwehner is definitely missing the point of this DVD. The coin from ear routine is great because you learn 2 very easy coin vanishes. Magician's force is important because if your magician's force isn't convincing then any trick you do that involves a "magician's force" will suck. Force and reveal is essential because you learn an easy method to force a card. There are many great effects out there that require a card force, a coin vanish or a magician's force. Obviously if you are a seasoned magician you will have BETTER and MORE CONVINCING methods to forcing a card or vanishing a coin, but they aren't as EASY as the methods in this DVD.

Jeff, if you don't understand the value of these things then maybe this DVD is perfect for you and you should watch it a few more times.

I love videos. I own hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. But after watching this entire video, I wanted to gouge my eyes out with a dull butter knife.

Jesse looked bored, and staring at her got dull after the first trick. I have better pr0n at home.

I felt like Oz was trying to teach me second grade math.

Some tricks weren't "tricks" but techniques.

The real tricks were weaksauce. Where's alternating color OOTW? A first grader could do that, and it's 20x more powerful than the presented material.

For a beginner, the value for the money was horrific. You can buy Mark Wilson's Complete Course + Royal Road for the same price as this DVD. Most beginners are early teens who have no cash, and this is probably their 20th hobby, so getting more for your dollar seems logical.

If I had to force a DVD into a beginner's hands, I'd choose Born to Perform WAY WAY over this one. Oz was fun to watch, had live performances, plus the tricks were great.

Just my $0.02

I personally wasn't "bitching" because these aren't new. I don't think anyone could logically argue that point, being that Mark Wilson "hand-picked" his complete course from Tarbell.

First of all, these are not the best audience tested tricks out there. They are using Force and Reveal, Magician's Choice, and French Drop as tricks. Those are not tricks, those are basic principles of magic, which do not stand alone well. They are great to include on a beginner DVD, no doubt. But they can't hold up as a trick in and of themselves.

My problem is with the value. It is easy to get clear, "visual" instruction and get much more for your money with a good book like Mark Wilson's Complete Course. However, if the future magician wants something DVD-based, Joshua Jay has a Complete Course out as well, available for $14 or so through Penguin, with much more material and a DVD that accompanies it. For a young person starting out or their parents, value and quality is going to be most important.

-JT

Duh, did you read the rest of my post? I went on to praise the DVD. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think there is a ton of great material on the DVD. I was illustrating my knee-jerk reaction at reading the back cover of the DVD. The material looked lame but it turned out to be well organized and the methods were scripted into real routines. Obvisouly, that was lost on some people who are responding to this thread. The magicians choice is, in and of itself, not a routine, however if the people who are criticizing this DVD actually watched the whole thing, they would have seen that these are methods are placed in the context of a larger routine that a beginner could handle.

hmm, you're right, i went back and re-read your post. my bad.

agreed.
but pay attention to what you're quoting.
you have it mixed up, i was the one saying that tbwendt was missing the point of the dvd. but it was taken out of context so it doesnt matter.

That's funny. No worries.

LOL! My bad.

Take a look at Blu Ray Discs they can actually hold about 10 gigs of memory on a single disc but DVD's can't even come to close to that much space.

I bet you anything that they'll eventually have Blu Ray magic videos and they'd almost be able to hold all of the AOA books on 2 discs maybe 3 filled with every effect taught in it.

Or maybe they'll be able to take all of the Apocalypse books and teach all of the effects taught in those books and put them onto 5 Blu Ray discs so people will actually be able to learn all of them easier than trying to read the descriptions.

The descriptions are VERY clear in Apocalypse (Thanks to Harry Lorayne's awesome writing). You don't need a dvd to teach all of the stuff in there. Plus there are WAY too many effects to teach anyway. There's probably over 2,000 effects in those books.

I was just using it as an example. I know they'll never make them into a movie because even I could understand what it was saying in the books and I can't even learn most stuff from books.

Just read some of my earlier posts and you'll know why.

Oh, okay. Just wanted to make sure!