Magic Tricks

I am giving this two stars because I at least appreciate some of the routines and thinking here, and I actually think these guys could make this into an awesome product. However, in this product's first iteration, this is seriously lacking and I'm highly disappointed.

First off, your $20 is buying you part of what you need to perform the routines in the trailer, but part of what you need to perform some of those effects isn't even included in the package. Most of the routines being performed in the trailer are using two methods at the same time. You are supplied with what you need to do ONE of the two methods, but NOT the other method. And, the one thing they do provide you, you only get a very small amount of it. As for the supply that isn't even in this package, they don't actually tell you where to get it or recommendations, they just brush on it in the video. If someone was entirely new to this type of effect, they'd have no idea where to go or what to get. So upon opening the box, I'm already hugely disappointed.

Then, I start to watch the download. It's 36 minutes long total. They touch up on the materials early on, and then they LITERALLY NEVER TEACH YOU HOW TO MAKE THE GIMMICK. They go over what they use to build it, and where it should be built in your hand, but they never actually show you how to make it. Maybe they thought it was "self explanatory", but you have to assume people that spend money on your product don't know anything about how to do it. Then, it gets worse. In the "teaching" section (and I say teaching with borderline sarcasm), Alain shows clips of him doing the routines at exposed angles, to music, and never actually talks or teaches you how to set up the trick or how to execute it. Seriously, his "teaching" is just him doing the tricks, maybe at a slightly slower speed, with 0 dialogue, at an exposed angle. He flies through them, too. He barely stops, you have about 10 seconds of footage of instruction for each vanish or appearance or transposition. It's nearly impossible to actually learn from. It would have taken him 1 minute to teach "this is the Air move that we will do on every trick" or something like that, but he never does it.

Shin Lim's section has more actual teaching, but he's focusing on just one routine with the sucker punch coins.

To summarize: 36 minutes of crappy instruction and half of what you actually need to pull off most the routines. That's what you get here for $20. It isn't practical for most situations either, but I somewhat expected that going into this and still bought it because I wanted to know Alain's and Shin's thinking and learn some stuff from them. I was disappointed in that front. This could have been so much better had they included the other material you need (and charged a little more for the product to do so), and then had a more in-depth download. I want my money back, but now that I've watched the download I feel like it's too late for that. 2/5