As a member of the Penguin Platinum Club I got this early.
I thought from the ad and the
demo that this was a gaffed rubber band trick and that the supplies were gimmicked bands.
THE BANDS ARE NOT GAFFED!
One rubber band melts through the other. He turned his hands
to show all sides and one band WAS clearly running through the other. This doesn't even seem
possible. I LOVE gaffs. Not because they make things easier, but they tend to allow things that you
can't get with just sleight of hand. What I just Casshan Wallace do should take a gaff to
accomplish.
What an incredible follow up to CMH this would be. The band can then just
"melt off" the other band into the audience members waiting hands.
You can see that at
00:12 into the demo
Casshan is an excellent teacher. He goes through everything slowly and
clearly and then you get an explanation with the camera over his shoulder. No quick or unnatural
hand movements to perform this. Everything is done slowly.
I am in love with this routine!
32 of 35 magicians found this helpful.
Cons:
#1 - The final get ready move is something you "have to get a feel for." Even with a
lot of practice, it's really a challenge for me personally to get this 100% of the time.
#2 - The setup does take a couple of seconds after practice...but easily covered with patter.
#3 - The second effect took quite a few views to see the last phase
Pros:
#1 - This is totally impromptu (no gimmick)!
And uses normal bands!
#2 - The main
effect is amazingly visual! And taught very well from both angles....pretty easy to learn.
#3 - The angles and subtleties are really good!
#4 - The second handling ok, but with
a quicker set up
#5 - The Crazy handcuffs version is GREAT!
#6 - The 3rd effect
is a nice, easy, quick band through finger trick...I'll be using it.
23 of 23 magicians found this helpful.
This is a great looking trick. Casshan Wallace seems like a nice guy and does his best to explain it
however in my opinion is not entirely successful. There is a lot going on that is described as a
knack and you will get it eventually. This may be the case although it is yet to happen for me.
Casshan is a young guy and I hope had some adults helping with the project. A method either with a
simple graphic or or some other way to expain the configuration of the hidden bands between the
fingers would be helpful.
21 of 23 magicians found this helpful.
Just received this in the mail yesterday so watched last night. This is for sure one of the nicest,
cleanest, slowest band penetrations I have ever seen. Casshan has really done a nice job creating
this little masterpiece.
However, the filming is TERRIBLE. Everything is SO dark, it's
very hard to see throughout most of the DVD what Casshan is even doing. Camera angles also really
lack. He's doing stuff that you have NO idea what he's doing - no camera angle covering 'move'.
I will have to watch this several times to really figure out the handling. While Casshan
does his best to explain what he's doing, the camera is not helping him, and I can't figure why the
background is so dark.
The sound is fine; but the visibility of what is happening has
much to be desired. Casshan also includes some bands with the DVD. Haven't counted them to see how
many, but am guessing 2 pair, different colors.
This DVD should really be reshot, with
better lighting and better camera angles. To have such a powerful Rubber Band effect taped so
poorly, with today's technology, just isn't right. And those who have already purchased this
'poorly' shot DVD, should receive a FREE copy of a better shot DVD. Just my opinion.
I
gave this 4 stars because of the poor lighting and poor, missing camera angles and again, like
Rubber Thru Hand by Dan, a little pricey at 20 bucks, for one trick. 9.95 would have been very
fair.
Melting Point deserves better production quality than this guys.
I'm
looking forward to getting this figured out. OH, Casshan also offers some nice personal touches on
Rubberband thru finger and the classic Crazy Mans Handcuffs. Very nice extra touches. If you are a
beginner with Rubber Band magic, I would not recommend this, due to the poor lighting and camera
angles. If you are a rubber band enthusiast with some experience, I'm sure you'll figure the moves
out. Thanks Casshan for sharing this. Once you figure out the setup involved, which can probably
be done quickly on the 'offbeat'. Casshan actually suggests doing a few other band tricks first and
doing this last.
15 of 16 magicians found this helpful.
Dear Penguin-ites, :)
My Penguin package arrived this morning and I popped the Melting
Point DVD in this afternoon.
Here is my review I left at the Magic Café:
From a
still-beginner’s perspective: Melting Point is offered at such a bargain price for, what I gather
from the experienced magicians, is really as ground-breaking as Bill Cushman's "The Dr’s Billet
Tear". If Dan Harlan, a rubber-band king, praises Melting Point it has to be very very good.
The Lord has blessed me with being able to earn a living as an inventor and, as an inventor I
recognize that the "idea", as simple as it may be, is everything. The "pop-tab" on an aluminum soda
can is a good example: what a simple idea but what a gift from God that idea came to be for the
fellow from Belgium who invented it.
He did so in his spare time while working on an
assembly line in Lynchburg Va. (my home) at Belvac Tool and Die. The inventor earned over 75
million for the idea. People had complained for years about the former "throw away tabs" citing the
damage they did to animals and fish who swallowed them and how easy it was to cut your foot stepping
on one. The little fella from Belgium changed the canning industry in a major way with just a
simple idea. What a great story and what a great example of how simple things can have huge impact.
The reason I related that story is that I think "Melting Point" is worth SO much more than
the price being asked. I don't have a magician's experience to make this statement, just "ordinary
guy" experience...but as an ordinary guy: This is the greatest rubber band thing I have ever seen!
I don't know "rubber band" magic at all. I have shied away from it thinking it would be too
difficult to learn and a disaster to perform (at least in my hands). But then I saw the trailer for
Melting Point and read some of the Cafe's thoughts on it. If ever I was going to try to
learn a
rubber band illusion...well then, why not swing for the bleachers? :)
For me, as good an
effort as Casshan made at teaching, it was still hard for me to learn his illusion. LOTS of DVD
rewinds. I even photographed still images out of his video lesson with "Snag it" so this tired old
brain could learn things one simple step at a time.
But, boy oh boy was it worth it!!!
This gifted young magician allowed me to swing for the bleachers with his new standard in illusion
and as I watched myself finally perform it all I could think was:
HOME RUN! HOME RUN!
IT’S GOING OVER THE FENCE!! YAY TEAM!!! :)
16 of 22 magicians found this helpful.
I met Casshan at magifest this year. i asked him to show me a trick and he pulled out this bad boy.
I kinda stopped what I was doing and grabbed the person nearest to me to make sure that I was really
seeing what i was seeing. It is that good.
I love doing this for other people because it is
so clean looking and so open. The illusion is fantastic and amazing. Some people may have some
issues with the [edited to protect secret] at first, but just take some time and work on this and
you'll be adding it to your magic rep very quickly. I used to think the rubber band links i did were
good, but this is way better!
9 of 9 magicians found this helpful.
Since I've been doing magic, including rubberband magic for over 20 yrs. I bought this immediately,
despite many reviews complaining about the vagueness and difficulty of learning this routine.
I
must admit that I agree with those reviews. I've watched the video at least 3 times now and feel
like I still don't have it down yet. I will keep on till I have it, but I would dissuade anyone who
gives up easily, as this is NOT an easy routine to learn!!
8 of 8 magicians found this helpful.
I met Casshan at Magi-Fest this year and I saw him perform this and I was blown away! He really put
some work into making a beautiful, ungimmicked linking rubber band trick. Great job!
7 of 7 magicians found this helpful.
Docked half a star for the poor quality of the recording and poor quality of the teaching. Had to
watch the DVD a few times to understand the instructions correctly. However, once learned it is a
killer effect. If you do it really slowly, it even feels like they are melting through each other
right under your fingers. Hopefully the DVD will be re-shot for future buyers.
7 of 8 magicians found this helpful.
I really enjoy Melting Point, but I thought the set up was a little dodgy and not something easily
done in front of others. I love that he includes CMH and "Band Through Finger" as well. When you get
to the second video, he offers a much cleaner set up and lots more detail about the handling and
subtleties that he's clarified due to feed back. Nice work and I'm glad I bought it.
4 of 4 magicians found this helpful.