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.