theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards
21 by Shin Lim
- Thread starter RyanM
- Start date
I havent seen the trailer, or even know whats in it, but what I do know is that he has a tendency to make misleading trailers. I havent seen a whole lot of his stuff, but I know that Flawless and SSS are both severely mis-marketed. If you havent bought his stuff before, watch out.
There's a lot of good stuffs, stuffs you can add to your own routine, watch the trailer, see if any of the tricks performed in the video suits your routine or your style. You can learn new sleight for sure, you can find, medium and hard sleights, very knacky ones too.
I'm curious as to why you would say this?
I found SSS to be perfect to what I needed in a smoke production, which is the point here; you may not like the how of things, but the value in an effect or effect system is how applicable it is to you and your performance settings. . . I totally detest Crush and a few other pieces that have been heavily hyped in the past year or two because they are cheap 5th grade science experiments being sold at a premium and too, several of these items are impractical, not just for the situation most street workers find themselves in, but given the circumstance most performers find themselves working most of the time.
My view of such pieces doesn't mean they are bad tricks, only that I would never be caught dead performing them and too, I felt seriously ripped-off when I bought them. But here's the rub. . . the video footage of them fooled & amazed me. . . it likewise made me far less trusting of video demonstrations, which is one reason why I get enraged when it comes to all the flash & video trickery tied around a product presentation -- too much misdirection and "cleverness" you might say, vs. actually doing a demonstration of what the audience actually sees in a full, unedited, performance. Under such circumstances I'm betting a huge chunk of "what's new" in magic would sell half as good as it does -- INITIALLY.
I've purchased a handful of Shin's stuff and never felt betrayed in any way. He's a smart little puppy that offers some PRACTICAL and SIMPLE solutions to some curious miracles.
I think people mis-read what is written on Shin's product's. 21 is a great DVD and each person has there own genre of magic that their magic is devoted too, it is well worth it and i continue to use alot of what i got from it.
To me this looks a lot like the Buck twins Trilogy. There probably wont be any super practical stuff. I already see a few angle issues for the types of environments I perform in. That said if you like to learn new moves and love to practice than this is your kind of dvd.
As I said, personally I've not had much to do with his effects, I've not even seen many. Specifically in the case of SSS I'm going off what I have seen other people say about it, which is almost always not good. I'm also going off the opinion of a magician I respect totally and agree with completely, who knows much more about it than I do.
Where I have come to my own conclusions is Flawless, after watching the trailer, purchasing it, then re watching the trailer I can 100% confirm I and a lot of other people were mis-led in purchasing it. While the move itself is actually pretty decent, when performing for one person, it is almost purely the trailer itself that has caused me to dislike it. It is edited in a way that uses almost the whole trailer to make the move look much better than it is, while barely ever actually showing what it looks like.
I acquired 21 a few weeks ago actually, I've been practicing some of the material.
In terms of production quality, the DVD is extremely lacking. It feels like three teenagers put it together. The actual techniques are a hit or miss depending on what kind of performer you are. Morales teaches very visual, but occasionally risky, magic with flourish elements incorporated occasionally. Donald practices a more classic style of magic but his material might not be applicable to your every performer. Shin teaches some incomplete ideas that I didn't really see much use of. All in all, the DVD was good for inspiration at best.
In terms of production quality, the DVD is extremely lacking. It feels like three teenagers put it together. The actual techniques are a hit or miss depending on what kind of performer you are. Morales teaches very visual, but occasionally risky, magic with flourish elements incorporated occasionally. Donald practices a more classic style of magic but his material might not be applicable to your every performer. Shin teaches some incomplete ideas that I didn't really see much use of. All in all, the DVD was good for inspiration at best.