Title: Mystique
Artist: Dave Loosley
Producers: Alakazam Magic UK
Retail Price: $24.95 USD
Learning Difficulty: Easy
Length of DVD: 20 minutes
Notes: N/A
Includes:
• Instructional DVD
• Gaff Cards
Features:
• Trailer
• Performance
• Explenation
Dave Loosley has teamed up with Alakazam Magic to bring about a new level to an old classic. Mystique is Loosley’s adaptation to the beloved color changing deck plot, and not only does it have a visual appeal but it also has a kicker ending.
The magician pulls out a red deck of cards, from a red box, and has the spectator select and sign a card. It’s returned to the deck but now something magical happens. The deck instantly changes color to a blue backed deck right before their eyes! Their selected signed card is the only card that is still red, and when they look back to the deck box it too has changed to a blue color to match the deck.
Included with the DVD is the fifteen gimmicked cards you’ll need to make your color changing deck, but the color changing card box is something you’ll have to make on your own. Dave does teach that construction on the video though and it’s fairly easy to make provided you have some simple craft supplies on hand.
Annoyingly though whoever was in charge of production on this project made sure to mic up Dave Loosley for the in studio explanation with co-host Peter Nardi but they didn’t mic Peter at all! So you get this horrible dichotomy between Dave’s loud, clear, voice and the muffled almost inaudible dialog from Peter who is sitting right next to him. This should have been something that never should have made the final cut of the DVD. If you didn’t notice that hey… the co host isn’t mic’d during the filming then the levels should have been caught in post during the editing process.
Handling the cards for the effect isn’t that hard, and the effect is pretty easy to learn. The gimmick cards do most of the leg work for you, leaving you to come up with how you want to reveal the color change to your audience for yourself. Dave’s in the hand little flip over move is pretty visual, and you’ll see him do it in the trailer video, which I liked. But you’re not limited, you can come up with your own reveal if you really wanted to.
This is a great little piece for walk around, table hopping, or close up magic while seated at a table yourself. It’s one of those routines you’ll get a lot of play out of, and I’m sure you’ll put it into immediate use. I recommend you check out Dave Loosley’s Mystique available from Alakazam Magic UK today. It passes with the Draven’s Seal of Approval.
When I give my product scores below I am measuring them on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 Being absolute the worst score possible, and 10 being the absolute best, making a score of five average. The four points that I grade upon is Product Quality, Teaching Quality, Sound & Video Quality and Overall Quality.
Product Quality: 9
Reasonably priced, and it’s a great piece of magic.
Teaching Quality: 4
The teaching in this video is rough because you can hear Dave so clearly, but not Peter. It’s a serious distraction.
Video & Sound Quality: 1
Micing up one performer and not the other is a bone headed move and shouldn’t be done by a magic producing company like Alakazam Magic. It’s an amateurish mistake and one they should know not to make. There’s no excuse for this.
Overall Quality: 5
Don’t let the scores here scare you off. This is a great trick, just the overall score suffered from one simple, easy to fix, mistake made in the production of the video. This video barely passes with a five, but would have easily scored an 8 or higher if they’d fixed the mic problem with Peter.
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