Title: Smoked 2.0
Artist: Christopher Dearman
Producers: AX Creations
Link: http://www.murphysmagic.com/Product.aspx?id=53368
Retail Price: $29.95
Learning Difficulty: Easy
Notes: You will need to supply your own cigarette boxes.
Run Time: 25 minutes
Features:
? Play All
? Scenes
Includes:
? The DVD
? The Smoked 2.0 Gimmick
? The ?Non-Smoking? Gimmick
You pull out a pack of cigarettes and remove one. You explain how you?ve been trying to quit but you?ve never found a good way that works yet. Until that is you figured out how to make your cravings disappear. You open the pack back up and all the cigarettes are gone! Instead you tear the box apart and dump out little candies into your spectators hands!
Smoked 2.0 is a great way to vanish an entire box of cigarettes right from under the spectators nose. In a day and age where smoking is quickly becoming the unpopular social frivolity to engage in it?s nice to still see that there are some tricks that you can still do with cigarettes. Even better yet these are tricks that can be done to help encourage people to stop smoking which is a much healthier message!
Prop wise? there?s not much here. You get two simple gimmicks that have been printed out on a 3D printer, and an instructional pamphlet telling you all about the effect. You?ll also get a bonus DVD by Christopher Dearman and Stephane Krief that goes over Stephane?s creation which is similar to Christopher?s in handling. In other words, two tricks for the price of one!
Christopher and Stephane make for a great creative team on this project. Their 32 page booklet that comes with the effect gives you some good ideas for patter, presentation, and how to get into and out of the tricks. They are brilliant young minds who have taken an everyday relatable item such as cigarettes and created a visual trick that will blow people?s minds away. The only real downside is that the booklet is printed in black and white. Color pictures I feel just display details better, and when you?re learning magic tricks details are important. The gimmicks you get supplied are stock white, which will work for many brands that don?t have the brown filters at the end. If you want to use a brand that has the brown filters, then the DVD will show you how to construct your own gimmick using those kinds of cigarettes fairly quickly and without a lot of mess, fuss, or frustration.
Performing Smoked 2.0 gives you a few presentation angles from vanishing an entire pack of cigarettes strait out, to removing a cigarette first then vanishing the rest, to transforming the cigarettes into candy, or other similarly small objects. In one variation you completely destroy the pack of cigarettes in the process. All the presentations are visual, and this is a great idea for a trick for anyone who smokes cigarettes already. Though smoking is unhealthy and can cause some serious problems like lung cancer or even death! If you are a smoker I highly encourage you to stop. The down side though is if you?re not a smoker, like me, then you?ll have to find a way to replace your cigarette boxes every so often as you begin to wear them down from use. If you have friends who smoke, maybe you can hit them up for their empties?
Performing this is pretty strait forward. There?s not a lot to do in order to get into it, and your clean up is pretty easy too. There really isn?t a lot of substance here. This is pretty much an attention getting ?here let me do something cool real quick? kind of tricks. But hey it works! This is really a good street magician?s effect just because of how relatable the subject matter is, and you can almost always find a smoker in just about any crowd.
Overall I like the effect. I don?t know if this is something I?d use often or not. Certainly if the right occasion came up I?ll use it, but I?m not sure this is something that would be in my every day inventory. Perhaps if I was a smoker I?d find this more useful. Magically though, it?s visual and I do like that!
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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
This product is pretty good. The price isn?t bad, and you get enough bang for your buck.
Teaching Quality: 8
The DVD is good, and the booklet isn?t bad either. Sure I?d like color pictures but hey beggars can?t always be choosers.
Video & Sound Quality: 8
The video quality is pretty solid. No real complaints here.
Overall Quality: 8
This is a cute trick and it?s one I?m glad I picked up.