Title: The Self Flipping Notepad
Artist: Victor Sanz
Producers: SansMind Creative Lab
Link: Available At Your Favorite Murphy’s Magic Dealer
Demo Video Link:
Retail Price: $29.99 USD
Learning Difficulty: Easy
Length of DVD: 19 Minutes (Approx.)
Notes: Some Assembly Required
I love haunted effects. Ever since I was little I’ve ben enthralled by ghost stories and the spooky paranormal stuff. One of my favorite card effects is the Haunted Deck, so when I saw the demo video for the self flipping notepad I knew I had to give it a try. The only thing left haunting me was seeing that it was SansMind that was putting it out. SansMind usually means creative crafting, and I’m not very good at arts and crafts. Having tried to build several of their gimmicks for previous reviews I don’t have the best of track records with this kind of thing. However, it’s a note pad right? How bad can it be? I was about to find out.
The effect is versatile. You could play it as a haunted effect, or you could go more strait mentalism with it and have it be some kind of psychokinetic control. Or you can present it like they do in the demo video and leave the how or why the pages are flipping themselves as an understatement to you being able to pry their thoughts out of their mind. Either way, the spectator writes a word or a name, maybe draws a picture, and you tell them what they wrote. Then the pad flips itself open to the page they wrote on, and they get to keep that page as a souvenir.
Out of the box you get a DVD, and a non-assuming, ordinary, notepad. No strings, no wire, no magnets, Just a note pad. My builders anxiety was already at peak. I was prepared for them this time. I wet out to the store prior to receiving my trick, and bought myself a new pair of crafting scissors, some rubber cement, mounting spray on glue, and got myself a new blade for my hobby knife. I had no clue what I was going to need to do to this pad, but I was ready for them! Turns out I was over prepared. The setup on this takes a full day to finish, but it was stupid easy.
The DVD covers the setup and performance well enough. It’s not a hard trick to learn to do from a mechanics perspective. Handling though can be a little gnacky. There’s a certain amount of pressure, in a certain way, in a certain place, you must get used to in order to make the notebook function smoothly and look awesome. This is an easy trick to blow if you handle it badly. And when handled wrong, boy does it blow.
I don’t like performing with this. Once again, I blame my clumsy building ability, or lack thereof, because my gimmick doesn’t look or function like the one they use in the DVD. Why can’t SansMind just @$#%! Pre-make these gimmicks themselves, so they have a little quality control, and then charge a little extra? I’d gladly pay extra money to have a proper gimmick that works and looks like the one on the DVD. So I assume the fault is in user error. My gimmick, after I finished building it, does not look convincing or fooling. There are tale tell signs that can’t be easily covered that indicate something isn’t right with this pad, and the pages “natural” position, for lack of wanting to expose the method, don’t reset well to performance mode without having to seriously flex the pad into an unnatural position for doing something innocent like writing a name inside it.
Over all, I couldn’t work with this prop. And the bad news is that once you finish setting it up you can’t undo it. So, I’m stuck with a pad of paper that doesn’t look or behave the same way the one in the video does. I must applaud the idea. It’s cleaver. And the video looks impressive. Then again SansMind knows how to film magic in order to sell product. I can’t shake my finger at them too much, because ultimately, I’m the one responsible for the prop’s construction. But I really wish this one would have turned out better since I like haunted effects so much. Maybe if I find another notepad similar to the one that came with the DVD I’ll give it another try. But as for now, this one is sitting in the bottom of my junk drawer. Buyer beware.
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 three points that I grade upon is Product Quality, Teaching Quality, and Overall Quality.
Product Quality: 5
Great idea for a trick. But depending on your construction it may not be usable.
Teaching Quality: 8
Easy to follow instructions.
Overall Quality: 5
Not hard to perform. Visual. IF it works right.
Do you have a product you want reviewed? Want to see if it will stand up to the Draven Seal of Approval? Contact me directly at thewilliamdraven@gmail.com to find out how your product could be on the next Draven Reviews! Don't forget to like my blog where all my reviews are posted at www.williamdraven.wordpress.com.
Artist: Victor Sanz
Producers: SansMind Creative Lab
Link: Available At Your Favorite Murphy’s Magic Dealer
Demo Video Link:
Retail Price: $29.99 USD
Learning Difficulty: Easy
Length of DVD: 19 Minutes (Approx.)
Notes: Some Assembly Required
I love haunted effects. Ever since I was little I’ve ben enthralled by ghost stories and the spooky paranormal stuff. One of my favorite card effects is the Haunted Deck, so when I saw the demo video for the self flipping notepad I knew I had to give it a try. The only thing left haunting me was seeing that it was SansMind that was putting it out. SansMind usually means creative crafting, and I’m not very good at arts and crafts. Having tried to build several of their gimmicks for previous reviews I don’t have the best of track records with this kind of thing. However, it’s a note pad right? How bad can it be? I was about to find out.
The effect is versatile. You could play it as a haunted effect, or you could go more strait mentalism with it and have it be some kind of psychokinetic control. Or you can present it like they do in the demo video and leave the how or why the pages are flipping themselves as an understatement to you being able to pry their thoughts out of their mind. Either way, the spectator writes a word or a name, maybe draws a picture, and you tell them what they wrote. Then the pad flips itself open to the page they wrote on, and they get to keep that page as a souvenir.
Out of the box you get a DVD, and a non-assuming, ordinary, notepad. No strings, no wire, no magnets, Just a note pad. My builders anxiety was already at peak. I was prepared for them this time. I wet out to the store prior to receiving my trick, and bought myself a new pair of crafting scissors, some rubber cement, mounting spray on glue, and got myself a new blade for my hobby knife. I had no clue what I was going to need to do to this pad, but I was ready for them! Turns out I was over prepared. The setup on this takes a full day to finish, but it was stupid easy.
The DVD covers the setup and performance well enough. It’s not a hard trick to learn to do from a mechanics perspective. Handling though can be a little gnacky. There’s a certain amount of pressure, in a certain way, in a certain place, you must get used to in order to make the notebook function smoothly and look awesome. This is an easy trick to blow if you handle it badly. And when handled wrong, boy does it blow.
I don’t like performing with this. Once again, I blame my clumsy building ability, or lack thereof, because my gimmick doesn’t look or function like the one they use in the DVD. Why can’t SansMind just @$#%! Pre-make these gimmicks themselves, so they have a little quality control, and then charge a little extra? I’d gladly pay extra money to have a proper gimmick that works and looks like the one on the DVD. So I assume the fault is in user error. My gimmick, after I finished building it, does not look convincing or fooling. There are tale tell signs that can’t be easily covered that indicate something isn’t right with this pad, and the pages “natural” position, for lack of wanting to expose the method, don’t reset well to performance mode without having to seriously flex the pad into an unnatural position for doing something innocent like writing a name inside it.
Over all, I couldn’t work with this prop. And the bad news is that once you finish setting it up you can’t undo it. So, I’m stuck with a pad of paper that doesn’t look or behave the same way the one in the video does. I must applaud the idea. It’s cleaver. And the video looks impressive. Then again SansMind knows how to film magic in order to sell product. I can’t shake my finger at them too much, because ultimately, I’m the one responsible for the prop’s construction. But I really wish this one would have turned out better since I like haunted effects so much. Maybe if I find another notepad similar to the one that came with the DVD I’ll give it another try. But as for now, this one is sitting in the bottom of my junk drawer. Buyer beware.
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 three points that I grade upon is Product Quality, Teaching Quality, and Overall Quality.
Product Quality: 5
Great idea for a trick. But depending on your construction it may not be usable.
Teaching Quality: 8
Easy to follow instructions.
Overall Quality: 5
Not hard to perform. Visual. IF it works right.
Do you have a product you want reviewed? Want to see if it will stand up to the Draven Seal of Approval? Contact me directly at thewilliamdraven@gmail.com to find out how your product could be on the next Draven Reviews! Don't forget to like my blog where all my reviews are posted at www.williamdraven.wordpress.com.