Ellusionist vs T11 Produced DVDs

Hey,

I am going to review Ellusionist and T11's Produced DVDs/Downloads that they put out.

Ok to be completely honest, I like E's DVD right now more then I do towards T11s. I feel like T11's DVDs are short and dont go into detail as much as E does. I recently got Ringtone and Frozen by Adam Grace. And I was soooo happy with the DVDs they had with it. For one the performances on Ringtone went for 25 minutes, allot longer then that of T11 produced DVDs. I will now go into detail in why...

E: Since Bullet and Factory Sealed was released, their DVDs started to look and feel allot better. They go into extreme detail, have lots of performances, lots of walk throughs, they tell you what to do and say when doing in on the STREET(Not YouTube), and they also do not having all sorts of funked up editing and crazy camera movements hindering the teaching. You get a real connection with the teacher, it seams like a private training session. They go over everything slowly. They also talk about how to perform the trick on the street, in an intimate conversation with all the right gestures and psychology. In Ringtone, Adam talks about a chat him and Brad had about making the trick work on the street, he then taught everything that Brad said to make is a real reputation maker. Ok enough about E.

t11: Ok, Im not trying to 'dis' theory11. They do a great job in creating and producing their DVDs. But I find the teaching is not rushed, nor brief, but they could have gone into allot more detail. Shared more psychology etc. Also the editing sometimes fu*ks me off, and the movement of the camera. I also think they need more performances, so you can go back and look at each and every performance to pick up on subtles and extra gestures across a range on different people.

Overall I think they both do a GREAT job at making their DVDs, but for me I perfer E's DVDs. Please post any comments you have, and PLEASE PLEASE dont turn this into an E Vs T11 War.

JDEN

ps. I am not a E fanboy or a T11 fanboy, I respect both companies equally.
 
Aug 20, 2008
60
1
I 85% agree with you.. Yes, T11 needs MORE performances on their dvd's.. Cuz now it's just 2-3. And lot of time those tricks are really quick. Like Pressure or Panic. If they could talk bit more, do better patter, then yeah, it would be nice.
But for now, i like T11 more. But their editing style gets more boring after each dvd :) And music by Dana.. Those songs seems to be almost same.. But their cool anways :) I have all 3 albums from him :) (Control ost, Thread ost and Deception Project Vol.1)
 
Oct 5, 2008
93
0
Almada, Portugal
I think E as more experience with DVD's and teaching methods, since they are a bit old than T11 and they a lot of material. I kinda notice that the production is kind similar with T11 since they are Dana, JB and others included in the team
T11 should care a bit more about showing diferent tipes of perfomance and take more time describing each and every single part of the trick.
I like both tipe of T11 and E DVD's, and I kind agree with you.

J.
 
Sep 1, 2007
268
0
I've actually made a thread suggesting T11 DVDs to include more live performances, and while I got positive responses from forum members, the T11 crew seemed to have just ignored it.

I think the T11 crew fails to understand that the purpose of including live performances is not only for us to see what the tricks (and the reactions) look like, but also as an invaluable tool for us in learning the effect well.

Furthermore, the quality of teaching of the T11 videos is somewhat inconsistent. Some of the DVDs' instructions merely teaches the method of the effect, and ends there, such as Digital Dissolve. Dan just teaches how to do the trick, and thats it. Other DVDs however, like Panic, is far far superior in teaching- after teaching the method, Aaron goes into great detail on theory, spectator management and subtleties for the effect.

That's my opinion...there is definitely room for improvement.


I mean this all of the above in the form of constructive criticism.
 
Jan 14, 2008
154
0
37
philippines
so basically every one wants more live performance clips and more talk, which is good when youre paying for it might as well get youre money's worth right???

im sure T11 will say its quality over quantuty that counts, right again...
for me what it does is it give you more motivation to work on your own performance and patter which in the end will make us a better artist...

well just a question does the production cost of making a 30 to 15 minute dvd differ from a 2 hour dvd???


neco
 
so basically every one wants more live performance clips and more talk, which is good when youre paying for it might as well get youre money's worth right???

im sure T11 will say its quality over quantuty that counts, right again...
for me what it does is it give you more motivation to work on your own performance and patter which in the end will make us a better artist...

well just a question does the production cost of making a 30 to 15 minute dvd differ from a 2 hour dvd???


neco
Of course it gives you room for your own patter (which I 110% agree with you) but with performances you can pick up on subtles and it teaches you how to perform, it also is entertaining. Why do you watch David Blaine? To be entertained and to learn more about magic.

It very will cost more money, aswell as more man hours. E appears to be able to do it, for the same price. But also somethings take time, magic is a great example. It takes 5 mins to learn a pass, but 5 years to make it good.

JDEN
 
Jan 13, 2008
1,137
0
It very will cost more money, aswell as more man hours. E appears to be able to do it, for the same price. But also somethings take time, magic is a great example. It takes 5 mins to learn a pass, but 5 years to make it good.

JDEN
From what I understand, they already spend days (many, many hours during those days) collecting footage for the performance section of the DVDs. So, I'm not so sure that it's a lack of footage, thus needing to spend more money and take up more time shooting the performance footage.

If I were to guess, they try to keep performance times down so they can pack in more explanation. And, more importantly, they try to keep the total running time low so they can offer it as a download (which will download in a reasonable amount of time, without having to affect the quality of the video (i.e., the resolution)).

However, I'd also like to see more performance footage. Also, and this may sound silly at first, but I'd like to see footage of the effect not working--I think it's just as important to see where mistakes are made, instead of just hearing about it, as it is seeing how to properly perform the effect.
 
Jan 18, 2009
146
1
Quality goes to T11 because they have great production value in nearly every single thing they do, including their 1 on 1's. It would be great if they showed a few more live performances, however it is up to the magician to try out different presentations and see what works best for them.

Having them spoonfeed you can really hinder any exploration you do and could possibly settle for something that doesn't suit you or won't give you the best presentation for your audiences.

So, who has a better Dvds? E but only because of the actual teaching and not necessarily the real life performances.
 
for me what it does is it give you more motivation to work on your own performance and patter which in the end will make us a better artist...

I disagree,
I think seeing someone perform the effect motivates you to perform it more. It shows you that it's possible to do, and also shows you ways you can perform it, if you so wish.
 
Jan 28, 2009
258
0
It's about the teacher. I've heard panic come up a couple of times, and the teaching on that DVD is absolutely amazing, but that's also true of Search and Destroy, which is one of the best taught DVDs I've ever owned. I don't really care about the production to be honest, I want to hear from these performers. Prophet was good too, well taught, but then some effects are not well taught. I'm not going to go through and cuss the teaching of the perfomers style that I don't like, because that's not fair and everyone likes different styles, but I honestly don't see a difference. Both Theory11 and E products are professionally produced and slick, and both have many of the same magicians doing the teaching.

I agree however, good performance demos are vital, and you know, if you're going to release a DVD, why not have a performers commentary during the performance? Like explaining why he's doing certain things, or why he's misdirecting at key points (or even non key points) which I believe would really add to the effect and the usefulness of the performance demos.

Anyways, yeah, I believe the teacher makes the DVD not the production company. It's like asking who makes better CD's. Sony or EMI.
 
Mar 2, 2008
412
0
The key things i look in a DVD is....

The teacher
the audio/voice quality (not editing)
how many tricks.


I never bought a E DVD and i do have distortion from T11. It was pretty good but i love sankey magic DVDs the best. It's good quality great teacher and most DVD come with more then one trick or more then one handling.

Really editing to me is not that big of a deal.
 
D

Deleted member 2755

Guest
So... We buy magic DVD's for entertainment purposes now instead of actually learning what's on it?

-Doug
 
I've actually made a thread suggesting T11 DVDs to include more live performances, and while I got positive responses from forum members, the T11 crew seemed to have just ignored it.

I think the T11 crew fails to understand that the purpose of including live performances is not only for us to see what the tricks (and the reactions) look like, but also as an invaluable tool for us in learning the effect well.

Furthermore, the quality of teaching of the T11 videos is somewhat inconsistent. Some of the DVDs' instructions merely teaches the method of the effect, and ends there, such as Digital Dissolve. Dan just teaches how to do the trick, and thats it. Other DVDs however, like Panic, is far far superior in teaching- after teaching the method, Aaron goes into great detail on theory, spectator management and subtleties for the effect.

That's my opinion...there is definitely room for improvement.


I mean this all of the above in the form of constructive criticism.

That's because it's AARON FISHER!! What did you expect?!?
 
Sep 1, 2007
144
1
30
I agree E DVD's explain way more and it's really a bang for your buck. I think T11 is just selling DVD's the artists are barely creating and not performing enough, not having enough experience and psychology behind it.
 
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