Hemispheres by Jay Sankey
Price: $30
Where: http://www.penguinmagic.com/specialorderproduct.php?ID=9726
Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebLyXzCkAqg
Introduction-
A few years ago Jay Sankey released his first dvd focused solely on his style of mentalism, or "mental magic" as he called it. It was entitled Boris Pocus: Extremely Mental and some people liked it and others found the dvd to be "too wacky" and "crazy." Then several years after that Jay released a more serious dvd on the same subject of mental magic entitled 22 Blows to the Head. That dvd was received a bit better in the magic community. Then a couple years later, Jay released his third dvd dealing with mental magic. It's called Hemispheres, and here, are my thoughts on it.
The DVD:
The Layout-
Unfortunately, I did not like the layout of this dvd. Sure, the menu worked fine and it was easy to access, but if you just hit the "Play All" button you expect the dvd to show you a performance of an effect then explanation, but instead, It plays all of the performances in a row and then all the explanations in a row. In other words, by the time you get to the explanations, you've already forgotten what the effect even looks like! To avoid this forgetfulness aspect, I found myself clicking into the menu then the explanations/performance section, then having to find the effect and keep doing that every time you switched between a performance and explanation. There are 20 effects on the dvd, so that means I had to do that about 40 times, back and forth. Just an annoying pet peeve of mine.
Quality-
There were no quality issues on this dvd. In fact, the picture is very clear and the whole set at which Jay shot the dvd is pleasing to the eye and gives a “clean look” to the whole dvd.
Teaching-
Jay is an excellent teacher and did a great job teaching all of the effects. You should not have a problem understanding any of the effects taught. Also, Jay is a little less crazy on this dvd than some of his others, however, he still made me laugh out loud several times while watching the dvd with his quick with and improvisational jokes. I found it to be very entertaining.
Difficulty Level-
Most of the tricks are very easy and a lot of them require almost no sleight-of-hand. Group Hypnosis is the hardest effect on the dvd but even that isn’t too hard. I wouldn’t worry about the difficulty.
My Rating System-
I rate on a scale of 1 to 5. It is broken down like this:
5-Awesome
4-Great
3-Okay
2-Bad
1-Awful
Now that you know the rating system, I’ll describe and give my thoughts on each of the effects presented on Hemispheres.
The Effects:
Director’s Cut
In this one, you have an envelope and say you have three things in the envelope, but you’re only going to show the audience 2 of the three items for now. You take the items out, and it is a list of 20 or so words on a strip of paper and some scissors. You slowly run the scissors down the list until they say “Cut!” You cut the strip right where they said to and you show that you cut right through the word “comb.” Then with empty hands you reveal that inside of the envelope is a cut in half comb. You get CRAZY reactions with this. It’s so fair and it has an awesome presentational hook built right in. 5/5
Choice Effect
You write a prediction on a post it note, fold it up and place it inside an otherwise empty envelope. You then show nine tarot cards and let the spectator have a completely fair choice (really) of which tarot card they think best fits their personality. They choose, for example, the moon card. You open up the envelope, take out your prediction and on it, it reads “You will choose the moon card.” The effect never misses, it’s really a free choice and there is no multiple outs. 4/5
Dollars & Sense
You hand a spectator a ball of cash, which they hold tightly in their fist, and have at least 6 different receipts on the table. They freely choose a receipt and all of the other receipts are shown to be from different stores and have different totals. When they look at the total of the receipt they choose it is $15.36 (or whatever)Finally they open up the wad of cash that they have been holding the whole time and it is shown to contain exactly $15.36. I really like this effect, but one thing about the handling needs to be changed, IMO. Other than that, it’s a really pure, creative effect. 4/5
Third Eye
A doll’s glass (or plastic) eye is introduced and placed inside a paper bag. A deck of cards which is shown to be mixed is mixed some more by the spectator behind their back. When they are satisfied, the spectator takes three card from the top of the deck and dumps them, sight unseen, into the brown paper bag. The spectator closes up the paper bag and hands it to the magician. The magician has turned away during all of this. The magician claims he can see inside the bag, by looking through the glass eye. He covers one of his eyes begins to “look around the bag.” He of course is able to name all three cards. This is so simple and so deceptive, plus the presentation is just ingenious. Spectators go nuts over this one and you can either make the effect creepy and mysterious or just have fun with it. Either way it’s a 5/5
How Fortunate
A spectator freely selects a fortune cookie and the magician make a prediction of what he thinks is the fortune inside the cookie is. The magician breaks open the cookie and pulls out the fortune. His prediction matches the fortune. This is a really cool premise, but the method is not very good. It doesn’t look natural and it’s not very clean. I give Jay kudos for coming up with the idea for the effect, but I think I’ll come up with my own handling. 2/5
Child’s Play
A spectator correctly divines the color of a ball of play dough, inside of the container. This is a quickie effect and would be great for kids shows. However, the method needs work. Don’t think you’ll be able to do this walk around, on the street (that would be a funny sight), at school, etc. Pretty much only at a small stand-up show will you be able to do this and for the most part you’re going to want to do it with kids. Overall, a cute little throwaway effect. 3/5
Lottery
You have a spectator shuffle the cards thoroughly as you talk about the lottery and how impossible it to win/predict the lottery. You explain to them that the deck of cards is a bit like the lottery, the cards are the numbers, the spectator is mixing them up like the machine, etc. You then write down five numbers on a piece of paper. The spectator randomly chooses any five cards, or lottery numbers, and you then have them determine the order of the numbers. Despite their shuffling, thier random number selections and random order, you one-by-one reveal that the “lottery numbers” you wrote down, down to the order of the cards, matches the pile of five cards the spectator picked. All of this with a borrowed, shuffled deck and a piece of paper! Just try this out once on a spectator and they will go crazy! Again, a wonderful presentation and a killer effect. 5/5
X-Ray Vision
You have a stack of about 10 or so of you business cards. You draw an X on the printed side of one of the cards. You turn the cards face down and mix them up so you and your spectator don’t know where the X is. They touch the back of one of the cards and you show that none of the business cards have X’s before flipping over their card and showing that somehow they picked the card with the X. This is sort-of a warm-up type effect or opener. It’s a very simple concept and can be used as a way to test if you have a “connection” with one of your spectators. I kind’ve have a bit of a problem with the method but it probably isn’t as big as a problem as I think it is. I think it’s just my magician mind showing through 3/5
Nonexistent
You write a prediction, fold it up and set it on the table in full view, in a glass, on top of a spectator’s hand, etc. You then ask them to make up a character who has never existed and give them a name. They name him (or her) Say Jankey. You slowly and carefully pick up the prediction that has been in full view and unfold it and show that the prediction says, “His (or her) name will be Say Jankey.” Gasp! What a totally impossible effect and it’s so easy! Predicting the name of someone who never existed is such a good presentation too! There’s some very clever thinking in this and I give it a 4/5
Price: $30
Where: http://www.penguinmagic.com/specialorderproduct.php?ID=9726
Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebLyXzCkAqg
Introduction-
A few years ago Jay Sankey released his first dvd focused solely on his style of mentalism, or "mental magic" as he called it. It was entitled Boris Pocus: Extremely Mental and some people liked it and others found the dvd to be "too wacky" and "crazy." Then several years after that Jay released a more serious dvd on the same subject of mental magic entitled 22 Blows to the Head. That dvd was received a bit better in the magic community. Then a couple years later, Jay released his third dvd dealing with mental magic. It's called Hemispheres, and here, are my thoughts on it.
The DVD:
The Layout-
Unfortunately, I did not like the layout of this dvd. Sure, the menu worked fine and it was easy to access, but if you just hit the "Play All" button you expect the dvd to show you a performance of an effect then explanation, but instead, It plays all of the performances in a row and then all the explanations in a row. In other words, by the time you get to the explanations, you've already forgotten what the effect even looks like! To avoid this forgetfulness aspect, I found myself clicking into the menu then the explanations/performance section, then having to find the effect and keep doing that every time you switched between a performance and explanation. There are 20 effects on the dvd, so that means I had to do that about 40 times, back and forth. Just an annoying pet peeve of mine.
Quality-
There were no quality issues on this dvd. In fact, the picture is very clear and the whole set at which Jay shot the dvd is pleasing to the eye and gives a “clean look” to the whole dvd.
Teaching-
Jay is an excellent teacher and did a great job teaching all of the effects. You should not have a problem understanding any of the effects taught. Also, Jay is a little less crazy on this dvd than some of his others, however, he still made me laugh out loud several times while watching the dvd with his quick with and improvisational jokes. I found it to be very entertaining.
Difficulty Level-
Most of the tricks are very easy and a lot of them require almost no sleight-of-hand. Group Hypnosis is the hardest effect on the dvd but even that isn’t too hard. I wouldn’t worry about the difficulty.
My Rating System-
I rate on a scale of 1 to 5. It is broken down like this:
5-Awesome
4-Great
3-Okay
2-Bad
1-Awful
Now that you know the rating system, I’ll describe and give my thoughts on each of the effects presented on Hemispheres.
The Effects:
Director’s Cut
In this one, you have an envelope and say you have three things in the envelope, but you’re only going to show the audience 2 of the three items for now. You take the items out, and it is a list of 20 or so words on a strip of paper and some scissors. You slowly run the scissors down the list until they say “Cut!” You cut the strip right where they said to and you show that you cut right through the word “comb.” Then with empty hands you reveal that inside of the envelope is a cut in half comb. You get CRAZY reactions with this. It’s so fair and it has an awesome presentational hook built right in. 5/5
Choice Effect
You write a prediction on a post it note, fold it up and place it inside an otherwise empty envelope. You then show nine tarot cards and let the spectator have a completely fair choice (really) of which tarot card they think best fits their personality. They choose, for example, the moon card. You open up the envelope, take out your prediction and on it, it reads “You will choose the moon card.” The effect never misses, it’s really a free choice and there is no multiple outs. 4/5
Dollars & Sense
You hand a spectator a ball of cash, which they hold tightly in their fist, and have at least 6 different receipts on the table. They freely choose a receipt and all of the other receipts are shown to be from different stores and have different totals. When they look at the total of the receipt they choose it is $15.36 (or whatever)Finally they open up the wad of cash that they have been holding the whole time and it is shown to contain exactly $15.36. I really like this effect, but one thing about the handling needs to be changed, IMO. Other than that, it’s a really pure, creative effect. 4/5
Third Eye
A doll’s glass (or plastic) eye is introduced and placed inside a paper bag. A deck of cards which is shown to be mixed is mixed some more by the spectator behind their back. When they are satisfied, the spectator takes three card from the top of the deck and dumps them, sight unseen, into the brown paper bag. The spectator closes up the paper bag and hands it to the magician. The magician has turned away during all of this. The magician claims he can see inside the bag, by looking through the glass eye. He covers one of his eyes begins to “look around the bag.” He of course is able to name all three cards. This is so simple and so deceptive, plus the presentation is just ingenious. Spectators go nuts over this one and you can either make the effect creepy and mysterious or just have fun with it. Either way it’s a 5/5
How Fortunate
A spectator freely selects a fortune cookie and the magician make a prediction of what he thinks is the fortune inside the cookie is. The magician breaks open the cookie and pulls out the fortune. His prediction matches the fortune. This is a really cool premise, but the method is not very good. It doesn’t look natural and it’s not very clean. I give Jay kudos for coming up with the idea for the effect, but I think I’ll come up with my own handling. 2/5
Child’s Play
A spectator correctly divines the color of a ball of play dough, inside of the container. This is a quickie effect and would be great for kids shows. However, the method needs work. Don’t think you’ll be able to do this walk around, on the street (that would be a funny sight), at school, etc. Pretty much only at a small stand-up show will you be able to do this and for the most part you’re going to want to do it with kids. Overall, a cute little throwaway effect. 3/5
Lottery
You have a spectator shuffle the cards thoroughly as you talk about the lottery and how impossible it to win/predict the lottery. You explain to them that the deck of cards is a bit like the lottery, the cards are the numbers, the spectator is mixing them up like the machine, etc. You then write down five numbers on a piece of paper. The spectator randomly chooses any five cards, or lottery numbers, and you then have them determine the order of the numbers. Despite their shuffling, thier random number selections and random order, you one-by-one reveal that the “lottery numbers” you wrote down, down to the order of the cards, matches the pile of five cards the spectator picked. All of this with a borrowed, shuffled deck and a piece of paper! Just try this out once on a spectator and they will go crazy! Again, a wonderful presentation and a killer effect. 5/5
X-Ray Vision
You have a stack of about 10 or so of you business cards. You draw an X on the printed side of one of the cards. You turn the cards face down and mix them up so you and your spectator don’t know where the X is. They touch the back of one of the cards and you show that none of the business cards have X’s before flipping over their card and showing that somehow they picked the card with the X. This is sort-of a warm-up type effect or opener. It’s a very simple concept and can be used as a way to test if you have a “connection” with one of your spectators. I kind’ve have a bit of a problem with the method but it probably isn’t as big as a problem as I think it is. I think it’s just my magician mind showing through 3/5
Nonexistent
You write a prediction, fold it up and set it on the table in full view, in a glass, on top of a spectator’s hand, etc. You then ask them to make up a character who has never existed and give them a name. They name him (or her) Say Jankey. You slowly and carefully pick up the prediction that has been in full view and unfold it and show that the prediction says, “His (or her) name will be Say Jankey.” Gasp! What a totally impossible effect and it’s so easy! Predicting the name of someone who never existed is such a good presentation too! There’s some very clever thinking in this and I give it a 4/5
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