Britain's brightest independent magic magazine
Issue 28 - Sept. 09
Review
Snapped
Cameron Francis
Available from: www.full52.com
Price: £14.99
The trend for one trick DVDs continues with this somewhat
surreal but highly novel trick from Cameron Francis of
Florida
. Its novelty value however is
coupled with a slightly illogical climax. See what you think.
A playing card sized photograph of a fan of four Aces is
shown. A card is chosen from a deck and can be signed and is lost back into the
deck. You explain how the Aces in the photograph can divine the chosen card.
After a wave of the photograph one of the Aces in the picture has turned face
down. This turns out to be the same suit as the chosen card.
Holding the photo with both hands the magician claims to
then pull the face down Ace out of the picture and suddenly a playing card seems
to appear (?) out of the photograph. The photo now has a gap in the fan where
the face down Ace was! The face down card is turned over but it’s not the Ace.
Huh? It’s the chosen card.
If you are claiming to pull one of the Aces off the photo
– when you turn it over, that’s
what it should be, an Ace! By
pulling a different sized card out of the photo which is then not the card that
was actually in the picture leaves the climax to the trick magically illogical.
It loses the surreal quality and becomes just a novelty. It
left me questioning the point of the photograph of four Aces in the first place
and whether the effect has really been thought through before the video camera
came out to get this trick on disc!
All the necessary gaffed cards and photographs to do the
trick are supplied with the
DVD
which you have to stick to the enclosed cards, but that is easy. The handling
is not overly technical and it’s all well explained making it a repeatable
item to carry around under working conditions without tying a deck up just for
the trick.
Now here is a small rant. If a trick is sold in a
DVD
format then I think this provides ample opportunity to show off a performance
of the trick for the customer, under real world conditions that it’s best
suited to (insanely commercial apparently),
and also to show real world reactions that are claimed in its marketing
(your spectators won’t know what’s hit them, as the cover says.)
Annoyingly no attempt is made to show either its insanely
commercial use (and see the handling under fire) or see audiences
not knowing what has hit them! If the producers don’t bother to prove the
hype on the
DVD
I begin to suspect the trick has barely seen a real audience! What
you get is Cameron demonstrating the trick to camera safely at home followed by
a repeat demo in a parking lot, to a woman who smiles politely at the finish but
who I suspect is slightly underwhelmed! What purpose the second demo serves over
the first is not clear but at least we saw one real audience member. At least
get some mates round to watch and cheer loudly at the end of the trick Cameron!
The good news is the
DVD
comes with several extras such as ‘Big Snapped’, a version with a slightly
larger photograph and therefore different handling but the bad news is, it uses
an American sized envelope impossible to find in the UK! Consequently some
DVD
Rom content contains a template so you make up this (odd looking) envelope,
along with copies of the photographs of the four Aces to print out so you never
run out.
Three extra bonus card effects from Cameron are also
included, two of which are certainly commercial – the third is just too long.
Finally three guest magicians (
Dave
Forest
, Iain Moran and Stephen Tucker) offer alternative handlings for Snapped and
here is the real fun – that wag
Dave
Forest
thought it would be fun to hide this menu so you have to hunt around clicking
on all his wonderful graphics to see if it brings up the secret menu.
Dave
Forest
obviously has a different definition of customer care to me! Fortunately
it’s not hard to find because when you do you will see Iain Moran’s version
of extracting the card from the photo, for me the nicest handling, although
pulling a full sized card out of a picture of miniature cards still doesn’t
work for me. Not to worry because
finally Stephen Tucker appears and corrects the illogical part of the trick. He
makes the chosen card one of the Aces in the photo! So, when it’s magically
removed from the photo it is the card that it logically should be. Thanks Steve!
As with most current magic DVDs, more effort is focused on
‘style’ e.g. graphics, background music, gimmicky effects and getting it on
the market, than making sure the product is audience tested, ready for market
and lives up to its hype. PP
What’s Hot: A
‘surreal styled’ effect plus some extra material
What’s not: An over hyped trick that
hasn’t been thoroughly thought through
Star rating: **
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