Disc 3 – Close Up Miracles

This third DVD explores two areas of close up magic. Some lovely coin magic routines – including Rubiales’ work on the coin box – and a load of ideas using the kind of mini plunger made popular by Jon Armstrong’s Tiny Plunger release of some years ago. These are all studio performances rather than ‘live’.

Chinese Hole – a really nice little routine with 3 half dollar coins and a Chinese coin. The Chinese coin travels through the pile of coins one by one. You’ll need to practise the handling to get this one down, but when you do it is a lovely routine with ungaffed coins.

Coin prediction – successfully predict the outcome of tossing a range of coins of different values. Uses a principle often used with gaff coins and applies it to normal coins to make this a more or less self-working wonder.

Crazy sides – a fun ‘prediction’ effect where te prediction is revealed written on a coin you are holding from the outset. Comedy comes from repeatedly turning the coin over to apparently show multiple sides until the actual chosen card is revealed. (Not really taught in detail)

Flip Change – very visible coin change where the value of a coin changes as it is ‘flipped’ with a playing card.

Oil and Water – the classic card effect now with coins. 2 silver and 2 copper coins are fairly shown and interleaved and instantly separate out into silver and copper. Coins clearly shown on both sides. First done at fingertips. Second done under a coin box. Third phase also in box but done by spectator. Beautiful and fooling routine. Constructed so that the most powerful phase is also in many ways the cleanest.

This is a coin trick – this is a really entertaining presentation where the spectator appears to ‘guess’ four cards the performer selects from the deck – and then four coins appear underneath the cards. So baldly explained it sounds unimpressive, but in fact with some presentation skill it is highly entertaining. Not too difficult to perform.

The Fountain – a lovely instant transformation of four silver coins into four copper coins in a small metal box, after all have been examined. Having enjoyed Oil and Water my mind was already racing about ideas utilising the clever subtlety in the final phase and this is an excellent use of the same principle.

Transposition in silk – as the name suggests – a copper and silver coin swap places while held in handkerchiefs by two spectators. Another good example of thoughtful routining using a move which reminds me of an old Bob Ostin idea

Multiple Travelers – four copper and four silver coins change place in the blink of an eye. You will need a couple of extra things for this, but you’ve probably already got them. Great instantaneous visual magic.

Coin Detective – with the help of a mini plunger a coin is pushed through the deck landing on top of a card chosen by the spectator. Visual and very easy to do. Great effect.

Two Coin Transposition – a coin in the spectator’s fist changes place with one resting on top with, you guessed it, the push of a plunger.

Chink-a-chink – the classic assembly routine but with four coins and two mini plungers. All the coins travel to one location.

Plunger card location – to the amusing premise of the performer not touching the cards (with his hands – using only two plungers!) the spectator manages to find their card using only a plunger.

The Ambitious Card – again, as its name suggests, this just applies the plunger prop to the classic ambitious card routine. The nice feature here is that the spectator does the magic.

The spinning card – here the plunger is used with a nice visual effect to ‘correct’ the magician’s mistake when he locates the wrong card. As the plunged card is spun it visually changes into the correct card. Nice!

Extras

Kids Race – an fun idea using full size plungers and giant cards – taking the tiny plunger to the stage!

It is worth noting that several of the routines on this DVD require either Boston or Okito coin boxes – which are well worth investing in anyway if you have an interest in coin magic. I really like his thinking with these boxes – in fact the whole DVD is a great example of applying some lateral thinking to common routines.

One small drawback is that much of the material on this DVD requires a ‘formal’ close-up setting where the performer is seated at the table – so it is not all suitable for the more common walkaround scenario. Again, however, I would suggest there are ideas that can be incorporated into other routines you already perform, or that will stimulate new ideas for your own work.

Disc 4 – Classic Plots

Like Disc 3, these performances are all studio performances.

The General Card – an entertaining routine that is hard to describe briefly. But a series of spectators choose cards and they are all revealed in an amusing way. A detailed explanation is given and also another section of afterthoughts – this is clearly a routine he has performed a lot.

Tribute to l’homme masque – after successfully revealing the spectator’s chosen card, you then show the whole deck is made up of that card, and then just as quickly the deck reverts to a normal deck – but with their card missing. This didn’t do much for me as a routine, but does have a lot of interesting subtleties in the way it has been put together.

Travelers – four of a kind travel one at a time from a packet into the deck and then another four of a kind appear. Part of the Jacks routine from DVD1.

Vanishing Aces – the performer shows 4 aces and three of them vanish very cleanly one by one. I don’t want to give anything away, but you will need to be seated for this one…

Impossible Matrix – this is a really fun twist on the classic matrix effect. In the first phase the ‘covers’ disappear one by one. In the second, the coins travel one by one to appear underneath a card. And then in the climax all the coins travel at once. This really suits Rubiales’ quirky sense of humour and the theme he uses often of ‘the magician messes up’.

Backpalm Reversal – as its name suggests this is more of a move than a routine. It is a clever way of using a classic move in a different way. The result is that controlled card ends up reversed in the deck. I’m sure you can find a use for this.

Call to the colours – the classic effect where a series of cards constantly re-arrange themselves in patterns – alternating red and black, two red, two black, etc. In the final phase the spectator does all the handling and shuffling, but the whole deck separates into red and black. For me, this is not one of the more exciting routines on the set. And it will also require some pretty good card handling skills.

Prediction – this is an incredibly fair looking prediction effect. A prediction is made at the beginning of the trick. Then the spectator shuffles the deck several times, the deck is split into several piles, the spectator chooses any pile and stops dealing at any point. And the prediction matches. I was completely fooled by this the first time I watched it – it uses a clever technique which flies by. (One small quibble, he uses but doesn’t explain a psychological force.)

Card to pocket – does what it says on the tin. The second routine using the clever technique alluded to before.

NPI – this is essentially a spectator cutting the aces using the technique described. Looks beautifully clean. I love the sneaky thinking.

Extras

The extras on this DVD are a series couple of coin magic PDFs – a silver/copper/Chinese routine and a routine based on a Tamariz card idea applied to coins and called Bad Accounting. A second pdf has four pages of notes on some classic coin moves (Han Ping Chien, Click Pass, Italian Palm/Thumb Clip). They are useful extras.

Concluding Thoughts

Rubiales is clearly a very gifted and creative magician. He has a Very deliberate style which initially wound me up a little – but grew on me. It is a great example of using your performance style to accent the magic. But in fact it is his own infectious joy in the magic which draws you in. One challenge of his own strong personality is that it is sometimes hard to imagine what a presentation would look like by a different character – i.e. you!

On occasion it is slightly difficult to understand his English. But you get used to it, and in some instances the subtitles can help. I would have loved to see some more ‘live’ performances. The chamber magic was performed in a venue which seemed to lack a little atmosphere, though the signature routines on Disc 2 show off his ease with an audience more clearly. But Discs 3 and 4 were all studio performances which therefore lack a little something.

The explanations are generally very clear, though one or two are a trifle on the brief side. If you’ve been around in magic for any length of time this shouldn’t be a problem – but the absolute beginner might be left scratching their head occasionally.

On the positive side, like all of this series, the DVD is beautifully shot with high production values. The menu system is clear and easy to navigate. Rubiales is an enthusiast – and careful thought is evident in the way so many of these routines have been put together. There is therefore much to learn – even from the structuring of the magic – even if you don’t end up performing all the routines. So Ole is well worth the investment of some time and money to learn from this Spanish master.

Olé is available from the Merchant of Magic for £146.99 (at the time of writing).

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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Ole Disk 1 Parlour Magic

This first DVD contains routines suitable for a semi-staged or parlour setting. I’ll run through the effects and some comments (I’ve noted where they are ‘studio’ performances rather than live ones).

Bill Coincidence – a borrowed banknote is folded up and left to one side. A spectator shuffles a deck of cards face up and face down making lots of choices on the way. At the end of this process all the face down cards are removed from the deck and placed in a glass. They then turn out to reveal the serial number from the bank note. Nicely routined – easy to do (owing a lot to a John Bannon routine) – and some thoughtful presentational touches.

Bread Deck – fun comedy effect where you ask a spectator to treat a loaf of bread as if it is a deck of cards. After a lot of fun you reveal the card the spectator has selected. This is mainly about the fun not the magic. And although it is ‘easy’ to do it will require good spectator management and presentation skills to sell this one.

Three Fly Cookies – You can probably guess what this one is about. 3 cookies (biscuits) travel one by one from one hand to the other. It’s crazy – but in his hands it works!

Fished Card – This is the classic ‘Lasooing a card’ effect with an initial series of rope tricks and a comedy finish. Don’t look here for a radically new method – but learn from a great presentation – which makes some sense of why you would perform the trick in the first place. Oddly the last part of the explanation went into Spanish.

Invisible Deck (studio performance). Starts with a ‘standard’ ID style routine but ends in a quite different place – where you produce the single card (i.e. not the deck) from your pocket. There are a few nice subtleties here, but the method feels a bit clunky to me. On the other hand you do only require a normal deck.

Card in Balloon (studio performance). As with the Fished Card, I really like the way his presentation justifies the use of the balloon. There’s a lot to be learnt from the way he’s thought about these things. It is a very short explanation but covers all that is necessary.

Forget and Remember – studio performance – this is a slightly drawn out performance for my style (but the Spanish invented the Siesta – so I probably need to learn from them right?!). But in essence two spectators look at a different card each, and then apparently forget the name of their card. Then one spectator remembers the card that the other spectator has chosen and is actually sitting on! And in a final phase the spectator apparently forgets all that has happened in the previous section! Quirky, but not really my kind of thing. But a great example of taking a fairly simple procedure and making a feature out of it.

Extras

Each DVD contains a variety of extra features. For me, one of the highlights of the whole set was the extended interview which was split over the four DVDs. Luis de Matos discusses life and magic with Rubiales whilst they sip glasses of wine. I will cover all the segments together here.

They discuss Rubiales own journey in magic – how he got started, how he became a professional, how he stopped and how he came back to it. In the second section they talk about magic competitions and how to find your performing character. In the third, it becomes more personal as he talks about his wife and children. We learn how the Opongo box came to be so-named, about the relationship with his grandmother, and about his hobby of caricature drawing.

The fourth and final segment is a little more philopsophical and plumbs the depths of topics like the nature of magic, the direction of magic as an art form, how he feels about other people performing his material, and what his own favourite releases are.

I am fascinated by people and their stories and found these segments to be delightful and moving. They are all in Spanish but with subtitles for those of us who don’t speak the language. He comes across as a passionate and wonderfully humane person. These were great.

The other ‘extra’ on the first DVD is an explanation of The Opongo Box – which is a kind of Okito/Boston/Slot Box all in one. This has been released separately and I presume is all the same material on that DVD. it is very interesting to watch, but not that much use without the box itself! But perhaps it would help you decide whether to purchase it yourself.

Ole DVD2 – Signature Routines

This DVD mainly consists of 2 close-up acts in themselves and a detailed explanation of their different elements.

The Jacks – Rubiales’ pet card routine – which combines a number of classic effects – with his own unique twist…. Without an enormous amount of explanation it would be difficult to do this justice, but it takes classic effects like Twisting the Aces, Reset, Travelers etc. and combines them into a routine packed with magic and flowing beautifully.

Dice Command – is another beautifully blended routine, which takes as its simple premise the idea that a set of dice control the behaviour of the playing cards. Again, hard to do justice to this without a detailed explanation.

In addition to the interview already mentioned, the extras on this DVD are two pdfs. These look to be extracts from previously published articles in a magazine. The first is on on the classic stabbed card plot. The second is an impossible travellers routine. These are a nice extra, especially for those of us who like printed material as much as video!

I hope this gives you a flavour of the first two DVDs in the Ole set. I will make a few more general comments about the set overall at the end of the second section of this review.

If you’ve already heard enough and can’t wait to purchase Ole – you can get it from the Merchant of Magic.

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

The post Juan Luis Rubiales – Olé – review (part 1) appeared first on Bicycle Cards.

What’s the effect?

This is Juan Luis Rubiales working of an effect which really goes back to a Paul Curry idea. As I was watching the effect I was thinking – I’ve seen this before – in fact it was just similar to the Power of Thought routine on the Awesome Self-Working Card Tricks DVD.

In effect, two spectators get half a deck each which is bound (hence the name!) with a small spiral binding coil. One spectator chooses a card and as the two ‘books’ of cards are ‘dealt’ it is found to be the only ‘matching pair’ across the two halves. And then, with no suspicious moves, suddenly both packets change so that it appears that all the cards match – even though the ‘binding’ prevent any tricky moves.

What do you get?

A deck of cards with the necessary holes in them to enable them to be bound. 2 small spiral binding coils. An instructional DVD.

The EMC DVDs are always nicely produced to a high quality. Rubiales’ English is a little idiomatic with quite a heavy accent – but the explanation is fairly easy to follow. The routine is, in fact, all but self-working. The cards are a standard Bicycle deck apart from the holes – so are of good quality.

What do we think?

This is really tricky. Rubiales performance, on the DVD, is really rather dull to my cultural sensibilities – but I think that is largely cultural. In a UK context I would perform this with a very different style – and in fact it would be possible to do it with only one spectator if you wanted which might speed things up (though possibly make it less magical?).

The routining is clever – and I really like the way the final ‘change’ is effected without any real moves. There are a number of clever subtleties going on here. I also think the whole concept of a ‘bound deck’ is intriguing – and would gain the spectator’s interest.

The trick essentially re-sets itself and doesn’t take up too much space in your pocket – though you wouldn’t really want to use this deck for any other effects I would have thought (you could – in principle – but then you wouldn’t be set for this effect again).

So there’s lots to like here. It feels more puzzling than astounding – but perhaps I’m thinking too much like a magician? But the thing that pushes me in a slightly more negative direction is the pricing. At our regular Murphys Magic supplier it is £38.99 (at the time of writing) which is quite steep for what you’re getting.

But if it appeals you can get it direct from MagicShop.co.uk.

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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