PROS:
Incredibly strong effect
Not difficult to do--really
The 'gimmick' is a regular playing card
No strange gimmicks
No knuckle busting sleight of hand
Section by section restoration
Audience can examine all torn pieces of card before the restore
You end clean
You end clean before the restoration (really.)
CONS:
Needs a duplicate card
Requires some set up--not totally impromptu
Magician--not the spectator--signs the card
Not as 'open' appearing section by section restore as other T&R effects
Spiral is a truly wonderful take on the torn and restored plot. The effect is unique for a number of reasons. This is not a totally impromptu effect, but the prep is minimal (will take you about 30 seconds once you know how to do it). The effect is not difficult to learn--really--but does rely on carefully choreographing the performance and a number of important subtleties.
PLEASE NOTE: I have demoed this for family members but am not quite ready to bring it out to the 'real world.' So you'll need to take my review below with that in mind. To give you further important information, I am an amateur magician, not a professional, and perform for family and friends. The effect looks incredible to me and I would think it would be quite commercial, but I would wait for reviews from professional magicians that you trust before taking my word for it...
First and foremost, this project lives up to Studio 52 standards. It is impeccably shot with excellent lighting. Lighting may seem like a small thing to quibble about but I have noticed a lot of magic tutorials seem to go for that dark-and-mysterious look. Studio 52 is able to get all the points for artistic cinematography but still keep the lighting perfect for learning the effect. The combination of having a crystal clear view and combination of angles really makes the tutorial easy to learn from.
THE TUTORIAL (30 minutes)
Geoffrey Cheminot is an excellent and patient teacher. He covers the prep and the full performance in 30 minutes. The prep is minimal. Your 'gimmick' is a regular playing card that is folded--so no arts and crafts here. None. He goes into the performance, including the force, the set up, the cleanup, and the restoration. And yes. You read that correctly. The cleanup occurs before you restore the card so by the time you are done, you end clean and can just pass out the card. The bulk of the tutorial shows how you do the restoration, which is visual eye candy and--quite amazingly--not difficult. When you are done, you hand out the card to your spectators.
The tutorial is a straight run through without patter and there is no review of the effect with patter at the end of the tutorial, which might have been helpful. That said, the teaching is so solid and subsequent videos--the Performance Breakdown and Jam, cover some of this ground. A faster run through with patter might have been helpful, but the teaching was so solid and there were more than enough breakdown of the performance and performance footage, I really didn't miss this much at all.
THE BREAKDOWN (44 minutes)
Geoffrey and Ben Earl breakdown the performance by going over footage of a number of live performance and pointing out the subtleties and how Geoffrey makes this effect work in the real world. This is actually really helpful. There is even a clip where someone is viewing the effect from behind and is still blown away. I've not seen this kind of performance breakdown in a magic tutorial before. This is 44 minutes of insight. I don't know that everyone is in for 44 minutes of analysis of live performances, but I found the discussion between these two magicians to be a fascinating and they really have a lot to say about key moments in the performance that lead to the great reactions that Geoffrey gets when he performs the trick. There is a lot of incredible insight here.
THE JAM (43 minutes)
This is a look into the kitchen. Geoffrey and Ben discuss how the effect was developed, the psychology behind the effect, and potential modifications/variations that can work in performance. Again, a fascinating discussion. It may be too much information for some, but, again, for me this added some incredible value.
PERFORMANCE FOOTAGE
The performance video gives you a complete run through of the effect in front of a live, street performance. There is additional footage shown during the Breakdown video that is critiqued. This is more than enough to see that the effect works well for a live audience.
OUTRO
Give a quick thank you and quick crediting for the effect
PROS/CONS:
The major pros to this effect are that the prep is truly minimal and that it really not hard to do.
There is absolutely no knuckle busting, If-An-Octopus-Could-Palm sleight of hand required here. In fact, when it comes to the restoration part, you may want to think of this more like a self-working card trick. And, yes, this is technically sleight...