Annemann's Practical Mental Effects Volume 4
Osterlind, Richard
Jim Sisti
On volumes 4, 5 and 6, Richard Osterlind and Jim Sisti return to the same school and do it again, but with many amplified versions of other Practical Mental Effects material. For most of these routines, Richard changed the workings and methods slightly (or sometimes very significantly) to make the effects more direct and streamlined. You will love his thinking!
These six volumes truly offer the definitive work on the material from this classic book. There are routines for any situation whether close-up, parlor or stage and, additionally, you will learn classic principles of mentalism which you can apply to your own, original routines. If you ever wondered what this classic material would look like when presented in today's modern world to a contemporary audience, you now have your chance. Every effect is a stunner!
Contents:
- Volume 4
- 40,000 Words
- Number Thot
- Pseudo-Psychometry
- Mind or Muscle?
- A Card to Be Thought About
- A Torn Letter
Reviews
(Top ▲)
How Shall I Judge?
This whole set is a weird set to judge and review. It's not quite fair to judge Richard Osterlind on any weak parts of the performance he may have had because, likely, most of the stuff on this set is not in his regular repertoire so I don't expect it to be polished. Secondly, according to Jim Sisti (co-host), this set also was not intended to be a "best of" series either, so I can't really judge the set based on whether or not the material chosen was the top Annemann stuff either. Due to the way the Annemann book was written (as Osterlind and Sisti point out), it wouldn't make sense to go chapter by chapter (like Osterlind did for the Corinda series), so I can't really judge the set on how "complete" (or not) it is.
So, that leaves me judging the set based on the ad copy claims and the intent (according to Jim Sisti) of the set. My judgement on that is basically the same for all 3 videos (4, 5, and 6), so this part of the review will be found at the beginning of each of the three volumes. Following my general comments about the series, you'll find my thoughts on the effects of whichever DVD I'm reviewing.
General Comments About the Whole Set
A small disclaimer: Jim Sisti is a friend of mine and Richard Osterlind is a cyber-acquaintance of mine. We have a few friends in common (Jim Sisti, Jim Spinnato and Chet Cox). But as you'll quickly see, those relationships have not biased my review. Let's look at the ad copy first. I take no issue with the first 2 paragraphs. However, let's look at the third paragraph:
These six volumes truly offer the definitive work on the material from this classic book. There are routines for any situation whether close-up, parlor or stage and, additionally, you will learn classic principles of mentalism which you can apply to your own, original routines. If you ever wondered what this classic material would look like when presented in today's modern world to a contemporary audience, you now have your chance. Every effect is a stunner!
Definitive? I hardly feel that culling together a couple dozen routines over the course of six videos is Definitive . . . especially when you consider the volume of magic found between the pages of the original book. The next two sentences I agree with. But the third (every effect is a stunner), not so much. That's always a matter of opinion, but I'm gonna go with . . . no . . . not EVERY effect is a stunner.
Let's examine the purpose. According to the discussions (which I did find valuable and insightful) between Osterlind and Sisti, the intent of this set is to inspire people to dig through the book. They were very clear that they weren't trying to replace the book. They were trying to inspire a new generation of Annemannites. Based strictly on the impact the majority of the effects seemed to have on the audience (poor performances not withstanding), I think they nailed this one.
I've personally read the book 2 times from cover to cover and have skimmed and read chapters and studied parts of the book several times over, on top of the 2 full readings. Yet, after watching these DVDs, I now want to go back in and dig even deeper into the book. Most of the time, the audience members were quite astonished and in many cases actually creeped out a bit. It was some powerful stuff. One of the advantages of Osterlind's bare-bones presentations on much of this material is that it gave me the opportunity to project my thoughts and feelings on how I might perform the effects.
Further, a goal of this set was to prove that the material was not "dated." Yep. They proved that too. The material, effects, etc. is anything but dated. Rather, it's timeless . . . and you see this very clearly in the audience reactions. Were I to judge this DVD soley on this part (how well they attained the goals of the project), it'd be hard to give this anything less than 4 stars. So the advertisement and intent seem to balance out each other pretty well.
What you'll find is that pretty much every DVD has one or two standout items that will inspire you to dive into the book more thoroughly. Which effects will inspire you? Everyone is different, so it's hard to say. However, I am confident that you will find at least one effect that "moves" you and gets you to crack open the book again which was their goal. And I must say, that goal alone makes this DVD set worthy of consideration. Anything that inspires us to turn to our roots so that we can branch out is valuable in my book. Let's move on to the DVD at hand . . .
Thoughts on Volume IV
I'm Hopelessly Devoted To You (Thank you Olivia Newton John) my dear readers. This is why . . . why I've given up somewhere in the neighborhood of 36 hours of my life to watch and rewatch this Annemann/Osterlind series . . . Enjoy.
40,000 Words (4.5 stars)
Portable? Yes. Easy? Yes. Baffling? H*** Yes! This is an excellent simple to do book test that can be added into your strolling work tonight. It would also work for a small parlor setting as well. You have some one time prep that'll take you maybe 30 or 40 minutes and you're done.
Number Thot (3 stars)
This effect takes advantage of a mathematical oddity. The beauty is that you can do it with pretty much no set up. You just need a hand-held notepad and a pencil . . . that's it. The effect starts out looking like a contrived math effect, then suddenly you are tell people stuff that is just impossible for you to know.
However, this is one of those ones I referred to where the method was not clearly explained and we were told to look at the book for the details. Osterlind's description was a bit confusing and hard to follow. The effect itself is a 4.5 to 5 star effect, but rolling in the lack of detail in the teaching section, I had to take it down a peg or two.
Pseudo-Psychometry (4.5 stars)
When I first read PME, this effect stood out to me as one of the best. The method is easy. The effect is that several people get an envelope, and they each put a personal object in their envelope. The envlopes are collected and legitimately shuffled by a spectator. Yet you are able to divine which object belongs to which spectator. Additionally, you can exercise your cold reading skills here and give a good reading to the spectators as you return their objects.
This does have that problem of how to end the effect . . . because once the next to the last item is returned to its owner, you obviously know who owns the last item. This is where it's critical to give a good reading. Further, there are presentational methods that can be employed to get around this problem. However, none were covered on the DVD.
Mind or Muscle? (4 stars)
Presentation. Presentation. Presentation. You know what they say: Presentation is everything. So true. This one is proof. A solid effect where three cards are removed from the deck without the mentalist seeing them. Yet he is able to divine what they are merely by touching the spectator's hand. Here you see, again, one of my favorite things that Richard does. He really gets in the head of the spectator and creates the illusion that he not only can read their thoughts, but he actually seems to know how they're thinking and why they're thinking a certain thing a certain way. It's very powerful. Further this is another one where he changed things from the original a bit.
A Card to Be Thought About (3 stars)
This has the potential to be a very strong effect. Also, Richard modified the method (for the better) quite a bit. The effect is all about how fair everything is . . . borrowed shuffled deck. The spectator literally just thinks of one card. You then are able to divine it. The problem I had with the performance was that after all these impossible conditions were built up, Richard, just grabbed a card out of the deck and tossed it on the table and said, "is this your card?" Then the spectator said, "yes." The end. All the build up of the impossibility was wasted. I think for this type of project there should have been some discussion about the theatrics and the possibilities and presentational hooks that could be used.
A Torn Letter (3 stars)
Effect: two slates are shown blank on both sides. A dead person's name is written on a piece of paper which is torn up and placed between the slates. Writing appears on the slate and the torn paper is found restored. Richard changed the presentation in a way that made a drastically better effect in my opinion. However, I don't like the display of the slates . . . it doesn't "seem" right (because it isn't). I did like, however, Richard's touch on what the message actually says . . . it made it a much more beautiful and moving effect. If you could improve the slate displays a bit, this would be 5 stars.
Final Thoughts
Average trick rating is 3.67 . . . Considering that there were only 6 effects (rather than 8, 9 and 8 on volumes 1, 2 and 3 respectively) and considering that we were told to go to the book rather than learn it on screen, I'm gonna have to round down. I've given you a lot of information for you to base your decision on. I think it's been very fair and very accurate. The final decision is up to you.
Final Verdict:
3.5 Stars with a Stone Status of gem.