Price$39.95
Media TypeTrick
CategoryClose Up, Mentalism
Date AddedNov 07, 2013
PrediChange
Arcade, Yonel
Arteco Productions
(Based on 2 reviews)
Here's just one possible effect with the handmade Predichange:
The magician attempts to predict a selected card by writing it on the back of a playing card. Unfortunately, he predicts the wrong card. But then, without EVER moving the card out of view, he causes the prediction to CHANGE VISUALLY into the correct, handwritten prediction.
The special card included (always red Bicycle cards) makes adding this to your repertoire a breeze. The angles are great, and the change is completely automatic.
Reviews
(Top ▲)
Predichange by Yonal Arcade
Effect
Visually change writing on the back of a playing card
Method
You get one gimmick card that does the work and another for, well I think you know what your supposed to do with that one
Ad Copy
Overall the ad copy was spot on exept for one thing. In the video trailer it says "perform surrounded" the way the gimmick is made people at the side of you will see something that dosent look right but that's the only flaw
Gimmick
This gimmick is made extremely well and if you take good care it will last you a life time. You cannot bend this gimmick card which means if you want to shuffle the deck while this gimmick card is in there is a possibility you might ruin your gimmick. Also you wouldn't be able to Palm this card atoll. To perform this trick you will ned to be a couple feet away from your audience or they might see something weird.
Dvd
To be hones the dvd wasn't that great it taught you how to work the gimmick and do a show performance but the English were in subtitles and that's all you got. You got a bonus section and I thought this was ofcourse a bonus but it was just a teaser for an unreleased effect.
Final thought
Overall I love this and use it all the time. I perform parlour and do gigs at party's/bars which is great for this effect because your couple feet away at parlour and at party it's dark. The reason it's good to be dark is because of the light if it catches the wrong angle of the gimmick your done.
Should you get it
If your a mentalist and perform at a restaurant in the evening this is not for you but if you perform anywhere in a bar or party its a must get.
I hope this review helped you and made you hink a bit more before your purchase.
Effect
Visually change writing on the back of a playing card
Method
You get one gimmick card that does the work and another for, well I think you know what your supposed to do with that one
Ad Copy
Overall the ad copy was spot on exept for one thing. In the video trailer it says "perform surrounded" the way the gimmick is made people at the side of you will see something that dosent look right but that's the only flaw
Gimmick
This gimmick is made extremely well and if you take good care it will last you a life time. You cannot bend this gimmick card which means if you want to shuffle the deck while this gimmick card is in there is a possibility you might ruin your gimmick. Also you wouldn't be able to Palm this card atoll. To perform this trick you will ned to be a couple feet away from your audience or they might see something weird.
Dvd
To be hones the dvd wasn't that great it taught you how to work the gimmick and do a show performance but the English were in subtitles and that's all you got. You got a bonus section and I thought this was ofcourse a bonus but it was just a teaser for an unreleased effect.
Final thought
Overall I love this and use it all the time. I perform parlour and do gigs at party's/bars which is great for this effect because your couple feet away at parlour and at party it's dark. The reason it's good to be dark is because of the light if it catches the wrong angle of the gimmick your done.
Should you get it
If your a mentalist and perform at a restaurant in the evening this is not for you but if you perform anywhere in a bar or party its a must get.
I hope this review helped you and made you hink a bit more before your purchase.
(Top ▲)
This is one of those products that really frustrates me as a reviewer and as a performer because the gimmick is very interesting, both for the applications possible with it but more for its ingenious method/mechanics.
First I want to address a confusing issue with this product and that is the official trailer. On one hand you have the Arteco Productions trailer featuring the creator, Yonel Arcade. A different trailer is from Murphy's Magic and features Eric Jones showing some of the changes with this gimmick. Further, a few years ago there was also some debate over who had selling/production rights that I could not make sense of, which may be tied into the two separate trailers. Do not quote me on that part because I was unable to confirm anything in regards to that aspect.
Having said that, no matter which of the two trailers you watch, they are both 100% accurate as is the ad copy. One little side point to this: The description given on the back of the DVD case is very possible, but what you would need to perform that handling is not taught anywhere on the DVD.
It comes with a very well produced DVD with the same great sound and video quality as Arteco usually puts out and with the gimmick and an extra card with a prediction pre-drawn on it.
There are no live performances on the DVD and for that matter, there is no studio performance either. It opens up at the menu where you have the option to watch the explanation in English or French or watch the "Bonus" section, which is nothing more than a selection of J.P. Vallarino/Arteco Production product trailers. Whichever section you choose, you have to watch it all the way through as they are not divided up into chapters.
The English section is dubbed and is only seven minutes and six seconds long. It opens with showing you what you get and how the gimmick works. Mr. Arcade then shows four different ways (read: positions) in which to hold the gimmick for the change, then explains a basic set-up and handling. The basic effect here is that you write a prediction on the back of a random card and place it back-down on the table. A card is selected, remembered and returned to the deck. The prediction is shown but it is the wrong one. After asking what the selection was, you visibly shake the card and the writing changes to the correct card! The card on which the writing changed can then be
handed out as a souvenir. This handling is okay and some of the moves are convoluted and completely unnecessary. Though the effect itself is great, it will be better and much
cleaner if you come up with your own handling.
There is a second handling and presentation of the effect which is pretty good and its clean-up is much better than the one in the original handling. In this case, the prediction starts off on the table, a card is selected, remembered and
returned to the deck. The prediction is turned over and found to be wrong, which is then visibly changed into the correct card. That card is inserted into the deck where it
finds the selected card and you end clean by pulling the prediction card and the selection out of the deck.
The French section is essentially the same video shots but it is in a slightly different order and it is also a bit longer
at just over 10 minutes long. In the French section, he shows a couple of different ways to do the switch at the end of the original handling that were not shown in the English explanations. He also explains things a bit more
thoroughly about the gimmick and the handlings. If like me you understand and speak French, this section is worth watching. Even if you do not speak French, you can get an idea of what he is talking about just by watching.
Both language sections end with a clip that was clearly meant as a joke, but it is still misleading if one were to see it first - it shows the drawing on the back of one card changing twice instead of once. This CANNOT be done - it can only change from one card into another. Thankfully they did not show this in the trailer(s).
There is no crediting at all on this disc and no mention of any inspirations or the origins of certain moves used in the routines. There is no usual credit roll either - names of people involved in making the DVD such as the producer, the director, who did the English dubbing, etc.
A little nitpick: During the explanation in both language sections, he shows two gimmicks that are different but which work exactly the same: One has the drawn pip(s) filled in and another is just the outline of the pip(s). I am
not sure why he did this and I am not sure if some of the DVDs come with a gimmick that is just the outline of the pip(s) or if they all come filled in. Further, he does the explanations with one set and leaves the others on the table, which might be confusing to some viewers as to why they are there when they are not used in the effect. For the second handling, he uses the set that was left on the table for the first one. Just strange.
Major issue: The gimmick I received is well-made, but it is very loose. I suppose I would rather have it too loose than have it be sticky and getting stuck all the time and I get the impression that it is not supposed be as loose as mine is. BUT here is where the even bigger problem comes in: When you make the prediction you are supposedly using the back of a random card to write it on. The extra card is supposed to be the one you switch the gimmick out for at the end for them to keep. Whatever the card value is on the face of your gimmick should match the card you switch it with to hand out, right? Of course. Except in my case I am supposed to force the Five of Spades. My gimmick has a Five of Spades on the face and the extra card is the Five of Spades with the Five of Spades drawn on the back! There is NO WAY to make that work other than going to the hassle of sending it back to the shop where it was purchased and waiting for another one, but that is assuming that this same mistake was not made more than once.
I also understand that there are more than just the 3 of Clubs/5 of Spades pairs that the gimmicks come in, but which set you get is luck of the draw. They are also all made in red-backed Bicycle cards.
I can understand the price of $40/USD but at that price, I would think they would pay a bit more attention to the cards they are putting together in each set.
If it were just the ingenious gimmick that came with the correct face card and correct extra card, I would probably give this 4-4.5 stars without the DVD. As it stands, the short DVD with no performances of any kind, the blatant error in the gimmick I received and not being able to use the gimmick for its intended use, it lost 2.5.
I will say that if you like what you see in the trailer and if you use the effects given on the DVD and IGNORE the convoluted handlings, you will like this gimmick. There are lots more possibilities with this gimmick than just with the visual change.
If I get another set that changes any of the downpoints in this review, I will revise the rating and the review at such a time. For now, 2.5 stars.
First I want to address a confusing issue with this product and that is the official trailer. On one hand you have the Arteco Productions trailer featuring the creator, Yonel Arcade. A different trailer is from Murphy's Magic and features Eric Jones showing some of the changes with this gimmick. Further, a few years ago there was also some debate over who had selling/production rights that I could not make sense of, which may be tied into the two separate trailers. Do not quote me on that part because I was unable to confirm anything in regards to that aspect.
Having said that, no matter which of the two trailers you watch, they are both 100% accurate as is the ad copy. One little side point to this: The description given on the back of the DVD case is very possible, but what you would need to perform that handling is not taught anywhere on the DVD.
It comes with a very well produced DVD with the same great sound and video quality as Arteco usually puts out and with the gimmick and an extra card with a prediction pre-drawn on it.
There are no live performances on the DVD and for that matter, there is no studio performance either. It opens up at the menu where you have the option to watch the explanation in English or French or watch the "Bonus" section, which is nothing more than a selection of J.P. Vallarino/Arteco Production product trailers. Whichever section you choose, you have to watch it all the way through as they are not divided up into chapters.
The English section is dubbed and is only seven minutes and six seconds long. It opens with showing you what you get and how the gimmick works. Mr. Arcade then shows four different ways (read: positions) in which to hold the gimmick for the change, then explains a basic set-up and handling. The basic effect here is that you write a prediction on the back of a random card and place it back-down on the table. A card is selected, remembered and returned to the deck. The prediction is shown but it is the wrong one. After asking what the selection was, you visibly shake the card and the writing changes to the correct card! The card on which the writing changed can then be
handed out as a souvenir. This handling is okay and some of the moves are convoluted and completely unnecessary. Though the effect itself is great, it will be better and much
cleaner if you come up with your own handling.
There is a second handling and presentation of the effect which is pretty good and its clean-up is much better than the one in the original handling. In this case, the prediction starts off on the table, a card is selected, remembered and
returned to the deck. The prediction is turned over and found to be wrong, which is then visibly changed into the correct card. That card is inserted into the deck where it
finds the selected card and you end clean by pulling the prediction card and the selection out of the deck.
The French section is essentially the same video shots but it is in a slightly different order and it is also a bit longer
at just over 10 minutes long. In the French section, he shows a couple of different ways to do the switch at the end of the original handling that were not shown in the English explanations. He also explains things a bit more
thoroughly about the gimmick and the handlings. If like me you understand and speak French, this section is worth watching. Even if you do not speak French, you can get an idea of what he is talking about just by watching.
Both language sections end with a clip that was clearly meant as a joke, but it is still misleading if one were to see it first - it shows the drawing on the back of one card changing twice instead of once. This CANNOT be done - it can only change from one card into another. Thankfully they did not show this in the trailer(s).
There is no crediting at all on this disc and no mention of any inspirations or the origins of certain moves used in the routines. There is no usual credit roll either - names of people involved in making the DVD such as the producer, the director, who did the English dubbing, etc.
A little nitpick: During the explanation in both language sections, he shows two gimmicks that are different but which work exactly the same: One has the drawn pip(s) filled in and another is just the outline of the pip(s). I am
not sure why he did this and I am not sure if some of the DVDs come with a gimmick that is just the outline of the pip(s) or if they all come filled in. Further, he does the explanations with one set and leaves the others on the table, which might be confusing to some viewers as to why they are there when they are not used in the effect. For the second handling, he uses the set that was left on the table for the first one. Just strange.
Major issue: The gimmick I received is well-made, but it is very loose. I suppose I would rather have it too loose than have it be sticky and getting stuck all the time and I get the impression that it is not supposed be as loose as mine is. BUT here is where the even bigger problem comes in: When you make the prediction you are supposedly using the back of a random card to write it on. The extra card is supposed to be the one you switch the gimmick out for at the end for them to keep. Whatever the card value is on the face of your gimmick should match the card you switch it with to hand out, right? Of course. Except in my case I am supposed to force the Five of Spades. My gimmick has a Five of Spades on the face and the extra card is the Five of Spades with the Five of Spades drawn on the back! There is NO WAY to make that work other than going to the hassle of sending it back to the shop where it was purchased and waiting for another one, but that is assuming that this same mistake was not made more than once.
I also understand that there are more than just the 3 of Clubs/5 of Spades pairs that the gimmicks come in, but which set you get is luck of the draw. They are also all made in red-backed Bicycle cards.
I can understand the price of $40/USD but at that price, I would think they would pay a bit more attention to the cards they are putting together in each set.
If it were just the ingenious gimmick that came with the correct face card and correct extra card, I would probably give this 4-4.5 stars without the DVD. As it stands, the short DVD with no performances of any kind, the blatant error in the gimmick I received and not being able to use the gimmick for its intended use, it lost 2.5.
I will say that if you like what you see in the trailer and if you use the effects given on the DVD and IGNORE the convoluted handlings, you will like this gimmick. There are lots more possibilities with this gimmick than just with the visual change.
If I get another set that changes any of the downpoints in this review, I will revise the rating and the review at such a time. For now, 2.5 stars.