Price$49.95
Media TypeDVD
CategoryMentalism
Date AddedFeb 14, 2015
Touched
Strebler, Morgan
SansMinds Productionz
(Based on 2 reviews)
What if you can cross the barrier of physical reality?
Imagine touching a person without ever laying a finger on them. Touched is a collection of Morgan Strebler's techniques and his approach to the famous Invisible Touch plot.
Morgan Strebler shares his secret on real time touches. The spectators have their eyes wide open, staring at their own hand while being 'touched' by invisible force. Various techniques to synchronize spectators' senses and create absolute miracles.
Equip yourself with the Touched techniques now and get ready to perform miracles anywhere anytime.
Touched.
Reviews
(Top ▲)
Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Everyday by The Oak Ridge Boys
Morgan Strebler: Touched Review
Two DVDs, 76 minutes and $50 bucks. Is it gem or is it rubble? Stay tuned to find out.
Effect/Method
For $50 bucks you get 8 effects that are all very similar in concept. The first two, Trench Touch and Guarded Touch are both 100% impromptu effects. These two can only be performed for two people. If there are others around, it won't work. However, the method is very good, and very easy to do. You can start doing these two right away. In one case, you tap spectator A on the shoulder, but spectator B (with his eyes closed) feels a tap on his left shoulder. The other effect is the same thing except the touch is across the chest rather than the shoulder. Both methods are impromptu and are different from each other so you can actually do both effects back to back.
Next is Tobacco where you sprinkle tobacco out of a cigarette over the back of spectator A's hand. Yet spectator B (eyes closed) feels it on the back of his hand. This method relies on a common gimmick. You'll have to make sure you've got this gimmick set up on you in order to do this one.
Another one requiring a gimmick is Blow. This one is a homemade gimmick that Strebler teaches you how to make. It's pretty easy to make and as long as you have it on you can perform this effect: You blow on spectator A's hand while spectator B (eyes closed) feels a blowing sensation at the exact same moment. Yes. At the exact same moment, thanks to the gimmick. In order to perform this effect, you will need spend a few bucks to make the gimmick, and you'll need to be wearing an open jacket.
That's the end of DVD 1. DVD 2 has 4 effects as well. First is Stare where both spectators have their eyes open and stare at each other. This is an eyes-open version of Tobacco. While you sprinkle tobacco on spectator A, spectator B feels it in real time. This method is a little bit risky and requires the same gimmick as Tobacco. It's a doable method, but in the event that it doesn't work, you're okay because when you realize that it won't work, you have a very good out that Strebler teaches, so in that sense, maybe it's not so risky. You just end up doing another effect. The real risk is that there is a small possibility that they'll see the gimmick.
Morgan Strebler says that he often follows Stare with his handling of Banacheck's PK Time, so he shares his handling with us. Following that, we learn Rose, which is a PK Smell effect. Spectator A closes her eyes. You hand a real rose to spectator B (eyes open). You hold a paper rose under the nose of spectator A. She smells rose. The effect is that she can smell what spectator B was smelling. The method on this is very simple and clever and totally doable. You need to know how to make a paper rose. Then you need a real rose and one other (easily found) special something to make the effect work.
The final effect, 3 Arm Touch is an effect where spectator A closes her eyes. Then spectator B (eyes open) taps his own arm in three different places. Yet spectator A feels it. This one requires the same gimmick as the tobacco effects. If you have it on, you're ready to go. It's pretty easy and straightforward to perform. Overall, the methods are simple and effective and legitimate.
Product Quality
The DVD is well produced. They did a great job in breaking down the teaching segments. Everything was performed, then taught by Morgan Strebler. They showed live footage out on "the streets" plus live performances in the studio. Additionally, during the explanations, they would occasionally flash clips from the performance to help clarify the point. Strebler did an excellent job explaining everything in depth with extra tips and ideas on how to make the effect more powerful, how to troubleshoot any issues you may have with one of the gimmicks (not supplied).
He even had a really smart way of dealing with a pain-in-the-butt spectator who refuses to admit that he felt a touch. This was one of my favorite ideas from the video. The only really negative about product quality is the fact that this should not have been two DVDs. The entire running total was 1 hour and 16 minutes. My guess is that they needed room for all the commercials for other products.
Ad Copy Integrity
. . . but . . . alas . . . this is a SansMinds product, home of the lying advertising department. But even this is a record for SansMinds. It took them less than 6 seconds into the trailer to lie to us. Watch the trailer. The first thing they show is a soda can that is knocked over with the performer nowhere near it. He appears to knock it over with his shadow. That effect is NOT on the DVD. Nothing even close to this is even casually mentioned, let alone taught or performed. Everything else in ad trailer is totally accurate. Why do they do this!?
It took them a little longer to get to lie in the written ad copy. They waited until the penultimate paragraph. They make the claim that "The spectators have their eyes wide open, staring at their own hand while being 'touched' by invisible force." This is absolutely not true. In fact, Morgan Strebler specifically said on the DVD that the spectator cannot look at their hands during the effect they're referring to. He said that if they look at their hands, they might see the gimmick. Further, the effect is called Stare because the whole premise, as explained by Strebler, is that the two spectator's stare into each other's eyes causing one to feel the other's sensations.
So two big fat lies. Par for the course folks.
Final Thoughts
If you're looking for some PK style routines along these lines, you'll be very happy with this product. The question you need to answer is if it's worth $50 bucks, and question #2 is do you want to continue giving your money to a company who doesn't give enough of a crap about its potential customers to be honest about what they're buying.
While this is a SansMinds problem, I would presume that Morgan Strebler has seen the ad trailer and the ad copy. That being said, he should have put a stop to the lies perpetuated by SansEthics Magic. The problem I'm worried about is that Strebler said he has several products in the works with SansEthics Magic. I worry that he's going to tarnish his (as far as I know) good name. If anyone else produced this DVD with Morgan Strebler with the exact same content, this DVD would be 5 stars . . . easy, but with blatant lies from a company who has repeatedly refused to do the right thing in their ad copy . . .
Final Verdict:
2.5 Stars with a Stone Status of Grubble (killer GEM material with a rubble crappy dishonest production company).
(Top ▲)
The PK Touch effect is a modern classic of mentalism. Morgan Strebler has created some new techniques to accomplish the effect on stage and close up. The techniques vary from impromptu to gimmicked, real time to dual reality.
Some can only be done for two people in an impromptu situation, and others can be done surrounded by any number of spectators.
The DVD is a little long winded. There were points where it was clear how to accomplish the effect, and in between sharing different touches and subtleties, Strebler rambles about how strong the effect is. It’s most certainly strong, but hearing it over and over made it feel like SansMind Magic was trying to stretch the running time for both DVDs. I feel like with some editing this could have been cut in half down to one DVD for only thirty bucks.
The ad copy is fairly accurate. The impromptu methods aren’t done in real time, and the ones done in real time aren’t impromptu. Granted, in the context of a routine, you can use the variety of methods to cancel each other out, but we never see a full routine from beginning to end to see how the phases flow into each other and build. Also, I’ve seen a variety of similar methods previously published in other places.
If you already own the original Psychokinetic Touches booklet by Banachek, and this is the kind of magic you like, then this is a good, yet over priced resource to broaden your horizons.
Some can only be done for two people in an impromptu situation, and others can be done surrounded by any number of spectators.
The DVD is a little long winded. There were points where it was clear how to accomplish the effect, and in between sharing different touches and subtleties, Strebler rambles about how strong the effect is. It’s most certainly strong, but hearing it over and over made it feel like SansMind Magic was trying to stretch the running time for both DVDs. I feel like with some editing this could have been cut in half down to one DVD for only thirty bucks.
The ad copy is fairly accurate. The impromptu methods aren’t done in real time, and the ones done in real time aren’t impromptu. Granted, in the context of a routine, you can use the variety of methods to cancel each other out, but we never see a full routine from beginning to end to see how the phases flow into each other and build. Also, I’ve seen a variety of similar methods previously published in other places.
If you already own the original Psychokinetic Touches booklet by Banachek, and this is the kind of magic you like, then this is a good, yet over priced resource to broaden your horizons.