Price$59.95
Media TypeDVD
CategoryClose Up
Date AddedOct 12, 2004
The Sankey Sanders Sessions
Jay Sankey and Richard Sanders
Sankey Magic
(Based on 2 reviews)
In September of 2002, Jay Sankey and Richard Sanders began video corresponding, sending rough magic ideas and handlings back and forth between Toronto and Montreal. During the next year and a half they included many of the routines in their professional performances while continuing to refine the handlings and swap ideas. Then in January of 2004 Richard and Jay met in Montreal for a series of intense marathon sessions during which they stopped only to grab a shower, some pizza, and buy more decks of cards. During this same 72-hour period they taped the material that makes up this very special double volume DVD.
The "Sankey/Sanders Sessions" features 21 astonishing close-up effects along with hilarious improvisations and thought provoking interview segments. It is also a fascinating, timeless document of two master sleight-of-hand magicians who have been close friends for over twenty years.
VOLUME 1:
- Terra Unifirma: A cardboard "hole" becomes real! Too cool! (Sankey/Sanders)
- Hardcore Packet: A packet trick on steroids (Sanders)
- Litmus Paper: Step-by-step printing of a card! (Sanders/Sankey)
- On Impulse: Jay's "Spectator finds the Aces" routine (Sankey)
- Midas Touch: Splitting coins never looked so good! (Sanders)
- Imposters: Random cards transform into the signed card! (Sankey)
- Impossible Stop Trick: Right out of Richard Sander's professional repertoire! (Sanders)
- Shuffle By Choice: A self-working "in their hands" miracle! (Sanders)
- Power Lunch: Jay's favorite routine with business cards (Sankey)
- Mix Master: We don't want to ruin the surprise! (Sankey)
- Moving Day: A small tear travels the length of a bill! (Sanders/Sankey)
Run Time: 1 hour and 14 minutes
VOLUME 2:
- Repeat Offender: The selection appears stapled inside a matchbook! (Sanders)
- Bleed Through: A message melts through a borrowed bill! (Sankey)
- Up & Over Aces Richard's ingenious four Ace production! (Sanders)
- Proximity: Two cards find each other in the dark! (Sankey)
- Defective: A "cardboard malfunction" is overcome! (Sanders)
- Switch Places Aces: The classic routine from "When Creators Collide!" (Sankey/Sanders)
- Seeing Read: A deadly serious, psychic "book test." (Sankey/Sanders)
- Consolidated Cash: Don't blink or you'll miss the miracle! (Sanders)
- Ground Zero: A card appears in the spectator's own hand! (Sankey)
- Belly of the Beast: The new "heavy transpo" on the block! (Sankey)
Reviews
(Top ▲)
Overview
If you are looking for a well-produced and polished instructional magic DVD, I would recommend you skip Sankey Sanders Sessions. I would venture to say, only the most ardent Sankey and Sanders fanatics would feel this is money well spent.Effect
Twenty two “killer” effects are explained on this 2 DVD set. The effects are interspersed amongst silly antics, vulgar humor and childish behavior. Cards are the most prevalent with coins and business cards just to change it up a bit.Method
The methods typically require a set up deck, handmade gimmicks or sleight of hand. There isn’t much done with an ordinary deck that wasn’t prepared in advance.Product Quality
The DVDs run 2 hours and 45 minutes. The quality of the DVD set itself is terribly poor. Filmed in odd locations like a hotel room and dark hallways. The camera is handheld and is continuously is moving about from the trick to one of their faces or around the room. The lighting and sound are not stellar and a lot of time is wasted with Tom Foolery between the two. As far as the tricks are concerned they are fairly good except most of the sleights are not explained so you would have to be a fairly knowledgeable card man to follow along.Ad Copy Integrity
The ad copy is accurate as far as what is delivered on the DVD set. However, for the price of this set, there are much better produced magic DVDs that are well polished and edited.(Top ▲)
If you've never had the pleasure of sitting on a living room floor, or in a restaurant, or around a coffee-table in a hotel lobby, sessioning with your magic buddies into the wee hours of the morning, then you probably have a life and actually get laid.
Now in their early forties, Jay Sankey and Richard Sanders are doing less sessioning than they used to, but occasionally, when the mood strikes, they still get together to create magic.
This two-volume DVD set appears 17 years after the release of the last product of their sessioning, a long out-of-print book published by Ben Harris called When Creators Collide. Collectively, the DVDs contain 21 tricks, most using cards, but there is also a coin trick, a business-card trick, a book test and three tricks with paper money. All the material is clear, simple and, surprisingly, given the impromptu nature of the sessions, mostly performance-ready.
"Terra Unfirma" (Sankey/Sanders) is a pretty illusion in which a cardboard hole that's placed on a chosen card suddenly becomes real.
"Hardcore Packet" (Sanders) is a striking Twisting-The-Aces-type effect with Kings that ends with all four cards changing instantly into Aces. I've seen versions of this plot using double-faced cards that don't look as convincing as this no-gimmick handling, and the Aces can actually be tossed out at the end!
"Power Lunch" (Sankey) is an excellent, virtually self-working trick with business cards in which your initials vanish from the back of one business card and join the spectator's initials on the back of another (this routine also appears in Jay's new book, Sankey Unleashed).
"Repeat Offender" (Sanders) is a terrific repeat card-to-matchbook effect, and the second (final) time a chosen card transposes, it actually ends up stapled in the matchbook, along with the matches!
"Moving Day" (Sankey/Sanders) and "Bleed Through" (Sankey) are two seriously commercial uses for the Kozslowski/Klause Bill Change.
"The Imposters" (Sankey) is a fun, pared-down version of the Universal Card plot in which cards are invited to do impressions of a signed selection.
"Switch-Places Aces" (Sankey/Sanders) is a multi-phase transposition effect in which two Aces switch places with each other repeatedly, then finally, both switch places with two previously chosen cards in the deck. This routine was actually taken from the 1987 sessions that resulted in When Creators Collide.
"The Impossible Stop Trick" (Sanders) is a wonderful prediction effect in which a freely chosen card matches a prediction-card taken from another deck. Unfortunately, Karl Fulves published the same trick under the title "Heavy Mexican" in the early 1970s. That's one BIG problem with producing "session" DVDs - because there is little (if any) time to do research, there's a greater likelihood of not just coming up with, but actually releasing something that has already been published.
In any case, this is just a sampling of the highlights on these DVDs. Moves taught in the routines include Marlo's ATFUS, In Lieu Of The Through-The-Fist Flourish, The Ascanio Spread, The Erdnase Change (a.k.a. Transformations. Two Hands. First Method), the Kaps Subtlety (mistakenly referred to as The Ramsay Subtlety), the Mercury Fold (palmed-card method), a Marlo-varied Hofzinser force, Frank Garcia's Topper, and more.
All in all, these DVDs are fun to watch and full of good (sometimes great) magic. In addition, there are entertaining segments featuring Jay and Richard musing, joking and bantering, and the explanations often contain little comedic gems, such as Jay's preamble for how to prepare the gimmick used in "Terra Unfirma" - "Lay it on a piece of cardboard or, um, what would you call it, like, um... a raccoon skull."
I actually wouldn't mind seeing Sankey Magic (Jay's production company) produce a series of these session DVDs featuring different artists. Who wouldn't watch The Asher/Fisher Sessions, The Lovell/Wakeman Sessions or The Cloutier/Close Sessions...
David Acer
Now in their early forties, Jay Sankey and Richard Sanders are doing less sessioning than they used to, but occasionally, when the mood strikes, they still get together to create magic.
This two-volume DVD set appears 17 years after the release of the last product of their sessioning, a long out-of-print book published by Ben Harris called When Creators Collide. Collectively, the DVDs contain 21 tricks, most using cards, but there is also a coin trick, a business-card trick, a book test and three tricks with paper money. All the material is clear, simple and, surprisingly, given the impromptu nature of the sessions, mostly performance-ready.
"Terra Unfirma" (Sankey/Sanders) is a pretty illusion in which a cardboard hole that's placed on a chosen card suddenly becomes real.
"Hardcore Packet" (Sanders) is a striking Twisting-The-Aces-type effect with Kings that ends with all four cards changing instantly into Aces. I've seen versions of this plot using double-faced cards that don't look as convincing as this no-gimmick handling, and the Aces can actually be tossed out at the end!
"Power Lunch" (Sankey) is an excellent, virtually self-working trick with business cards in which your initials vanish from the back of one business card and join the spectator's initials on the back of another (this routine also appears in Jay's new book, Sankey Unleashed).
"Repeat Offender" (Sanders) is a terrific repeat card-to-matchbook effect, and the second (final) time a chosen card transposes, it actually ends up stapled in the matchbook, along with the matches!
"Moving Day" (Sankey/Sanders) and "Bleed Through" (Sankey) are two seriously commercial uses for the Kozslowski/Klause Bill Change.
"The Imposters" (Sankey) is a fun, pared-down version of the Universal Card plot in which cards are invited to do impressions of a signed selection.
"Switch-Places Aces" (Sankey/Sanders) is a multi-phase transposition effect in which two Aces switch places with each other repeatedly, then finally, both switch places with two previously chosen cards in the deck. This routine was actually taken from the 1987 sessions that resulted in When Creators Collide.
"The Impossible Stop Trick" (Sanders) is a wonderful prediction effect in which a freely chosen card matches a prediction-card taken from another deck. Unfortunately, Karl Fulves published the same trick under the title "Heavy Mexican" in the early 1970s. That's one BIG problem with producing "session" DVDs - because there is little (if any) time to do research, there's a greater likelihood of not just coming up with, but actually releasing something that has already been published.
In any case, this is just a sampling of the highlights on these DVDs. Moves taught in the routines include Marlo's ATFUS, In Lieu Of The Through-The-Fist Flourish, The Ascanio Spread, The Erdnase Change (a.k.a. Transformations. Two Hands. First Method), the Kaps Subtlety (mistakenly referred to as The Ramsay Subtlety), the Mercury Fold (palmed-card method), a Marlo-varied Hofzinser force, Frank Garcia's Topper, and more.
All in all, these DVDs are fun to watch and full of good (sometimes great) magic. In addition, there are entertaining segments featuring Jay and Richard musing, joking and bantering, and the explanations often contain little comedic gems, such as Jay's preamble for how to prepare the gimmick used in "Terra Unfirma" - "Lay it on a piece of cardboard or, um, what would you call it, like, um... a raccoon skull."
I actually wouldn't mind seeing Sankey Magic (Jay's production company) produce a series of these session DVDs featuring different artists. Who wouldn't watch The Asher/Fisher Sessions, The Lovell/Wakeman Sessions or The Cloutier/Close Sessions...
David Acer