Salt & Silver
Livera, Giovanni
Magic Estate
Beautiful productions, smooth vanishes, and impossible appearances, Salt & Silver has all of this and more. Not only is Salt & Silver a polished, show ready signature routine from one of magic's greatest innovators, Giovanni Livera, it is also the perfect thing to sharpen your sleight of hand and master your misdirection. With this DVD you will learn every detail of this time tested audience pleaser. Seasoned to perfection, this is Salt & Silver.
"It is surprising, amazing, humorous and very magical. I was both fooled and delighted."
- Eugene Burger
"As good as I have seen. His timing and misdirection are perfect. Go for it!"
- Dean Dill
"Unlike most table tricks this one is sophisticated and magical enough to include in a formal performance. Dinner and a show."
- Eric Mead
"This routine is subtly seasoned to please. It is Tommy-Wonderful. Malini would have swooned. Vernon would have wept."
- Jon Racherbaumer
"I watched Gio do this routine three times and each time I saw it, I shook with my head with how magical and amazing it is. One of the most entertaining and mystifying effects I have seen in years."
- Barrie Richardson
Reviews
(Top ▲)
I may be slightly biased because besides being a coin specialist in the close-up genre, I have long been a fan and performer of the Albert Goshman Salt Shakers routine (which can be found on the DVD called "The Life and Times of Albert Goshman"). It was that routine that Giovanni Livera credits for inspiring Salt & Silver.
The routine is an absolute pleasure to watch. It invokes that sort of feeling you get when you are watching the Tommy Wonder Cups and Balls and indeed, the Goshman Salt Shakers.
The video and sound quality is crisp and excellent and the volume is just right, as was the choice of background music.
You will see two different performances, one a "studio" performance and one live performance. There is a third performance in the bonus section of Giovanni performing this routine at the Magic Castle.
One of the coolest features of this DVD is that if you are right-handed, you have the ability to flip the orientation during the teaching segments to make learning easier, as Giovanni is left-handed. I personally do not have any issues learning from a lefty (I am right-hand dominant/ambidextrous), but this will be a very useful tool for many.
Giovanni covers the various requirements/preferences of the props involved, how to set them up the right way and which wands, sizes and shapes of shakers, types of napkins and sizes of coins work better than others. Nothing is left out.
The teaching in my opinion was very clear and all the moves are covered, so there is no going to various sources to figure out moves. If there was one sleight that could have used more clarity, it might be the "click pass". Even so, I think that most magicians that watch, study and learn this routine will already be familiar enough with what is going on to not have a problem. Even so, I still say that everything is covered, at the very least, sufficiently enough for magicians of all skill levels to learn this routine.
On this DVD, each phase is taught in detail along with various ideas for changing the handling, and after that, you will see a performance clip of the phase that was just explained.
In the menu at the beginning of the video (which is clean and easy to navigate) there is a section for Members Only, which gives you a web address, a Username and a Password. I assume it is to be a forum or panel for discussion specifically about the Salt & Silver routine, but as of this writing (February 21, 2013) that section of the website was not up and running yet. I look forward to seeing what this little section might entail.
This routine will take plenty of practice to get the handling, the timing and the routining smooth. It deserves that much from anyone, as does any routine worth learning. Even if you do not end up performing this routine, you will still learn some great points in misdirection and routining. In my opinion, I think that this routine is well thought out because there is not one wasted move in the whole thing - it is very economical.
This is another product release from the folks over at The Magic Estate, and if this is their set standard, I really look forward to future releases from both Giovanni Livera and The Magic Estate.
(Top ▲)
Question: Why do you use that weird prop with dragons on it?
Question: Why do you have a funny looking bag with a handle and a puff ball on the bottom of it?
Answer: Family Tradition (Thank you Bocephus).
I may get hung as a heretic for what I'm about to say, but here goes: I think that the traditional cups and balls use weird props; not as weird as the aforementioned weird dragon and puff ball props, but weird. I think that when someone sees you bring out the cups they just don't look like normal cups that people use everyday . . . just not my taste. Of course many others have used "real" cups and have drastically improved the effect by doing so.
What the heck does that have to do with Giovianni Livera's Salt & Silver? Well it feels very much like a cups and balls routine (even though it totally is NOT). Though it feels like a cups and balls style of rhythm, it uses props that people recognize . . . coins, salt shaker, butter knife, napkin . . .
However, these ordinary props become extraordinary characters in a ballet of baffling and beautiful magic . . . I mean real magic, not just a "trick." This routine invokes feelings of wonder. Further, you'll learn several excellent utility coin moves that should be in the arsenal of every coin worker. Livera is a solid entertainer (though that does not impact the score of this review). He is obviously a seasoned pro who has clearly honed this routine over several thousand performances. He's an excellent teacher (which will impact the score) who knows how to properly season bland technical descriptions transforming them into easily digestible savory bites. The product values of the DVD are top notch. The camera angles and "teaching shots" were very well placed.
Livera teaches a coin vanish that looks like you truly throw the coins (one at a time) into your other hand. You even hear them each land on top of each other in the other hand, but alas . . . they have vanished. Even the exposed angle of this looks freaky . . . beautiful.
Additionally, one of the coolest things I've seen in a DVD was the "mirror image" option given. Livera is a lefty. However, knowing that most people are not, he gives the option on the DVD to watch the performance and teaching in mirror image mode. They just flipped the video so that it looks like he's right handed. I think this is an excellent idea for all videos. Why not have a lefty and a righty view. Smart idea.
Some Strangeness
The copy I was given for review was actually an mp4 file and not the actual DVD. That being the case, I did not have a menu. The whole DVD just played straight through. When it first started, there were three performances in a row, a studio version for the camera, a studio version with two audience members, and one at the magic castle. Then after the castle, the first two played again . . . weird. I'm not sure if this is an issue on the DVD or not.
A further strangeness is that in the learning section, Livera talks about the type of salt shaker to use and how easy they are to come by because you're just using a standard shaker. My understanding, however, is that the DVD comes with a salt shaker. The odd thing is that the routine does not require a gimmicked shaker or anything like that. It's just a plain old salt shaker, so it is a bit odd that one is included. I can't speak to the quality of the shaker or reason for including it because my MP4 version (obviously) does not come with a salt shaker.
I think they should have left the salt shaker out and cut the price (a lot) . . . $50 bucks is pretty steep for a one trick DVD. If it came with some sort of special gimmick or something needed to perform the trick that was hard to come by then maybe $50 could be justified, but a salt shaker? Weird.
Final Thoughts
As I mentioned at the beginning, I love the props used. For the record, I'm not anti-cups-and-balls even if the cups are weird. I was just merely pointing out that this particular routine is so beautiful and the fact that the props are so normal that the magic is further amplified and that much more amazing. The appearance of the three coins is beautiful. The vanishes and reappearances are incredible. I saw the performance several times and every time, I "fell for" the misdirection. It's soooooo solid and the entire choreography of the performance is so motivated and so streamlined. I just can't think of another word besides "beautiful" to describe it.
The routine is essentially coins being produced from grains of salt in your hand and vanishing into (or changing into) salt, so it's a bit messy . . . salt gets everywhere. I kind of think that's a cool thing. It adds a pinch of chaos into the pristine-ness of the routine. Further, if you wanna shake things up and exercise your sleight of hand chops, this routine is exactly what you're looking for.
I truly think that if you do any kind of coin work, you really should have this DVD. If it weren't for the steep price tag, I'd have given this 5 stars. You have to decide if it's worth it to you, and the bummer is that the teaser doesn't really show you the routine, so it's hard to judge whether or not you'll like it. As for me and my house . . . we love it. It's beautiful coin magic that has the real strong possibility of becoming a reputation maker.
Final Verdict:
4 Stars with a Stone Status of GEM.