Price$30.00
Media TypeTrick, DVD
CategoryGeneral, Close Up
Date AddedAug 06, 2016
Cool Cash - DVD
Sheets, John
Kozmomagic Inc.
(Based on 1 review)
Cool Cash: Two bills, of different denominations, visibly change places between the magician's hand and the spectator's hand. COOL CASH looks incredibly visual, impossible, and clean.
Atomic Bills: Two bills, of different denominations, visibly change places between the magician's hand and the spectator's hand. The bills can be borrowed, signed, and you end totally clean.
Double Atomic Bills: Two bills, of different denominations, magically change places between the hands of two spectators. The bills can be signed and you end totally clean.
Time is Money: Two bills, of different denominations, visibly change places between the magician's hand and the spectator's hand. Then the bill held by the magician vanishes and reappears under the spectator's watch.
Funny Money: A borrowed bill visibly changes to any other bill of any denomination or currency. The bill can then be handed out and you end totally clean.
High Roller: A borrowed one dollar bill magically changes into a ten dollar bill; then a twenty; then a fifty; and finally a one hundred dollar bill! You end clean and the one hundred dollar bill can be immediately handed out.
PLUS: Homing Bills and the Smack Bill Change.
Reviews
(Top ▲)
There have been a lot of bill change effects on the market over the years and almost every year, there are at least two or three new ones that are released. This DVD has eight (8) different changes on it. How does it fare? We will explore that now!
First things first: The DVD as always with Kozmo has perfect video, audio and lighting quality. The menu on the disc is easy to navigate but there is no Play All button. From the main menu you click on the effect you want to watch, which takes you to a sub menu where you can choose to watch the performance (6 out of the 8 all have a performance video - more on that in a minute), the gimmick construction, how to use it and a few of them have handling variations or other ideas, but again, no Play All button. One thing I did appreciate in the absence of the Play All button was that after each clip ends, it takes you back to the sub menu instead of the main menu, so that was a plus. The ad copy is good and the video trailer is honest - all of the changes here can be performed in the real world.
Along with the DVD you also get a bunch of the gimmick material and there is enough to make each of the gimmicks seen on the DVD. You even get a glue stick! The only thing you need to supply are the monetary notes.
A quick aside: While watching this try and count how many times John can say the words 'favor' and 'perfect'.......
One thing that you will notice very quickly is that the changes taught on this DVD are better for what some might call "extreme" close-up, magic that you would perform for 1-4 people. This is not to do with the quality of the gimmicks (because that depends on how well YOU make them) but rather with the fact that the bills are folded into 8ths and the changes happen with them folded into 8ths. This does not mean the changes are weak because most of them are very strong, but they will not play to a larger crowd.
The main gimmick used for most of the effects is not really a new idea and it will be quite familiar to many of you that have used the bill changes like the old Atomic Bill Change (which is also the name of one of the changes on this DVD but it is a bit different from the marketed version). There are also a couple of the changes that use the aforementioned gimmick with a slight alteration to it, making it work a different way.
John does a good job of teaching you how to make the gimmicks, but in the DVD to save time, he does not line everything up perfectly (not that you can really tell). You just need to make sure that in making the gimmicks, you take your time to line everything up neatly (as he reminds you a few times to do). None of the changes are hard to do and with some of them, he shows you a couple of different ways to handle the bill for the changes. There are two items on this DVD for which you will not see a performance, but they can be used in the real world.
The nice thing about these changes is that you can use any demoniations that you want and you can use foreign currencies. The Australian and Canadian poly notes might present a challenge, but I have never tried making gimmicks like this with them so I cannot acertain whether they will work or not. All of the presentations here use real bank notes, but if you wanted to, you could do some of them using a check, a piece of newspaper or even fake/Monopoly money. Most of the "changes" on these DVDs are not a straight change from one bill to another (like a bill switch) but rather, they are part of a transposition effect. For example: You show a U.S. $1 note and a U.S. $5 note, give one to your audience participant to hold and you take the other; your bill is changed into the one they are holding and they open their hand to find the one you were previously holding.
One of the changes on the DVD is quite appropriately named High Roller. This is a multiple-change that (at least on the DVD) is starts as a U.S. $1 note, changing into $10, $20, $50 and finally a $100 note. If you build the gimmick using the same notes that John does, you will spend $82/USD to make it, not including, of course, the $100 bill finale (which is a nice ending but you COULD end with the $50 bill). While this can seem expensive to some it is not as expensive as say, using Extreme Burn (or either of its variations) to change 1s into 100s. I point this one out in particular because it was interesting for the way that, although the bill changes while folded into 8ths, each change was fully visible and no part of the bill is obscured.
With most of the changes you end clean except where a gimmicked bill is used rather than just a removable gimmick. For an example I will use the High Roller again. The bill that changes from $1 to $10 to $20 to $50 is gimmicked and if you end with the change to the $100 bill, you will end clean. However, if you choose to end with the $50, you will have to switch the gimmick for an ungimmicked $50 bill in order to end clean.
One thing to clear up: Where you do use a whole bill that is gimmicked (the gimmick is permanently attached to the bill), it is shown so cleanly and fairly that it really is not necessary to handle it out, especially with the way that the effect is routined, so I do not think that is something you should ever have to worry about.
Overall the effects in here are good and you will have enough to pick from to suit your style. You just have to remember that these are better suited to smaller groups of 1-4 people, unless you are on stage and have the benefit of projection screens, they just will not play to large crowds.
HIGHLY recommended!
First things first: The DVD as always with Kozmo has perfect video, audio and lighting quality. The menu on the disc is easy to navigate but there is no Play All button. From the main menu you click on the effect you want to watch, which takes you to a sub menu where you can choose to watch the performance (6 out of the 8 all have a performance video - more on that in a minute), the gimmick construction, how to use it and a few of them have handling variations or other ideas, but again, no Play All button. One thing I did appreciate in the absence of the Play All button was that after each clip ends, it takes you back to the sub menu instead of the main menu, so that was a plus. The ad copy is good and the video trailer is honest - all of the changes here can be performed in the real world.
Along with the DVD you also get a bunch of the gimmick material and there is enough to make each of the gimmicks seen on the DVD. You even get a glue stick! The only thing you need to supply are the monetary notes.
A quick aside: While watching this try and count how many times John can say the words 'favor' and 'perfect'.......
One thing that you will notice very quickly is that the changes taught on this DVD are better for what some might call "extreme" close-up, magic that you would perform for 1-4 people. This is not to do with the quality of the gimmicks (because that depends on how well YOU make them) but rather with the fact that the bills are folded into 8ths and the changes happen with them folded into 8ths. This does not mean the changes are weak because most of them are very strong, but they will not play to a larger crowd.
The main gimmick used for most of the effects is not really a new idea and it will be quite familiar to many of you that have used the bill changes like the old Atomic Bill Change (which is also the name of one of the changes on this DVD but it is a bit different from the marketed version). There are also a couple of the changes that use the aforementioned gimmick with a slight alteration to it, making it work a different way.
John does a good job of teaching you how to make the gimmicks, but in the DVD to save time, he does not line everything up perfectly (not that you can really tell). You just need to make sure that in making the gimmicks, you take your time to line everything up neatly (as he reminds you a few times to do). None of the changes are hard to do and with some of them, he shows you a couple of different ways to handle the bill for the changes. There are two items on this DVD for which you will not see a performance, but they can be used in the real world.
The nice thing about these changes is that you can use any demoniations that you want and you can use foreign currencies. The Australian and Canadian poly notes might present a challenge, but I have never tried making gimmicks like this with them so I cannot acertain whether they will work or not. All of the presentations here use real bank notes, but if you wanted to, you could do some of them using a check, a piece of newspaper or even fake/Monopoly money. Most of the "changes" on these DVDs are not a straight change from one bill to another (like a bill switch) but rather, they are part of a transposition effect. For example: You show a U.S. $1 note and a U.S. $5 note, give one to your audience participant to hold and you take the other; your bill is changed into the one they are holding and they open their hand to find the one you were previously holding.
One of the changes on the DVD is quite appropriately named High Roller. This is a multiple-change that (at least on the DVD) is starts as a U.S. $1 note, changing into $10, $20, $50 and finally a $100 note. If you build the gimmick using the same notes that John does, you will spend $82/USD to make it, not including, of course, the $100 bill finale (which is a nice ending but you COULD end with the $50 bill). While this can seem expensive to some it is not as expensive as say, using Extreme Burn (or either of its variations) to change 1s into 100s. I point this one out in particular because it was interesting for the way that, although the bill changes while folded into 8ths, each change was fully visible and no part of the bill is obscured.
With most of the changes you end clean except where a gimmicked bill is used rather than just a removable gimmick. For an example I will use the High Roller again. The bill that changes from $1 to $10 to $20 to $50 is gimmicked and if you end with the change to the $100 bill, you will end clean. However, if you choose to end with the $50, you will have to switch the gimmick for an ungimmicked $50 bill in order to end clean.
One thing to clear up: Where you do use a whole bill that is gimmicked (the gimmick is permanently attached to the bill), it is shown so cleanly and fairly that it really is not necessary to handle it out, especially with the way that the effect is routined, so I do not think that is something you should ever have to worry about.
Overall the effects in here are good and you will have enough to pick from to suit your style. You just have to remember that these are better suited to smaller groups of 1-4 people, unless you are on stage and have the benefit of projection screens, they just will not play to large crowds.
HIGHLY recommended!