Spider Pen Pro
Mesika, Yigal
Yigal Mesika
"It's hard to imagine so much efficient ingenuity in such a small space. Yigal's Spider Pen Pro is absolute perfection. And it produces absolute miracles." - Jim Steinmeyer
In 2004, the original Spider Pen became a classic magical instrument. Due to the worldwide popularity, Yigal Mesika has honed the original concept to once again reinvent the reel. The Spider Pen Pro is nothing short of a revolutionary electronic device because it is the first to feature patented Soul Technology. This break through technology allows you to take your mind off of the method and lets you focus on your magic, giving you the undeniable edge for mastering levitations and animations. From the leading brand in the art of levitations comes the new gold standard in IT reels. When you put your hands on the state of the art engineering in the Spider Pen Pro, your levitations and animations will look like Hollywood's special effects. Nothing else comes close.
"It's outstanding!" - Finn Jon
Imagine yourself in a casual conversation. You ask for ANY bill. A levitation is about to happen, but never has a levitation happened like this. You place the flat bill on the palm of your hand and cover it with the other hand. Your hands move apart, and somehow the borrowed bill is floating. With a gentle touch, the bill flips in the air, and you walk away leaving it in mid air. Yes, you walk away. No explanation is possible. Under your power the bill slowly falls on the floor, laying motionless. Only when you desire, for the final climax the bill levitates in a flowing motion all the way into your hands. With this underground levitation, you will receive an unbelievable reaction!
Used on TV by top magicians like Cyril, Criss Angel, and many more!
Watch and learn as Yigal Mesika himself guides you through the basics of levitation to bring you to an exceptional level of performance. You will learn his signature effects, tips, and subtleties; that will make you feel like you are receiving his live personal coaching.
Effects:
- Zero Gravity Bill
- Terry Lunceford's Floating Finger Ring
- Floating Straw
- Walking Bill
Spider Pen Pro Features:
- The first electronic reel with no buttons or manual switches
- Powered by an electric micro motor
- No noise - completely silent
- Operates with one AAA battery that will last you easily over a year (one performance a day, battery not included.)
- Walk up to 35 feet away from floating objects
- Constant perfect even tension means no more bouncing objects
- No springs or rubber bands - Lets you pull AS MUCH I.T. AS YOU NEED!
- Changing the spool is as easy as 1-2-3
- A real writing pen with refillable ink
- Made of premium quality steel with a chrome finish.
- Exchangeable pen clip - easily swap for another color
- Locking Method- Levitate and animate even heavier objects
- Comes with a DVD running approx. 60 minutes shot in HD.
- The only Magic Device with 3 patents
- MADE IN THE USA
- The Spider Pen Pro is easy to master and always ready to go.
- Unlike any other reel
- You have nothing to hide.
- Versatile
- Perform sleeveless
- No assistants necessary.
- Perform completely surrounded!!!
"Yigal Mesika has done it again. The Spider Pen Pro will prove a boon to the art of levitation. Always ready. Always under your control. It's positively supernatural." - Luis De Matos
"Your handlings on the Floating Bill are the best I've seen - they look like real live Hollywood special effects!" - John Kennedy
Reviews
(Top ▲)
On the DVD Mr. Mesika explains how the pen is constructed, the various components, how they fit together, resetting it when the thread breaks and how to activate the pen. He also teaches what he describes is a sure fire way to hook the thread to wax to make sure it doesn’t come unattached. His instructions are clear and thorough, though I found turning the pen on to be a bit confusing and difficult. Activating it requires squeezing a chamber to make contact with the battery, and while I got the pen to work, it didn’t work consistently. I also had trouble with the thread breaking within a few seconds of using it. This happened three times in a row. To be honest, I’m not an expert with IT, and when I reviewed online forums I didn’t find anyone else with a similar experience, but this would suggest the pen is not intended for novices, but for the experienced user of IT.
Mr. Mesika goes on to teach several effects with the Spider Pen Pro, including two versions of the floating bill, a floating straw and a floating ring. A bonus effect is mentioned in the menu, but it’s misleading as it simply consists of Mr. Mesika mentioning the pen can be used in a PK touches routine, with no handling or approach mentioned. The bill and straw routines are fairly standard, though the ring routine is quite clever and will fool even an astute spectator (Mr. Mesika credits Terry Lunceford for the ring routine.)
What differentiates the Spider Pen Pro from other ITR’s is that the motor allows for a constant tension and for there to be a great distance between the performer and the anchor. While this is impressive, many performers will never need these particular features. For example, Mr. Mesika mentions that on the street he’ll anchor the thread to a confederate’s cell phone as they film him, or on stage he’ll attach it to the microphone stand. If you find yourself in either of these situations and would like to perform a levitation, this is probably the perfect solution for you. But if you’d just like to float a bill in a close up situation, there are certainly cheaper and equally reliable solutions.
One other feature of the pen is that the motor will automatically turn off after 30 seconds if there’s no movement of the thread. On the DVD Mr. Mesika mentions this to warn performers not to sit still as the floating object will drop suddenly, mid performance. However, if one were to incorporate this feature in a routine, it could be quite amazing, as one of the challenges with thread work is disconnecting the movement of the object from the movement of the performer. If, without moving, the object suddenly dropped, then just as mysteriously rose in the air again, this could become a feature of the routine.
Mr. Mesika is clearly a master of invisible thread, and motorized applications of it. If you are looking for a powerful, reliable, unobtrusive, motorized ITR, this could be for you. To know if this is for you, look at the applications you have in mind. If they require the abilities listed above, this device is a home run. If, on the other hand, you’re just looking to add an IT effect to your repertoire, there are many less expensive options. I’d also recommend taking a look at the work of Gaeton Bloom, David Regal, and Jon Allen, among others, for inspiration.
(Top ▲)
For $150 bucks you get a motorized ITR with 3 patented technologies that make for some absolutely incredible levitations and animations.
Take a look at the trailer and you'll see levitation and animation effects that you wouldn't normally think you could do with ITR. In fairness however, these techniques could be applied to any thread work, but you'll learn them here on the included DVD.
Negatives:
The DVD cover lists the length of the DVD at 60 minutes . . . not true. It's only 42 minutes and that includes the credits, the trailer, the FBI warning and the sales pitch he gives for Spider Pen Pro accessories.
The ad copy states:
"With a gentle touch, the bill flips in the air, and you walk away leaving it in mid air. Yes, you walk away."
While this is not entirely untrue, it's very misleading. It would be easy to infer that you are walking away and not coming back all the while leaving a bill suspended in mid air." You can back up a few feet from the bill, but you can't really walk away.
Additionally, the ad copy states that you can walk up to 35 away from the floating object. That is also not true. The reel that comes with the pen comes with 35 feet of thread, so unless you're bill is floating at your anchor point and you're planning on completely unreeling the entire thread reel, it's more realistic to say that you can walk about 15 - 20 or so feet away.
Upon opening the package and examining the pen, merely attempting to pull out a length of thread caused the thread to break. While attempting to fix it, I discovered about a foot or two of the thread had wax residue on it making things much more visible, so I had to break off the exposed thread.
The wax included is very sticky and messy and left residue all over the pen, so I would definitely recommend getting a different type of wax. Additionally, the DVD chapters where in an odd order. There were several segments that teach you how to use the device, how to fix the thread, how to use it, how to hook it up, etc. However, they were interspersed throughout the tricks and trick teaching section. It would have been much cleaner and much clearer had they put all of the "care of gimmick" sections together in the beginning. Working with the pen is not as intuitive as you might think, so having the information together would have been very beneficial.
Each of the effects are taught using visible thread except for one. It was very hard to follow the hook up and the manipulation of the thread without the use of visible "teaching" thread. Incidentally, this is the effect where you can "walk away" from the bill. During this effect, Mesika says that as you back up, count your steps. He never says why or what you do with that information, so I'm not sure the point of telling us this.
This pen is supposedly a working pen that you can use to write with. However, it's very unclear how your get then pen tip in a position to write. The tip is retracted into the pen, and there's no instructions on how to un-retract it (for the lack of a better word). I finally figured out that you have to twist the very bottom tip of the pen which is a bit awkward to do and causes the actual gimmick to unscrew. In my opinion, I would not consider this a working pen. Getting the ink in and out just doesn't work. Additionally, in one of the sections regarding pen care, he talks about how to replace the ink cartridge which is about a third of the length of a standard ink stick you might find in a BIC pen. His explanation:
get a pen stick from a stationary story and cut it down to size
Have you ever done that? It leaves an inky mess everywhere and you're left with a short ink stick that has ink pouring out of the non-tip end. He does not address this at all. He just shows a short ink stick that is about half full of ink. It looked custom made to me. I'm not sure that his advice for cutting an ink stick and inserting it is legitimate advice. But I guess that doesn't really matter since you'll never be able extract the ink tip anyway. Thus you won't be able to use it to write, and therefore will never run out of ink in the first place.
Lastly, there is a "hidden" menu item that briefly mentions that you could use the reel for a P.K. Touch effect. He doesn't demo it. He doesn't show it. He barely explains how it might work in less than a minute run time on the DVD.
Oh . . . and P.S. Battery Not Included.
As you can see, this project has a lot of "issues" ranging from slightly visible to extremely visible. For $150 you have the right to expect more. However, there are a lot of positives as well.
Positives:
First, the technology used in the pen is brilliant and overcomes some problems with past reels (motorized or otherwise). There are no switches to activate the motor. It just "knows" when to turn on and turn off. It's very smart technology. The thread is pretty darn invisible and pretty strong. The effects taught on the DVD are amazing. I really like the fact that the pen is pretty innocent looking. It's above suspicion. For all intents and purposes, it's a reel that does what all of those kinds of reels do. However, the tension management "system" is smart and will allow your thread to last longer. Its automatic retraction motor is very smart and unlike any ITR that I've heard of (motorized or otherwise). I've never been much of a thread guy. However, after playing around with this, I'm planning on working on a couple of routines that will utilize it. Here's why:
What I don't like about traditional ITRs is that the longer the thread pulled out, the more tension and wear and likelihood of breakage you have. Not so with this one. So the thread will last longer, and the animations look better because of the more even tension.
Another thing I don't like about thread work (particularly reels) is that the floating object tends to bounce a bit (a tension issue). Again, with this reel you have more control. The pen is light weight, looks nice, and the reel works very well. The real question is would I use it and/or would I pay $150 for it. This is the first reel I've seen where I was interested in trying thread work again, so would I use it? Yes. Is it worth $150? I'm not sure that I'd pay that much for it only because I don't think I'd use it enough because I'm not much of a thread worker, as mentioned. However, if you're a thread person I can definitely see this as a valuable tool.
Looking at all of the negatives, you'll notice that none of them were about the pen's ability to do its job. They were either about the initial set up of the pen or the DVD or teaching, etc. So the pen is solid overall, but I'm just not sure that $150 is a reasonable price. Can I recommend the product in and of itself? Yes! Should you spend $150 on it? That's your call. You now know exactly what you're getting. Is it worth it to you?
Final Verdict:
3 Stars with a Stone Status of gem with a little "g."