Annemann's Practical Mental Effects Vol. 3
Richard Osterlind
Jim Sisti
Annemann's Practical Mental Effects has been a landmark book for magicians and mentalists since its release in 1944. The routines that are contained in its pages have been influencing mystery performers for over 75 years.
This exciting new DVD series explores the work of Annemann and his Jinx contributors in a scholarly way, analyzing not only the presentation of some of the strongest mentalism ever created but also the thinking behind the effects. Richard Osterlind first performs the effects in their original form before an audience of non-magicians and then very nuance is exhaustively explained with the assistance of Jim Sisti.
Effects performed and explained in this volume include:
- Mindreading Publicity Effect
- The Brain Wave Deck
- Half and Half
- Two Papers and a Spectator
- Graphology
- The Al Baker 3 Billet Trick
- Triple Coercion
- Devil Device
Reviews
(Top ▲)
If you want to know what is in the pages of Annemann’s Practical Mental Effects but are too lazy to read, then this DVD set will give you a very good introduction.
Richard has culled a good sampling of tricks from the book. He demonstrates them for a live audience and then sits with Jim Sisti and explains them very well. I think in keeping with the flavor of the book, Richard demonstrates the tricks with little presentation. You are simply seeing the bare bones. I like this, in the fact that you are only concentrating on the methods and not so apt to copy a presentation that you see. It will be up to you to come up with engaging presentations.
For people who have studied this book and hoarded its secrets like a jealous 1849 gold digger, it is horrific to see these secrets paraded out in the daylight. As has been said many times, if you want to keep a secret just put it in print. This is how Practical Mental Effects as been for last few decades. Everyone knows about it and owns it, but few people have read it. Now, Richard Osterlind has churned out three DVDs sharing the secrets that have been hiding in plain sight for so many years.
Is it worth the money. Sure. Richard does a fine job of demonstrating the tricks within the pages of this mighty tome. You can spend the money and watch them. That’s good. Or . . . you can read the book . . . even better.
(Top ▲)
How Shall I Judge?
This whole set is a weird set to judge and review. It's not quite fair to judge Richard Osterlind on any weak parts of the performance he may have had because, likely, most of the stuff on this set is not in his regular repertoire so I don't expect it to be polished. Secondly, according to Jim Sisti (co-host), this set also was not intended to be a "best of" series either, so I can't really judge the set based on whether or not the material chosen was the top Annemann stuff either. Due to the way the Annemann book was written (as Osterlind and Sisti point out), it wouldn't make sense to go chapter by chapter (like Osterlind did for the Corinda series), so I can't really judge the set on how "complete" (or not) it is.
So, that leaves me judging the set based on the ad copy claims and the intent (according to Jim Sisti) of the set. My judgement on that is basically the same for the first 3 videos, so this part of the review will be found at the beginning of each of the three (1, 2 and 3) volumes. Following my general comments about the series, you'll find my thoughts on the effects of whichever DVD I'm reviewing.
General Comments About the Whole Set
A small disclaimer: Jim Sisti is a friend of mine and Richard Osterlind is a cyber-acquaintance of mine. We have a few friends in common (Jim Sisti, Jim Spinnato and Chet Cox). But as you'll quickly see, those relationships have not biased my review. Let's look at the ad copy first. The first paragraph of the ad copy is 100% true. It just talks about how popular the book is amongst mentalists and magicians. Let's look, however, at the second paragraph:
This exciting new DVD series explores the work of Annemann and his Jinx contributors in a scholarly way, analyzing not only the presentation of some of the strongest mentalism ever created but also the thinking behind the effects. Richard Osterlind first performs the effects in their original form before an audience of non-magicians and then [e]very nuance is exhaustively explained with the assistance of Jim Sisti.
Exciting? Not really. While some of the performances were smoother and more entertaining than others, many of the performances were full of awkward moments, dry boring silence, a fair share of bumbling and fumbling. However, I'm not too upset by that. As I mentioned, these are not effects that Osterlind performs on a regular basis, as far as I know up to this point. And the ones that he does perform more often . . . it showed. Those routines were much more polished. I'm merely pointing out that the DVD was not as exciting - it was even hard to watch at times - as the ad copy claims.
Is the material explored in a scholarly way as stated in the ad copy? Yes. Definitely. Sisti and Osterlind were very clear on credits and history and the reasoning behind methods and effects. This part was well done. Additionally, the opening sequence of each DVD is a cool little photo montage with a brief voice over bio about Annemman. Very cool. Obviously the claim that the material from the Annemann book is some of the strongest mentalism ever created is true as well. For sure.
Next the ad copy states that Osterlind performs each effect in their original form. This is not true in many (maybe even most) cases. In just about every routine, he changed the handling, method, prop and in some cases even the effect. For the most part this wasn't a big deal because that's just the way it goes; performers don't always use the exact method from the book. In some cases, Osterlind's addition made the effect even better in my opinion. There were some cases where his insight on the modification of the method where very simple and very clever.
I merely bring up the changes because it goes against the claim in the ad copy. Further, the claim that every nuance is exhaustively explained is just not true. In fact, on more times than I care to recall, Osterlind said, "if you want the details you can look it up in the book." Or, "I'm not gonna cover this in depth because you can get the details from the book." And several variations thereof.
So, you may ask yourself, why I get so hung up on scrutinizing the ad copy. Simple: when you buy a product, you should know what you're getting. I'm not even saying (necessarily) that the deviation from the ad copy is right or wrong. I'm merely making clear to you, my faithful reader, what you're really getting if you buy this set. If I based my review solely on the above, I'd be hard pressed to give much more than 2.5 stars, but wait . . . there's more.
Let's examine the purpose. According to the discussions (which I did find valuable and insightful) between Osterlind and Sisti, the intent of this set is to inspire people to dig through the book. They were very clear that they weren't trying to replace the book. They were trying to inspire a new generation of Annemannites. Based strictly on the impact the majority of the effects seemed to have on the audience (poor performances not withstanding), I think they nailed this one.
I've personally read the book 2 times from cover to cover and have skimmed and read chapters and studied parts of the book several times over, on top of the 2 full readings. Yet, after watching these DVDs, I now want to go back in and dig even deeper into the book. Most of the time, the audience members were quite astonished and in many cases actually creeped out a bit. It was some powerful stuff. One of the advantages of Osterlind's bare-bones presentations on much of this material is that it gave me the opportunity to project my thoughts and feelings on how I might perform the effects.
Further, a goal of this set was to prove that the material was not "dated." Yep. They proved that too. The material, effects, etc. is anything but dated. Rather, it's timeless . . . and you see this very clearly in the audience reactions. Were I to judge this DVD soley on this part (how well they attained the goals of the project), it'd be hard to give this anything less than 4 stars. So the advertisement and intent seem to balance out each other pretty well.
What you'll find is that pretty much every DVD has one or two standout items that will inspire you to dive into the book more thoroughly. Which effects will inspire you? Everyone is different, so it's hard to say. However, I am confident that you will find at least one effect that "moves" you and gets you to crack open the book again which was their goal. And I must say, that goal alone makes this DVD set worthy of consideration. Anything that inspires us to turn to our roots so that we can branch out is valuable in my book. Let's move on to the DVD at hand . . .
Thoughts on Volume III
Thanks for coming along with me on The Ride (thank you David Allan Coe). It's a bit of a task to make sure that these reviews on this set are fair and honest. I've watched each one 2 to 3 times . . . whew! Here goes volume 3.
Mindreading Publicity Effect (4.5 stars)
The impact on this audience: SOLID! The effect is direct and straight forward and the method is pretty dang solid too. There's just a minor bit of fidgety-ness that would need some better structuring that was shown on the DVD, but you must add this to your repertoire. No prep is needed. Just use a borrowed newspaper and go. From there, the spectator freely chooses a page and tears a small piece of it out (you can be out of the room when she does). Then she circles a word on the piece of paper . . . you divine it!
The Brain Wave Deck (5 stars)
It's the Brain Wave Deck . . . I think you all know it. But just in case, the basic effect is this: any card is freely named. Yet that is the only red card in your blue deck, and it's the only face up card in the deck. This uses a gimmicked deck that is marketed and can be found at any magic dealer. Osterlind has a nice touch on how to handle the color of the box that you use. If you're not familiar with the method, then that statement made no sense, but for those who know the method, you'll appreciate his thoughts on the box that the cards are in.
Half and half (5 stars)
This is another one of my favorites from the book. It's a standard "you think of something and I've predicted it" type of presentation. However, it has a nice visual element which is a rare thing in mentalism. Plus it has a nice little fun wrinkle that just feels cooler than your average effect, and finally, the potential for custom presentations is unlimited. Basically, you think of a few letters and write them on a slate. Then the spectator does the same on her own slate. Put the two together and they spell out a predicted word.
Two Papers and a Spectator (5 stars)
A perfect one on one reading that takes just about no technical skill, has built in misdirection and feels like real mind reading. Spectator writes down two things, one on each piece of paper . . . you divine them. It is that straightforward and you don't need anything but some paper and a pencil (or pen). The key here is to make sure the things you ask the spectator to write down are interesting and meaningful leading to very powerful presentations.
Graphology (4.5 Stars)
Another favorite of mine from the book. Several spectators write down the same sentence on a piece of paper. You then, by "analyzing" their hand writting, can tell who wrote which one. It feels real and with some simple study of actual graphology, you can have some killer ammunition for cold reading. I also like Osterlind's addition which is the sentence that he has them write on the paper. It's very clever and just adds a little umph to the routine and a fair bit of humor along with some excellent presentational potential.
The one weakness in this type of routine is how to end it. Once you've figured out who wrote 5 of the six slips, the last one is anti-climatic because you already know who it belongs to by process of elimination. There are ways to do that, and Richard's presentation kind of scratched the surface, but it would have been nice to see a bit more in depth discussion on the subject. The effect is 5 stars, but the aforementioned missing info makes it's overall impact as far as the DVD is concerned a 4.5.
The Al Baker 3 Billet Test (4.5 stars)
Three cards and three divinations. Three freely selected (in fact one of the cards is merely thought of) cards are divined. Each revelation builds and is more impossible than the previous. Also, as in many of these routines, you see Richard's acting skills come through and his experience in dealing with mistakes and goof ups (from the audience). This is a very valuable study in methodology and effect and presentation.
Triple Coercion (4.5 stars)
Three things are thought of you reveal that you knew ahead of time what they would be by opening a sealed envelope that has your prediction in it. Simple effect, simple method. Richard added some nice elements to again make the effect a little more colorful.
Devil Device (4.5 stars)
This is crazy clean. Spectator writes down anything on a business card. They place it face down in a box sitting on the table. It requires that a special box be created. Richard had a beautiful wooden box crafted. This effect is only for a one on one reading, and you really should justify the use of the box. But the method is so sneaky and so clean that it will feel like real mind reading. It can be used for a Q&A or whatever you want.
Final Thoughts
The effects seem to keep getting higher averages as we progress through this series. This round, we've got an average of 4.7. The variety off effect and simplicity of method in this DVD makes for a solid set of effects, and the goal of inspiring interest in Annemann has very much been achieved I think. However, due to the fact that for two of the effects (25%) you have to either buy a gimmick or build a gimmick, I'm going to round down just a hair. I've given you a lot of information for you to base your decision on. I think it's been very fair and very accurate. The final decision is up to you.
Final Verdict:
4.5 Stars with a Stone Status of Gem