Thought Card Balloon

THE BLURB:
Luca Volpe - His passion for magic began as a young child
upon receiving a magic gift box as a Christmas present.
Performing his first show at the early age of 12 the magic
career of Luca Volpe was born. After six years of performing
around Italy he became the youngest magician in the country
to be an National Television performing his stunning
manipulation and dove act. This led to other programs in
Italy such as Maurizio Costanzo Show. Uno Mattina, Buona
Domenica and many others on Mediaset and RAI. Volpe has
taken his show, "Feel the Real Magic", around the world
performing to astounded audiences on board luxury Cruise
liners, and for top-class Casinos and Hotels. He is the
first Italian magician to introduce street magic in Italy
with the highly praised DVD 'Mystica' and with his own show
on network satellite called IMAGINA (PLAY TV Sky Satellite)
Volpe has received the "Kayenna TV Award" for being the
first street performer in Italy to have produced a street
magic special. Also composer and songwriter, volpe uses
these skills in his show 'Feel the Real Magic' where the
elements of music, sleight of hand, dance and comedy are
fused with cutting edge illusion leaving the audience
spellbound.

Here is something amazing! Get ready to predict things
before they take place and not only that but having the
prediction inside a balloon, which is the ultimate symbol of
intact as nothing can pass in or out. Luca and Titanas bring
you the fundamentals and many bonuses for this incredible
mind boggling concept!

Imagine this:
You proceed to a complete stranger and hand them a balloon,
ask them their name and also to name any card they want.
They do so and you ask them to give the balloon a shake.
They will hear something inside. You burst the balloon and
inside there is only one card, which of course matches the
freely selected card, with the spectator's name written on
it. That is just a small sample of what is possible with
this wonderful concept.

Luca created an amazing DVD with so many ideas utilizing an
old concept from the past and brought it to 2009. He
succeeded to created many practical professional routines.

Running Time Approximately 44min

MY COMMENTS:
Luca Volpe has certainly fleshed out the handling and the
effect is very strong and very visual. However, the key to
this is that it's not only an old concept, but it's a pretty
obvious solution, especially if you're familiar with card in
balloon work, such as Mark Jenest or Greg Arce.

There are two major effects in this DVD. The first is the
title effect, "Thought of Card in Balloon." Unfortunately,
you can't do this walkaround as you need to have a briefcase
that contains an essential gimmick to the working of the
effect. But any card named can appear in the balloon and
it's as clean as the blurb claims. Included at the end of
the DVD are other versions that enable you to do a
walkaround version, or versions that don't require a
briefcase. The difference is that in these other versions
the deck of cards is visible and one card is openly selected
or thought of, as opposed to having it merely be completely
thought of and be the only card seen during the routine.

The other major effect is a fairly straightforward version
of the classic Confabulation. But the prediction is not in
a wallet; it's in a balloon. And, as long as you have the
balloons and a notebook prepared and handy (along with a pin
to pop the balloon), this can be repeated and done as
walkaround or even "impromptu." A final requirement is that
you need to wear a coat so that you can temporarily put the
notebook away in the coat pocket. One other point is that
Keith Barry has been using this as a major component of his
show for quite some time. Keith has nothing to do with this
DVD and I'm pretty sure this is just a case of independent
invention.

These two routines take up about the half the running time
on the DVD. The remaining minutes are filled with a
potpourri of ideas. There's variations including have a
signed name on a card in a balloon, as well as the
non-briefcase versions mentioned above. I found these ideas
to be rather obvious and derivative, although they are
definitely useable and certainly add value to the DVD. They
also save you the time of coming up with a variation that
will suit your performance.

The bottom line is that this is a very strong routine, and
you certainly get what's advertised, but any experienced
mentalist can easily deduce the workings and the handlings as
they are based on old and obvious principles. Once again, I
remind you that Keith Barry has been using this in his stage
show, so that definitely should be a consideration if you
want to put it into a formal show.