"Taylor Made Book Test" DVD by David Taylor
Suggested Retail USD$25.00
Available from your favorite dealer
In a Blink: 2 Out of 10

"Taylor Made Book Test", a video by David Taylor takes an idea (significantly, Taylor never credits the original creators) and moves it backwards by dispensing with specially-printed books and better hidden gaffs and never addresses the weakness of a method we'll call "his" (only to make things simple).

And that's the major problem here. How someone can take a superior working and reduce it by such a huge magnitude is staggering to me.

The original idea packed a punch because the gaff was so well hidden inside a specially printed book. The spectator could peruse the book, handle the book, and not run into the gaff (that's a little bit of hype; they could but it was extremely unlikely).

Taylor's rendition, a thing requiring you to key the book you're using with handwritten notations, prevents the spectator from handling the book or looking inside of it fully. Taylor's explanation if the notes are seen by the spectator -- that "everyone writes notes in books" -- doesn't fly. As someone who haunts used book stores for everything from cookbooks to science fiction and horror, I don't see many books with hand-written notes. Maybe it's a UK thing; I don't know. I do know that excuse wouldn't fly in my world.

If there is a plus to Taylor's idea, it's that it can be done with pretty much any book after you spend the half hour or so gaffing it. That makes it handy if you're weak on other methods and you really want to do a book test using a certain book you hold special to your routine. But that's about the only plus to it and even then there are better methods out there.

Perhaps that's why the decision to explain Hoy's book test on the DVD, to fill that gap that Taylor's thinking fails to, an ungaffed book test. If so, that should have been a clue that Taylor's idea needs a bit more work before it hit the market.

Thinking about "Taylor Made Book Test", I wondered who would benefit most from it. People who want to do an easy book test, but have little experience with the effect? No; Hoy's take would serve them better. Folks with more experience looking for a new methodology to take advantage of? Nope; not here. A complete beginner's book test, maybe? Nah; beginner's shouldn't be doing book tests anyway but, if they do, there are other methods they can cope with better than this one.

As near as I can tell, "Taylor Made Book Test" really benefits David Taylor most. Evidentally, he's made this into a spellbinding effect of epic proportions (from the ads anyway) through the crucible of fire that is a load of performances. It's a shame none of that translated through the video. If it had, this may have been something more than a re-hash of someone else's idea and worth looking at.

As it is, for a number of reasons, pass this one by.

"Taylor Made Book Test" by David Taylor
In a Blink: 2 Out of 10

Material: 1
Taylor's idea... isn't. It's been around for a while, admittedly using specially printed books. Taylor took the idea and actually reduced the use of it. True, he makes it workable with almost any book,but now a gaffed book is required that can't be examined or whose pages can't even be fully seen. Forget it. There are better methods out there.

Practicality: 1
You'll need to lug the book around, and for book tests usually that means you'll need to lug several around, but that's just the nature of the beast. What kills this one is simply not letting the spectator handle the book freely, if at all.

Quality of Production: 5
The sound is good, the video good... everything is about what you'd expect from a video.

Quality of Instruction: 5
The instruction is good enough, certainly, but it would have been nice to see more ideas and applications.

Presentation: 1
Without addressing the weaknesses of this one, there simply is no presentation.

Shane

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