"Open Traveller" DVD by David Acer
Suggested Retail USD$30.00
Available from your favorite dealer
In a Blink: 9 Out of 10

"Open Traveller", the DVD re-release of a 2003 video by David Acer, scores big with some great effects, as different as they are magical, and have survived the test of time in spades. Or, in other words, this disc is packed with the kind of stuff we expect from David Acer.

I'll be honest and say up front that Acer's stuff has always appealed to me, ever since I stumbled onto his two-volume set of books, "Natural Selections". His thinking is always just a tad bit sideways, never over-the-top -- he keeps things commercial, after all -- but twisted enough to be interesting to those of us performing his material and magical enough to blow spectators away.

"Open Traveller" is packed with that kind of material (we'll get into that in a minute) but more than that we're treated to Acer on a road trip to a huge gig -- huge in size, huge in potential exposure (the good kind), and huge in headaches. The video diary of the trip is the gimmick here that drives the disc (sorry) and is just plain fun to watch, sometimes in a slightly sadistic way. It's a neat idea that works, pure and simple, and makes for an entertaining video.

Okay, so let's look at the material. There's some great stuff here -- lots more than a DVD collection usually has -- with nothing that isn't worth looking at, even if you never see yourself performing a particular routine. There's also a ton of stuff here, so we'll just hit the high points (a fancy way of saying, "Here are my favorite pieces").

First up, "Fresh Mint". Okay, so this is a switch of a piece of foil into a coin. That's also akin to saying a pass is a way to cut a deck of cards. Acer's handling here is gorgeous, done at the fingertips with a cover that takes absolutely nothing away from the magic. This one looks great and quickly became a favorite.

"Unflappable" snuck up on me. In this one, you show a matchbook, tear the flap off of it, rub it against your arm to generate some heat (and at this point I knew what was going on because I've been around the block some), and then restore the matchbook. Except it was so clean in handling I got floored and snookered at the same time. This is one that'll end up being done by a lot of people just because it's so simple and so slick.

"Coke Induced" I love for a lot of reasons but especially because it's typical Acer thinking. In this instance, the "Vanishing Coke Bottle" becomes a two-stage transformation, first with the Coke bottle cap changing to a beer bottle cap and then with the Coke bottle changing to a beer bottle. This is a really sweet idea.

So is "Mitosis", which is a weird prediction/coincidence effect. In this one, two spectators write down two large numbers on a pad, which are then added together by a third spectator, producing a number that is then dialed on a cell-phone and found to be the performer's cell phone number. This one is just weird.

There's a lot more, of course, including a couple of slick sleights ("The Twirl Double", a neat double-turnover, and "Rick Bronson's Spinner", a slick little "prover" of a double-lift) and yet more nice routines.

The material's great stuff, for sure, and Acer is a great teacher. Most of his stuff is quite simple -- an easy sleight here, a gimmick that does the work for you there -- and when the routines get a bit more complicated, Acer goes into all the details you'll need to pull them off as well as he does. Acer gets a big thumbs-up for his work here.

Over all, "Open Travellers" is full of really nice magic, taught exceedingly well, and if you're looking for something different, well, look no further than David Acer.

"Open Traveller" by David Acer
In a Blink: 9 Out of 10

Material: 10
Cards and coins and matchbooks and cellphones... As usual, Acer involves as wide a range of props as you could ever expect in a collection, and what he does with them is sometimes stunning, sometimes cute, but always worth looking at.

Practicality: 10
Acer's stuff is always, to use a phrase used too much already, "real-world": set-ups and resets are minor, angles aren't a worry, the things you carry around are small... even the sleights used are nothing major. Overall, this is very practical material.

Quality of Production: 5
Some sound drops, a bit of a problem with the lighting here and there, but overall nothing too bad; it's what you'd expect considering the living-room shoots.

Quality of Instruction: 10
I've always loved Acer's teaching style. He's laid-back, relaxed, joking, and incredibly thorough. You'll have no problem learning his material and you'll find yourself enjoying the learning as you go.

Presentation: 10
With Acer, it's all about being off-beat, and his material here certainly is that, whether it's the plot or the handling itself that makes it that way. On that score, the presentations here are decidedly different and interesting.


Shane

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