"Casanova Concept" DVD by Steve Haynes
Suggested Retail USD$30.00
Available from your favorite dealer
In a Blink: 8 Out of 10

"Casanove Concept", a DVD by Steve Haynes, is one of those rare pieces of work that comes very close to revolutionizing card magic. Like the best of magic, it's a simple thing, easy to use, that produces the most mind-blowing of effects.

That's not hype, though I kind of wish it was; the likelihood of it making the rounds and getting snatched up by everyone and his brother would be greatly diminished. As it is, though, "Casanova Concept" is exactly what I said it was and more.

Essentially, "Casanova Concept" is a gimmick (easily made at home) that, combined with an excellent structure and careful routining, allows for some gorgeous works of impossibility with little need for sleights or the like. Put the gimmick into your deck (pretty much any deck), and you're ready to go with whatever you come up with.

Of course, the DVD has a few routines to play with, just to get your feet wet with the "Casanova Concept".

First up is "Casanova Closer". This one is a jaw-dropping, eye-popping masterpiece. Two cards are removed from the deck, a circle drawn on them, and the spectator signs them both within the circle. The spectator takes one of the cards and places it into their wallet and puts the wallet away.The other card is lost back in the deck somewhere. A magical moment later and the performer retrieves his wallet from his pocket, opens it, and there inside is the signed card that was lost in the deck. The performer offers to repeat this and opens his wallet again, revealing a face-down card. This card is removed and seen to be the other signed card, the one the spectator put in their wallet at the beginning of the effect. When the spectator checks their wallet, the card inside is the first card. A killer transportation becomes a killer transposition, all with genuinely signed cards, a spectator's wallet that is never touched except by them, and minimal sleight of hand. For the record, the version Hayne's uses requires a Mullica wallet or a similar type. Chances are that if you have a "card to wallet" wallet, it will work with this routine.

"Thru and Through" isn't what the ads hype it as, but it's good nonetheless. Forget "card thru window"; this is more "card through glass table". In fact, it's not clear how you could do this one through a window with the handling provided. Regardless, this is one very visual, very baffling penetration of a signed card. One second the signed card is held above the glass table top, the next second it's falling to the floor and through it all the card is face-up and spectator's signature in plain view. This is gorgeous and one of my favorites on the disc. It's also quite easy to do with only a little finger-flinging in sight.

"Homing on Easy Street" is, as you can guess, the "homing card" plot but it's oh-so-clean and oh-so-easy it's got to be seen to be believed. Oh, and the card disappears and reappears in your pocket twice. With no palming. This is one that will find its way into most acts; it's just that good.\

"Stroller Controller" is next, and it's different in a couple of ways. A card is chosen and signed on both sides before being lost in the deck. A card is removed from your pocket and, voila, it's their card. This is simple to do and packs a punch, but its workings are much different from others on the disc. It takes a bit more of a set-up, but reseting is quick and easy. The working here is the big thing; it's probably the one most open to development of other routines. But in its own right, it's a fine effect.

"Rip Trip" takes the "Casanova Concept" and applies it to business cards. A woman is drawn on your business card, the card ripped in two, and the card restored. There's not a whole lot to say about this one other than it's extremely quick and extremely slick and shows yet another different application of the principle.

"New Age Card To Wallet" is the "Casanova Closer" sans gimmicked wallet. It's pretty much identical to the gimmicked-wallet version, and certainly good enough if you don't have the necessary wallet, but if you plan on performing this professionally you'll be better off picking up the gimmicked wallet and performing that version.

Okay, so there are the routines. What else is there to say about "Casanova Concept"?

Well, just a couple of things.

First, the deck is ordinary except for the gimmicks; you'll need to add them and remove them to do much else with the deck (easily, anyway). This is a simple matter, though, so no real worry there. Also, the deck in play doesn't have to be one type or the other: you can use pretty much any deck you want.

Repeating is a bit of an issue but, again, a small issue. One deck will get the job done, but you'll want to carry around some spare cards (all that signing tends to burn through a deck pretty quickly -- nothing like working a couple of hours and your deck size starts to rival a packet trick). Anyone with any experience strolling or table-hopping already knows how to deal with this so, again, not a big issue.

There are some presentational pieces you'll need to address (they are discussed lightly on the disc). These are not drastic, but fall into the uneven realm of "Why Do That?" Forrest and Packard, teaching Hayne's material absolutely brilliantly, touch on these things but you'll likely want to come up with your own reasoning (the same as pretty much any other routine out there).

Speaking of Forrest and Packard... Every time these two get together on a disc, it boggles my mind how well they teach. They are no exception here. Thorough and funny and engaging and comical and yet still getting the points across perfectly, they are great to watch and learn from. If only the production had lived up to them. Performances are shot up angle, then down angle, then zooming in and out apparently at random. During the explanations, a cardboard face of Haynes keeps appearing and moving back and forth, covering the shot of Forrest and Packard. Yeah, yeah, I know all about style but when style comes so invasive it becomes distracting at best and annoying at worse, well, that's never a good thing.

Lastly, and I mean this in the best possible way, pretty much anything you do with "Casanova Concept" is a closer. You're going to really have to work to come up with something that follows this with a stronger impact. Open with something using the "Casanova Concept" at your own risk.

Now, something for the preciously picky... The basic idea of "Casanova Concept" has been playing with, tinkered with, released, and forgotten by too many people to mention (I've got a few attempts tucked away in storage in my basement from well-meanning folks who sold just such a thing). The problem is that the foundational idea has never been workable until now. What Haynes has done here is taken that old idea and explored it until there wasn't a piece of it that wasn't examined to death, then built a carefully crafted structure to it. Without that structure, without that routining, this simple would not work. That's Hayne's genius here and why "Casanova Concept" is all but a must-have for anyone into card magic.

"Casanova Concept" is revolutionary. It's powerful. It's often frightfully easy to work with and intriguing to play with. If you do card magic, and maybe even if you don't, you'll want to pick this one up and quickly so you can begin flooring the general populace as quickly as you can.

"Casanova Concept" DVD by Steve Haynes
In a Blink: 8 Out of 10

Material: 10
An old idea that's been playing with by many but only very rarely made workable, mixed with a brilliant routining and structure, make this something that is very close to revolutionizing card magic. The sheer amount of things you can do with Hayne's idea is as mind-blowing as his work itself.

Practicality: 8
You'll need to make a gimmick (a piece of that may require a trip to a store, but it's fairly common) and slip it into whatever deck you use, but otherwise the deck is just fine and ready for use in other effects. Repeating this in some situations will require some additional set-up and pocket space as well, but it's fairly easily dealt with.

Quality of Production: 5
There's a fine line between being stylish and being distracting and, unfortunately, that line got crossed here. Some parts of the demos and explanations are shot and edited in such a way as to be at times not only distracting but flat-out annoying. Otherwise, everything is perfect with this one.

Quality of Instruction: 10
David Forrest and Owen Packard take on the task of teaching Hayne's material and they do their typical excellent job. You'll have no problem learning any of this disc.

Presentation: 9
Hayne's material is so versatile that this is almost one of those "it is what you make of it" things, but that's short-changing Hayne's thinking. He wanted something unbelievably clean and impossible and he got it. There are some presentation problems you'll need to work through, but they are minor (and discussed on the DVD). All in all, this is some beautiful work.

Shane

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