"Exit" DVD by Mickael Chatelain
Suggested Retail USD$55.00
Available from your favorite dealer
In a Blink: 3 Out of 10

"Exit", a DVD by Mickael Chatelain, is a neat idea but with too many practicality and presentational issues to make it worth the purchase except in the most rare of performing circumstances.

In a nutshell, "Exit" has a spectator picking a card from a deck, the card placed back in the deck and the deck placed in the box. A handkerchief (or your hand) is put in front of the deck. The selected card appears face up under the cellophane of the deck.

See? That's just cool. It's quick, it's visual, and it could fit in a million-and-one different routines.

And then you get into the details and things go from slick to repugnant pretty quickly.

The card cannot be signed. Now, sometimes this isn't a big issue, but, if this is truly (and I quote the ad here) "the perfect finale for the Ambitious Card routine", then the card simply has to be signed. Either that or your audience has to be completely dazzled into a mind-numbed state before you begin. So... no signed card or a forgiving audience if you try to use this with an "ambitious card" routine.

This can't be repeated with a different card without a lot -- and I do mean a lot -- of work. You'll need to make a different gimmick for each card, and you'll need time to go putting the different gimmicks into place as you perform. That pretty much eliminates this one from most strolling situations.

As for the gimmick itself, this isn't simple arts and crafts work here. Chatelain takes a while creating his on the DVD and, allowing for the explanation (which is pretty scant) and having all the materials at hand, it's an effort to put the thing together. You'll also destroy three card boxes per gimmick, so it gets fairly expensive after a while in term of time and money. And then there's the fact the gimmick just doesn't hold up all that well; you'll be replacing this one more than you want.

Then there are the angles, which are hard. Not impossible, certainly, but they are restrictive, probably too restrictive for most real-world performing situations.

So what are you left with? A neat idea that's hard to assemble and hard to find a place to perform.

And for the price, that makes this one something to pass by unless it's something you honestly can't live without.

"Exit" DVD by Mickael Chatelain
In a Blink: 3 Out of 10

Material: 1
The idea is a neat one, but with simply way too many drawbacks to be worth the price tag except to the true diehards in our midst. There are other, better climaxes for the "Ambitious Card" with all the baggage.

Practicality: 4
Angles are an issue, repeatability is an issue, pocket space is an issue... This is just not all that practical except for more formal venues.

Quality of Production: 4
It's a basic production, with some flaws in the navigation system thrown in.

Quality of Instruction: 5
Chatelain does well enough explaining how to make and use his gimmick, but some more ideas and some discussion of overcoming the gimmick's weaknesses would have been welcome.

Presentation: 1
Here's where it really falls apart. Unless your audience is very forgiving, an "Ambitious Card" with an unsigned card just doesn't cut it anymore. If this one could be done with a signed card and have the spectator remove it from the cellophane, this would be a magical marvel. At it is, it's just too weak to be a worker.


Shane

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