Real Ace Cutting by Benjamin Earl and Vanishing Inc. is a standout project in a market that is flooded with new material on a monthly basis. This DVD gets the highest rating and joins its sister project, Real Coin Magic on my “to watch over and over” list. There is a reason that Earl has endorsements and high praise from fellow A-List magicians.
Real Ace Cutting costs $35 dollars and is worth every penny. The DVD is two hours and seven minutes and as I discuss below, I think Earl could easily have made it twice, if not three times as long. While this DVD is not for a novice, it is something that a beginner with some basic moves can learn from. Intermediate magicians will learn ace cutting moves and theory and pros will learn Earl’s psychology and flow, which to me is priceless.
Earl starts the DVD with performances from different angles. One from the spectator’s point of view and one from an over the performer’s shoulder point of view. It is quite amazing to watch him shuffle, cut and mix the card and then effortlessly produce the four aces from different parts of the deck at different times and with different revelations. He makes a process that can be somewhat predictable, repetitious and quite frankly boring, into a beautiful work of art.
During the DVD, Earl teaches how he controls the cards in his hands, on the table and what he does to throw off his audience, even if they are magicians. His shuffles, cuts, controls, and revelations look effortless, but will require some work to up your game.
Because Earl covers so much ground, at times you may feel like it is a bit rushed or not as detailed as it could have been. Notwithstanding the foregoing, I believe he struck a great balance between amount of material presented and the length of time needed to teach it. Had Vanishing Inc. wanted, they could easily have turned this into a 2 DVD set and gone over Earl’s mechanics in greater detail. Don’t mistake this comment to mean that he did not detail his moves, because he did and he did it as good as, if not better than anyone. Earl’s instruction is tremendous and the thought behind his work and the instruction is apparent.
This DVD may be one of the finest instructional DVD’s that I have in my collection and I promise to acquire anything else that bears his name in the future.
Real Ace Cutting gets the highest rating.
This instant classic can be purchased from any Murphy’s Magic dealer.