Christophe
I purchased Torn X out of curiosity, wanting to know how it was done and the method is certainly creative. This being said, the moments just prior and just subsequent to the restoration do present some technical hurdles that might be discouraging to the performer who is a novice both in terms of magic artistry and in terms of showmanship and audience management.
Add to that the fact that the download does not contain any real world performance of the effect and one may reasonably wonder if Torn X is actually workable in the real world.
For instance, without disclosing anything of the method, one can see from the trailer that the corner to be restored has perfectly neat edges, an inconsistency if you consider that, in the only handling demonstration (which is not filmed from an audience point of view), the piece is "torn" by hand. And, as we all know, even if you fold and crease a card and then tear a corner, you will never get edges that are, like the ones in this effect, "scissor neat" (in fact, to make things worse, in the inadequate handling run of the effect shown at the end of the download, the torn card is not even folded and the "torn" piece is supposedly just torn from the card by pulling at it as the card lies on the deck, which makes the very clean edges of the torn piece even more unprobable)
Also, neither the technical way to start the effect nor the clean up instantly following the restoration are offered in the download in any meaningful way. In truth, I don't think that the very summary look one gets of those in that one inadequate run of the full effect would fool many people if performed as is.
Of course, a more seasoned magician could, with some work, finish by themselves to structure this effect so as to make it workable in the real world.
All the same, it feels like one buys an unfinished product, without being told in advance that it is so, and despite the interesting method, which may well find applications outside of this effect (who knows? Magicians are a creative bunch after all), this is the first download I purchase here that feels like it was thrown onto the trader's shelf before it was ready for the real world.
Now, I know I have mostly highlighted flaws, here, and I want to reassure the creator of Torn X, Arnel L Renegado, that I am not criticising his work out of a misplaced need to be negative.
I have always admired human creativity in all its forms, an in particular those which I do not myself possess much, like technical and engineering creativity (I am an actor by training and my strengths lie in my performance skills).
So, despite my quite negative review, I truly appreciate the technical creativity that inspired Arnel to come up with this method and my comments are made in a spirit of encouragement so that, maybe, in any future effect, Arnel will address the issues I raised to ultimately bring us a fully fledged piece of magic that is ingenious but also leaves no doubt as to its workability in the real world.
I certainly would be among the first to purchase it.
