Alex Pandrea’s Brick Pass download (The Blue Crown)
 

My dad gave me access to Alex Pandrea’s Brick Pass download from The Blue Crown for my birthday. This is my review for it.

Trailer
The trailer is all great. Alex Pandrea + Classic Pass = Gold. Two things from the trailer however bothered me. First thing being that it was cut in a way that Alex says “Hopefully in this video we gonna improve your Classic Pass and make it as invisible as possible” right after he performed it from a flashing angle and the second thing being that in the end of the trailer there is quite some exposure which seems to be normal for the trailers of The Blue Crown but I see it as a bad thing because it publicly gives away secrets.

Introduction
In the introduction Alex explains that the Brick Pass is his take on the Classic Pass and that he has been noticing a lot of problems with the ways people perform it. He also tells you to get On The Pass by Richard Kaufman which made clear that the Brick Pass tutorial would only cover the Brick Pass and nothing else.

Avoid mistakes
Although it says mistakes, Alex basically goes over just one mistake but the rest of the video will make up for this. The mistake he brings to the attention is a very important one nonetheless.

Overview
In this section it becomes clear that the Brick Pass is nothing but a Jiggle Pass which disappointed me. I have been doing the Jiggle Pass with as little motion as Alex does and I am sure that I’m not the only one so I looked forward for the details to see if I could actually learn anything from this. In this section it also becomes clear that the main focus of this video is improving the pass and not learning it from this video.

Obtaining the break
For most beginner magicians this will be the most helpful part of the video. The only problem may be that this section is only useful if you spread the cards. It’s close to worthless if you want a spectator to say stop instead like in longer distance performances.

Finger positions/’Grip’/’Pinky’/’Wrist’
In these sections Alex goes over the Pass technique nicely and clearly. He often recaps it so you won’t miss a thing. All great!

Ways of covering
A big con of this section I think is that Alex doesn’t cover the audiences or distances from them. This section is mainly about finishing the pass action and putting a nice final touch to it which I wouldn’t call covering.

Extra tips
In here Alex gives two tips. The very first one is extremely important but the second one actually makes it look like you’re doing a move which is a contradiction to everything Alex said in the previous sections. The first tip is supposed to keep everything steady and the second tip is supposed to make things easier.

Putting it all together
A nice little overview from the front instead of from an exposing angle like in the rest of the tutorial.

Control vs. color change
Alex explains how there is a slight difference between the ways of doing the pass as a control or as a color change and that he usually doesn’t do it as a control which may explain the contradiction in the Extra tips. There is a neat subtlety he put to the pass as a control.

Final thoughts
The closer to the tutorial in which the main message is to go over the tutorial video many times, see the subtleties and add them to your own pass and to practice, practice and practice.

Teaser
I can only guess that the teaser was supposed to be funny but I really don’t get it. According to what Alex said in the Introduction section, the Brick Pass was actually named after this teaser.


Pros of the tutorial in general

• It’s an in depth tutorial which goes over truly every part of the “Brick Pass” as done by Alex.
• Covers the most important tips.
• Great video quality.
• Technical pros: Nice, relaxing music during the transitions.

Cons of the tutorial

• It doesn’t cover the angles.
• It was advertised as if it was something original. I think it should’ve just been called the Jiggle Pass.
• Technical cons: Jump cuts during rather short sections and rushed fades before the transitions.

Recommended?
Not unless you have learnt the Classic Pass from a different source before and think it can use some improvement.

Thanks for this awesome review! Kind of a pity that the Blue Crown seems to be exactly like Theory 11, Dan and Dave, Ellusionist, all the over-commercial magic sellers. :(

When I first saw the "brick pass", I also thought it was just a jiggle pass done fast. I don't know what he teaches, but I wasn't too impressed with this overly commercial and hype-building already-existent move.

I didn't get the trailer either :D

Thanks for the review! :)

It really just look like a really quick pass... which with enough practice you can achieve... thanks for the review anyways, i was kinda hyped up about it when i saw the trailer( since i thought it would be a shortcut... shame on me), but then the review got me off the idea of getting it.

I have to say, i bought this download (which happens to have a money back guarantee) pretty skeptical, but it did improve my pass and is very thorough. It never claims to be an original move, and for what it is, an in depth look at the jiggle pass, it does its job well.

As for the issue of giving away secrets, in my opinion this trailer doesn't. The pass in general is one of the oldest moves in card magic and is used by almost every magician out there- I doubt anyone with no knowledge of how to do the pass will see the trailer and either figure it out or even be able to tell when a good magician does it.

@la0o9- though you can achieve a fast/burnable pass with practice, it really helps to have the fundamentals down solidly. Even if it isn't this video, you should have a good instructional resource if you want to learn the pass

Finally, @Mark- What qualifies as over-commercial for you? you seem to have listed most of the magic sellers out there. I understand many are out there not just to produce good magic and to overhype/market effects you'll never use, however most of the ones you listed are also great resources for genuinely good magic (if you sift through the bad stuff)

Although you aren't talking to me, let me have a go at it at explaining what I think Mark wanted to say.

When I think of overly-commercial, I think of these magic sellers due to two reasons:
1) Taking an old existing move and renaming the move. That's just completely ridiculous. Although they do not say it's a new move, to the beginners out there who are not yet knowledgeable enough, it implies a completely different move from the jiggle pass. You must take a another approach at looking at this. Imagine a guy who learned the pass from Jason England, only to have downloaded this to find out it was the exact same thing Jason taught in his pass tutorial. It would have been a waste of money. Videos that build foundations are completely fine; it's just those videos that claim to be "new". To us magicians, it's like lying.
2) They sell moves that may just not be practical at all in real life. I personally believe that techniques or tricks that have no live practicality are not very good investments. Maybe an example of that is the VCR change. There's nothing wrong with it; I just don't think it's completely the best approach to get magic known out there. Personally, those camera-only effects kind of kill the "child's fantasies" of magic being real when they realize it can't be done live. :(
People are trying too hard to just sell something that looks good, but in fact, may not be.

3) They don't care much about the art and are rushing making tutorials nowadays to be able to sell as many as possible in an as short time as possible to as many people as possible. On top of that, they all majorly complain about piracy while they should realize they are the ones responsible for that. All the time they spent complaining about it, they could as well made up strategies to reduce it instead.

Honestly, only a handful of their releases are actually great sources for learning good magic, but in those cases Point 1 as mentioned by Albert often comes into play.

Let's compare them to Penguin Magic. Penguin has a different, way less commercial approach (I don't like the way they advertise their featured effects in the same way as the others and thereby hide the really helpful products but that's on a sidenote). Nonetheless, they are what a magic store on the web should be like. A better example would be Magic.org. Both of them don't just sell overly-hyped effects, but also sell quality sources as recommended by most top magicians.

Wouldn't be much of a problem for the ones I listed to sell some quality sources in their stores too, even while they didn't produce those themselves.

s13zeTheDay: "It never claims to be an original move, and for what it is, an in depth look at the jiggle pass, it does its job well."

They say “The Brick Pass is Alex Pandrea’s refined interpretation of the classic pass” and not “The Brick Pass is the Jiggle Pass done by Alex Pandrea” so they do claim it's an original interpretation of the Classic Pass instead of saying it's a Jiggle Pass, not?

In my opinion, that is not misleading. Everybody is entitled to word their advertising to entice people to buy it. I certainly knew what I was getting into when I bought it. It is in fact his interpretation, and he is revealing his own method of performing the pass.

Mark- I agree with everything you said about penguin. They really have their customers in mind, though I dislike how they now say "HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!! NOW SHIPPING!" on everything
Though I also agree with your viewpoints on (most of) the sites listed, how else do you expect these sites to stay in business and keep providing whatever good magic is out there to people?

Finally quick comment about the VCR change. I love apollo robbins, and the change is really cool with an interesting method, but really? I'll tell you one thing- I'll never use it ever.

I have no intention of getting into an argument or a debate, but I think that can be considered misleading to less knowledgeable consumers. I bet a lot of people who bought the download at the very least expected to see something new; like a new concept for a pass. I don't have it, but from what I can tell from the testimonials, it doesn't seem like there isn't much of a new approach to doing the pass, but rather explanations of getting the pass down better from Alex's experiences.

I just don't think it is very thoughtful of them to continue to rename moves that already exists.

What I think Vanishing Inc. does a lot better than other magic dealers online is at least attempting more to keep the original form of magic alive. For example, Alex Linian and Glenn Morphew both teach the one handed top palm. I purchased Glenn's some while ago and it really is different in terms of getting into the palm. I don't have Alex Linian's but his clean-up of the palmed card is interesting and new. Nevertheless, although the method of finger positioning is different, the method is the same, and thus Vanishing Inc. and its artists tend to keep the sleights with its original name.

So I think it is respect for the original creators to keep the original name of the sleights, even if you have improved on it (unless you improved on it and it's completely differently from the original). This is why I believe it's unethically misleading. :(

Well, first they actually make most of their money with playing cards (Theory11, Dan & Dave and Ellusionist that is, and probably The Blue Crown soon too).

Second, they don't need to over-hype the effects to still be able to sell them. Most of the stores already got a very solid base of costumers who would buy the releases even if they would've named them the original ways instead.

^_^