 Hey everybody, welcome back to Magic Orthodoxy. My name is David and this is a Magic Review. Hey, today we're going to look at the technical toolbox from Stephen Hobbs. What is it? Hey, it's a box set from Vanishing Incorporated. Stephen did a web series where for a whole year he went through just all these really cool slides, tricks, thought of ideas, anything basically he could think of, and Vanishing Inc. put it all together in this really cool box set and it's just hours and hours and hours of material. It's just amazing. You want to see what it looks like? This is it. Stephen Hobbs is perhaps one of Card Magic's best kept secrets. In 2014 he took on his most ambitious project yet. This is technical toolbox. Each week for an entire year, Hobbs would film and upload a new video to his website. These videos could contain a trick, a technique, or a principle, and sometimes all three of those things. These were not just quick web tutorials but instead full explanations of the moves and the thinking behind his magic. Sometimes he would share not just the one move but instead a few variations using it and of course some tricks along the way too. We've taken Stephen's blog and turned it into the technical toolbox box set. It contains seven DVDs which is over 170 unique videos and also a 180 page softback book that contains credits, history, and further details of all of Stephen's magic from the technical toolbox set. It took a year to produce but I'm sure it'll take much longer to digest. This is not just a few moves but an entire framework, a toolbox of technical card magic. We hope you enjoy Stephen Hobbs' technical toolbox. Alright, so that was Stephen Hobbs. You might remember that he did modus operandi, he did the magic of Jack Carpenter, he did Jean Mays in the Art of Bottom Dealing, and he did the Essential Soul Stone. This box set is published by Joshua Jay, Andy Gladwin, and Vanishing Incorporated. So a couple questions we always ask about all of our magic reviews and the first of which is what is in the box? What's in the box? Alright, so you're going to get a box. It's a really nice box with a magnetic flap. There's seven DVDs inside the box and there's also a really cool booklet. Alright, so what is this project? This project is way back in 2014. Stephen Hobbs, he uploaded videos to his website every single week. It was always done on Friday, it was a TGIF for a lot of magicians, and he had this project that for 52 weeks he would upload a new video to his website every week that involved slights, his own thoughts on card magic, magic tricks, all these really fun creative things that he was inventing and that he developed, that he came up with, and he wanted to share that with the public. Joshua Jay and Andy Gladwin, they saw this project, they were so impressed with it, that they decided to release this through Vanishing Incorporated as a box set. Alright, so what's in this box set? You're getting 170 videos. Yeah, there's over six hours of material here, there's 55 routines, there's 85 different slights and techniques. All of Hobbs original introductions, there's meticulous credits, they're all included in the little booklet that you get, and on some of the DVDs there's even some PDFs that you can pull off and view as well. Is it what I thought? You know, a lot of questions that we normally do, like how are the angles, can it be inspected, is it well made, how much practice does it require, how much setup and reset is there. All of those questions are going to vary from trick to trick. Like I said, this box set isn't your typical box set, it's not even your typical magic DVD set. This box set is a master class in card magic, alright? Master class in card magic. This isn't just a couple of tricks thrown mindlessly onto a DVD with some filler and some bonus material. Every single week it is meant to be digested over the course of seven days. I mean, he's giving you so much. Like I said, this was created over the course of a year. And so I would argue that you almost have to take it in that same way, you know? You almost have to watch each little vignette, like one of them every single day for an entire year, just to consume just the massive amount of research here and thought and talent. There's no wonder that Joshua J and Andy Gladwin were impressed with this project. It really is just a phenomenal work and will certainly go down as one of the classics, as one of the must haves in card magic. Alright, so what's the overall quality and production value of the box set? Like I said, this isn't your normal typical DVD and they didn't re-edit anything and they didn't re-move anything around. So all your views are going to be shot from overhead. You're looking at the table on a straight down shot. You never see Stephen Homs. He doesn't show himself on camera. You just see his arms and his torso and he's talking to you. So it's all shot and done as a web scene. It's all shot and done as a vlog, okay? So there's only one angle and it's just like it was shot and shown when it was originally released. Alright, so what are some of the positives? Positives for this are content, right? Tons of content, originality, great solid workable card magic. But also another really cool thing is every penny of profit that Vanishing Inc. and Stephen Homs makes from this project, it goes to support Vanishing Incorporated's Young Magicians charity. Negatives. Alright, so what are some of the negatives? You know, like we say around here, there's negatives to everything. These are just the negatives that I have. They don't have to be yours. My one negative from this was that it was presented exactly as it was filmed and it wasn't re-edited. And what I would have liked to have seen is instead of just seven DVDs and like here's how we started and here's how we ended, which is neat because then if you didn't experience it originally, you can experience it again for the first time. But I would have liked to have seen organization. That's just how my mind works. So I would have preferred a DVD of slides and another DVD of techniques and another DVD of theory and another DVD of tricks. So I mean that's, and just so that I would remember, oh yeah, that one thing that Stephen talked about, it's on the slides DVD. I know there's a table of contents, but it would just made it easier for me and my brain if things have been maybe re-edited and kind of put together in a more formal format. That's just me. Don't listen to me. Buy this box set. Is it worth your money? A million times over. I think the box set is like 50 bucks and it's totally worth it. In my opinion, you still owe Stephen Hobbs some money. This box set is awesome. It's worth every single penny. If you've always wanted to sit at the feet of a serious card magician and learn from the master, this is the box set for you. Who would like this? Like I said, anybody that wants to seriously improve their game, I think more so this might be for people who are already at the intermediate level. Okay, intermediate to advanced. I think that Stephen's going to mention a lot of moves and slides and he's going to expect you to know some of them already. He doesn't teach you everything because they aren't his tricks to teach and so when he mentioned some slides or some moves, he specifically said, I'm not going to teach you this. So I think it does require some working knowledge and card magic already. Alright, so that's my review for the technical toolbox from Stephen Hobbs. We want to thank the good people down at Murphy's Magic for supplying it for us so that we could review it for you. And if you'd like to purchase your own, you can find it at your favorite Murphy's Magic dealer. Thanks, bye.