Cloak by Chris Rawlins Review

Hi, welcome to Real Magic Review. My name is Steve Faulkner and this is Cloak by Chris Rawlings. Before we start, can you please like if you like it, subscribe to it if you want to subscribe to it. Check out OnlineMagic.co. That is my membership site, my magic training site, from beginner to pro, 900 plus videos, live sessions every week almost, and they're all uploaded and there have been 200 of them so far with some phenomenal special guests in the world of magic and mentalism. All sorts of magic on there so do check it out OnlineMagic.co. Talking about mentalism, I've been doing a lot of it recently and getting rather excited about it all and it terrifies me. I've done a mentalism show on stage recently and at the moment I'm looking for things I'll use and what I've realised, same with magic, there's loads of stuff that's great but a lot of it I won't use and this, without a doubt, I will and I'll tell you why. What is it? It is a switch box. There are lots of switching boxes out there. I don't know loads of them. I've used a maze box. If it wasn't for a maze box I wouldn't have the joy of being able to watch the videos of my horrific performance which many of you would have seen, including me doing a quick change into Michael Jackson to the audience talking to each other basically. Have a look at that. But that was done with maze box. That bit worked perfectly, it's just the rest of it was a public humiliation and we've talked about it before. But they've all got strengths, weaknesses. This has the least weaknesses and it is as close to perfect as I've seen and this will make me start using switch boxes regularly. Well not switch boxes, this one because it's the only other one I've really played with. But I won't have this long. The lovely thing about this, there are lots of lovely things about this, is that you can do this in front of your audience. You can set this up in front of your audience and it is, if you've had it for more than a couple of days, and it is ready to go. You can show it empty if you think about it. You can show it empty and the thing's ready to go. Lovely. There you go and that is loaded with the billets. Now I don't want to explain too much and I know there is quite a lot on the trailer but it's all set up. They can have a look at it, you can show it like that, they can look down into it, it's all fine. And then if you're going to do one of the things it does, and it does many things, but the main thing I think loads of people are going to love, is that the audience will write things on billets, chuck them in there. You will have a chat to them, you talk to people and at this point here they are already switched out. These billets in here are the billets that have been switched in and the ones that we just put in there have gone. That's brilliant. Now I did that after pretty much no practice. You do need to practice, when I say pretty much none, that's pretty much none for me. But that is just beautiful. No technology, no magnets, nothing that can fail. It's not going to wear down. It's made of taffeta, nylon taffeta. So importantly, look, it's an Ikea box, right? Everybody's seen them, it's even got the Ikea label of the thing it's supposed to be. But it's not made in the same way. It looks the same but it's a lot stronger. It's made with this taffeta material which outdoor clothing and umbrellas are made of. This is not at all going to deteriorate over time. Well, don't quote me on that. Someone will chuck it under a bus. But you know what I mean, it's great. So that switch, if you know your mentalism, you're going to know the power of that. The other things you can do are load. So if you want to do that, and Chris tells you the billets very inexpensive, you can do that with if you get the ones he tells you to about 50, about 40 or 50. If you've got a big audience, you get a certain amount of them. And that was my shoes rubbing together, by the way, not me breaking wind, like someone said on one of the other reviews. So if you're in a big audience, got a massive audience, you just get 50 of them to put in there, that's enough, you don't want to get go silly. And you can do that if you don't want to do that. And you want to, that's like your hands don't go in it, you don't go anywhere near it before hand, they do all you do the shake thing, and that's it, you put them down, and then someone else can draw one out, etc. If you want to use hunt, like 500, or something like that, you can have them in there. So don't use 500. But maybe I don't want to use 500, I should say, but I can go in there and get a stack of billets out, give them a move around. And they are the ones that are the false ones too. So it's different thing. I'm putting my hand in there. But if you've got a t shirt on, like I have a lot of the time when I'm performing now, there's nothing, there's nothing hidden, they know, they've just seen everything. And you go in there, and you pick them up, and they're the false ones. The third thing, and that is the no switch. The third thing you can do is you can go in and grab a billet, and then another one, and then another one, and another one in the order you want. And they will also be the false billets, not the ones that people put in there. Which is brilliant. What all one of those things would be great, all three of them means that you can do what Chris talks about, which is layering effects. So you've got loads of different effects you can do, I won't go into them, he does give you a couple that are brilliant. But if you know anything about mentalism, you are going to straight away start thinking, and I don't know much, well, I know a fair bit, but not as much as a lot of people. And even I'm going, Oh, yeah, you can do this, this, this, this. So other than those brilliant things and the fact there's no tech, and I love tech, but I'm scared about totally relying on it. It's all in your hands, you're controlling every moment of it. It's easy, but requires practice. It looks chaotic. And that's a good thing. So much so that when you do you see it, you go, am I going to be able to do this? It's going to take loads of practice. But the chaos of it is because it looks so organic. We all don't like that word, do we? I don't know why, it's good, but the audible thing, really important, is that they hear this, this shaking, and it just carries on. They might be pausing it while you pause, but it carries on. And then they can put their hand in it and pick one of them up. And that's done. And that adds so much to it. The depth of it, the fact it's completely open, most of the other boxes are closed. This one's all of them. But this one's completely open. And it's shallow, it is the most shallow one, it's just a bit higher than a deck of cards. So it's so disarming. You will start thinking straight away, like I did, I'll use this box over here, and I go back and I peek certain things where I do my mentoring routine. That's out from the beginning, I can put it there. And that can be the thing after I've done the routines. And you can also do things like turn things over and peek. And I'm not going to go for all of them, I'm entertaining all day. But the versatility, the strength of it, the reliability, the fact it's not going to fall apart, the fact it's and this is the joy. So I love the fact, and if you have started doing mentalism, or even doing it for a long time, you will know that you start getting quite obsessed with the idea of play small, pack small plays big. And the fact that this is a bit messy, because I already recorded a review and I forgot to press play, devastated. The fact that I can in front of the audience, if I want to just chat away, put it away, pack it up, and it is reset for next time. And also with this other little pocket here, and it shouldn't be a big point, but it's so big. I can put the book test the envelopes I use my pens and that and the dice. And that's my show. Now for someone with a brain like mine, that is a very exciting thing. And the fact that that's my show, including a switch box that does all that is phenomenal for me. This is going straight in my Steve's favorites playlist. I don't have ever mentioned it. Have a look at that. It's not that all the things I like go in it. I'm very picky. The reason it's going in it is because this is going straight in my show. I mean, I just love it. I'm really excited about it. It's so practical. There's a lot more I can tell you about this, but I don't want to go on and on and on and on. Have a look at the trailer. There's more information there. But all I'll say, again, I'm not an authority on these boxes, but it's the first one I've seen that I've gone. It's just that in fact, it is also the case my show is more exciting maybe than it should be. There you go. So that is Cloak by Chris Rawlings. It's a banger. I forgot to say some stuff, but do ask questions in the comments and I'll get back to you. I'm all set up now. I'm ready to go. I can film again. So there will be more frequently posted videos. All right. Take care. Have a great one. Check out onlinemagic.co. Use the links below please to purchase this. It is not a cheap item and it should not be. We don't want everybody. This is powerful stuff playing with this. So please do not share this on your, you know, your normal Facebook pages. Keep it in the mentalism world. Keep it in the magic world because this is powerful stuff. So use Chris's links below and any questions, let me know. All right. That's Cloak. onlinemagic.co. Like and subscribe. Please have a look at onlinemagic.co. That'd be great. And take care. See ya.