From balloon-request@cvs.rochester.edu Wed Nov 22 14:29:49 1995 id AA05371; Wed, 22 Nov 95 14:26:18 EST Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 14:26:06 -0500 (EST) From: Larry Moss To: Balloon Sculpting Mailing List Subject: Balloon Man video - review Message-Id: Well, this isn't a real review since I haven't had tiem to write one, but I did want to post some initial comments before I forget to do even this. I hope to do a more complete review soon. Some Assembly Required Vol 1 - Hats All Folks John Holmes, The Balloon Man $25 ($20 if you want the older version that hasn't had the background noise filtered out.) I don't actually have a number of useful bits on it, like where to buy it. I know Viking Magic and T. Myers Magic carry it. You may be able to buy it directly from John. I hope he speaks up if that's the case. The background noise does not make it impossible to follow. My copy has it. It's not bad. But it was a bit distracting to me. This is John's first video. I know he's already working on a second. Who does want it: If you currently don't do hats, this will get you going on lots of nice looking, easy hats very quickly. Who doesn't want it: anyone that's lookign for a challenge. The material here is nto challenging. My feeling: Who needs a challenge if you've got good, fast, easy stuff that you can do? I like the hard stuff also, but not having a very large repertoire of hats, I learned stuff from this tape. John mentions the basic helmet as a starting point, but doesnt' stay with it very long, so if everything you know how to make is based on that, you'll learn from this as well. level that it's good for: The order of a few things was a bit confused, so I probably wouldn't give it to someone as an introduction to balloons, but someone that has amde a few simple figures would fare well. There was just no overview of working with balloons to start with. On the other hand, as I mentioned, it is all basic stuff. If the tape had been organized better, it might well be a good starting point for someone. The pace was slow. My first pass through the tape was on fast forward. I got as much out of it as I was going to. That's not to put down John's work. I think he took it at a very reasonable pace. But for those that know the stuff that I do, and my experience level, I just wanted to give an idea of the level that this is at. Hats are not limited to things that sit on top of your head according to this tape. They are simply things that attach at the head. One example (there may have been others, but I dont' have an index and didn't jot down notes when I had it on) is a set of angel wings. (John, please post the list of things on the tape. I keep meaning to get to it, but I havne't yet.) I will try to write up more at some later point. But I did want to get this out.