From balloon-request@cvs.rochester.edu Thu Oct 12 00:44:37 1995 id AA29193; Thu, 12 Oct 95 00:29:13 EDT Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 23:29:04 -0500 Message-Id: <199510120429.XAA43260@postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu> To: balloon@cvs.rochester.edu From: Mark Balzer Subject: Review of Balloon Man and Co. Video A few months ago I was asked by Debbie LeBeau and Kristie Faber to review the new Balloon Man & Co. video for Balloon Magic - the Magazine. I didn't realize that there was such a space constraint for reviews in the magazine, and in my typical run-at-the-mouth fashion I wrote a novel when asked to answer the 7 questions. Since most of what I wrote ended up on the cutting room floor, I thought I'd post the unabridged version. That way I can delete it from my hard disk and let it take up space on Larry's :-) Mark PS - Since I wrote this, I got to meet Anthony Mackey at IBAC. He's a very nice fellow with a really great set of lungs! I hope he'll still speak to me after he sees this... :-) ************************************************************************ Balloon Man & Co. video 1. What did you learn from this video? The most creative sculptures in this video include a fabulous 3 balloon butterfly, and several awesome hats made from pairs of balloons twisted around each other. The romantic linked-hearts and heart-pole creations would be wonderful wedding reception decorations. I also learned that I need to work on my lung power; Anthony Mackey blows 260's up faster than anyone I have ever seen and boy, am I jealous! 2. How were the instructions to follow? Anthony Mackey is quite a balloon entertainer, but in this video he spends more time performing in front of the camera than teaching the details of how to make balloon sculptures. Most of the camerawork was well done, going from full-upperbody shots of Mackey talking to close ups of Mackey's hands when he started twisting. Unfortunately, due to the location of Mackey's hands and the speed at which he twists, it was often hard to discern what was happening. As Mackey "performs" his figures, bubble lengths are only described visually. The student trying to learn from this video must rely solely on his sense of proportion, a sense that may not yet be developed in beginning balloonists. At one point Mackey switches to using inches to describe bubble lengths, but subsequently reverts back to saying "...twist it *here*...." Mackey doesn't use industry-standard terminology and worse, he is inconsistent in his nomenclature. Nothing is more confusing to a novice than when people start using different names for the same thing. For example, Mackey refers to the knotted nozzle as "the tab" and the uninflated nipple as either "the nozzle", "the end here" or "the bottom". It took me a minute before I could correctly translate Mackey's instruction (presented while he holds up an untwisted balloon) "...you have to make the body definitely shorter for this one..." into "leave a longer uninflated nipple on this 260Q than in 260Q's used in previous figures." 3. What did you think of the format? Every balloon sculpting book or video I've ever seen has a cover proudly displaying... balloons and sculptures! ( what else? ) This video cover shows a photo of Anthony Mackey. No Balloons; just Anthony Mackey From the photo and the title "The Balloon Man", I was expecting possibly a video biography. Upon opening the video case I found a brochure with an 8 x 10" photo of... a balloon-less Anthony Mackey. (I'd say he needs a better ad agency to do his video packaging.) On the brochure it says that Anthony Mackey is "one of the worlds (sic) fastest... Balloon Artists..." The missing punctuation was a harbinger of things to come; Anthony Mackey needs to slow down. At the beginning of the video we are presented with a list of supplies that we will need: 260Q balloons, Sharpie markers, Scissors, and Air pump. This is helpful, except that a careful viewer will note that Sharpie markers are never shown nor mentioned again in the entire video. Scissors and air pumps were never shown - just mentioned once, and only in passing. Anthony Mackey needs to slow down. The audio and picture quality on this tape was first rate, as compared to some videos that almost look homemade. However, this video tries to cover too much material in 45 minutes. I felt the explanations were rushed and left out many necessary details. At one point Mackey even incorporates a "tulip" in a balloon corsage without ever showing how it was made (his only apple twist explanation was shown using a fully inflated 260). Mackey displays his completed figures for only 1 or 2 seconds (and without a close-up shot) before starting into the next one, so if you don't have a freeze-frame VCR, you are out of luck. Again, Anthony Mackey needs to slow down. 4. What did you think of the figures and techniques? Near the beginning of the video we are presented with a list of the basic balloon tools: Pinch Twist, Pop Twist, Tulip Twist, and Inside Bubble. Sadly, Mackey demonstrates the Tulip Twist with an opaque balloon. This prevents the viewer from seeing the internal details of how it is made, and the "trick" to making it is not given until much later in the video. He next demonstrates his "Inside Bubble"; how to stuff a bubble inside a 260Q and break it off so it floats freely. This and pop twists are advanced tricks which seem out of place in this video. Mackey must agree, because Pop Twists and Inside Bubbles were not subsequently used in any sculptures nor even mentioned again!?!?! Mackey's figures are designed and built for speed because as his brochure proclaims, he is one of the world's fastest balloon artists. Mackey avoids twisting individual bubbles and then lock-twisting them together, even though this allows better bubble-size control for beginners. He makes great use of the time-saving technique where you double a balloon over at a twist, then pinch and twist both bubbles together to form legs. If you want to learn how to increase your balloon output, study how Mackey makes legs and bird bodies. However, I believe he should identify this as a speed technique rather than lead the viewer to believe it is the only method. 5. At what levels would you put the figures in the video? The tape starts out telling us that in this video we will learn how to make animals, characters and hats, so nominally it is a beginner video. However, Mackey's short description of how to inflate a balloon by mouth sounds like it is coming from someone who has forgotten how difficult this is for beginners to accomplish. He then ties the knot so quickly (without a close-up camera shot) and with such a poor verbal explanation that it is impossible for a beginner to learn how to repeat it, even watching it frame by frame. Since Mackey doesn't spend much time on these essential foundations, I am not sure who this video is targeted at: the pace is too fast for a beginner and his animal sculptures lack the multi-bubble details that advanced artists enjoy. The tape ends with tips on balloon-sculpting for profit. Ballooning is definitely performance art, but again, Mackey seems more interested in performing in front of the camera than teaching the details of how to make balloon sculptures. The level of difficulty of the figures increased in smooth progression from the basic dog up to multiple balloon sculptures and fancy hats. Unfortunately the rushed presentation makes everything more difficult. No beginner could ever keep up with Mackey, so they would always be fumbling with the VRC remote, and remember - there is no sound in slow motion. If I had to give an overall categorization, I'd say this is an intermediate level video geared towards professional balloon entertainers. 6. At $25.00 a video, what do you think of the value? The video media has many advantages over print; one gets to see the dynamic hand/finger technique as well as the flair with which an artist creates his works. From a pure entertainment standpoint, a non-balloonist friend and I really enjoyed watching this video; Anthony Mackey is a wonderful performer. However, as a teaching video I feel it leaves a lot to be desired and I can't recommend it. I hope Anthony takes the time to make more videos, but only after identifying the level of his target audience, writing scripts and proceeding at a slower pace during filming. Being a good teacher means accurately presenting the technique details that an advanced artist like Mackey has taken for granted here. 7. How does this video compare to other figure tying videos you have seen? It covered more simple figures, with less detail, in less time, for an average price. o _/ \_