(oriental music)
- Hey brother, hey!
So, you want to learn the secrets of the snap change huh?
(punching noises)
Well, I don't know if you're ready yet, pupil.
(punching noises)
Get your cards and get ready, because I'm a virtuous
teacher and I will teach you the ways of the snap change.
(punching noises)
Yo, what's up guys Chris Ramsey here, welcome back!
Today I busted out the old kung-fu suit, look at this.
This is an actual kung-fu suit, I used to do Wing Chun.
Smells gross, it's got a stain.
I thought I'd wear it today to make this tutorial
just a little bit more exciting.
Now, there's so many tutorials on the snap change,
probably the most common change
with beginner magicians, but I do see a lot of flaws
in the snap change being performed online.
So today I wanted to tackle those flaws, I wanted
to tackle different handlings on the snap change,
as well as some tips that I've got,
and help you clean it up.
Keep it clean!
The snap change was heavily popularized by David Blaine.
- I know this is not it, but visualize
your card right here.
(laughter)
- And then consequently was eventually butchered
by Jesse Eisenberg on David Letterman.
- Is this your card?
- [David Letterman] No, no..
- Hell naw.
- So I'm gonna teach you guys how to avoid
doing the second part.
A little bit of intricate tips to help you with this
because it is a fairly easy change once you get
the hang of it, you get the muscle down and everything.
But there are a few little tips that can help you
make this more deceptive.
And, you know what, let's get into it.
So we're gonna look at three handlings for the snap change
to make it more deceptive as well as the clean up.
Most people I see doing the snap change, they do like
the three finger snap.
Let me turn this down a little so you guys
can see what I'm talking about.
They do like the three finger snap change.
Focus!
And this is a really weird snap change because
you're going from three fingers to one.
It's like, the disappearing finger trick.
We don't want that.
What we want is a clean snap change, so after the next
evolution of that, I guess would be the two finger
snap change going from two to one, which is a little more
imperceptible, and what I'm gonna add to that is actually
a snap change that looks like
there are no other fingers involved.
So you'll wanna start here in this gentle little grip,
just like you would if you had two fingers on the
snap change, but instead you're going to just have the one.
And it's going to happen very quickly, this middle finger
is going to come in and grab that card, leaving you still
with only one finger.
So, if you're not familiar with the snap change,
basically what you want to do is you wanna put
your two fingers down here, and the action is basically
going to be this.
You're going to pull with your middle finger,
underneath while maintaining the index there,
the index stays there,
and the thumb and the middle finger pulls it back here.
So from straight on it's completely invisible,
here it's visible, visible, visible.
(gasp) It's gone!
So that's kind of what you want it to be.
Now that will take some practice,
at first you're gonna be like, you're gonna be like this.
That's gonna happen a lot, or the cards will go flying,
right, that's gonna happen a lot as well.
So don't get discouraged, it's just like a muscle memory
thing where eventually it gets to the point where
the card just really quickly disappears and
changes to another one basically.
It just looks like it basically morphs into that.
I'm clean!
What?
That like fell off camera.
Okay, again, like I said, in this version,
you're going to have one finger here, show this,
and then really quickly the middle finger's gonna,
it's curled like it would be at the end.
It's gonna come out and pull.
Alright, so at full speed!
Basically what you're gonna do is you're gonna hold
the two cards like this, and you're gonna remove
that middle finger without doing this, right.
So it's a really gentle touch on those two cards
you want, there you go.
Now you can show this pretty cleanly,
and your middle finger is gonna come in and do
that basically really quickly.
Boom, you're here, and so it just looks like
basically a little flash happened but you're not
disappearing any fingers on this okay?
The second way of doing this is actually using two hands.
So you can do this with the deck in your hand,
or without the deck in your hand and we'll get
to the cleanup in a second, but for now
two fingers two fingers here, and now you can take off
those fingers or you can keep them there, it's up to you.
I prefer taking them off because it adds
a little bit more deception.
You're here and here, now this is fun because it helps
you square up the cards without fear of splitting them.
So as you're here you can hold them really tightly,
and I like to do this little motion like this,
and as my right hand comes in, the hand that I'm
going to snap change with, as it comes in that's
when I'm gonna do the change.
It kinda looks like the bending of the cards caused
it to change which is kind of magical.
So here again, right, bam bam bam, and then I'm here.
Now I'm left in this predicament, this weird predicament.
Right, so what do you do?
Naturally, the idea is to drop it on the deck,
but there are a few subtle things.
So a lot of people, what they like to do is show it,
bring it forward, so then you're left clean.
After you've done this change, bam bam bam bam bam,
you can bring it out so that this here is basically
gonna drop on the deck as you bring this card forward,
and show it cleanly as one card.
Or, you do a little flourishing thing, so bam
after you're done changing it your hand here, your thumb
is gonna just grab that card as you're middle finger turns
it over like that.
It adds a little bit of a flourishy action to it,
so what's fun about that, it kind of takes away from
the moment that you drop it on the deck.
Because that moment's gonna be a hot moment.
So bam bam bam bam, and instead of doing this,
you know, this thing.
It's a really light touch, when you drop it anyways
you can just literally just deposit it there, right,
and show it off.
But to add a little bit of flair to that, after you've done
the snap change drop it on and turn the card this way.
Bam bam bam change, hand comes back here, under the thumb,
grabs it, and my middle finger is gonna turn
just like that to clean it all up.
Also a good thing to know about the snap change,
is only as good as your double lift, so you have
to practice your double lift, because if you do a weird
double lift they're gonna be like,
you know, if you're like this, you know,
they're gonna be a little bit suspicious.
So make sure your double lift is very clean,
practice that whatever double lift you choose to use
make sure it's very clean, not like what I just did.
Whatever double lift you wanna use is fine,
just absolutely make sure it is clean so that
the snap change looks a lot cleaner too.
Let's get into the other method.
This is a really cool method actually.
And this can happen once again, you don't need
the deck in your hands if you want to put the deck down
and have this happen away from the deck that's fine,
but you'll have no where to really clean it up,
it's good for the camera however.
So instead of doing it this way, you're going to do
it on the long side like this.
The card's vertical here, and you can do
the snap change here and it looks okay,
I mean it's not going to flash that much,
and that's fine as well, if you just want
to have a little visual boom, have it change like that.
But hiding the deck for a second is actually
a nice little thing, so it looks like this hand
comes in, and is actually the one that took the card away,
but then you show this hand clean.
Now if you have the deck in your hand, however.
Say I have the deck in my hand at this point.
I can come in like this, and do the change, right?
So again basically you're doing the exact same thing,
you're doing this, the action is going to look like
your other hand, your opposite hand, this hand,
is doing the change, so you come in, you know you can just,
and now at this point your left hand is gonna come
scoop that card up as you clean up once again.
Let's take a look at this again from the other angle.
From the back, this is what the snap change is going
to look like, especially that bendy one.
As you bend back is where you're going to do that
and then here your hand drops off and this one turns it,
and you're clean.
So for the one that's vertical, like this,
your hand comes in and then comes under,
and then scoops it up and turns it up.
Alright now the next thing that we're gonna talk about
is angels, like what are the angles for the snap change?
Obviously everything except this.
This is no good, this is no good, this is good,
this is no good.
Angels are dead on!
This card has two lines, two lasers, pointing at their face!
And if those lasers go up a bit, you're gonna get flashed.
Right, so you don't want flashes.
The only way you should ever perform this in real life,
is if you're one on one, someone's right in front of you,
there's not two spectators, there's not a whole crowd
of people, on national television to the side of you.
- Is this your card?
- [David Letterman] No, no..
- Okay, you want to be straight on, right here,
and that's it.
That's it that's it, that's the only time you're
gonna perform this in real life.
I don't perform the snap change in real life,
I used to when I started, but then I learned
other changes that fit me a little better,
that made less noise.
Because there is some noise here, that
(Snapping of Card)
And so how do you mask that noise?
A lot of people give it a flick.
And so if you're here, let me turn this down a bit.
So if you're here and you use this finger, to flick it,
right it kind of masks that noise.
And it becomes the snappy flicky change.
I've got this card here, and boom, like that tada!
But again, I really like the subtlety
of using one finger at first, holding it like this,
boom doing the change,
and then still having one finger there.
Kinda like the eye didn't catch what happened, right?
So you're here, boom, and clean up.
Clean yourself!
Bom bom bom bom bomp.
And that's really all I have to say about the snap change.
So again, it's a muscle memory thing,
so don't get discouraged if you're doing this.
If the card is doing this and you're having
a hard time getting it out it's probably
because your fingers are too high up on the deck.
You need them to be more down here, down at the corners.
Because that is going to leave you the cleanest.
You can kinda display your openness, even though you're here
the card is covering this part here.
The hand comes in as you turn, so it looks like
you're just putting that card back on the deck.
Sneaky sneak.
(Cards shuffle)
And outro!
Alright so that was a tutorial, as well as some handlings
on it, I hope you guys enjoyed that,
I hope it was fun to learn.
Snap change is not that difficult,
but with these subtleties, hopefully they will help
you make it more deceptive.
Like I said, not necessarily something you want
to perform unless you're straight on, dead on,
for one person.
But it is fun to do , it is fun to do for the mirror,
the camera, it looks really great.
And with those subtle tips, they can really
help you make it almost look completely imperceptible.
So once again guys, if you like this video,
hit the like button I do appreciate it, drop
a comment below and let me know
what you thought of this tutorial.
And what you think what I should bring
on next week's tutorial.
I appreciate you guys so much, we just hit 300k,
I'm super excited, I had a meet and greet yesteday,
near Montreal and a whole bunch of people showed up
I filmed everything, so that will be up this week
stay tuned for that video, and thank you once again
for the 300k, each and every one of you.
Although there aren't 300,000 people watching this video,
I do thank each and every one of you watching,
yeah you, specifically Brendon.
Nah, I don't know, I just dropped that random.
All the Brendon's are like 'Oh my God!'.
Alright guys, that's it take care, we'll see
you on the next video peace!
(calm electronic music)