talkmagic.co.uk

hey guys.

i've recently learnt the snap change.

i wish to include it as an ender in some of my card routine e.g. acr

however, im a bit sceptical about it. i have just performed the snap change and the audience are shockad an bewilered. and want to come up and look at the card. say a wild card has changed to their card.the wild card will be gript in my fingers behind their card. what do i do with it from here? i find it a bit orkward. thanks.

first of all id say dont do it! its more hassle than its worth in my opinion

however if you really must do it then a simply way out is to pick up the rest of the deck and place the "revealed" card on the deck then hand it over. due to the way the hidden card is positioned it should sit flushly on top of the deck as the revealed card sits "crosswise"

I like the snap change in priciple but it has to masked on all sides. I was watching The real hustle last night and Paul wilson done it and he flashed it well to my eyes he did. The best resource for doing the snap change is probley Mcbrides art of card manipulation.

I really don't like the Snap. Its really unpractical for real life situations. I hardly ever find a good time to use it in a show. But acationally (like if I'm in a long hallway) I'll run about 20 feet away and have them stare at a card as it changes.

I use it as an out when I do the svengali pitch. Not during the actual demonstration but there is a point that I where I have to convince the punters that the trick is easy to do.

I get the punter to cut the deck into little piles and show that even he can make a 9 of hearts appear on every pile. He will do this automatically because one card is shorter than the other.

However once in a while he screws it up and gets the wrong card on top. I then pick it up and say "it doesn't matter. You can always change it to a nine anyway"

Then I do the snap change. It works perfectly and the suprise change gets quite a laugh and a gasp. I suggest doing it along or under the arm as described in Bruce Elliot's Classic Secrets of Magic.

If I were you, I'd do a shapeshifter or an ego change instead of a Bertam or snap change because they clean themselves up.

I have no idea what an ego or shapeshifter change is. No doubt it was something invented after 1954 and therefore I have no use for it. I shall stick to what I know.

to be honest Mark the shapeshifter change sucks anyway so i wouldnt worry about it!

To be honest Mog, the shapeshifter is bloody marvellous if done properly, ie. without loads of hand movement to give it away and is dropped straight back onto the deck to avoid any suspicion over the alignment.

The snap change on the other hand is an angley puddle of wee, if you're going to learn a colour change that doesn't need the deck in your hands learn the bertram. Much nicer to look at although much harder to do, but can be cleaned up more easily.

Well, in my little opinion, I have to agree with Mog.

The Shapeshifter looks very odd to me, always has. I'm a little perturbed about the alignment issue—even though quite rightly it can be ditched to the deck—but still the orientation is strange.

The Snap Change however always looks slick, fast and is easy to recover from. And of course, unlike the Shapeshifter, it doesn't rely on an inverted card in the deck—it can be done simply via a DL.

And I also agree that the Bertram change has many of the virtues of the regular Snap Change, but for me involves a lot more 'in the hands' work, masking the card during the change etc.

It is the fact that the visual change which occurs in full view in an instant which is the undeniable star quality which the Snap Change for me personally.

As an answer to the original top post, concerning how to recover after a Snap Change (i.e. where to ditch and how) there are many ways to do this. Simple misdirection is one of them—thrusting the new card forward and offering it to the nearest spectator to examine always works a treat—leaving you a moment to go to pocket or back to the deck, for instance.

Without doubt the best color change of all is the Dai Vernon colou change that utilizes the back palm. I have seen this performed at a distance of less than 1 foot and it is by far the best color change of any I ave ever seen. But the guy that did it had spent 2 hours a day for two years mastering it. It’s a difficult move to master but it’s worth it.

You could always learn the Click change. Dan & Dave teach it on the Trilogy. It's done in the left hand with the deck and has a great cleanup. Its also covered better.

Note the fact that this is a 2 year old thread...

Anyway, for other people looking here, Henry Hay's The Amateur Magician's Handbook (At least my fourth edition) has a snap change that ends perfectly clean and uses only a slight variation in method. If you know the normal snap change, you can learn this new one in a "snap".