Derren Brown: The Events
September 8, 2009 6:31 AM Subscribe

Derren Brown: The Events. On Wednesday 9th September 10:35, Derren Brown will predict the National Lottery immediately before the draw. On Friday he will reveal how it was done. As part of a four week series for Channel 4, he will be controlling the nation live, conducting a nationwide psychic experiment and finally a special on how to beat the casinos.
posted by ashaw (324 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite

The mind-bending performer promises to reveal his technique to viewers in an hour-long follow-up programme on Friday. Brown, 38, admits: If this one goes wrong, it could be a career-breaker. Wednesday nights jackpot stands at £2.4million, but C4 bosses have banned Brown from buying a ticket.

Frankly, if he gets this one right (and there is no way he can without some form of cheating), I could see there being quite the kerfuffle involving the legitimacy and security of the Lottery.
posted by hippybear at 6:40 AM on September 8, 2009

MetaFilter: If this website were a object it would be a little glass box that was lying under a table.

Sounds pretty keen. Although however much I agree that psychics are delusional or liars, it isn't a experiment unless you have actual procedures like controls, proper sampling, etc.
posted by DU at 6:41 AM on September 8, 2009

Brown, 38, admits: If this one goes wrong, it could be a career-breaker.

I'm sure he'll paper over his wounds with 100-euro notes gained from the advertising sold on the four-week series.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:42 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Hippybear:

Here's a statement by a spokesperson for Camelot:

"Seventy per cent of the adult population will be trying to predict the six lucky numbers for Wednesday nights Lotto draw. It is impossible to affect the outcome of the draw and Derren Brown is not suggesting he is doing this.

He is an illusionist creating an illusion that he can predict the numbers. We wish Derren the best of luck. " Via The Mirror
posted by ashaw at 6:43 AM on September 8, 2009

Perhaps he reads XKCD?
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 6:43 AM on September 8, 2009

If he's truly psychic, I imagine he'll get the numbers wrong but then explain how the negative energy was distorting his chi and besides if you add the numbers like THIS they are all mostly right.
posted by DU at 6:46 AM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

and there is no way he can without some form of cheating
Well that's pretty much the job description of a magician.

All I'll say is that if the lottery appears to have been predicted, it does not mean that it has been predicted, just as if it appears a woman has been sawn in half it does not mean that a woman has been sawn in half. One doesn't expect kerfuffles and murder charges flying around after the latter, so one would hope people don't cause a kerfuffle and question the obvious legitimacy and security of the lottery after the former.
posted by edd at 6:48 AM on September 8, 2009 [3 favorites]

There was a (UK) TV series called "Jonathan Creek". One time, a guy in that successfully predicted the lottery numbers....and we got to see how it was done. I wonder....
posted by JtJ at 6:49 AM on September 8, 2009

Via twitter, Brown has been complaining that he isn't being allowed to buy a lottery ticket. How does that work in the UK? Here you can pick them up in any gas station.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:51 AM on September 8, 2009

If he's truly psychic, I imagine he'll get the numbers wrong but then explain how the negative energy was distorting his chi and besides if you add the numbers like THIS they are all mostly right.

Good thing Derren Brown isn't psychic, has never claimed to be psychic, and is an ardent skeptic.

Brown states at the beginning of his Trick of the Mind programmes that he achieves his results using a combination of "magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship".

[Messiah] Shown on 7 January 2005, Brown traveled to the United States to try to convince five leading figures that he had powers in their particular field of expertise: Christian evangelism, alien abduction, psychic powers, New Age theories and contacting the dead.

Using a false name each time, he succeeded in convincing four of the five "experts" that he had powers, and they openly endorsed him as a true practitioner. The fifth expert, the Christian evangelist Curt Nordheilm, whilst impressed by Brown's performance, asked to meet him again before giving an endorsement. The concept of the show was to highlight the power of suggestion with regard to beliefs and people's abilities, and failure to question them. Brown made it quite clear with each experiment that if any of the subjects accused him of trickery he would immediately come clean about the whole thing, a rule similar to one of the self-imposed rules of the perpetrators of the Project Alpha hoax. His conclusion was that people tend to hear only things that support their own ideas and ignore contradictory evidence; this is known in psychology as confirmation bias.
posted by maudlin at 6:53 AM on September 8, 2009 [14 favorites]

DU. He's not a psychic - He's always claimed that his tricks are nothing but tricks, and that psychics are charlatans.

He did something similar with horse racing where he correctly guessed six winning horses in a row, and then went on to explain how he did it. (It was obvious really)

That being said - I do suspect that he's sold his soul to cthullu and he does actually have magical abilities.
posted by seanyboy at 6:53 AM on September 8, 2009

Oh, never mind my question. It's his bosses at Channel 4 that won't let him get one. I see now.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:53 AM on September 8, 2009

Yes, I get that. I guess I should have said "If he were truly psychic" to be clear that it was a counterfactual.

Googling for that Jonathan Creek thing (never head of it) I found an article about this stunt that started: "It sounds like something out of Jonathan Creek, but..."
posted by DU at 6:54 AM on September 8, 2009

He is just going to "write the numbers down in advance" and then "reveal he was right" afterward. In the meantime, an assistant backstage will write down the real numbers, slip them to him, and then he will exchange them with the wrong ones he wrote down in advance before the reveal. Old trick, new application. At least that is what I predict, and it is a career breaker for me if I am wrong.
posted by procrastination at 6:55 AM on September 8, 2009 [13 favorites]

You know how he could do it? Arrange for the lottery drawing to be on tape delay (or digital delay probably), then run his little thing, then show the drawing. Should be no problem there, as the sale of tickets generally closes an hour or two before the drawing. That's how I would fake it.

PS Moon landings: Fake.
posted by Mister_A at 6:56 AM on September 8, 2009

He did something similar with horse racing where he correctly guessed six winning horses in a row, and then went on to explain how he did it. (It was obvious really)

For those of us who are just now hearing of this guy and are very curious: could you please elaborate?
posted by jbickers at 6:57 AM on September 8, 2009

I suspect he'll "write" the numbers down in a sealed envelope and reveal them after the draw?
posted by PenDevil at 6:57 AM on September 8, 2009

I'm sure he'll paper over his wounds with 100-euro notes gained from the advertising sold on the four-week series.

Yeah, but the prospect for future advertising, especially after the third episode reveal of the mound of unbaptized infants who were sacrificed to Moloch, may be severely dimished if he's wrong.

The bigger worry, I think, is if he is not only right but Right as in The-Stars-Are-Right. I seem to recall something similar happened a few years back in R'lyeh. While things worked out real well for the winner (he was able to quit his job and take an extended 'stay-cation') it didn't do too much good for the rest of the populace.

I doubt Brown is going that far, though. At least, I hope he isn't. If any of you Brits start to notice your friends and family carving eldritch runes into their flesh while they wail the music of the spheres, you might want to look into taking a quick vacation of your own.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:58 AM on September 8, 2009

jbickers: here you go
posted by edd at 7:01 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

"He is just going to "write the numbers down in advance" and then "reveal he was right" afterward."
If he does something like that, I'd bet you'll regret using the word 'just'. Brown and Nyman's scripting and presentation generally goes way beyond that.
posted by edd at 7:03 AM on September 8, 2009

He did something similar with horse racing where he correctly guessed six winning horses in a row, and then went on to explain how he did it. (It was obvious really)

For those of us who are just now hearing of this guy and are very curious: could you please elaborate?

Not hard to track down, but for convenience here's the Wikipedia content:

"Cameras followed an ordinary member of the public, Khadisha, as Brown anonymously sent her correct predictions of five races in a row, before encouraging her to place as much money as she could on the sixth race."

"After Brown had placed a bet of £4,000 of Khadisha's money on a horse in the final race, he explained that The System did not really exist. He had started by contacting 7,776 people and split them into six groups, giving each group a different horse. As each race had taken place 5⁄6 of the people had lost and were dropped from the system. Far from Brown knowing which horse would win, he had a different person backing each horse in each race, and it was simple logic that meant that one individual, who happened to be Khadisha, won five times in a row"

i.e. yeah like in xkcd.
posted by Bokononist at 7:03 AM on September 8, 2009

Just noticed his art, and I quite like it. His Clint Eastwood and George Bush portraits are especially good.
posted by seanyboy at 7:03 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Why is it that the US only imports UK shows that are stupid (Are You Being Served) or basically pointless (Trading Spaces) but not educational like this guy seems to be?

Don't answer that.
posted by DU at 7:06 AM on September 8, 2009 [6 favorites]

Actually, given that Brown's shtick is subliminal influence, I would guess that he's probably going to pull a stunt whereby he tries to make a large percentage of ticket buyers choose a specific set of numbers. He won't (and can't) have any direct influence over the actual numbers that the machine selects. Brown doesn't do much in the way of

And the fact that his follow-up show will be called 'how to control the nation' kind of gives it away.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 7:07 AM on September 8, 2009

"...much in the way of traditional 'numbers in envelopes' magic." was what I meant to say.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 7:08 AM on September 8, 2009

@jbickers

If you're just now hearing of Derren Brown, hie thee to YouTube.

Seriously.

Start with this one.
posted by RavinDave at 7:08 AM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

Anyway this guy is pretty up-front about how and what it is he does, and it is often good entertainment. I wish the OP had included some relevant background information.
posted by Bokononist at 7:11 AM on September 8, 2009

Perhaps he reads XKCD?

I've actually done that in the past... even with say 3 to 1 people are sill impressed when it hits
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:12 AM on September 8, 2009

(He also shakes a pretty mean paintbrush.)
posted by RavinDave at 7:14 AM on September 8, 2009

The horse race thing is a very old con trick.

I was impressed by his chess trick (where he beats the majority of grandmasters playing them simultaneously) because, although it was a ridiculously simple solution at heart, it still required a lot of mental effort.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:19 AM on September 8, 2009

Just for some added colour, Derren used to perform a terrific card routine.
posted by ashaw at 7:25 AM on September 8, 2009

Actually, given that Brown's shtick is subliminal influence, I would guess that he's probably going to pull a stunt whereby he tries to make a large percentage of ticket buyers choose a specific set of numbers.

He may do this, I suppose, but this is completely unrelated to the claim made in the link, which is that he will perform his trick after ticket sales have closed and will predict the numbers. Obviously, persuading half the nation to pick a specific set of numbers is unrelated to the outcome of the Lottery draw.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 7:27 AM on September 8, 2009

I'm not a huge fan of Brown due to his showmanship, but I am impressed by his talent. He's proof of the power of a single-minded dedication to a certain cause. (His book is apparently really entertaining and teaches you some basic techniques.) He's a bit like a more irreverent Ricky Jay. Brown is very keen on revealing his tricks while Jay is a huge fan of the history of magic and quite respectful of the original ideas of keeping your audience in awe (and in the dark). They are both masters at their craft, but approach the whole business from different ends.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:33 AM on September 8, 2009

Don't let my first comment fool you: I love stuff like this. Mentalists and tricksters and sleight-of-hand guys rock!
posted by Mister_A at 7:36 AM on September 8, 2009

Mr. Brown should consider suspending himself for a month in a glass box over Piccadilly Circus.
posted by Mister_A at 7:37 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

I show this particular Derren Brown video the on the first day of every statistics class I teach.

(skip the creepy clown part at the beginning of the video.)
posted by wittgenstein at 7:39 AM on September 8, 2009 [4 favorites]

@DU - A US version of Derren Brown's Mind Control was attempted in 2007 on the SciFi channel, recycling content from the UK show but adding new "shot in the US" bits. I suspect it was a failure as I haven't heard anything else since it's initial run (and it wasn't really promoted at all, so no surprise).

For those who haven't heard of the guy and are tempted to dismiss him as a pretend psychic or TV con man entertainer, his bits go far beyond that. He's quite thought provoking, challenging a lot of our accepted rationales behind human behavior, and proudly flies the skeptic flag. I'm a big fan. Search out his bits via YouTube for starters, as suggested above.
posted by General Zubon at 7:39 AM on September 8, 2009

I don't think Brown will do the "numbers in an envelope after the fact" trick. It's kinda passe and not his style. I don't know how he's going to do it, but it will be more than mere sleight of hand stuff.
posted by Sova at 7:41 AM on September 8, 2009

I think he's amazingly talented, and I look forward to seeing how he's conjured up a method for predicting the lottery - or not. He obviously can't do it, but making us think he can is almost as good.
posted by flippant at 7:49 AM on September 8, 2009

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.....you humans! You just want to believe in something so badly it hurts.
posted by mygoditsbob at 7:56 AM on September 8, 2009

Derren Brown is the best cold reader I've ever seen. Either that or he uses stooges in his shows (if he does *grrrr* to you DB).
posted by Summer at 8:07 AM on September 8, 2009

"Brown is very keen on revealing his tricks"
I wouldn't say that, speaking as someone with mentalism as a hobby. He sometimes gives away simple principles, but that's not the same as being keen on revealing his tricks.
"Derren Brown is the best cold reader I've ever seen. Either that or he uses stooges in his shows (if he does *grrrr* to you DB)."
That's a false dichotomy. Cold reading is a very specific and fairly limited technique, and stooges are risky and I would say quite distasteful to the mentalist in most situations. There are many alternatives. Magic often relies quite heavily on people failing to be sufficiently creative, imaginative, devious or whatever to realise the method.
I won't say how he does many of his tricks, but I have no qualms at pointing out Peter Popoff didn't cold read or use stooges.
posted by edd at 8:21 AM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

I think the intention of the trick is for him to fail.

Posted here as a marker for posterity
posted by Jofus at 8:21 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Darren Brown sometimes pretends to reveal how he does tricks, while not really revealing anything -- he'll give a faux-scientific explanation and people buy it, but it's not always true. Sometimes he's just doing it the ugly way (plants, etc) just like other stage psychics do.

As to the Lotto trick, i'm sure he'll do some variation on the 'writing the numbers down', but it'll probably be done in some big dramatic way, like putting the numbers on the side of a building.
posted by empath at 8:27 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

So could he just be a new No Whammy guy?
posted by FuManchu at 8:28 AM on September 8, 2009

I think the intention of the trick is for him to fail.

I was wondering about that myself. Then the take-away is "People! You know that I'm crazy good with hypnosis, cold reading, subconscious suggestion and the like, but what in the world ever made you think that I could predict randomly drawn numbers?! Haven't I been telling you for years to use your heads?"
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:29 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Brown, 38, admits: If this one goes wrong, it could be a career-breaker.

Brown has been complaining that he isn't being allowed to buy a lottery ticket. How does that work in the UK? Here you can pick them up in any gas station.

In my opinion these are both convincers to make us think that a) it could go wrong and b) it could be true. He will be able to predict the numbers no problem. The fact that he is going to reveal how it did it on Channel 4 on Friday night should leave you in no doubt and should be interesting and fun which is what Derren Brown is in essence - interesting and fun that is.

I hope like the others on this thread that is is not a simple an envelope switch. In an case I am a huge fan of everything he has done. He entertains.
posted by therubettes at 8:29 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Re: the prediction that he'll do the "numbers in an envelope" trick - he's already said that his predictions will be projected onto buildings all around the country. Now, that could be an extravagant showman's version of the envelope trick - but it sounds like it'll probably be something different.
posted by flashboy at 8:32 AM on September 8, 2009

I seriously doubt Brown uses stooges for much of anything. That's a career-ender if it ever came out -- and a nice bit of potential blackmail he'd be exposing himself to.
posted by RavinDave at 8:32 AM on September 8, 2009

One thing I've learned from watching 'how magic is done' videos on youtube and looking up secrets, etc, is that the reality behind the most seemingly graceful and elegant tricks is sometimes really hacky and ugly -- including plants, camera tricks, rigged scenery, etc. I watched one special where a magician supposedly went into a bar and did some close-up magic for random people, just amazing stuff and seemingly spur-of-the-moment, but the audience was all plants, and the table they were sitting at was gimmicked, and was brought into the bar just for the special.

Magicians will go through a LOT of effort to set-up a seemingly simple trick. Remember, these are people who spent hundreds of hours standing in front of a mirror at home learning how to make a coin disappear.
posted by empath at 8:35 AM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

For example, the great Ricky Jay.

He spends a minute shuffling a deck, then pulls out every card in order.

Would he do something as hack-y as cutting the camera after the shuffle and bringing out a sorted deck? You tell me. That's certainly a conveniently timed edit.
posted by empath at 8:40 AM on September 8, 2009

Ah, the magic of self-promotion.
posted by nanojath at 8:42 AM on September 8, 2009

I seriously doubt Brown uses stooges for much of anything. That's a career-ender if it ever came out -- and a nice bit of potential blackmail he'd be exposing himself to.

Maybe he's blackmailing the stooges.

Also: would it really be a career ender? After all, it's not like he's some sleazy John Edward type who preys on the gullibility of widows. When a magician uses the phrase "Nothing up my sleeve", it's not exactly a binding oral contract.
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:44 AM on September 8, 2009

Brown has been complaining that he isn't being allowed to buy a lottery ticket. How does that work in the UK? Here you can pick them up in any gas station.

Sounds like he is not being allowed by his producers, not the lottery folks.

In reality, that's a good way to head off the "if you know the numbers, why don't you buy a ticket" argument. That would be the surest way to show he knows the numbers, but that would be impossible.
posted by The Deej at 8:44 AM on September 8, 2009

I suspect he'll "write" the numbers down in a sealed envelope and reveal them after the draw

But he'll want to tell them out loud but "they" will prevent him so he has no choice but to write them down.
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:44 AM on September 8, 2009

empath: Exactly. Penn & Teller famously make this obvious a few times. They show you how a trick can be done if you're willing to go to great expense. The typical audience member just isn't willing to believe they would go to such expense, but of course they do.
posted by odinsdream at 8:46 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Sounds like he is not being allowed by his producers, not the lottery folks.

Sounds like he didn't buy it because he can't really predict the numbers, obviously :)

I'm fairly sure that the Lottery has no prohibition on psychics buying lotto tickets.
posted by empath at 8:49 AM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

I saw this thing on youtube once were Derren Brown pretended he was running a self help course. But instead, the course was designed to prime people to commit a robbery if the opportunity presented itself. Of course, the opportunity presented itself, in the form of a guard loading an armored car. Watching those people (not all of them though) rob that car was great tv. I don't know how much, if any of it, was true but it was incredibly entertaining.

Also, there's a talk with him and Richard Dawkins where Dawkins interviews him about Brown's skepticism and the tricks of the trade and what not.
posted by nooneyouknow at 8:58 AM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

I don't know how much, if any of it, was true

I can guarantee you that it was 100% paid actors.
posted by empath at 9:03 AM on September 8, 2009

odinsdream: Yes, that's exactly why his show about predicting the winners of horse races drove me so crazy. Aside from the woman being a stooge, which I wouldn'r accept for the reasons others have mentioned above (blackmail, etc) the only mechanism I could think of was the correct one. But after a rough estimate of the effort and expense involved, I dismissed it as implausible and spent the rest of the episode going out of my mind trying to guess the "real" trick. More fool me :).
posted by metaBugs at 9:03 AM on September 8, 2009

That's what I mean about Derren Brown pretending to tell you his secrets. He spouts off some bullshit about Neurolinguistic Programing and Psychology and Science, but it's just hokum for rubes who happen to have a materialist worldview. He paid a bunch of actors to come in and pretend to be hypnotized to rob a bank. He'll never reveal 'that' secret, though, because nobody would watch one of his specials again. If you're just going to watch a bunch of actors pretend to be hypnotized, what's the fun in that?
posted by empath at 9:06 AM on September 8, 2009

"After Brown had placed a bet of £4,000 of Khadisha's money on a horse in the final race, he explained that The System did not really exist. He had started by contacting 7,776 people and split them into six groups, giving each group a different horse. As each race had taken place 5⁄6 of the people had lost and were dropped from the system. Far from Brown knowing which horse would win, he had a different person backing each horse in each race, and it was simple logic that meant that one individual, who happened to be Khadisha, won five times in a row"

True Story: My maternal grandfather, who was kind of well-off, and who was a gambler and a drinker went to the track with my dad and got tired of my father picking on him for picking for betting on losers in the first few races, bet on every horse in every race for the rest of the night, and only told my dad about the winners.

A few years later, my dad was telling about the night of Pop-pop's lucky streak at the races, when my grandfather started laughing like hell and told him the truth and said: "Whose the sucker now."
posted by empath at 9:11 AM on September 8, 2009 [10 favorites]

I can guarantee you that it was 100% paid actors.

Aw.
posted by Summer at 9:28 AM on September 8, 2009

empath:

I can guarantee you that it was 100% paid actors.

I don't know on what evidence you can make such a bold claim. There are a number of things which makes me more than convinced that the corollary is true.

First, and this is Derren's own reasoning, that the stooges would sell the story to papers now that he's such a celebrity etc. Second, he's able to reproduce all his tricks and most of the time, more impressively in a live and totally random environment (see his Enigma, Evening of Wonders and Something Wicked This Way Comes live tours) where anyone who buys a ticket can attend and all participants are randomly selected through frisbees thrown several times by audience members. He has a long history associated with mentalism and magic circles where stooges are, as he put it, 'artistically repugnant'.

As to the business with NLP, he's addresses this in his book 'Tricks of the Mind' where he says that the role of psychology and NLP were blown out of proportion, and that these are but small aspects of his repertoire to which he combines with more conventional conjuring tricks to create an overall effect. He himself, IIRC, has expressed skepticism as to the veracity of NLP and hypnosis. I admit he has in the past maybe overplayed the importance of psychology in his performance, much to the chagrin of Simon Singh, but he has never made a claim which can be said to be outright dishonest.

In his book Tricks of the Mind, Brown writes, "I am often dishonest in my techniques, but always honest about my dishonesty. As I say in each show, 'I mix magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship'. I happily admit cheating, as it's all part of the game. I hope some of the fun for the viewer comes from not knowing what's real and what isn't. I am an entertainer first and foremost, and I am careful not to cross any moral line that would take me into manipulating people's real-life decisions or belief systems."

If you're really interested in the evolution of his material, try to get hold of his lecture with the Magic Circle, his book Pure Effect and Absolute Magic and his card DVD 'Devil's Picturebook'.
posted by ashaw at 9:35 AM on September 8, 2009 [4 favorites]

I can guarantee you that it was 100% paid actors.

Does this guarantee come in writing? Or many with some kind of evidence?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great idea to be skeptical of people who are actively trying to trick you, but it feels just as cheap to me to dismiss it all because everything is 'guaranteed' paid actors and plants by a dude on an internet forum.

I'm sure this guy needs no defending seeing as he seems to be somewhat well known even just here on the blue, and I've seen some of his stuff myself. I'm not really trying to defend him, but rather voice my dissatisfaction with a rather lame 'debunking' of a trick that hasn't even been performed yet and might prove to be pretty interesting and/or impressive.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 9:39 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ashaw-- so your belief is that its more likely that Derren Brown has an uniquely advanced ability to implant hypnotic suggestions than that he paid a bunch of actors?
posted by empath at 9:40 AM on September 8, 2009

empath: See this. Note that he shuffles eight times....

In general, magicians are very very reluctant to use camera tricks - the reason is that at that point you could do anything at all, and then why bother spending years practicing tricks at all?

Ricky Jay is one of the great card manipulators of all time. He can do amazing things, it's not worth the risk to his career to do something silly like that...

(And as for the "paid stooges" to rob a bank - again, why do that when people are amazingly suggestible if put into the right state of mind? I should also add that it's quite likely that at least half of them don't believe it at all but are simply going along just to be on TV. Though I'm less familiar with Brown's work so I can't be quite so sure here...)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:42 AM on September 8, 2009

empath: Two things. Firstly, you are potentially making another false dichotomy error as Summer did before. Secondly, you are assuming that a magician will take the simple route to doing something, which as discussed above is often not the case.
posted by edd at 9:44 AM on September 8, 2009

Empath is right. Derren Brown is a very smart man ... by stating up front that he's not a psychic, he gets normally skeptical people to believe that he can do outlandish things. He lies as much as any magician, which is to say constantly, yet people always take him at his word.
posted by Bookhouse at 9:44 AM on September 8, 2009

I can think of several rather involved ways in which the bank robbery illusion was pulled off, none of them involving hypnotic suggestion (which is just a diversion) or actors (which is just... unimaginative).
posted by LVdB at 9:55 AM on September 8, 2009

Ashaw-- so your belief is that its more likely that Derren Brown has an uniquely advanced ability to implant hypnotic suggestions than that he paid a bunch of actors?

Sorry, you clearly didn't read what I wrote. Clearly, this isn't due to some 'uniquely advanced ability' with something as diffuse as hypnosis or psychology. Obviously. (See Simon Singh's criticism). Once again, he's addressed all this, and said that there's no way it's 100% psychology/hypnosis. This doesn't neccesarily mean he use a stooge, to say so would be to commit a fallacy, it's possible but IMO unlikely.

What this does probably suggest is that in creating the effect of reading minds, controlling behaviour he's had to use some fairly run of the mill mentalism techniques fused with some pop NLP/psychology, standard magician's misdirection and some excellently scripted patter and showmanship to create an overall effect.

By the way, have you thought about the fact that he might be using NLP/hypnosis (which he himself claims doesn't really exist) etc as a form of subtle classical misdirection? He's allowing you an easy exit, as the saying goes: Magicians guard an empty safe.

I understand what you're trying to say, Occam's Razor etc but this doesn't apply I don't think.
posted by ashaw at 9:55 AM on September 8, 2009

malevolent re: stooges: I just don't think it's necessary as long as you pick the right participants.

Brown's selection process is usually a filter in itself, finding the right people just for the reason you just stated. He often turns away possible participants with the implication that his plan won't work on them. Regardless, I find it all, including this filtering process, entertaining and fascinating.
posted by General Zubon at 9:57 AM on September 8, 2009

Empath,

In the special I saw, he didn't use hypnotisim. Google tells me what I saw was called The Heist. (I think you can watch it here; video is blocked at my job)

From wikipedia "The special was filmed over two weeks, during which Brown used various psychological tools, including conditioning, anchoring and suggestion, to get the group into a mental state in which they would willingly try to rob a security guard, without ever directly being told to do so. The anchoring involved creating an emotional state that combined feelings of invulnerability, euphoria and aggression, that was then tied to various stimuli, such as the color green, the song "Can You Feel It" by The Jacksons, and the sight of a security guard uniform; which could then all be presented to the participants when it came time to perform "the heist". The participants were also asked to perform various deviant acts, such as stealing candy from a store, which served both to condition participants to enjoy the feeling of criminality, and to identify the four members who would be most likely to perform the heist."

The rest of the article goes into more detail.

Could he have used paid actors? Yes. Is it likely that he used paid actors? Don't know. Do I care if he used actors? No, because the show was really entertaining. It was fun to watch so I don't really care if it was real or not.
posted by nooneyouknow at 10:02 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Some people are naturally like actors - you can give them suggestions and put them in situations and they'll 'perform' rather than shy away from doing anything. It would be incredibly risky for Derren Brown to use outright stooges (he's very well-known over here and has repeatedly stated he doesn't use them, and the papers would love to expose him), and I just don't think it's necessary as long as you pick the right participants.

That is essentially stage 'hypnosis'. Drag an extrovert out of a crowd of a thousand people, build up the pressure, tell him he'll act like a chicken and that he has no choice. 9/10 he'll cluck till the roosters come home to roost.

Also Empath just to add to this: watch this. You can watch that and come to the conclusion that they're stooges. But it's far more likely I think, given all the reasons above, that he's just applied the same old tried and tested magic methods, added some NLP/stage hypnosis/psychological finesse and created an effect. That is the essence of the brance of magic called mentalism. Buy his DVD if you want to know how it's done.
posted by ashaw at 10:02 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

You can watch that and come to the conclusion that they're stooges.

Yeah, his explanation is bullshit.
posted by empath at 10:05 AM on September 8, 2009

Yeah, his explanation is bullshit.

Well, yeah. No one doubts this. Derren Brown actively tells people that the whole explanation could very well be a load of crap. One meta level up, it's another puzzle, is the easy pop psychology solution be a distraction to the really quite drab and mechanical truth? Thats why I think Derren is such a fantastic performer, it's a constant cat and mouse chase to find the borders where the truth gets blurred.
posted by ashaw at 10:15 AM on September 8, 2009

I think what I was saying, and didn't manage to say correctly, is that if it is anything OTHER than a behind-the-scenes switcheroo of the written numbers to be the ones that are drawn, then the chances are that an entertainer will have gotten into cahoots with the lottery drawing system and gotten them either to do the draw early, give him the numbers and then then show the supposedly live (now taped) drawing in lieu of doing a genuine live drawing, or some other similar circumstance.

I will be interested to see what his big reveal of method is, but THAT is what I meant by throwing the lottery system into question. If an entertainer can get them to do that as a publicity stunt, then the system is no longer what it claims to be, i.e. a real live drawing aired on television.
posted by hippybear at 10:28 AM on September 8, 2009

Let me just chime in here to say if I ever became obscenely wealthy or generally reached a point at which wealth was immaterial -- then Ricky Jay would personally perform for me on a schedule of his choosing, regaling me with any card trick he felt like performing, and his rewards would both be outrageous and well deserved.
posted by cavalier at 10:29 AM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

hippybear, I suspect that the drawing has never really been live, so that there won't be endless caterwauling in the event of a technical mishap. I suspect that televised lotteries have always been delayed.
posted by Mister_A at 10:33 AM on September 8, 2009

Let me just chime in here to say if I ever became obscenely wealthy or generally reached a point at which wealth was immaterial -- then Ricky Jay would personally perform for me on a schedule of his choosing, regaling me with any card trick he felt like performing, and his rewards would both be outrageous and well deserved.

I'd just have him follow me around and softly narrate my life 24/7.

(I'd also have him kill my enemies.)
posted by slimepuppy at 10:41 AM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

I can guarantee you that it was 100% paid actors.
posted by empath

You can tell by the pixels.
posted by danny the boy at 10:56 AM on September 8, 2009 [3 favorites]

Brown is very keen on revealing his tricks

It needs to be said that in a lot of cases, his "reveals" are themselves further layers of showmanship and sleight of hand, and don't reflect the way his tricks were actually done.
posted by anazgnos at 11:01 AM on September 8, 2009

Brown doesn't necessarily need actors or stooges. He could use the same "system" (the one he uses to pick the winning horse) for his show. He could record a bunch of tricks with random people, then show only the ones that serve his purpose. Then he gives some mumbo-jumbo psychological explanation as a diversion.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:03 AM on September 8, 2009

It needs to be said

And has been several times even, on preview.
posted by anazgnos at 11:10 AM on September 8, 2009

Anyone know how/if the lottery prediction can be viewed live online outside the UK?
posted by therubettes at 11:21 AM on September 8, 2009

Omg, I just watched the 'hold-ups'. If you honestly believe that wasn't 100% staged, you're an imbecile.
posted by empath at 11:38 AM on September 8, 2009

That's certainly a conveniently timed edit.

Except that he also shuffles the deck later on, without an edit, and the cards are in order. Also, if you look at his early flourish (which takes place before the edit) you'll see that a lot of the cards are in order. I don't know what specific trick he is doing to control where the cards are.

A highly skilled magician is not going to use a cheap hackneyed trick, which is what distinguishes Ricky Jay from an utter hack like Chris Angel.
posted by Deathalicious at 11:39 AM on September 8, 2009

Exactly. Penn & Teller famously make this obvious a few times. They show you how a trick can be done if you're willing to go to great expense. posted by odinsdream

An example of this I remember which I think was on Penn & Teller's Bullshit! was that they would have someone draw a card, then reveal to them a crazy planted example that said what their card was somewhere on the beach (written on a tree, painted on a person, etc). They then went on to demonstrate it was a fairly basic card trick only they had planted examples for every card in the deck somewhere around them so they could do the trick endlessly, the only difficult part being remembering where each card's reveal was.
posted by haveanicesummer at 11:41 AM on September 8, 2009

Except that he also shuffles the deck later on, without an edit, and the cards are in order.

Oh, I firmly believe Ricky Jay can shuffle decks in order. I just think he cheated and mixed 'real' shuffles before the edit with 'card control' shuffles after the edit. Notice, all post edit shuffles are basic 'over the hand' shuffles.
posted by empath at 11:43 AM on September 8, 2009

This discussion reminds me of that article about how unskilled people can't recognise skill in others.
posted by LVdB at 11:46 AM on September 8, 2009 [3 favorites]

I think that Ricky Jay's skill is in presentation. The trick isn't the shuffling, it's the reveal, which is still very impressive. And he's clearly an incredibly skilled close up magician. But I'm saying that it's possible that he used a camera edit to cover some trickery.

There's very little coincidence in the staging of magic tricks. If there's no audience, there's a reason, and if there's a camera edit, there's a reason.

Has he done that trick live before an audience before? Anybody have a video of it, if so? I suspect not (or if there is, the shuffling technique is different).
posted by empath at 11:51 AM on September 8, 2009

from LVdB's linked article--

On the humor test, in which participants were asked to rate jokes according to their funniness (subjects' ratings were matched against those of an ``expert'' panel of professional comedians), low-scoring subjects were also more apt to have an inflated perception of their skill. But because humor is idiosyncratically defined, the researchers said, the results were less conclusive.

I know they said those results weren't conclusive (and the rest of the study was interesting), but this part of the test stands out as a testament that their study-creating skills may be more in the 12th percentile than the 68th percentile. Seriously? Pick which joke is funniest? The variables in something like that are so impossibly endless that I can't believe that didn't get shot down before they even left the planning table.
posted by haveanicesummer at 11:54 AM on September 8, 2009

You can watch that and come to the conclusion that they're stooges. But it's far more likely I think, given all the reasons above, that he's just applied the same old tried and tested magic methods, added some NLP/stage hypnosis/psychological finesse and created an effect.

For pete's sake people, I knew what cards each person had before they were revealed. In the first, he visibly shunted the reds aside, grabbed the face cards, and told him that if he was was thinking of a face card (which of course he was) to discard the "couple" (king & queen) leaving the Jack. In the next one, he showed the guy a diamond and then showed him there were three pips. In the third, he touched his heart repeatedly and drew the four pips on the card. So if I'm in the hot seat, and my job is to guess what card he's thinking of, and he's telling me what card it is, why on earth wouldn't I get it right?
posted by Deathalicious at 11:57 AM on September 8, 2009

Chris Angel's a hack? Wow. Had me fooled.
posted by RavinDave at 11:59 AM on September 8, 2009

Omg, I just watched the 'hold-ups'. If you honestly believe that wasn't 100% staged, you're an imbecile.

Yeah, maybe. But give me a position of power, 14 people, a directive for two weeks of "conditioning", all that with an okay from them, and this takes place under the guise of something else; and I bet you I could make a couple of those people do some crazy shit.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:11 PM on September 8, 2009

I was lucky enough to be onstage as a volunteer at Ricky Jay's "On the Stem." (He asked for a volunteer; I practically came out of my chair. I was the only one with his arm raised. What the fuck, weirdos?) He had me participate in some card tricks where (naturally) he was always dealt the winning poker hand. This included the last hand, where he handed me the deck, had me shuffle the cards and deal out the hands and then pick which hand I wanted. He got a straight flush. I'll be fucked if I could figure out how he did it, but of course, that was the point. He's crazy good. I doubt the man needs camera edits.
posted by Skot at 12:19 PM on September 8, 2009 [4 favorites]

I'd lose a lot of respect for Derren Brown as an entertainer if he uses stooges for all of his tricks.
posted by flatluigi at 12:20 PM on September 8, 2009

Skot, did he use Vizzini's techniques to influence your mind?

You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...
posted by Mister_A at 12:24 PM on September 8, 2009

Skot, did he use Vizzini's techniques to influence your mind?

Maybe! I didn't have the forethought to build up a resistance to iocane powder.
posted by Skot at 12:29 PM on September 8, 2009

Aha!
posted by Mister_A at 12:30 PM on September 8, 2009

Given that Ricky Jay is such a competent card mechanic it seems to be utter incongruous with his act that he would sacrifice all his years of practice, training and showmanship in such a fashion - one that any old idiot with a video camera and a laptop can do.

Sure yeah, there's always a possibility, but there's a unspoken contract when a magician says he doesn't use stooges.

As to how it's done? I think I have a few ideas, some pretty radical sleights, but all within the reach of Ricky. BTW, here's another card magician I really admire: Lennart Green SYTL
Notice for empath: yes, there is a possibility that there were stooges who shouted out the cards. And no, I don't think that the laser vaporised the card. It's all magic baby.
posted by ashaw at 12:33 PM on September 8, 2009

Omg, I just watched the 'hold-ups'. If you honestly believe that wasn't 100% staged, you're an imbecile.

Hey empath, you're that guy who's always sitting in the row in front of me whenever I see an illusionist, aren't you?

You know the one? The guy who always announces loudly how it's all done with mirrors?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:37 PM on September 8, 2009

Omg, I just watched the 'hold-ups'. If you honestly believe that wasn't 100% staged, you're an imbecile.

If by 'staged' you mean 'planned', then obviously yes.

I don't know about the final step, but to be perfectly honest I'm not sure what is so unbelievable about this. People were put, with careful application, into a receptive mental state over and over again and actively conditioned towards a goal. This is not at all impossible and not at all surprising to me. What do you think cults do? What is advertising? Brainwashing?

We condition soldiers for their job all the time; it takes better in some than others. He eliminates anyone in the group who would potentially muck it up to leave only the most receptive people involved. They're being trained for an explicit purpose and there is plenty of evidence that the techniques he used (color and sound as subliminal triggers to a mental state) work.

Yes, they may have been 'stooges'. I don't have any evidence they weren't, you don't have any evidence they were (aside from your 'magicians lie all the time' defense). But the fact is that none of his methodology is new or farfetched.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 12:43 PM on September 8, 2009

Given that Ricky Jay is such a competent card mechanic it seems to be utter incongruous with his act that he would sacrifice all his years of practice, training and showmanship in such a fashion - one that any old idiot with a video camera and a laptop can do.

Agreed. Anyone who would suggest that Ricky Jay would resort to camera tricks is obviously not at all familiar with the man and his talent.

It does it all with mirrors.
posted by The Deej at 12:46 PM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

The odds of winning the UK Lotto jackpot is 1 in 13,983,816, according to their web site. He only needs to print out about 14 million envelopes with the numbers in them, then retrieve the right envelope.

On the horse racing thing: with parimutual betting, you would only be a small loser by betting on every horse. It's like betting on every number on a roulette wheel. It pays 35:1, but costs you $37 (for single 0 table) to play. For ten races, it costs you a small amount of money, but you get to produce ten winning tickets (throwing away the losers). If you did that with $2 bets, your sucker would be convinced your "system" works, and you could likely get them to do whatever you wanted.
posted by Xoc at 12:58 PM on September 8, 2009

empath: But I'm saying that it's possible that he [Ricky Jay] used a camera edit to cover some trickery.

Huh. When did Metafilter turn into the YouTube comments section? Accusing Ricky Jay of using camera edits is not like accusing, say, Lance Armstrong of doping. It's like accusing Lance Armstrong of sneaking off the Tour de France route and taking a bus to the finish line à la Rosie Ruiz.
posted by mhum at 1:04 PM on September 8, 2009 [3 favorites]

Bookhouse: Among Ricky Jay's many, many skills is his ability to make you think he'd never go the cheap route.

Oh snap!
posted by mhum at 1:13 PM on September 8, 2009

I'm a fan of both Ricky Jay and Derren Brown, fwiw. I saw on of Derren Brown's live tv specials and I thought it was spectacular.

I don't get why people get offended at the idea that magicians might be lying to you. Lying to you is their job. I also find it funny that people get offended at the idea that Ricky Jay might do a cheap camera trick, and then in the next sentence say that obviously Chris Angel does.

They all will use cheap tricks, when it gets the illusion they want.

Why is it that you believe a magician when he says "I don't use stooges/actors" or "I don't use camera tricks." Every other thing you saw was a carefully planned and executed deception -- but that ONE SENTENCE is true? Please. They'll do what they have to do to get the illusion.

David Blaine blatantly did it in his street magic shows, but he's not the only one.
posted by empath at 1:25 PM on September 8, 2009

I feel guilty for helping aide more than half of this thread into the direction of discussing Ricky Jay. Still looking for that book, though....
posted by cavalier at 1:33 PM on September 8, 2009

Blaine is also disliked by most magicians for exactly that (eg: phony Balducci Levitation). That dislike is misinterpreted by the general public as professional jealousy. I haven't seen any magicians diss Derren Brown.
posted by RavinDave at 1:35 PM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

empath, it is simply that using actors is not needed. Some of Derren's card illusions I have performed myself for friends and family. I have seen long discussions of Derren performing these same illusions in his TV shows, stating how camera editing and stooges must be involved, while the truth is so much more deceptive, interesting, elegant - and simple.
posted by LVdB at 1:53 PM on September 8, 2009

That's what I mean about Derren Brown pretending to tell you his secrets. He spouts off some bullshit about Neurolinguistic Programing and Psychology and Science, but it's just hokum for rubes who happen to have a materialist worldview.

Derren Brown makes me sad.

He puts on a show of being like James Randi. "I'm not really psychic. I'm just using trickery that I'll explain later." And then he gives plausible-sounding but bullshit explanations. I was taken in by him at first, but then I started hearing "explanation" after "explanation" that I knew was total bullshit (I had a youthful fascination with magic and psychological trickery, and I keep up with the literature).

Here's one example: he has an act where he gets an ad agency to come up with a poster for some fake organization. Before they show him what they came up with, he draws his own poster and shows it to them. It's remarkably like what they drew. He then claims that he got them to draw their version via subliminal suggestion. He shows them a video of all the stuff he subjected them too prior to meeting with them. For instance, if he wanted them to draw a red car, he made sure that many, many red cars drove by the taxi they took to get the meeting.

Problem is that this sort of thing is super-easy to test in lab conditions. And test after test has shown that subliminal prompting of this sort is largely ineffective. But most people (a) don't know about the tests and (b) have read popular accounts of "buy popcorn" messages flashed in movie theatres. So Brown's bullshit rings true.

(When you eliminate the impossible -- that Brown used subliminal prompting -- you're left with just a couple of plausible explanations: he had the ad guys under surveillance or the ad guys were paid actors. In both cases, the trick has a disappointing mechanism. I sometimes suspect that Brown uses faux but impressive explanations to mask shoddy craftsmanship).

This saddens me for several reasons:

1) I genuinely love magic, and I don't see what's added to it by giving false explanations. Either give no explanation or really explain it.

2) I genuinely love the skeptics movement, and I don't like to see a con-man in their midst. (One that I suspect many skeptics know is conning them -- see below.)

3) Most important: Brown presents himself as playing two roles, showman and educator. He's a good showman, but he's a horrible, un-ethical educator. Disseminating false facts is wrong. I suspect he tells himself it's "all part of the show." But he doesn't present it as 100% show. In this, he's similar to the faith-healers and psychics who con people by passing off magic tricks as real. True, Dan is not conning people out of their fortunes. He's more like a fun teacher who teaches the science of Creationism of Phrenology.

I would love to see some skeptic/magician write a big expose book of Brown, the way Randi did with Uri Geller. Except no one will touch Brown, because he amidst his lies, he spreads the skeptic gospel.
posted by grumblebee at 2:00 PM on September 8, 2009 [7 favorites]

His earlier stuff suffers much more from that than recent work, I suspect as he's responding to criticism like yours grumblebee.
posted by edd at 2:07 PM on September 8, 2009

In the undertaker trick he actually smirkingly gives away the real illusion behind the mumbo jumbo (at about 3:55): 'Thank you so much, that was... that was out of this world'. Yes, it was indeed.
posted by LVdB at 2:14 PM on September 8, 2009

I don't get why people get offended at the idea that magicians might be lying to you.

This is a deep, important and complex issue: I think it boils down to two very different personality types (one not better than the other). There are people who enjoy the game as an experience and people who enjoy the rules (and who may also enjoy the game).

Take "Sherlock Holmes" stories. Though I'm a mystery lover, I'm not fan of Doyle's stories, because he cheats. To me, one of the rules of a mystery is that I should be armed with everything I need to solve the puzzle. It should be a race between me and the detective (and it's most fun when the detective wins, and I'm left thinking "Doh! Of course! It's so simple now that he explained it!")

But Doyle cheats by writing things like this: "At the bottom of the box, Holmes found an envelope. He tucked it into his pocket." Much later, when you've forgotten all about the envelope, he pulls it out and exclaims, "I know who the murder is! I have a sample of his handwriting in THIS envelope!" No fair! If I'd gotten to see the envelope, I could have solved the mystery, too. (in hindsight, the mystery isn't even a very good one. It's only "good" if you don't know what Holmes knows.)

Plenty of readers will think I'm nuts. They read for the trill ride of the moment-by-moment incidents (which I like, too, but they're not sufficient for me). They really don't care if it's a real by-the-rules mystery or if it just seems that way (as long as you don't think about it too hard). And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not how I operate.

Thing is, I'm not a lone crazy. There are many mystery fans who expect writers to follow certain rules. Writers know this. They choose to follow them or not. In the end, I can't say they're wrong or bad for not following the rules. All I can say is that by not following them, they will disappoint a certain type of reader -- and they should not be surprised when that kind of reader bad-mouths their book.

Along these lines, some people watch magic and just want "a good show." Others want a good show that follows certain ground rules. For these viewers, part of the pleasure is seeing how well the magician can fool them WITHIN the boundaries of the rules.

To me, the acid test of a good magician is whether or not I can enjoy his tricks even IF I know how they're done. Have you ever seen Penn and Teller do the 'shell game" with transparent cups? Nothing is hidden buy you are stunned by their skill. This is why I'm disappointed with Brown. When I know how he does his tricks, they bore me.
posted by grumblebee at 2:17 PM on September 8, 2009 [8 favorites]

His earlier stuff suffers much more from that than recent work, I suspect as he's responding to criticism like yours grumblebee.

Cool. I'll check him out again.
posted by grumblebee at 2:17 PM on September 8, 2009

For a start, how much money would you have to pay them to keep quiet?

I'm not saying he uses stooges, but paid stooges are used all the time on TV. In many "reality shows," much of what happens is scripted to some extent. Sometimes the stooges are actual volunteers (as opposed to actors) who eventually agree to fake all or part of what happens.

All the producers have to do is (1) get the stooges to sign a confidentiality agreement and (2) not care all that much if one of them blabs.

People blab about what happens on these shows all the time. Most viewers don't care. They'll still tune in next week.
posted by grumblebee at 2:22 PM on September 8, 2009

I can vouch for Brown not using stooges, at least for his Seance programme and some of this early specials, as the volunteers for that included people from my university. One of my friends was picked to take part but was unable to attend filming. He selected them by doing a private show for students, for which some people volunteered for some stage hypnosis.

Look closely at what you wrote. You start by saying, "I can vouch for Brown not using stooges" and then go on to "prove" your point by telling us about a friend who DIDN'T appear on Brown's show. (Brown LOVES people like you!)

Your proof -- such as it is -- comes from a friend who might be lying to you. But I'm not going to seriously suggest he's lying. I'm not even going to seriously suggest that there were stooges on that show.

I'm going to suggest that you don't know whether or not there were stooges, because you don't know what ultimately went on between the producers and the remaining volunteers after your friend dropped out. (Also, did you know ALL the volunteers? Are you sure that 100% of them were students at your school? A smart magician might recruit some real volunteers -- to get people to vouch for them and mask the fact that he's also employing some paid stooges.)

Magicians thrive on people making just the sort of assumptions you made. I'm not claiming you're stupid or too trusting. You did what most people do, which is why magic works.

It's easy to turn a volunteer into a stooge by making him feel special: "I picked you out of a whole bunch of people, and I'm going to reveal one of my biggest secrets to you, but you must SWEAR never to tell anyone. I can trust you, can't I?" And, in the end, if some college student blabs to his friends, who cares?

I once dated a girl who went to a "psychic" she was SURE was real. I asked her why she thought the psychic was real. She told me it was because the psychic knew all sorts of things about her no one could know ("he knew my major in college just by looking at me!").

I asked her if she had to make an appointment and give her name. She said yes. I then went into details about how, via her name and time to research, you could find out all her information. He response was "Oh come ON!"

It's not that she thought I was wrong that the info was available. She just didn't think it unlikely that anyone would go to all the trouble of finding it just to fool her.

Magicians are people who go to the trouble.
posted by grumblebee at 2:34 PM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

This discussion reminds me of a paragraph that Dennett quotes in his book Sweet Dreams:

"'I'm writing a book on magic," I explain, and I'm asked, "Real magic?" By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. "No," I answer, "Conjuring tricks, not real magic." Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can really be done, is not real magic."

Dennett goes into a discussion of the sort that people are having here:

"[I]t is quite all right to use smoke and mirrors, deceptive lighting, fake limbs and blood. Is it all right to use dozens of assistants? Yes, if they are backstage doing one thing or another, but what if they are disguised as audience members and are required to jump up and obscure the line of sight of the real audience members at crucial junctures? Where in the chain of causation leading to belief is the last permissible site of intervention?"
posted by painquale at 2:36 PM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

Here's one example: he has an act where he gets an ad agency to come up with a poster for some fake organization. Before they show him what they came up with, he draws his own poster and shows it to them. It's remarkably like what they drew. He then claims that he got them to draw their version via subliminal suggestion. He shows them a video of all the stuff he subjected them too prior to meeting with them. For instance, if he wanted them to draw a red car, he made sure that many, many red cars drove by the taxi they took to get the meeting.

I didn't see this act, but it sounds like he was using priming not subliminal messages. Subliminal messages are shown fast enough that they can't be consciously perceived. So having a bunch of cars driving by people is not subliminal. If they saw of a bunch of posters with red cars hidden in there somewhere, then that would be subliminal.

It also possible that he only showed the individual where the priming effect worked. And the video of people who came up with something else is sitting in a vault somewhere.
posted by nooneyouknow at 2:36 PM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Surely there is a first person account somewhere out there of one of Brown's stooges?
posted by R_Nebblesworth at 2:44 PM on September 8, 2009

It also possible that he only showed the individual where the priming effect worked. And the video of people who came up with something else is sitting in a vault somewhere.

Possibly, but fake predictions of this sort are some of the oldest and most common magic tricks around. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.
posted by Bookhouse at 2:45 PM on September 8, 2009

I don't know why I've assumed the role of Derren's defender, I'm not a stooge I promise.

Once again this quote from his book:
In his book Tricks of the Mind, Brown writes, "I am often dishonest in my techniques, but always honest about my dishonesty. As I say in each show, 'I mix magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship'. I happily admit cheating, as it's all part of the game. I hope some of the fun for the viewer comes from not knowing what's real and what isn't. I am an entertainer first and foremost, and I am careful not to cross any moral line that would take me into manipulating people's real-life decisions or belief systems."

I too found the bullshit explanations a bit wearisome sometimes. His only offence seems to be exaggerate the power of psychology and say NLP/hypnosis as part of his act. It's all about using all the techniques available to create an effect with the proviso of not sacrificing artistic integrity. In his magic books, he basically says that things like NLP/psychology are useful angles for tricks and can elevate the impact of an effect, but to use it solely would be too diffuse.

As for why stooges do compromise integrity whilst say making misleading claims about how the trick is done is that if it were true, that stooges were used, the trick would be worthless. Anyone would be able to do it. A false explanation doesn't detract from the artistry.

Magicians have been using false explanations to misdirect, it's a technique as old as the hills. "Look at this magic wand", "I'm rubbing the coin to loosen the atoms so I can slide a cigarette through it" "I can use this mystical crystal to ordain the position of your card". The only morally dubious thing would be to confuse the public about the true nature about say psychology which is a real study.

i think maybe comparing to con artists and creationist is incorrect. In his book, he's constantly fighting for the rationalist skeptic position, always showing the importance of evidence and the questioning unsubstantiated claims etc. IMO, I think Derren has the potential to be a great educator. Call me out on this, but I think he's honestly sincere about this.

And yes edd, I think he's slightly distancing himself from the early series. One can't help but think that that might be Channel 4 pushing him in that direction.

Also, as another side thought, magicians have always found it hard to deal with the "how did you do it?"question. This psychology answer is a (dubious) way to deal with it.
posted by ashaw at 2:47 PM on September 8, 2009

Possibly, but fake predictions of this sort are some of the oldest and most common magic tricks around. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

Right. Or it all could have been a bonafied magic trick and the psychological explanation was just him playing with audience.
posted by nooneyouknow at 2:51 PM on September 8, 2009

is that if it were true, that stooges were used, the trick would be worthless. Anyone would be able to do it.

--

"If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible."

--William Gibson "Johnny Mnemonic"

You can't get away with pulling off a crude trick unless you've prepared people to believe that you wouldn't possibly do that.
posted by empath at 3:14 PM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yes, we get the point empath.

Clearly theres always going to be the chance he uses a stooge. There's no trick he could perform where that wasn't going to be a possibility. Except unless he did the trick on you, in which case, I bet my bottom dollar that there's an empath in a parallel universe who'll swear he used a stooge.

If you're a believer in always taking the simplest and most probable explanation then the only way to convince you therefore would be for the solution to be more probable an answer than using a stooge. That position is defensible, but I think an incorrect one to take when it comes to something like magic where magicians go to pretty extraordinary lengths, as stated above, to do something relatively simple.
posted by ashaw at 3:37 PM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

Are the people who play the lottery in the UK as stupid as the people who play the lottery in the US (i.e. are the odds ridiculously stacked in favor of the lottery organizers)?

I mean, gambling is legal in the UK, right? Why on Earth would people play the lottery when they can bet on nearly anything anyway?
posted by mrgrimm at 3:49 PM on September 8, 2009

Disclaimer: I could be a stooge for Daren (and most certainly would accept such a position if offered (but might not offer that same disclaimer))

All magicians are liars. The inherent honesty is in declaring themselves magicians, after that all is fair.

it was grumbled:"To me, the acid test of a good magician is whether or not I can enjoy his tricks even IF I know how they're done."

Really? If you are saying the effect isn't as important as the presentation I can understand that, but apparently you can only determine if a magician is good if you know their techniques.

In your description of Sherlock Holmes you describe how you can only enjoy mysteries if you are given full information (fair enough, I would feel the same way if I read mysteries). I don't see how that applies to magic, though. If there is a gimmick, do you want them to inadvertently (or deliberately) reveal they are using a gimmick? If they use 'brute force' slight of hand, do you want them to do so in such a way where your mindful eye would catch them, if it were mindful enough?

I find it interesting there is so much back-and-forth regarding Brown. If he isn't entertaining, that would be understandable, but that doesn't seem to be the critique. If he was caught using stooges or camera tricks, I'm sure he would be critiqued and judged for that.

But apparently he is a 'bad skeptic' (by some), uses stooges (some seem certain, but offer no proof), is inherently unethical in his approach (he *is* claiming to be a magician, wtf else do you want?), is a 'con man' (don't con man generally con you out of money?).

"Either give no explanation or really explain it," - it's called patter. I don't know how you avoid 'false explanations' in mentalism. A mentalist mime is an entertaining concept, but I can't imagine an entertaining execution.

My biggest beef with Darren (as potential stooge, I'm a fan as well) is that his patter may imply to people that NLP is worth spending time on.

My greatest appreciation for Darren: his skepticism is received and heard by many who would normally never hear such things - he gets to preach to more than the choir.
posted by el io at 3:50 PM on September 8, 2009

(in retrospect, mispelling Derren's name throughout my post probably reduced fuure chances of employment as a stooge - DOH!)
posted by el io at 3:51 PM on September 8, 2009

I don't think he always uses stooges, fwiw. Sometimes I think he uses cold reading techiques, card forces, sleight of hand, eavesdropping and other clever editing cheats like the horse racing one.

But I'm postive that he used stooges for the Heist (and the zombie videogame one).

I'm sure that the NLP/subliminal/hypnosis stuff is just bunk, and whereever it's proffered as an explanation, it's just theater, and there's another, simpler/cruder explanation for it.
posted by empath at 3:51 PM on September 8, 2009

But apparently he is a 'bad skeptic' (by some), uses stooges (some seem certain, but offer no proof), is inherently unethical in his approach (he *is* claiming to be a magician, wtf else do you want?), is a 'con man' (don't con man generally con you out of money?).

I never said any of that (besides using plants). I just said that half his explanations for how he does his tricks are bullshit.
posted by empath at 3:54 PM on September 8, 2009

empath, I wasn't addressing you directly. I was more addressing grumblebee. While he didn't directly accuse him of being a con man, his analogy would probably be taken with even more offense by a skeptic "He's more like a fun teacher who teaches the science of Creationism of Phrenology."

regarding stooges: maybe so, but without any sort of evidence it seems a flimsy explanation (similar to accusing Ricky Jay of using camera tricks).

for those lovers of occam's razor: I'm not sure it should apply when the effect you are seeing is being deliberately manipulated and misrepresented in order to fool you.
posted by el io at 4:22 PM on September 8, 2009

Ricky Jay shows you how a conman works.

Penn and Teller explain the cups and balls
posted by billyfleetwood at 5:58 PM on September 8, 2009 [2 favorites]

(hit post too soon)

Point is, a magician is just a conman with volunteers instead of victims. Anyone who's watced enough Mametknows that we want to be fooled. Unless we really don't, in which case we'll sometimes get fooled anyway.

Accusing a magician of bullshit is like being mad at a model for wearing makeup.

...and you can't front on Ricky Jay
posted by billyfleetwood at 6:05 PM on September 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Here's one example: he has an act where he gets an ad agency to come up with a poster for some fake organization. Before they show him what they came up with, he draws his own poster and shows it to them. It's remarkably like what they drew. He then claims that he got them to draw their version via subliminal suggestion. He shows them a video of all the stuff he subjected them too prior to meeting with them. For instance, if he wanted them to draw a red car, he made sure that many, many red cars drove by the taxi they took to get the meeting.

His was drawn before hand and left in the room with the two ad guys, and that wasn't subliminal suggestions as someone already mentioned.

The question I guess really would be one of three options. A) Is he a total fake with a good mouth? B)Is he a Bear Grylls of Illusionists where he could do the tricks but basically relies on the camera/editing? C)Or is he actually doing what he says he's doing?
My thoughts would be that he is a mix of B and C.

It also seems that there is some people who hold a disbelief in hypnotism. Not only is there quite a bit of bunk surrounding hypnotism, but there is a huge misunderstanding in what it is. If your tendency is to wave it away in disbelief than I think you're missing out on the point, but to each his/her own.
posted by P.o.B. at 7:02 PM on September 8, 2009

Saw a 'mentalist' at the Melbourne Comedy Festival this year who had me and a room full of people convinced of all sorts of wacky stuff. Even after, in the bar, we couldn't work out how not to believe in the illusions we'd been walked through. Fascinating stuff.

Philip Escoffey was the guy's name.

Unfortunately he finished up with some boring words about magic not being real and revealed himself to have some bog standard teaspoon deep atheist ideas. Oh well.

Atheism: a Religion for Autistics. Join now and collect your free manboobs and slogan tee.
posted by Gamien Boffenburg at 7:31 PM on September 8, 2009

Ricky Jay shows you how a conman works.

Somebody please tell me how that worked and/or whether it was fiction.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:14 PM on September 8, 2009

given that Brown's shtick is subliminal influence, I would guess that he's probably going to pull a stunt whereby he tries to make a large percentage of ticket buyers choose a specific set of numbers. He won't (and can't) have any direct influence over the actual numbers that the machine selects.

I agree, and I think that the widely-covered adverts and trailers are perhaps intended to be the prompts to get an abnormally large set of people to choose the same or very similar numbers. In this trailer, hosted on The Guardian, in particular, he stresses the times and dates over and over again.
posted by tawny at 3:17 AM on September 9, 2009

Atheism: a Religion for Autistics. Join now and collect your free manboobs and slogan tee.

So I guess women are never atheists. *sigh*.
posted by Summer at 3:18 AM on September 9, 2009

Looking forward to the new shows.

I particularly liked this segment with Simon Pegg, which has some similarities to the trick with the advertising bods.
posted by asok at 5:07 AM on September 9, 2009 [4 favorites]

Oh, and thanks for linking to his art, the canvases are much larger than I expected! If that is how he sees the world, it may explain alot.
posted by asok at 5:09 AM on September 9, 2009

That Simon Pegg video is really freaky. Partly it's because Simon Pegg is one of those celebrities I trust and respect.
posted by Kattullus at 7:55 AM on September 9, 2009

I agree, and I think that the widely-covered adverts and trailers are perhaps intended to be the prompts to get an abnormally large set of people to choose the same or very similar numbers.

Got it--- at the end of his special, he'll say -- "So, what are the numbers going to be? I've already told you during this special-- I'll tell you how after the drawing."

Then when it's done, he'll go back to the tape and be like -- Here, I had 3 cars drive by in the background, I said the #42 here, I drew a 26 in the air while I walked here, etc."

Of course he'll have had every number already in the special hidden somewhere, but will only mention the hits.
posted by empath at 8:24 AM on September 9, 2009

I'm pretty sure (but not positive) that there was a magician discussing Derren Brown on the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe who said something along the lines of "Derren is a magician. If he says he's doing a trick using hypnotism, you can know right away that whatever he's doing, it's *not* hypnotism. And on some other trick, where he uses a totally different explanation? *That* might by hypnotism."

"Unfortunately he finished up with some boring words about magic not being real"

Yeah, but that can't really be avoided, as there are so many boring people who believe it is real.
posted by Bugbread at 9:43 AM on September 9, 2009

"Oh sure he does magic, magic's not real, how dumb do you feel? I'm better than Neil."
posted by haveanicesummer at 9:59 AM on September 9, 2009

I find Derren Brown a kind of frustrating magician.

For me, a magic trick is like a whodunnit: it's entertaining precisely because as you read along (or, for magic tricks, watch) you are trying to figure out how it's done. If it's difficult to figure out, and you figure it out, you feel great for solving the puzzle. And if you fail to figure out the killer, when you do find out, and how the clues pointed there, you still experience a great "Aha!!" along with the "That's so simple, why didn't I figure it out?" amazement.

But a whodunnit that doesn't tell you who actually dunnit is just frustrating. Not worth the read.

Now, that's not to say that I need all my gratification to be immediate. I'd be fine reading a whodunnit knowing that, for example, the actual answer would be posted on the author's web site in a year. The knowledge that a definitive answer (not just a guess) will be available in the definite future is enough.

That's why I watch more magic tricks now that YouTube is popular. Sure, people have always posted their guesses on message boards, but those are usually no more than guesses. With YouTube, you have people putting up video of themselves doing the exact same trick as the pro magician, and then showing how it was done. It moves the usually bloggy "You could do it by doing X" from a theoretical example to a proven one. Even if it isn't the exact method used by the magician, as long as the trick looks identical, it is a definitive answer to "How could that trick be done?", which is the key question (more than "How was that trick done in this particular example").

Which is why Derren Brown can be frustrating. There are reveals he does where it is absolutely clear that what he says was done is what was done. I'm thinking specifically of the cold reading video posted above, where 5 people get "personalized" readings of their personalities, and are amazed how accurate they are, only for them to trade readings and realize that they all got the exact same reading. Very, very edifying for the viewer.

But he mixes those with reveals which aren't reveals, but instead just another layer of patter. Which makes them feel like whodunnits, but one where the last word in the novel is "NOT!!"

And there's nothing to say you can't have your cake and eat it too. I'm thinking specifically of some Penn & Teller bits, where they:
1) Do a magic trick
2) Show you *exactly* how it was done.
3) Show you a similar magic trick which, due to some slight changes, could not have been done by the same mechanism.
4) That's the end of the bit. No reveal on the second trick.

That satisfies the "whodunnit" crowd, like myself, and the "enjoys the unresolved enigma" crowd.
posted by Bugbread at 10:49 AM on September 9, 2009

My favorite Pen and Teller trick is where they put a 'volunteer' in a box, lock him in the box, throw the box off a pier and roll credits after it sinks into the water.

OMG THEY USED A PLANT, but who cares.
posted by empath at 10:56 AM on September 9, 2009

2 11 23 28 35 39. The trick worked.
posted by Elmore at 2:43 PM on September 9, 2009

so how did it go for those of us not in the uk?
posted by empath at 2:45 PM on September 9, 2009

Yes, we need descriptions please...
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 2:45 PM on September 9, 2009

Half screen wipe?

If nothing else, he's managed to trick me into watching the show on Friday.
posted by lucidium at 2:45 PM on September 9, 2009

UPDATE: Derren Brown nailed the Lotto numbers

/through whichever chicanery you prefer to believe.
posted by RavinDave at 2:46 PM on September 9, 2009

He's revealing on Friday.
posted by like_neon at 2:47 PM on September 9, 2009

So apparently, the old write the numbers down and hide it trick?
posted by empath at 2:47 PM on September 9, 2009

I ignored him the entire broadcast and watched the numbers on the stand and the background and I didn't see anything untoward. He got all 6 correct.
posted by fire&wings at 2:48 PM on September 9, 2009

Well, he just did it and got all 6 right. He had 6 balls on a stand next to him, and without any edits he switched a TV on that showed the live lottery draw (I flicked back and forth and it was synched with the BBC broadcast). He wrote down the numbers that the lottery drew, then flipping round the stand to reveal his prediction. Not sure if they could have switched the balls somehow since they were in shot the whole time. Maybe they guessed when 90% of people would all flip over to BBC1 at the same time and did it then?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:48 PM on September 9, 2009

That's the oldest mentalism/card trick in the book.

The only trick is how they swapped the paper after the lotto was drawn.
posted by empath at 2:49 PM on September 9, 2009

"So apparently, the old write the numbers down and hide it trick?"
Well, there's old and there's old. The basic structuring of the trick is the same, but the presentation was unusual. He had a set of six white ping pong balls (or similar) which were revealed to have the numbers on them. As a result there are a number of techniques immediately ruled out due to a lack of envelopes and paper. The method is not straightforwardly anything I've seen before.
posted by edd at 2:50 PM on September 9, 2009

They had six balls on a pedestal that was turned away from the camera, which were supposed to have his prediction on it. But they couldn't show them before the lottery draw because they said "the BBC has a legal right to announce the draw first."

Derren watched the draw on a TV, acting shocked, but not obviously happy or disappointed. He then wrote the drawn balls down in order on a piece of card, and turned the pedestal around to reveal the same numbers on the "prediction" balls.

The whole thing took place in an empty studio (apart from Derren and the cameramen), with the pedestal on the left of the screen and Derren and the TV on the right.
posted by lucidium at 2:51 PM on September 9, 2009

I was a little vague in my description, but the predicted numbers were printed on some lottery balls that were on a stand facing away from the camera, rather than on a piece of paper.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:52 PM on September 9, 2009

@empath ... I think we *all* know he didn't REALLY do it. That's kinda the point. We're mystified by his method and showmanship.
posted by RavinDave at 2:54 PM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

The only thing untoward was the fact he couldn't reveal his prediction until after the draw, and although they seem to have a legitimate reason for it, I'm afraid that's a biggie. It's straightforward trickery of some sort, but I've no idea how it was done. The entire broadcast was seemless, live, unedited.
posted by fire&wings at 2:54 PM on September 9, 2009

empath for fucks sake, everyone here knows he didn't predict it. We can take that as the base level here. It was fun, well done and will have people talking about it at work tomorrow all over the UK. A perfectly manufactured watercooler moment. TV can be so elegantly evil at times.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 2:58 PM on September 9, 2009 [5 favorites]

Process of elimination: Obviously they either swapped the balls or changed what was printed on the balls after the drawing. If the balls were inscreen the whole time, maybe they just put a sticker on them from under the table :) Or maybe they had e-ink on them (why don't magicians use more high tech trickery? Most of them are still doing tricks from 100 years ago)
posted by empath at 2:58 PM on September 9, 2009

I didn't see it (I'm in the US), but do we have any reason to believe that the people running the lottery didn't collude? All they would have had to do is delay the live broadcast by a few seconds.

It would be in their interest to collude, because I'm sure they sold more lottery tickets than usual. And I don't think colluding would have meant doing anything illegal, as long as they legitimately chose a random number.
posted by grumblebee at 3:01 PM on September 9, 2009

I do like the e-ink idea. Doubt that's what it is, but it would be an extremely effective method, providing that e-ink can be used on curved surfaces.

To folks who viewed it: were the balls actually picked up at any point?
posted by Bugbread at 3:03 PM on September 9, 2009

Here's some rubbish YouTube video of it I just found.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 3:04 PM on September 9, 2009

@grumblebee ... actually (and surprisingly) it didn't seem to have an impact on tciket sales.

I'd have thought so too. Go figure.
posted by RavinDave at 3:05 PM on September 9, 2009

"That's the oldest mentalism/card trick in the book.

The only trick is how they swapped the paper after the lotto was drawn."
How can you say that's the oldest trick in the book while the entire method of the trick is the bit you describe as the trick because you don't know how it's done???

I've got two of the classic mentalist books here and if it's the oldest trick in the book it's a downright bloody brilliant presentation of it.
posted by edd at 3:05 PM on September 9, 2009

Judging by that video, anyway, there is one bit of very questionable jerky camerawork when the stand with the balls on it almost falls out of the picture. But he's got to have something more impressive to say on Friday than that.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 3:05 PM on September 9, 2009

I didn't see it (I'm in the US), but do we have any reason to believe that the people running the lottery didn't collude?

In the US, people would go to prison for just that. You don't fuck with the Lottery.
posted by empath at 3:06 PM on September 9, 2009

/waiting for Google.UK to refresh. Argggh!!
posted by RavinDave at 3:07 PM on September 9, 2009

"maybe they just put a sticker on them from under the table :) Or maybe they had e-ink on them"
The first of these was amongst my ideas on seeing it of how it might be done, but the balls were turned round by moving the entire stand, and the numbers were on top. To do this, he'd have to also have some way of moving the balls to that position which while not impossible makes me want to think of other methods before that.
posted by edd at 3:08 PM on September 9, 2009

Maybe he just got extremely lucky.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 3:10 PM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

Proper video of it.
posted by fire&wings at 3:12 PM on September 9, 2009 [4 favorites]

Here ya go ...

Already YouTubed: linky
posted by RavinDave at 3:13 PM on September 9, 2009

Or, what fire&wings posted. :)
posted by RavinDave at 3:14 PM on September 9, 2009

I've gotta believe there's something significant in the fact that he doesn't write down the drawn numbers as they are drawn, but rather waits until they're all drawn. The natural magician's schtick would surely be to write down each number once it became known. Why does he need to wait?
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 3:16 PM on September 9, 2009

So he can have them all in order. I imagine the additional delay is useful though!
posted by edd at 3:18 PM on September 9, 2009

Why is the camera so far from Brown, the tv and the numbered balls? Surely they could have used a tighter setup and a closer shot. Relevant or a distraction?
posted by maudlin at 3:19 PM on September 9, 2009

"The BBC has the legal right to show the lottery numbers first" != "The BBC has the legal right to show the lottery numbers before anyone's guesses". Not that it's a complaint, of course, it's a better cover story than I could think of.
posted by Bugbread at 3:19 PM on September 9, 2009

Yeah — I don't see that he really needs them to be in order on the piece of card for the presentational aspect of the trick to work. Interesting...
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 3:20 PM on September 9, 2009

Rather disappointing, as it was immediately obvious it could be done with e-ink or a laser. He looked rather cautious when moving some of the balls, so perhaps it was e-ink and he didn't want to disturb wires. If a laser had printed the numbers then he could've picked them up, juggled with them, cut them open and generally ruled out some potential trickery. Then again, the stalling for time faffing about writing numbers down would indicate needing time for a laser to do its thing.
posted by malevolent at 3:21 PM on September 9, 2009

Lawd, you've got to love him. Part of me doesn't quite care how the trick was done, only that it was. It's great that you can get as much enjoyment from knowing it's a trick as you can from believing it's real.
posted by Sova at 3:22 PM on September 9, 2009

"Why is the camera so far from Brown, the tv and the numbered balls? Surely they could have used a tighter setup and a closer shot. Relevant or a distraction?"

Probably neither, but of course I can't be sure. That is, it's neither part of the trick, nor a distraction, but an enhancer: if you can pull off a trick with a close or far camera, for this trick the far camera is better because then people can see that there's no-one, for example, under the table or right next to the balls.
posted by Bugbread at 3:23 PM on September 9, 2009

I reckon it was the same trick as predicting the horse races: in nearly 14 million parallel realities, 14 million Derren Browns each predicted a different lottery result. We just happen to be the universe where he got it right.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:28 PM on September 9, 2009 [4 favorites]

er ... "contraction" = "contraption".
posted by RavinDave at 3:30 PM on September 9, 2009

"I reckon it was the same trick as predicting the horse races: in nearly 14 million parallel realities, 14 million Derren Browns each predicted a different lottery result. We just happen to be the universe where he got it right."

I favorited that comment. I only wish I could favorite it in all the other 13,999,999 parallel realities as well.
posted by Bugbread at 3:31 PM on September 9, 2009

It's probably no coincidence that there's not studio audience there, but i have to say, i'm stumped.
posted by empath at 3:31 PM on September 9, 2009

Hmm...apparently e-ink can be used on curved surfaces, and the whole technology can fit in a pretty small space.
posted by Bugbread at 3:34 PM on September 9, 2009

I wanna guess some high-tech contraction with wires coming up from the floor, through the base and etching the numbers on what are essentially custom LEDs (he didn't pick any up, did he?) -- but I suspect the answer is probably a lot simpler.

A couple of the balls were askew when he turned them round. He did touch them, and fiddle a little facing them up. Details like them possibly rule out one or two explanations.
posted by Sova at 3:35 PM on September 9, 2009

Another think which is not a coincidence: He did not flip the balls around individually.
posted by empath at 3:35 PM on September 9, 2009

He should have come up with a more convincing excuse for not revealing the numbers until after the draw. It seems probable that the mechanics of his trick require the numbers to not be shown until after the draw (i.e. he doesn't really know them) but I'd have preferred to have had a better excuse to support the show.

Good tricks and cons make you accept the essential mechanical elements of the routine, normally by making them seem natural and in line with our expectations. Thats the skill of a confidence trickster. Misdirect, convince, or hide. He drew my attention to the hidden numbers and then made it seem less acceptable than it already was.

If I buy a lottery ticket I can "announce" my expected result (my lucky, lucky numbers) to anyone I like without the BBC being able to sue me. By definition he can't "announce" the draw (which is the rights the BBC apparently hold) until it has taken place.

As for the trick itself, there could be any number of methods used.

10 seconds thinking - How about he had the balls coated in a chemical which changes colour when exposed to some particular colour light, say UV. He could just have an assistant behind a mesh screen project a silhouette of the numbers onto the balls as they're drawn. Of the chemical could react to heat, or a laser. Far less precise and difficult than everyday commercial products like laser printers or DLP projectors manage.

Never underestimate the funding of a TV special and the time an illusionist will spend in rehearsals and practice. Given time and money the "getting numbers onto while balls" problem seems pretty trivial.

Sorry, underwhelmed. Better than most Wednesday night TV though, and the first time I've ever watched a liver lottery draw which is something I guess.
posted by samworm at 3:36 PM on September 9, 2009

A couple of the balls were askew when he turned them round. He did touch them, and fiddle a little facing them up. Details like them possibly rule out one or two explanations.

Not really, they could be loosely attached to something, and he might very well have left them intentionally slightly askew, just to give the appearance that they weren't locked in place.
posted by empath at 3:36 PM on September 9, 2009

split screen, balls on one side, him on the other...cameras can be made to duplicate their movements precisely, you'll notice at 4:59 that the camera is still, that is when they unsplice the 2 scenes
posted by atomicmedia at 3:42 PM on September 9, 2009 [2 favorites]

sorry, 5:08
posted by atomicmedia at 3:44 PM on September 9, 2009

Final Numbers: 2, 11, 23, 28, 25 and 39.

I got three outta six balls right.
posted by RavinDave at 3:45 PM on September 9, 2009

Atomicmedia-- oh, nice. I was wondering why the random camera movements, which would have been in there just to make a split screen seem unlikely. They seemed to deliberate to have been hand held shakey cam.

Yep, I think that's probably it. Much more likely than laser etching, etc.

And explains why there's no studio audience.
posted by empath at 3:46 PM on September 9, 2009

Not really, they could be loosely attached to something, and he might very well have left them intentionally slightly askew, just to give the appearance that they weren't locked in place.

Hey, you should challenge Derren Brown to a showdown! You seem to know the explanations I was ruling out without me having to say them. Damn you mindreaders!
posted by Sova at 3:46 PM on September 9, 2009

Hard to tell watching again on youtube but there seems to be some fakey CGI camera shake ala Cloverfield when he walks over to the balls and displays the balls. A digital attempt to make it look like natural hand held camera.
posted by fire&wings at 3:48 PM on September 9, 2009

but a REAL magician would NEVER use camera tricks!
posted by empath at 3:55 PM on September 9, 2009

My guess is heat-sensitive ink of the sort used on cash register receipts (ever notice how those go black when placed near a heat source?), with an infrared laser or light source used to darken them. As soon as the numbers appear, technicians put shaped masks over the light sources and switch them on.
posted by acb at 4:05 PM on September 9, 2009

I am certain that there is no CGI or camera trickery or fancy ink involved - I still dont know how it was done though. I predict that he will not reveal how he does it on Friday night, but instead build on the trick in some way (how I dont know).

The video was pretty much a shoal of red herrings and BS. The shakey camera, the stuff about hoping he would have enough time, the legal stuff, the studio which looked like a wrecking yard, the nervousness etc. There is probably no visible way of telling how it was done. All the red herrings were just put in to give us something to get our teeth into.
posted by therubettes at 4:10 PM on September 9, 2009

Can you tell me why you don't think it was split screen? Simple explanation, and it explains a lot of the staging (lack of audience, why the balls were on one side and he was on the other, and why there was nothing moving behind the balls, etc.)

Once the idea was brought up, I don't see how any other explanation is necessary.
posted by empath at 4:14 PM on September 9, 2009

If Doctor Who can't do convincing CGI with months of post-production, Derren Brown can't do convincing CGI live.
posted by edd at 4:15 PM on September 9, 2009

Which is not to say that it was easy to pull off. Placement and timing had to be exact, they had to be quick sorting the balls out, etc.
posted by empath at 4:16 PM on September 9, 2009

Can you tell me why you don't think it was split screen?

Maybe cuz he stood behind it at the beginning?

And what does a split screen accomplish again? I'm lost here.

/am I missing something?
posted by RavinDave at 4:30 PM on September 9, 2009

The laser printing method seems like it would take far too much time to do, or to do well. CGI, too. My bets are either:

1) Split-screen (Listen to the narration from 2:16 in this video describing synching exact camera movements)
2) E-ink
3) Derren Brown is a time traveler from the future.
posted by Bugbread at 4:35 PM on September 9, 2009

The video starts off live. When he crosses over to the right side of the shot, the left side goes to pre-recorded footage of the rack of balls. While they're showing the bbc screen and him on the right hand side, someone is replacing all the balls on the rack with the numbers as they come out.

The reason he writes down all the numbers at the end, is to give them time to get the last balls up. At around 5:00 into the video, they switch the left side back to live, he walks over and turns the rack around.
posted by empath at 4:37 PM on September 9, 2009

bugbread-- probably easier than that -- they could have added the camera jitter in the control booth.
posted by empath at 4:38 PM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

And what does a split screen accomplish again? I'm lost here.

You have a prerecorded video of the balls just sitting there on the pedestal, untouched. When Darren Brown walks to the balls at the start, you don't use the split-screen. Then when he walks away, you switch to split-screen, so that now you don't see what's actually happening on the left side of the screen, but just see the prerecorded "nobody's touching these balls" video. The balls are removed from the stand. As each number is drawn in the lottery, a preprinted ball is selected from a pool of balls containing all the possible numbers and placed on the stand. Once the last number is picked, the balls are put in order, and the split screen is then turned off.
posted by Bugbread at 4:40 PM on September 9, 2009

"bugbread-- probably easier than that -- they could have added the camera jitter in the control booth."

D'oh!!!!
posted by Bugbread at 4:41 PM on September 9, 2009

Can you tell me why you don't think it was split screen? Simple explanation, and it explains a lot of the staging (lack of audience, why the balls were on one side and he was on the other, and why there was nothing moving behind the balls, etc.)

Split screen for me, live lottery on the right with stock footage of the stand on left until around 5.15.

On the video, as he recaps the numbers and writes them on the card the wobbly "handheld" camera becomes totally frozen as he says "28." (5.08)

The camera then weirdly follows his gait as he takes a couple of very awkward (rehearsed) strides forward, between the words "those" and "are" in the line "those are the lottery numbers for this week."

Now, rewind and watch the base of the ball podium as he takes those strides. The shadow behind the raised white middle section of the base (where the pole extends from) suddenly darkens without reason (approx 5.15) as the switch between pre-recorded and live footage takes place.

It's a well rehearsed split screen switch of some sort, with some sort of handheld shake algorithm used on the picture to obfuscate it.
posted by fire&wings at 4:45 PM on September 9, 2009 [2 favorites]

Well, I admit, the idea does kinda grows on ya.
posted by RavinDave at 4:55 PM on September 9, 2009

The lottery could be superimposed on the TV, so the whole of the first part could be prerecorded, so no need for split-screen.
posted by manjiBoy at 4:58 PM on September 9, 2009

"The lottery could be superimposed on the TV, so the whole of the first part could be prerecorded, so no need for split-screen."

I don't follow.
posted by Bugbread at 5:02 PM on September 9, 2009

Sooo-oo many Twitterites looking forward to the real explanation on Friday; a ratings bonanza. Bank on it.

I can't imagine him giving out the secret -- yet I can't imagine him NOT giving it out, after all the hype and hoopla. I got a feeling their are gonna be torch-bearing mobs waiting outside BBC Central.
posted by RavinDave at 5:17 PM on September 9, 2009

/did I really write "their"??? *sigh*
posted by RavinDave at 5:17 PM on September 9, 2009

I got a feeling their are gonna be torch-bearing mobs waiting outside BBC Central.

Unlikely, as it's on Channel 4 (a commercial channel), not the BBC.
posted by acb at 5:24 PM on September 9, 2009

It could be that the entire scene was prerecorded, rather than just half of it, and they filmed Derren standing in front of the TV pretending to write down numbers, and they superimposed the live lottery draw onto the TV. Then when he stops to look at the card before walking over to the balls, it switches back to live. The split screen idea seems unlikely because of the shaky camera movements (forgive me if someone has already covered this, I haven't read all the comments). Although my idea has the flaw that it'd be tough for Derren to stand in the exact same place/position when it switches from the prerecorded to live, the bit where it changes when he looks at the card looks a little odd to me.
posted by manjiBoy at 5:25 PM on September 9, 2009

Here is a more HD view

Cam movement stops at 2:06
posted by atomicmedia at 5:31 PM on September 9, 2009

I agree the splitscreen idea, with fake shakycam added digitally, is the most plausible - certainly in the sense that if you wanted to recreate the illusion, that's how you'd go about it.

The only thing that makes me suspect it might not be that is that it would render the reveal show pretty unsatisfying - firstly, I don't see how you stretch that explanation out to an hour, and secondly, it would be a bit of a let-down for the viewer. (Not sure why, given that it would be technically very impressive, but it just wouldn't seem as clever somehow as other hypothetical explanations.) The showmanship isn't just located in this show - the real showmanship will be in the reveal as well.

Given that it's kicking off a four-week series of big event shows, starting that run with something that essentially breaks a kind of unspoken contract with the audience ("what you see on your screen is what is actually happening") would likely kill the ratings for the rest of the series.

Also, it just doesn't seem quite like Brown's style.

Of course, this all assumes that the reveal will be, to some degree, honest, which of course it may well not be. I'd love it if the reveal show was just a load of shaggy dog stories about how he might plausibly have done it, but without ever revealing which method he actually used. Like the Joker's "wanna know how I got these scars?" stories...
posted by flashboy at 5:32 PM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

One of the balls moving as the footage switches.
posted by fire&wings at 5:33 PM on September 9, 2009 [3 favorites]

The shadow behind the raised white middle section of the base (where the pole extends from) suddenly darkens without reason (approx 5.15 ) as the switch between pre-recorded and live footage takes place.

Yeah, if you look at the base, on the back right side of the pole. It's an immediate switch.

Good eye.

Wish there was a higher res capture.
posted by empath at 5:33 PM on September 9, 2009

The only thing that makes me suspect it might not be that is that it would render the reveal show pretty unsatisfying - firstly, I don't see how you stretch that explanation out to an hour

His show will be lots of new stuff with 10 minutes on this tantalisingly tacked on the end.
posted by fire&wings at 5:34 PM on September 9, 2009

Wish there was a higher res capture.
posted by atomicmedia at 5:36 PM on September 9, 2009

The only thing that makes me suspect it might not be that is that it would render the reveal show pretty unsatisfying

Or he might lie.
posted by empath at 5:39 PM on September 9, 2009

Or he might lie.

Yeah, if you'd bothered to read a whole four sentences further in my comment, you'd see me say "Of course, this all assumes that the reveal will be, to some degree, honest, which of course it may well not be." But please, keep on telling us how much cleverer you are than everybody else.
posted by flashboy at 5:45 PM on September 9, 2009 [5 favorites]

Maybe this is the end of his career in its current form? He alluded to that in the setup for this trick. It could be that he will say something like "I've been trying to get people to be more rational, critical thinkers, but they persist in believing a MAGICIAN when he tells them there are no camera tricks, no plants, in his TRICKS, etc." Maybe like the capstone to it all? That would make sense, given that Internet warriors discovered the how-to in all of a few minutes.
posted by R_Nebblesworth at 5:54 PM on September 9, 2009

What if he comes up with some pseudo-explanation which seems superficially plausible and satisfying though, on deeper examination, is impossible without additional trickery (such as the split-screen thing)? Will internet forum posts about the darkening shadow at 5:15 have any more impact than the mountains of data presented as evidence by moon-landing revisionists and 9/11 "truthers"?
posted by acb at 6:20 PM on September 9, 2009

I just read my favorite explanation in a youtube comment, that he filmed every possible combination of numbers in advance.

If he filmed them in consecutive 30 second takes without stopping for a year, it would take 4 years.
posted by empath at 6:28 PM on September 9, 2009

What if he was speaking and moving really fast and they just slowed it down? Did you ever think about that?
posted by Kattullus at 7:08 PM on September 9, 2009

I see a shadow form at the base of the stand as he walks over to it - which could simply be his shadow as he walks in front of a stage light aimed at the stand.
posted by LVdB at 12:29 AM on September 10, 2009

"If he filmed them in consecutive 30 second takes without stopping for a year, it would take 4 years."
No, it wouldn't. There's about a half a million minutes in a year. The odds are 14 million to 1...
posted by edd at 12:51 AM on September 10, 2009

I'd imagine that the second camera which he introduced at the start then never showed again will feature in Friday's show, probably showing us what really happened on the left hand side of the screen.
posted by minifigs at 2:06 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

He says, that's a year of my life right there - I hope you can see those. I think that is important. I would be surprised if he used a purely mathematical method to predict the numbers, but he does suggest that we can all do it too.

Here is another theory, regarding live motion tracking.

Personally, I don't think he used camera tricks.
posted by asok at 2:25 AM on September 10, 2009

Sorry if this has already been mentioned but I thought he introduced two cameraman at the start and yet there was just the one (shaky) shot throughout. Or am I imagining that?
posted by numberstation at 3:13 AM on September 10, 2009

numberstation: two comments up.
posted by edd at 3:22 AM on September 10, 2009

I can't see that anyone's posted it, but it's not difficult to do the split screen thing and have camera movement in place. Here's a video of someone recreating the trick splendidly this morning. The creator and star of the video is quite admired on Metafilter.
posted by brighton at 1:01 PM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Also, no tilt.
posted by atomicmedia at 1:43 PM on September 10, 2009

They oversold the hell out of it with how much that camera moved. Seriously just watch how much the camera moves around. It's not so much the cameraman moving side to side or anything, it's a hell of a lot of little annoying jiggles. If it wasn't intentional, where did they get their cameraman? Did they just pick up some geriatric who happen to be walking by the studio?
posted by P.o.B. at 1:45 PM on September 10, 2009

The two things that struck me while watching it were the announced-but-apparently-unused second camera and the fact that ignoring the bonus ball also gave him a (possibly crucial) extra second or two for whatever manipulation was needed at the end of the trick.

By mentioning the second camera so prominently and then allowing people to forget about it as the trick progressed, he'd also create a satisfying element to the reveal tomorrow night. If that second camera does turn out to be essential to the trick, then he can legitimately say "Look, I told you all about that camera - and you STILL missed it!"

Mind you, I'd have thought any answer that amounts to "camera trickery" would create a huge anti-climax. He's got to have something better to say than that, hasn't he?
posted by Paul Slade at 3:30 PM on September 10, 2009

Well, this seals it for me.
posted by The Deej at 6:53 PM on September 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

Btw, I had a psychic intuition that he'd be doing camera trickery, which is why I brought it up in the seemingly non-sequitur comment about Ricky Jay possibly using a camera trick several hours before the show. Only possible explanation.
posted by empath at 8:09 PM on September 10, 2009

Okay ... as appealing as the split-screen scenario is, this is why I think he has something up his sleeve.
posted by RavinDave at 8:47 AM on September 11, 2009

Well, however he did it, if he's true to form, his "explanation" will be bullshit. He'll talk about some kind of predictive theory that's based on statistics and evolutionary psychology (or some other pseudo-science babble). He'll say it doesn't always work, but if you keep trying, you have a good chance of eventually guessing the number. Which will help him keep credibility when people try but fail to replicate his results.
posted by grumblebee at 10:57 AM on September 11, 2009

Well ... we'll know in two hours.

/Play-by-play on Twitter, I assume.
posted by RavinDave at 11:11 AM on September 11, 2009

Showtime ...
posted by RavinDave at 1:06 PM on September 11, 2009

Live update on the Guardian....
posted by Kiwi at 1:08 PM on September 11, 2009

Pre reveal, if that actually happens. He just mentioned all the theories, including split screen, laser etching, etc. - so it ain't that. Reshowing the lotto draw now.
posted by Elmore at 1:08 PM on September 11, 2009

Evidently (per Twitter) a lot of BS being "talked". But I don't see how he can avoid revealing the trick after such an advertising blitz. He'd piss off twice as many fans as he gained yesterday.
posted by RavinDave at 1:26 PM on September 11, 2009

I wouldn't be suprised if the reveal is more about the many supposed rational speculators and how they are willing to use random empirical clues to explain how something may happen, in fact even declare that they 'know' that this is what has happened. See above.
posted by Elmore at 1:35 PM on September 11, 2009

Ha, true. Could go that way alright.
posted by Elmore at 1:39 PM on September 11, 2009

The Guardian blog hasn't refreshed for ages.

To amuse myself, I followed some Guardian links and am now listening to a Muse preview. Only the opening 30 seconds of each track, though, so it's a extra dose of teasing.

(Oh. The last three tracks are a symphony. Isn't this the part of Stardust where David Essex completely lost the plot?)
posted by maudlin at 1:42 PM on September 11, 2009

Ohhh ... twitter crowd cheering him moments ago is turning ugly. Brown "chattin' bullocks". He's in a tight spot if he doesn't deliver.
posted by RavinDave at 1:42 PM on September 11, 2009

@maudlin -- there's an "ON" button for auto-refresh at the top of the page.
posted by RavinDave at 1:43 PM on September 11, 2009

I'm not able to watch this but Guardian blog is suggesting he's talking about the wisdom of crowds and using the power of the hive mind to guess more accurately than one person could. Ha, utter bullshit — is that really going to be his final explanation or is it just a setup to another reveal?
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 1:43 PM on September 11, 2009

If he's going to stay with the wisdom of crowds as his explanation, that will be such bullschtick.
posted by maudlin at 1:44 PM on September 11, 2009

(I was refreshing manually and with the button, RavinDave. I'm just really impatient.)
posted by maudlin at 1:44 PM on September 11, 2009

He knows he's talking bullshit. I'm sure he'll about-face at the end of the show.
posted by Kiwi at 1:46 PM on September 11, 2009

What the hell do castrated bulls have to do with any of this?
posted by Elmore at 1:46 PM on September 11, 2009

I'm getting the impression that some people think of this as if it is a Uri Geller gig and that the people following it are complete dopes. To those poeple, I would say, he can bend spoons with his mind.
posted by Elmore at 1:49 PM on September 11, 2009

Still, bringing in the wisdom of crowds is quite clever and funny, because it's just convincing enough that it'll have some people scratching their heads. I mean, I don't think of myself as an idiot, but it does take me a nanosecond of thinking to articulate why taking the average of a crowd's guesses is a good way for guessing the number of beans in a jar, but BS when it comes to predicting lottery numbers.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 1:54 PM on September 11, 2009

He's running out of time. If he sticks with the "wisdom of the crowd" bit, he'd better book a room at the Ulaam Baatar Hilton until this show is forgotten.
posted by RavinDave at 1:55 PM on September 11, 2009

nope
posted by Elmore at 2:00 PM on September 11, 2009

Ha, now he's explaining how he would have fixed the lottery machine (by getting an insider to replace the predicted numbers for identical but heavier balls) - in a sort of "but that would be illegal, wink-wink-say-no-more" kind of way.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:00 PM on September 11, 2009

Is this where we get out the pitchforks?
posted by maudlin at 2:01 PM on September 11, 2009

Sub-Gellerian bullshit.
posted by fire&wings at 2:03 PM on September 11, 2009

Can we just get this post deleted now?
posted by Kiwi at 2:04 PM on September 11, 2009

That was shockingly bad.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:05 PM on September 11, 2009

Someone who actually watched this needs to tell us what his final "reveal" was. I'm confused at this point. The show has finished, right?
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 2:05 PM on September 11, 2009

OK, so for those of us not able to watch ... what was the twist at the end?
posted by jbickers at 2:06 PM on September 11, 2009

I think the Guardian blogger has died of confusion and boredom.

HEY! ANYONE WATCHING THIS LIVE -- WTF IS GOING ON?
posted by maudlin at 2:06 PM on September 11, 2009

The comment hate is strong ...
posted by jbickers at 2:07 PM on September 11, 2009

In the words of several Twitterites ... "Derren Brown just RickRolled the world."
posted by RavinDave at 2:07 PM on September 11, 2009

He claimed the numbers were predicted using the wisdom of crowds. He had a group of ~30 voluteers who used free writing to give their predictions, and he took the average of the numbers given. It was all very hokey, they got one number right at first but after team building exercises the psychology between them strengthened and they got four, etc. Really weak.

In other news, here is a video of the ball moving between frames since the gif above has been deleted.
posted by fire&wings at 2:11 PM on September 11, 2009

So he stayed with the wisdom of crowds. Given the tv ratings and the activity in this thread, there's something ironically meta about this.

Oh, QI is on. Anyone care to salvage the evening by updating us on that?
posted by maudlin at 2:11 PM on September 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

OK, so for those of us not able to watch ... what was the twist at the end?

There was'nt one really... not that made any sense: Wisdom of crowds. Then fixing the lottery machine. Then finally 'it was a trick.. come and watch next week, you'll be glued to your seat!'

No, I think not Derren
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:12 PM on September 11, 2009

come and watch next week, you'll be glued to your seat!

By that I mean, that's next week's stunt, not that he's going to explain further.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:14 PM on September 11, 2009

I'm glad I didn't watch it.

Though I have to say, it does take enormous brass balls to say "I'm going to do a magic trick, and reveal how I did it on Friday" and then, on Friday, say "The way I did the magic trick was...it was a trick!"
posted by Bugbread at 2:15 PM on September 11, 2009

Okay, to recap: I was an asshole for pointing out that Darren Brown's explanations for his tricks are bullshit, and that magicians will do cheap camera tricks if it gets the job done, and that he'd lie about how he did this trick.

Okay.

I guess that shows me.
posted by empath at 2:16 PM on September 11, 2009

But, you'll say --- how can he get away with doing a camera trick? Too many people would have to know about it -- all it would take is ONE PERSON to talk and it would RUIN HIS CAREER.
posted by empath at 2:20 PM on September 11, 2009

Or...you know, you could give it a rest.
posted by P.o.B. at 2:22 PM on September 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

Oh, QI is on. Anyone care to salvage the evening by updating us on that?

It's a repeat of the episode where they have one of the people who designed this in the audience, which is quite interesting. Ha ha.
posted by permafrost at 2:22 PM on September 11, 2009

Who the fuck is Darren Brown?
posted by Elmore at 2:23 PM on September 11, 2009

In just an hour of TV Derren convinced me never to watch a show of his again.

Now that's magic.

-
Comment from the Guardian thing...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:26 PM on September 11, 2009

Recap with some expert opinion, for anyone who wants it.
posted by fire&wings at 2:28 PM on September 11, 2009

Massive derail - permafrost, your link says of the object's inventors: They wonder if it's possible to create a self-righting polyhedral object, which would have flat sides.

Have they seen this?
posted by Kiwi at 2:29 PM on September 11, 2009

Brown, 38, admits: If this one goes wrong, it could be a career-breaker.

Well, he got that prediction right, I suppose
posted by dng at 2:35 PM on September 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

But, you'll say --- how can he get away with doing a camera trick? Too many people would have to know about it -- all it would take is ONE PERSON to talk and it would RUIN HIS CAREER.

Ah, but it turns out that the entire crew of Derren Brown Productions has been flown on an emergency two-year-assignment to Antarctica. Antarctica, Mr Garrison. A coincidence? If it was a coincidence, then why did the entire telephone network in London go dead for thirty minutes precisely at the time the trick was performed? The American people have been sold a lie. You're close, Mr Garrison. Closer than you think.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 2:35 PM on September 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

He overreached.

He should have performed the stunt and disappeared for a few weeks. This will dog him.
posted by RavinDave at 2:39 PM on September 11, 2009

Thanks, permafrost. Someone should attach that to this.
posted by maudlin at 2:39 PM on September 11, 2009

Have they seen this?

Evidently not. Engage Self-Righting Polyhedral Object Deathmatch!
posted by permafrost at 2:39 PM on September 11, 2009

I swear that it's sheer coincidence that RavinDave and I posted at the same time.
posted by maudlin at 2:40 PM on September 11, 2009

He should have performed the stunt and disappeared for a few weeks.

Exactly what I was thinking. Do the trick and forget the followup, but he probably got greedy with an offer of an expose.
posted by P.o.B. at 2:41 PM on September 11, 2009

"But, you'll say --- how can he get away with doing a camera trick? Too many people would have to know about it -- all it would take is ONE PERSON to talk and it would RUIN HIS CAREER."

Eh? No. I don't recall anyone saying anything like that. A camera trick would ruin Ricky Jay's career, because his is all based on manual dexterity. And a camera trick in a prerecorded show might ruin the career of an illusionist, but that would depend entirely on the type of camera trick (for example, Blaine's career was not ruined by the falsification of the Balducci Levitation trick). For a live broadcast trick, it wouldn't.

It isn't that magicians use no tricks, nor that they use anything and everything in their arsenal. It's that there are certain techniques which, if revealed, would not bother people at all, and certain techniques which, if revealed, would completely destroy any public interest in them, and a whole spectrum in between. A good magician will use the *types* of techniques which, if revealed, would not destroy their careers. Which techniques these are depends *entirely* on what kind of magic trick they're doing, the audience, whether it's live or not, the location, etc.

Personally, I believe Brown used plants in The Heist, but I totally understand what people here are saying, which is that *if* he used plants, and that were revealed, it would greatly harm his popularity, and thus it's unlikely. To my recollection, nobody has even put forth the argument here that *if* he used a camera trick in this lottery trick, and that were revealed, it would greatly harm his popularity. In fact, most people are arguing that it specifically *was* a camera trick, and not laser etching, etc.

So, yeah, you TOTALLY FUCKING DESTROYED that straw man.
posted by Bugbread at 2:42 PM on September 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

Thanks, permafrost. Someone should attach that to this .

I can't tell if that dog is blissfully happy or one struggling breath away from exhausted asphyxiation. In that way, it's a decent impression of Derren Brown's career right at this moment.
posted by permafrost at 2:45 PM on September 11, 2009

It isn't that magicians use no tricks, nor that they use anything and everything in their arsenal. It's that there are certain techniques which, if revealed, would not bother people at all, and certain techniques which, if revealed, would completely destroy any public interest in them, and a whole spectrum in between.

Derren Brown's shtick is that he's not really a magician, or a psychic, but that he uses scientifically valid psychological methods to achieve his mentalism effects. It's BS, but people genuinely seem to believe it. I don't think he's done one honest 'reveal' of his tricks in his entire career.

What I don't understand is why people will go-- okay in this ONE trick, maybe he resorted to cheap studio trickery -- But that dude REALLY thought he was holding up a security guard!

It's really a brilliant con. He goes -- oh, look at those stupid rubes that believe John Edward can really talk to dead people! You and I are smarter than that. MY mentalism skills aren't based on superstitious hokum at all! I have an entirely different set of pseudo-scientific patter at my disposal!

Anyway, whatever. I still think he's a brilliantly talented stage magician. it's just that when people buy his faux-skeptical veneer that I get annoyed. He's just another Kreskin.
posted by empath at 3:18 PM on September 11, 2009

There's more to it, I just know it. The payoff will come next week, or the week after. That was far too much setup for no payoff at all.
posted by jbickers at 4:15 PM on September 11, 2009

What I love is how people said, "No, it can't be a split screen, because Brown just twittered about how amusing it was that people thought it might be that."

THAT trick goes back at least to Agatha Christie. [Spoiler] She often has the detective muse, early on in the book, that maybe X is the murderer. Then he puts that theory aside. As it turns out, X really is the murderer. But you don't expect the detective to think of that and reject it early on. Once you know this trick, it's pretty easy to guess whodoneit in Christie's books.
posted by grumblebee at 4:25 PM on September 11, 2009

All the bullshit aside, I did quite like that rigged coin-flipping game. Might try it on a couple of friends who are out of the country at the moment when they get back.....
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:28 PM on September 11, 2009

"His earlier stuff suffers much more from that than recent work, I suspect as he's responding to criticism like yours grumblebee." said I.

One of the things I have found interesting about his previous work is how some people prematurely commit to incorrect ideas. He's taken that to a new level for me tonight.
posted by edd at 6:04 PM on September 11, 2009

I think this is the final word on it.
posted by empath at 6:04 PM on September 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

(and on retrospect the last few seconds just swing it in his favour)
posted by edd at 7:13 PM on September 11, 2009

That is not a trick worth televising. The trick is to have the prediction ability with the winning ticket in hand and then say "see I told you so". Say he did know the winning numbers before the draw, could he guess as to who would win the grand prize?
posted by brent at 8:12 PM on September 11, 2009

"There's more to it, I just know it. The payoff will come next week, or the week after. That was far too much setup for no payoff at all."

I dunno. Sometimes magicians really fuck up on the whole "payoff" thing. I'm specifically thinking of David Copperfield's "Make the Statue of Liberty Disappear" trick. That had a huge amount of setup and buildup, and everyone was bitching the next day about how lame it ended up being.

As for using stooges in The Heist: again, it's not really a black and white issue. There is one way that I have thought of where you could use stooges and be extremely unlikely to be blabbed on: use new, still unknown magicians as your stooges. Benefits: 1) They are used to keeping things secret, 2) They know that if they spill the beans, their career is totally fucked. They will be the black sheep of the magic world for pretty much ever. You can get away with giving away some other magician's magic trick if you weren't directly involved. The magic community will really dislike you for it. But giving away another magician's magic trick that you assisted in? That's "industry blackball" territory.

And another possible method, which doesn't involve stooges: The trick is "I didn't tell them to rob a bank directly, but they did it". The only thing necessary to satisfy these conditions, without the participants being stooges, is for the participants to do something without being explicitly told. Watching the video, for example, he starts with having them nick something from a small shop. Off-camera, after they've done it, he tells them "actually, that was rigged, the owner was in the know. It was a set-up shot."

Next, he reproduces the Milgram experiment. And this time he debriefs them on-camera, that the whole scene was set up.

But, unshown, there's a whole slew of additional gigs. Pretending to do this, pretending to do that, each time later on showing "actually, that was all fake". Maybe switch from directed actions ("Steal a sweet", "shock this guy") to less directed actions. Make sure that all of them are criminally related, so the non-stooges are in the frame of mind of "when the show asks us to do stuff, it may seem real, but it's fake."

So then he tells them they're going in for their last event of the training. He has them bring the guns. He has the car go by playing the motivational song. Everything is set up so that, although they've been given no specific instructions, they know that there's a setup and they're expected to perform something...and there is nothing for them to perform with besides a fake gun and a security guard carrying cases of money.

If asked later if they were told to rob the guard, they can honestly say that no, they were not, and that they came up with the idea on their own. The crucial question isn't "did he tell you to do it" but "did you do it believing that it was real?"

And, of course, using the horse case as an example: There's nothing to say that he only tried this on those 4 people. He might well have done it on 5, 6, 7, 8 people, and just edited it such that it appears that only the 4 people who did the robbery made it to the last round.

I'm not saying that's how it was done, but that it's possible, and not incredibly difficult, to pull off that trick without using stooges (per se).
posted by Bugbread at 8:42 PM on September 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

Next, he reproduces the Milgram experiment. And this time he debriefs them on-camera, that the whole scene was set up.

But, unshown, there's a whole slew of additional gigs.

I would say you are pretty spot on with that bugbread. If you watch the Heist the fourth man to walk down the street kind of starts laughing when he walks by the van expecting for Darren to pop out and say the gig is up. He was also the one in the Milgram experiment to ask for "more levers" to keep shocking the guy with when he ran out, and he did it with a smile on his face. Seriously? Nobody ever in that experiment obliviously went all the way down to the end of the switches without second guessing it.
I think it's very doable to have someone "conditioned" with the thought that they are "supposed to rob the van", but I guess some people would rather think having stooges make a big act out of it is easier.
The zombie one I would have to watch again, but I recall that one being reeaallly fake.
posted by P.o.B. at 9:06 PM on September 11, 2009

I don't know how anyone could have been surprised by that result show, unless they've never seen Derren Brown before. He loves to build up "simple" tricks into a story. He's a magician, not a trick explainer.
posted by smackfu at 9:10 AM on September 12, 2009

I don't "expect" Derren Brown to reveal his secrets, but when you announce that you are and you use it to lure people to another show, you owe an explanation. If not the correct one, then at least one that doesn't insult the intelligence of a four year old (ie: hive-mind averaging).

"Jumped the Shark" has never been more applicable since Patrick Duffy's return to "Dallas".

But, in the final analysis, what else could he do? If he came clean about the split-screen, the complaint (valid, imho) would be that he broke a cardinal rule (ie: what you see is what you'd see if you were standing right there) in a game with very few rules and he'd still have jumped the shark.

Better to have performed the stunt, shut the fuck up entirely and move on. That would at least preserve a modicum of doubt -- even in the mind of "empath". But fabricating a silly BS explanation pretty much confirms that the "hive mind" nailed him.
posted by RavinDave at 10:44 AM on September 12, 2009

"Jumped the Shark" has never been more applicable since Patrick Duffy's return to "Dallas".

Or, since Fonzie actually jumped the shark.
posted by The Deej at 11:05 AM on September 12, 2009

Yeah, fabricating explanations is what Brown does, but if you promise a big reveal a few days later, you need to come up with something interesting enough to warrant the build-up. Either a particularly interesting and absorbing fabrication, or the truth. For a multi-day gap, the "particularly interesting" thing would have to inform secret agents infiltrating the lottery, an entire CG set, including CG Derren Brown, or aliens. The truth would have been much easier.
posted by Bugbread at 1:18 PM on September 12, 2009

I'm starting to get the feeling that maybe the audience are part of the trick. The subjects of the trick are the people that he convinced could predict the lottery. Someone upthread said that people would be surprised by how much time, money and effort a magician goes through for the simplest effect.
I think Derren Brown may have actually used a live show, his reputation, a live audience of three million people and Channel 4's advertising budget to convince 24 people that they could predict the unpredictable. The trick was never actually Derren Brown can predict the Lotto, it was always look at what Derren Brown can convince these people to do.
posted by minifigs at 7:23 AM on September 13, 2009

Yeah, I agree with bugbread - the problem was that Brown seems to have completely misjudged the level of his audience. His thing was always to pitch his 'reveals' at the level of borderline plausibility, and to mix in just enough truth to keep you guessing. But this explanation was just too silly to even make it worth considering what elements of it might be true or not - especially for his fanbase, who tend to be towards the sceptical end of the spectrum.

I was fully expecting him to throw out a range of explanations covering pseudo-psychology, classic conjuring techniques, technical wizardry and illegal actions, and leave it vague about which one, if any, was the real answer. But the longer he kept going with the groupthink stuff, the more you realised with a sinking feeling that this was the only option he was going to offer up. And you stopped caring.

The other problem was that all the wisdom of crowds material was, quite simply, boring television. The stamping on the cups thing was very well done - even though you knew there was no way he could actually be putting someone at risk of impaling their foot, they still managed to make it genuinely tense. But after that, there was no tension or drama to keep you interested, especially if you'd dismissed the whole premise of what he claimed to be doing. It failed as entertainment, above all else, which is unusual for Brown (and for Objective, the production company, who are normally really on the ball with that sort of stuff.)

He nearly won me back with the cheeky "or maybe I just fixed the machine" bit at the end, but it was too little, too late. Hey ho.
posted by flashboy at 7:56 AM on September 13, 2009 [2 favorites]

And yes, minifigs - I also thought that maybe the 'reveal of the reveal' would be that the 24-person focus group were the real marks of the piece, and that the show would switch round to showing how they were duped. But then it didn't. Maybe he's playing a longer game, and over the next few shows, he'll turn it round and do a final twist reveal based on how he's been fooling his volunteers all along. Trouble is, I don't think many people will be watching by that point.
posted by flashboy at 8:00 AM on September 13, 2009

Okay, the final, final word.
posted by empath at 10:46 AM on September 13, 2009

Hmmm... that last one didn't go so well... or did it? No, it didn't.
posted by Elmore at 2:05 PM on October 2, 2009

what happened?
posted by empath at 2:42 PM on October 2, 2009

What happened.
posted by Kattullus at 8:52 PM on October 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ha, either that's a hilarious mishap or a cunning plan designed to erase suspicion that it's all fake. Why would you fake a loss? You'd only fake a loss if everyone else thought there was no reason to fake a loss. And now we're into liar paradoxes and Sicilian reasoning.
posted by painquale at 9:20 AM on October 3, 2009

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