Merged Derren Brown - predicting lottery numbers

Ashles said:
I find it ironic everyone is picking over this trick frame by frame an in detail, and yet still entirely miss noticing a whole cameraman in a bright shirt. :)
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Simple misdirection is enough to explain it.

Now something puzzle me. I am not a professional, but while I can have a quite good stable camera wobble-wise, I am unable to have a center so precisely kept at the same place. Sure sure you can say the cameraman is a pro , but at the start of the sequence the cam swerve right and left quite a lot , while DB is fixed. Later while filming the scene the center is far more stable.

PS: somebody do a "stabilized" GIF like they did for the bigfoot figure ;).
 
Christian Klippel said:
Sorry, maybe i was unclear. Originally i wrote...
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The link Stan provided seems by far the most likely, so all the cuts would match perfectly - only the last one will be required to match, and Derren can get himself in position and the camera is already locked off so it is much more straightforward than matching multiple cuts while moving.

I think that's all quite elegant in the misdirection.

But like most other people I would have much preferred it was a method other than a camera trick.
 
Ashles said:
...snip...

But like most other people I would have much preferred it was a method other than a camera trick.
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I am willing to accept that the split screen is a convincing explanation of one way the trick could have been performed but I'm not willing to accept that as the way the trick was performed, based on the evidence to hand.

What I do know is that it is probably the most talked about magic trick in recent years, so he's certainly proved himself to be a top-flight entertainer.
 
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Ashles said:
Why, who is saying it isn't? I have said more than once the split screen seems the most likely.

I was questioning the matching of the cut scenes to Derren's movements (which seem perfectly synched to me). But that linked explanation neatly explains how it could appear to be hand held, even though it never is during the live section.
But I hadn't seen anyone in this thread so far suggest that the the whole start is prerecorded, and the actual live section only starts a couple of minutes in (which seems to make sense).

Apologies if somebody did suggest that and I missed it.
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From Page 5:

StanUpshaw said:
I imagine the intro was pre-taped, including the shot from the camera at the back of the studio. That established that the main camera was a hand-held camera operator who would give the picture a convincing wobble. When they cut back to the first camera, it started rolling live footage, but now it was being shot on a stationary camera, and the "wobble" was added artificially.

They could have started the masking at any moment after Derren walked over to the TV. The stagehand moved into place to select the correct balls as they were being read, and had plenty of time to place them in ascending order and skedaddle. There was a full 24 seconds between when the 6th ball was announced and when Derren began to walk over to the stand. I don't think it could get any more foolproof than that.

db2431, I think you nailed it!
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Ashles,

At 34, he goes from a dynamic close shot to a tiny walking figure, we're crossing the line of action and moving from one room into a different one so it's a disconcerting shot anyway, all he need to be doing to match up is be walking.

At 41, just before the cut, he's actually just standing still, then raises his arms just after it, just stand on the same mark and he's golden.

When you watch a movie, shots that follow right in the middle of an action are often taken hours, days or sometimes weeks apart. Sometimes someone will walk through a doorway into a completely different set, filmed months later and it will work completely smoothly. For instance, in The Life Aquatic, the reverse shot on Jeff Goldblum's boat was filmed on a soundstage, much later. It isn't at all a rare skill to match actions from a previous shoot, it's an essential part of the craft.

What cinches it is that there is no parallax in the shots with the TV monitor. As a camera moves, objects closer to it shift more compared to distant objects. You'll see it in the shot in the side room, which really is handheld. Just look out at the room you're in and tilt your head a little from side to side. Notice how the chair close to you moves to cover more or less of the wall? If the camera moves had been real, even as slight as they are, the relationship between the clear podium and the cord running behind it would change noticably, but watch as it remains basically pixel perfect through the camera tilts.
 
Ashles said:
The link Stan provided seems by far the most likely, so all the cuts would match perfectly - only the last one will be required to match, and Derren can get himself in position and the camera is already locked off so it is much more straightforward than matching multiple cuts while moving.

I think that's all quite elegant in the misdirection.

But like most other people I would have much preferred it was a method other than a camera trick.
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Agreed. And i too would prefer if there was a different method at work. But as it seems, and i'm pretty convinced of that, it is just a rather "simple" camera trick.

But yes, he got people talking about it, and lots of them, so he surely is "worth his money", so to say.

Greetings,

Chris
 
Just wondering why the 2nd cameraman was there at all? He is only cut to once.
 
Basically, in that last shot where it zooms over to the stand with the balls, the post of the TV stand should end up on the other side of the pipes behind it, but the relationship only scales, it doesn't move in space like it should.
 
Azrael 5 said:
Just wondering why the 2nd cameraman was there at all? He is only cut to once.
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You've seen the effect it has had. It allows for this series of thoughts:

1 We see handheld camera operator.

2 Handheld operators naturally sway and shake and wobble.

3 Shaking and swaying and wobbling make the splitscreen idea impossible because there is no way for the shots to match up.

In short, Plausible deniability.
 
I can't think of how he did this efffect but I have a niggling doubt it isn't camera edits/effects. Doesn't seem like Derren's MO.
 
StanUpshaw said:
You've seen the effect it has had. It allows for this series of thoughts:

1 We see handheld camera operator.

2 Handheld operators naturally sway and shake and wobble.

3 Shaking and swaying and wobbling make the splitscreen idea impossible because there is no way for the shots to match up.

In short, Plausible deniability.
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Or it could be misdirection to get people focusing on the idea of cameras and split screens and the like. (To try and stop them thinking of the obvious answer, trained ants.)
 
Azrael 5 said:
I can't think of how he did this efffect but I have a niggling doubt it isn't camera edits/effects. Doesn't seem like Derren's MO.
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Obviously no one here can prove what happened. It's been established to my satisfaction that one simple, foolproof method is compatible with what we saw.

As far as whether or not Brown would stoop to camera trickery, I submit to you this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXbJT9nQ8eU#t=5m55s

Oh, and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhaUpOkShOQ&feature=related
 
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StanUpshaw said:
Obviously no one here can prove what happened. It's been established to my satisfaction that one simple, foolproof method is compatible with what we saw.

As far as whether or not Brown would stoop to camera trickery, I submit to you this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXbJT9nQ8eU#t=5m55s

Oh, and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhaUpOkShOQ&feature=related
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I take their point but Im going to go against the masses and say standard magic trick.:eek:
I submit this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CE7_BD6aGg
 
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I don't understand this discussion of "pre-recording" or "matching movements." It may reveal that some posters don't quite understand how this video trick works. Since I have done this years ago, let me try to explain from a different angle. And, yes, it is a trivial effect, but it does require some care to avoid giving it away.

No prerecording is necessary. We will also assume that the camera was on a stand or dolly and any apparent camera movement was artificially added in the control room.

Normal camera, normal output up until Darren steps over to the TV when the camera gets in a medium-wide position, but fixed. At that time, a digital snapshot is taken of a single frame and stored in a buffer.

Live video mixers can accept feed from two sources and blend them into a single output, frame by frame, in real time. It's possible, using a slider, to use input number one (the snapshot) for the left half of the output, then switch to input number two (the continuing live shot) for the right side. The place where the blend occurs is "soft" and as long as the studio light doesn't change, shadows don't interfere, no one makes a wrong move or the camera doesn't get bumped, it can be absolutely perfect and seamless.

During the time the video mixer is combining inputs 1 & 2, anyone walking on the left side of the frame, where the balls are, will be invisible to the output, since the left side image output is not from the live camera but from the snapshot. So a technician rolls on a desk with a set of numbered balls, removes the blank ones in the rack, and places each numbered ball in sequence as he hears it from the TV. As soon as he is done, he rolls the desk with the leftovers off stage and the control room moves the slider back to normal. This is where the one ball appears to jump, as frame N is from the snapshot and N+1, the live feed, and one ball just happened to be placed badly (s. happens).

From then on, it's just a normal camera and TV show.
 
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StanUpshaw said:
Are you talking about the entire seven minute presentation, or just from this point on?

Do you agree or disagree that the introduction was likely pre-taped?
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I don't think it matters either way. Maybe it was. Once the handheld camera has been shown to exist in a long shot, we have no assurance that the same handheld camera is the one to provide the following shots. If it was, it was placed on a stand sometime before the "effects" began. And as far as locking it down, we have quick release & attach mechanisms that make a transition from fully handheld to locked-on-a-dolly pretty seamless if the operator is careful.
 
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