have you watched derren browns "the experiment"

[Azrael 5]

Brown's explanations are the only things "unsupported by facts". But if you would like to offer an explanation as to what sort of "magic" or "misdirection" was employed to accomplish the BMX trick - or, for that matter, what even makes it a "trick" at all - I am all ears. Or eyes, as it were.

The Russian Roulette thing was a standard magic trick. No live ammo was used, and the audience participant played what was essentially a small role as a mere plot device.

I don't know what you mean by the "BMX" thing. I don't know if I've seen that one.

Sorry I got my posters mixed up, It was in response to Checkmite. But you claimed RR and Lottery were edits and stooges.

If it's one of those cases where he chooses the participant "at random" by throwing a ball or frisbee into the audience, he merely directs the throw towards a pre-seated group of these specially-chosen guests.

Now I know you are talking BS. Please read back your own posts before hitting submit.
He hasnt used frisbees for a few years ,he now uses a toy monkey whcih is considerably harder ,especially as it's rethrown by initial catcher.

 

[Azrael 5]

I can get behind this.

It's inexcusably lame to endorse such an unfounded woo-woo conspiracy theory defense for murder.

He should have added a disclaimer at the end that what happens on the magician's stage is not always what it seems, and there's really no scientific basis for any claims of "hypnotic programming."

AS I have the show recorded maybe you'd like to read this intro to the show.I've shortened it for brevity but context is unchanged.

Is it possible to programme someone to kill and without them realising it? Conspiracy theorist claim CIA hypnotized candidates to carry out assinations ,like Robert Kennedy. Tonight we'll find out if that is possible or the stuff of movie fiction[footage of Kennedy assination and assasin are shown]...during tonight's programmes I'll be finding out if such unlikely sounding claims are actually possible

 

[GrandMasterFox]

<snip>
Now, in this hypothetical scenario, can this particular use of audience "plants" technically be termed as employing "stooges"?

I don't know about technical definitions that badly, I understand it that stooges are actors who are aware that they are doing a job. So I would say "no", but of course I might be wrong on that.

I went to film school too for a couple years, before changing my major. Being familiar with film/TV production yourself, you must realize that editing a TV show involves far more people in both production and the post-prod side

Sure, but they are your people. They are under your control. You'll work with them again and they get a decent salary so its easier than using a random person whom by definition you can't ever work with again.

Using a secret stooge would obviate the need for everybody in the damn production company seeing how the trick is done right in front of them.

Assuming they are not in on the trick as well... As I said, it's a given fact that some people use them some don't. For example, we know for a fact that Popoff used stooges. I'm not aware of any evidence that Geller ever did.

I'm not saying your scenario is impossible, it is just that you claimed it was given that he used stooges in the past (though since you explained what you mean by that I could accept that).

Also, in your scenario you'd have the entire audience telling their friends and relatives that what they saw on TV was nothing like how it happened live in the studio.

Wrong on that one. The way I see it is this:
1)We know for a fact that DB used camera tricks in the past
2)The show did not at any point show us the guy in the same theatre as fry. In fact, unless I'm mistaken (and I can check again) we saw 3 shots (camera not gun): The audience, fry on stage, the place where the gunman was. Not a single shot showed any 2 of them together.

This makes me think that it's quite possible the guy never fired a guy at fry, but fry was clearly "shot" in front of an audience. So it's possible the audience simply heard shots and never even saw the gunman. It's possible there were shots that were shot by a blank gun by someone completely different. Only via editing do we even assume all of this took place at the same time in the same place.

So the audience isn't in on it for sure. Although I can't prove it, I do think that they made the guy think he shot fry when he did it. And because he is the most suggestable person they found, he simply finds it more plausable to say he forgot about it then come out and say it's all crap.

Besides that, Brown has been caught using actors before, so what makes you think he wouldn't do it again?

That's the part where I require evidence. So far I have seen no evidence to show me for a fact he is using stooges. Tricks? Sure. Not paid actors.

And if the guy wasn't a stooge, then how do you account for all aspects of the story?

See above. Considering how shady the entire thing was filmed and that I know for a fact he is using camera tricks I find it much more plausible to claim it as a miracle of editing.

Do you believe an illusionist when he denies using trickery, just on his own word?

Nope. He said he didn't use camera tricks on the lottery. But I just think there are other mundane explanations that make a lot more sense.

I was not involved in the production, so I admit I have no firsthand or solid evidence to prove he used plants or stooges in this particular show.

Although who knows, it's quite possible because of my background that I find the camera editing to be more reasonable and probable. I'm willing to admit personal bias.

If you look closely at the members of the audience, their reactions (or more specifically, their lack thereof) are very telling.

Now I might be reading too much into this, and maybe Derren Brown's audience are unusually polite and attentive, but in those kinds of situations you'll almost always see some exchange of eye contact, sheepish giggles, etc.

No, this is a perfectly reasonable offer of evidence. Though I can't say I remember that segment of the show too much. I hope you'll give me a chance to watch the show again and come back with a response.

GrandMasterFox, are you by any chance a practicing stage magician yourself?

Have you ever been selected as an audience member for a live magic performance?

Yes and No. I'm not a practicing magician, though I am friends with several, so I've been to plenty of shows and watched things done 2nd hand.

I'm not saying it's impossible for him to use a stooge, just that it's not the only plausible explanation.

 

[John Albert]

AS I have the show recorded maybe you'd like to read this intro to the show.I've shortened it for brevity but context is unchanged.

Is it possible to programme someone to kill and without them realising it? Conspiracy theorist claim CIA hypnotized candidates to carry out assinations ,like Robert Kennedy. Tonight we'll find out if that is possible or the stuff of movie fiction[footage of Kennedy assination and assasin are shown]...during tonight's programmes I'll be finding out if such unlikely sounding claims are actually possible

Yeah, that's the part that I feel is dishonest and lame. That's why I feel he should have added a disclaimer at the end, to the effect that it was a trick and there's no evidence such a thing is possible in real life.

Sorry I got my posters mixed up, It was in response to Checkmite. But you claimed RR and Lottery were edits and stooges.

I think the "Lottery" one was basically just a magic trick, probably based on some kind of substitution.

You're right. I was wrong to say the Russian roulette act required stooges. That was another magic trick or stunt that did not need to resort to any special plants or stooges.

The "Russian scam" trick was probably executed as I described, with Brown instructing the "mark" to play along as a "pseudo-stooge.". They probably hit the streets with a small camera crew for a few hours on a weekend afternoon, with DB attempting the ruse on a number of randos, and then just cherry-picked and edited the most successful ones for airing.

Now I know you are talking BS. Please read back your own posts before hitting submit.

Seems like a likely method to me, especially in view of accounts I've read. As I've said, I don't pretend to have any definitive answer because I don't have any evidence, so it's pure speculation.

One thing is for certain: the acts he is performing are tricks.

How do you propose these tricks are done then, Mr. Magic Fingers?

 

[Azrael 5]

The BMX thing is where Brown, by giving a monologue in which he taps a man on the shoulder every time he uses syllables that sound like "B", "M", and "X", "programmed" his mind to want a BMX bike rather than the leather jacket he previously asked for.

It's obvious bunk and it was arranged for the man to say "BMX bike" at the end; but Azrael seems to think that Brown employed some kind of "magic trick" to make him say he wanted a BMX bike rather than a jacket.

That is exactly what he did.Who knows more about magic,me or you? Just because I wont reveal the secret(against rules of forum anyhow)doesn't mean I'm wrong.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

Again...at around 8 minutes Derren clearly informs them that they're gonna put acid in their cups.

Possible I missed that, but everything else I said still stands. Even if I were at the audience I would have tossed the "acid". No sane person will think a celebrity filming a tv show will let me do something harmful.

Yep, really, he says stuff like that quite often in his TV shows, not always (IMO, he could stress it even more), but nevertheless consistently.
He also "went after" New Age healers (Messiah), religious healers and preachers (Messiah and Miracles for Sale), ghost hunters (The Ghosthunter), mediums (The Man Who Contacts the Dead), Ouija boards, Astrology, an obscure Ukrainian system of human development that claims to teach people to see without the use of their eyes (The Man with X-Ray Eyes), etc. Those are all EXCELLENT skeptical shows, that's a great track record. You're belittling that side of DB way too much.

FYI, I've seen all of those shows. And you couldn't be more wrong if you think that's enough to say the guy is a good skeptic. He isn't.

As I said before, Brown is a really smart guy and he knows how to have his cake and eat it too. He promotes woo because woo sells, but on the other hand he hands out enough stuff for skeptics so they'll leave him alone. Correct me if I'm wrong but it wasn't until he was attacked by other skeptics that he started talking about more skeptical issues.

The guy isn't about promoting skepticisim anymore than Opera Winfry is just because she did one pitiful episode explaining that a crying statue was a fake.

Cherry picking does not a good skeptic make

 

[GrandMasterFox]

Yep, he does stuff like that all the time. Personally I don't think it's too much, but clearly we're all different in that sense. Most importantly he calls spade a spade when out of the entertainment business.

I'd like to know how he comments the Robert Kennedy case since this episode didn't have any BS explanations as a misdirection at all.

The bolded part is exactly why I have issues with him. If he was really about promoting skepticisim, he would do it in and out of the entertaiment business.

 

[John Albert]

GrandMasterFox, you make a compelling case for the "video edit" mechanism, but that still doesn't explain the participant's insistence that he had no knowledge or memory of anything that happened.

As far as I'm concerned, Derren Brown claims he doesn't use camera or editing trickery either but it's obviously used in some of these tricks. The fact that he'd lie about that indicates he can't be trusted not to lie about using plants and stooges either.

As I said before, it's a lot easier to keep a secret that only two people know, than a secret the entire staff of a TV production house know. It's a better risk to trust one person not to break an NDA, than to risk twenty people breaking one. And if the one other person does indeed break silence, Derren Brown can always call him a liar and sue him for slander (which is very easy to do under the UK laws). If a whole group of people back each other up, that's a different story.

 

[Azrael 5]

Possible I missed that, but everything else I said still stands. Even if I were at the audience I would have tossed the "acid". No sane person will think a celebrity filming a tv show will let me do something harmful.


FYI, I've seen all of those shows. And you couldn't be more wrong if you think that's enough to say the guy is a good skeptic. He isn't.

As I said before, Brown is a really smart guy and he knows how to have his cake and eat it too. He promotes woo because woo sells, but on the other hand he hands out enough stuff for skeptics so they'll leave him alone. Correct me if I'm wrong but it wasn't until he was attacked by other skeptics that he started talking about more skeptical issues.

I disagree in the main,but your last line is kind of true.When he started out on TV he was badly advised and tried to claim he wasnt doing magic tricks but "Mind Control".Simon Singh pulled him on it and he stopped.But it was beginning of his TV career as I said and not his idea.

 

[John Albert]

That is exactly what he did.Who knows more about magic,me or you?

Who knows?

You certainly haven't demonstrated how much you know or don't know.

Just because I wont reveal the secret(against rules of forum anyhow)doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Then you have no basis to prove he's wrong and you're right, either. So under the circumstances, the most prudent course of action might be to refrain from talking like a smartass.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

You weren't paying attention, it was clearly said in the show that the people around the guy were in on the plan, they were named as being fire arm experts, and such, probably just normal actors for all I know. For obvious reasons, this is also not what we mean when we ask evidence for stooges, or plants, etc. (this last point not directed at you GMF).

I'm willing to admit I only watched it once so far.Watching again.
Now, I am so calling it faked by editing.

39:54 They show the gunman being sitted down. If you'll notice, the rest of the auditorium is empty...

40:09 Now we see a shot of the entire audience and it's a filled out place but you cannot see the gunman at all.

40:12 Now we see a shot of the gunman and you can see some audience in the background to the right and below him. But the angel is very difficult to determine if it's the same audience at all.

There isn't any shot that shows the gunman and fry at the same time. I watched it twice now just to be sure.

ETA: Just for the record, after the shooting, in 44:35 you do see fry and the gunman on the same shot.
But that's only after the firing and everything when the guy was "asleep".

 

[Azrael 5]

I find it best to multi post keeps things clearer.An admission of Derren and what he does,and the problems it creates:

Nevertheless he admits that ‘What I do is rooted in magic – it’s got a big foot planted firmly in conjuring, even if the other foot’s planted in psychological techniques. And I’m trying to balance a sense of mystery with an honesty – and that’s immediately a contradiction. But even if people don’t know exactly where I’m coming from, they know it’s a game. Still, there’s definitely the route where you’re… cheating, and the route where you’re using perfectly genuine psychological tricks. And the fun is to mix them up.’

And

t’s important to remember that Brown is first and foremost a showman, as adept at using his ‘sceptical’ persona to deceive audiences as any great magician is at peddling illusion. Robert-Houdin, the 19th-century Frenchman known as ‘the father of modern magic’, once said that, ‘A magician is an actor playing a magician.’ What’s Brown’s view? ‘There is a bit of that, isn’t there? Because the belief you engender is a big part of it. You have to retain the mystery.’

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/5475664/Derren-Brown-interview.html

More in this interview,well worth reading init's entirety,this is from sub heading !What's in a claim" appropiate for this topic I thought.

DERREN: My position at the moment is, again, having my cake and eating it. At the beginning of the first special it was important to stake a claim and set myself apart from things. Artistically perhaps it wasn't a great decision, but nonetheless it was there and it probably didn't work in my favor. Now I don't want to be in a position of having to defend myself. This is what I tell people in interviews: I wanted to come up with a form of magic that was more thought provoking, involving, and a bit more challenging and difficult to dismiss than a lot of magic can be. And this psychological form of magic is what I've come up with. But I absolutely tie it back to that. I don't say that what you see is documentary footage of me using my superior psychological techniques.

http://www.jamyianswiss.com/fm/works/derren-brown.html

 

[Kuko 4000]

Possible I missed that, but everything else I said still stands.

Yeah, everything else...except...the other things I corrected before that one too, the fact is, you didn't pay attention to the show and came here shooting from the hip, and missing a lot. It happens, but it's a bit of a drag to clean up the mess.

FYI, I've seen all of those shows. And you couldn't be more wrong if you think that's enough to say the guy is a good skeptic. He isn't.

My position is that he could stress more strongly the skeptic / magician / entertainment points in his woo-flirting shows. My position is also that he has an excellent track record of high quality tv shows that promote skepticisim, this is very impressive. I don't know what's the definition of a good skeptic that you're referring to, but I'm aware that he confuses a lot of people with his misdirection. IMO, it's a thin line he's walking.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it wasn't until he was attacked by other skeptics that he started talking about more skeptical issues.

I can answer this more easily if you provide more info about this attack? Who attacked him, why and when? Have you read Tricks of the Mind?

The guy isn't about promoting skepticisim anymore than Opera Winfry is just because she did one pitiful episode explaining that a crying statue was a fake.

This is just absurd

 

[Azrael 5]

Who knows?

You certainly haven't demonstrated how much you know or don't know.

Search conjurers corner sub forum.Why would I lie?

Then you have no basis to prove he's wrong and you're right, either. So under the circumstances, the most prudent course of action might be to refrain from talking like a smartass.

More posts to tickle your fancy in the link
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=258156&forum=15

The OVERWHELMING majority of Derren's effects have at their basis a standard magic effect and do not rely solely on psychology or NLP. Don't confuse his presentation with his methodology. The BMX effect mentioned above is a pure magic trick and there is no psychology involved at all (beyond the psychology behind all magic tricks).

His ability to reframe magic effects is, in my opinion, his greatest contribution to the art.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

GrandMasterFox, you make a compelling case for the "video edit" mechanism, but that still doesn't explain the participant's insistence that he had no knowledge or memory of anything that happened.

That's also a bit of an issue. I watched the last segment as well. The only thing on camera that they ask him is if he remembers the woman in the pokadot dress and the shooting.

The shooting I explained. The woman with the pokadots... I admit it's harder.
I could also ask how long was the entire thing filmed? Derren says they gave him 17 minutes till they told him to fire. We saw barely 5, so obviously it was a lot longer than that. Is it possible that maybe the whole thing was really long, that other people walked in and out and we remember her clearly because we only saw her?

As far as I'm concerned, Derren Brown claims he doesn't use camera or editing trickery either but it's obviously used in some of these tricks. The fact that he'd lie about that indicates he can't be trusted not to lie about using plants and stooges either.

Agreed. And as I said, it's possible a stooge was used. I will also admit I don't like it cause it's "too easy" to guess and not much fun trying to figure it out
But that's not much evidence either.

As I said before, it's a lot easier to keep a secret that only two people know, than a secret the entire staff of a TV production house know. It's a better risk to trust one person not to break an NDA, than to risk twenty people breaking one. And if the one other person does indeed break silence, Derren Brown can always call him a liar and sue him for slander (which is very easy to do under the UK laws). If a whole group of people back each other up, that's a different story.

Simple question: If you have a super secret, would you tell it to 3 people in your family or 1 random guy off the street?

 

[AdMan]

Correct me if I'm wrong but it wasn't until he was attacked by other skeptics that he started talking about more skeptical issues.

I can answer this more easily if you provide more info about this attack? Who attacked him, why and when?

That one is easy to answer:

I'll bet £1,000 that Derren can't read my mind

 

[Kuko 4000]

GrandMasterFox, Azrael reminded me of the Simon Singh case, we've talked about that before here as well. I guess that was what you meant about the attack? Dunno how much that affected anything though.

Edit: Cheers AdMan, same case.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

Yeah, everything else...except...the other things I corrected before that one too, the fact is, you didn't pay attention to the show and came here shooting from the hip, and missing a lot. It happens, but it's a bit of a drag to clean up the mess.

Not really. I'm willing to admit mistakes and I have watched segments again.
My original point was that he said that someone not hypnotized would not do that. That was BS.

My position is that he could stress more strongly the skeptic / magician / entertainment points in his woo-flirting shows. My position is also that he has an excellent track record of high quality tv shows that promote skepticisim, this is very impressive. I don't know what's the definition of a good skeptic that you're referring to, but I'm aware that he confuses a lot of people with his misdirection. IMO, it's a thin line he's walking.

I would say he is walking a thin line in the same way that a psychic tells you it's for "entertaiment only". They aren't fooling us. They want people to believe it's a real deal and use the disclaimer to come out of hand.

If I were to call him a good skeptic, I would expect him to go all the way. Not just partially obscure behind subtleties and not switch personas when his audience is split.

I can answer this more easily if you provide more info about this attack? Who attacked him, why and when? Have you read Tricks of the Mind?

Sure, no problem. Off the top of my head, right at this very site there was a segment on swift where they showed a segment from TAM (dont' recall which one) where P&T talked about his lottery stunt and exposed it.

Notice what Teller actually says about Brown before the trick is showed...

This is just absurd

Not really. When "miracle detectives" first aired, people here jumped the guy to say "wow opera did a show with a skeptical episode" then everything else on the show was pure crap.

Sure, Derren did a couple of skeptical shows, then he does this show which is anything but. I don't cherry pick his performances to say that just because he did a couple of good stuff it makes the bad ones go away.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

Found it, this is what I'm talking abouhttp://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/857-tam-7-recap-w-latvias-only-superhero.htmlt (in addition to simon's article already mentioned)

Skip to part 4...

 

[dlorde]

But when does he talk about his performances? That's my point. He is knowingly talking BS when he knows the woos are listening and starts talking about it only when they are out of the earsight.

I've seen him talk about it a fair amount in interview, and ISTR him explicitly stating it was all trickery before each show in one TV series.

Except he doesn't admit it's fake. Did he tell you at the end of the show "this is fake"? No he didn't. It's basically the same as if Sylvia Browne and John Edward would meet in a convention and tell each other they are fakes.

I haven't seen the show in question - but he's an illusionist, the show is entertainment. In my experience, when asked, he's always said it's trickery/misdirection, etc. Does he have to say that before or after every show? Does David Copperfield? David Blaine? etc.