Merged Derren Brown - predicting lottery numbers

Was the jumping ball just a glitch in the matrix then?:whistling

Ironically, it was a "jumping" ball that killed this illusion. Check out YouTube user "noiseache". He/she has just posted a close up of one of the ping-pong balls that shows the left ball moving by itself.

(sorry for the lack of an actual link, I'm not allowed to post links... yet)
 
Ironically, it was a "jumping" ball that killed this illusion. Check out YouTube user "noiseache". He/she has just posted a close up of one of the ping-pong balls that shows the left ball moving by itself.

(sorry for the lack of an actual link, I'm not allowed to post links... yet)

I did not notice a jump when I watched it the first time. It took about four watches even when I knew what I was looking for. Did he do a reveal last night on TV?
 
Well, I for one am very impressed that the "wisdom of forums" has come up with a plausible explanation for the trick ! I'm curious to know if, as a result of last night, there are bunches of people getting together to try to guess a future lottery using averging. Probably yes.

In some of Derren's previous shows, there have been tricks for which I couldn't think of any explanation other than stooges. (Of course there may well be stooge-free explanations that I was unable to guess). What do people think of the fact that he prefaces his programmes with "we don't use stooges" ? Do people agree that this could simply be a fib ?
 
Absolutely. I think that if one dons the title "magician," they forfeit the luxury of ever being given the benefit of the doubt. Lying is intrinsic, and it is foolish to imagine there are limits.
 
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I wonder if he was doing something much simpler.

In the UK we still have analogue broadcast, alongside digital. Anyone who has had an analogue TV and a digital one on at the same time knows that the analogue signal is a good 2-3 seconds ahead of the digital signal.

If he takes the statistical gamble (and he is a self-confessed stats geek) that the vast majority of people watching will be watching digital, and he has an analogue feed (the draw is broadcast on analogue and digital radio too, I think) then he is literally one step ahead and has time for simple (ha!) sleight of hand.

No fancy trickery needed, just basic misdirection.
 
=What do people think of the fact that he prefaces his programmes with "we don't use stooges" ?

He makes that claims and British tabloids would pay a fortune for the scoop if he was proven to be a liar. Seriously, our tabs love nothing more than tearing down a celebrity.
 
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.

Wow really? Gee, thanks for the heads up. Next you'll be telling me the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park weren't real. :rolleyes:

We've already kind of discussed all of this and are pretty much agreed the intro was all prerecorded and the live section was a locked off camera.
 
Everyone is just repeating each other now, isnt really anything left to discuss about how it was actually done.My opinion is that anything can be achieved with video editing and am not impressed at all he is going down this route.
 
Everyone is just repeating each other now, isnt really anything left to discuss about how it was actually done.My opinion is that anything can be achieved with video editing and am not impressed at all he is going down this route.

Agreed.
 
We've already kind of discussed all of this and are pretty much agreed the intro was all prerecorded and the live section was a locked off camera.

I think the whole thing was live, but he was using three cameras. The first shot was from the handheld camera; the second shot was from the back of the room showing the handheld cameraman; then the final long shot was from a locked-down camera which was behind and to the left of the cameraman in shot, but out of shot of the camera at the back of the room.

Does that seem feasible? It would solve the problem of matching the waving movement from a pre-recorded segment. If you look at the final shot of the handheld camera at 40", then the first shot after the cutaway at 42", you can see that the camera is in a slightly different position, though the cameraman has not moved in those two seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG-5qebwflA
 
I think this is closer to the truth here. Do you have any specific effects in mind?

My memory isn't that great, but I vaguely recall an episode where he had people looking out of a window at a street, and "concentrating" to try to influence people walking along the street. People were "caused" to stop in their tracks. They were later interviewed and said that they felt something strange, like they suddenly realised they'd forgotten something.

I could see how that was done other than by
1) Stooges
2) Waiting for absolutely ages until you found someone who did that by chance.
 
Exposing the fraudulence behind religion/mystics/homoeopathy etc. is definitely part of what DB does. However, as he says in his book, and as this trick and the follow-up programme illustrate, unlike our Mr. Randi, it is not what is most important to him. It is to entertain.

When DB explicitly makes a claim that he is not using stooges or camera trickery, I am inclined to believe him. To lie in that 'outside-of-show' setting-of-scene would I believe be fraudulent in spirit if not in law and, as Vaguely says above, would be very risky with the British tabloids at the ready to bring him down.

However, in this instance he didn't set any rules - and if some of us had carried over the strong impression from repeated hearing of these rules claimed for previous programmes, all the better for him as it throws us off the scent.

1. I have every reason (thanks to the astute folks here and elsewhere) to believe this time that it was camera trickery;

2. In contrast to his 'The System' (the horserace betting one), which had a significant educational element, this time, his misdirection using the misapplication of 'The Wisdom of Crowds' theory leads me to believe education wasn't a high priority.

Slightly disappointing to me but valid nevertheless.
 
As I've now seen the whole Event, my view is that the split screen method was very probably the one they used, AND that they left the obvious clues in on purpose. Even the snowflake advertisement still had the last ball higher than the rest.

The part where the scepticism / education comes into play is that when people want to look into the whole idea, they will learn that the Wisdom of Crowds effect is real, but it just doesn't actually work as they were led to believe regarding the lottery. And that there was nothing psychic going on, because as any amateur can see (as well as all the newspapers) it was very probably just a digital trick. This way they actually turned the obvious and simple and easy method into their advantage, and did it elegantly. The show as a whole was excellent even though the "main" method was very probably very simple.

After "the prediction" I didn't expect too much from "the explanation", but I ended up really enjoying it! Great show and performance once again from Derren and the team!

Btw. Did anyone else notice a glitch in the picture (fittingly a duplicate of Derren's head) at the very end when he talks about the possible special effect theories? It's one hell of a coincidence if my copy of the show has a glitch at exactly that moment...

EDIT: just checked from YouTube, nope, it is a freak-coincidence in my file! Talk about confirmaton bias!
 
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My memory isn't that great, but I vaguely recall an episode where he had people looking out of a window at a street, and "concentrating" to try to influence people walking along the street. People were "caused" to stop in their tracks. They were later interviewed and said that they felt something strange, like they suddenly realised they'd forgotten something.

I could see how that was done other than by
1) Stooges
2) Waiting for absolutely ages until you found someone who did that by chance.

Would think 2 is more or less spot on. Probably wouldn't take that long if you watch a busy street to see someone do something unusual. A lot of the 'street magic' on TV is just edits of the couple of times it worked out of the hundeds they tried.

DB does tend to play the odds on stuff.
 
When DB explicitly makes a claim that he is not using stooges or camera trickery, I am inclined to believe him. To lie in that 'outside-of-show' setting-of-scene would I believe be fraudulent in spirit if not in law and, as Vaguely says above, would be very risky with the British tabloids at the ready to bring him down.

However, in this instance he didn't set any rules - and if some of us had carried over the strong impression from repeated hearing of these rules claimed for previous programmes, all the better for him as it throws us off the scent.
The first thing I noticed on Wednesday was that he didn't start the show with his usual disclaimer about stooges, camera tricks etc.
For most (if not all) of his stuff, he doesn't need stooges and as pointed out if it could be proven that he used stooges the tabloids would cruxify him here in the UK.

But I always have problems with his claim of not using camera tricks... because several years ago I was involved in one of his shows and the effect was a very standard magic trick, but when it aired on TV some very creative editing had occurred and though strictly not a camera trick, the effect would not have been so special had the whole sequence not been cleverly edited.

But I don't want anyone to think I'm knocking either Derren or Objective Productions for this. I think they have done a great job of promoting magic on TV for the past 10 years or so (with some very disappointing exceptions: Dirty Tricks being just one of them).
 
My opinion is that anything can be achieved with video editing and am not impressed at all he is going down this route.
I agree, and I'm unimpressed and have little respect for any so-called "magician" or illusionist who resorts to such techniques. We could all be equally convincing (to the unitiated) given access to the same resources. To my mind, the test of a good magician is one who can perform kick-ass stunts live without resorting to stooges and plants.

I don't think I'll be trying to download the remainder of DB's Events. I think I'll just relegate him back from whence he came before naively becoming interested in the lottery stunt through this forum. It's all just more of the same really. IOW, pretty dull.
 
So, Southwind, am I correct that you think that all these were an accident in a show put together by Andy Nyman and Derren Brown?

1) The obvious digital shake.

2) The misplaced ball.

3) The black line in the wall (even though it could've been done in the monitor much more effectively for all I know).

4) The fact that pretty much everyone would think "split screen" as one of the first possible solutions even without the hints.
 

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