Randi endorses Darren Brown??

pmckean said:
Which ones, specifically?

I think I'm pretty good at spotting actors.
Click to expand...

How do you know?

Even the best can't seem to perform spontaneously the way 'real' people do. I've never seen anyone that I thought was an actor in Derren Brown's work, although I don't rule out spontaneous stooges - members of the public who go along with the illusion rather than spoil it, but have no advance knowledge.
Click to expand...

The infamous zombie shooter sketch is probably the best example. It can only have been done with a compliant stooge playing the role of "victim" and as such it's more of a hoax than a conjuring trick.

In contrast to you, I believe that his act deploys considerable 'cleverness and skill'. More so than any other mentalist or magician that I can think of, anyway.
Click to expand...

You're mistaking a statement about a part of his repertoire for a statement about the whole of it. Most of his stuff is very well executed stage magic.
 
Why is it the best example? Or why can it only be done with a compliant stooge playing the role of "victim"?
 
Kevin,

I *think* I'm good at spotting actors. There's a naturalness, randomness and verisimilitude which actors of even the highest calibre don't seem to be able to tap into - in my opinion.

I saw nothing to make me believe that the players in the zombie shooter 'sketch' were professional actors - although, as I mentioned before, I would accept that he uses spontaneous stooges and that there was a degree of preparation and selection with regard to the participants.

Although I don't believe that the stunt was quite how it appeared, it IS a magic show. He's a magician, with an act. It's an example of Derren's trademark "Dual Reality".

As I've seen all of his TV work, and attended his stage show, I don't feel I'm generalising when I state that his act - all of it - is executed with skill. Even the most mundane of magic tricks is elevated when deployed with Derren's flare for presentation.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
The infamous zombie shooter sketch is probably the best example. It can only have been done with a compliant stooge playing the role of "victim".
Click to expand...

I haven't seen the zombie thing, but whenever I hear someone say (or write) about magic that the "only possible method is to have used a stooge" it tells me that one of two things is true:

1- a stooge was used

2- the person making the statement is a magician who can't figure out how it was done and (much like many laymen) falls back on any explanation.

While it's possible that #1 is correct, based on the number of times I've heard it in the past there's a 90% chance that #2 is the correct choice.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
Because hypnosis just doesn't work that way. It would be an interesting world if it did, but it doesn't.
Click to expand...

i can think of at least one way in which no stooge would have had to be used, if by "stooge" you mean that the guy was directly complicit....

it simply requires that the guy was a primed target.....
 
Last edited:
Kevin_Lowe said:
Because hypnosis just doesn't work that way. It would be an interesting world if it did, but it doesn't.
Click to expand...

Wait a second. I think you are missing the point of the trick.

He wasn't hypnotized to think he was attacked by zombies. He was playing a game (shooting zombies), when he was put into some state (call it what you like), and when he came to again, he found himself in a scenario that closely resembled the video game he had just been playing.

It shows that we can easily be confused so much, that our rationality goes out the window. In this case, it also showed how easily we can be manipulated to shoot without thinking.
 
Derren doesn't hypnotize people or put them "into some state". He's even said that he doesn't believe in that stuff.

You should watch his special The Heist, he shows exactly how he does these things. They don't call it it an illusion for nothing.
 
quixotecoyote said:
But with the Zombie episode, there's the possibly that the fakery was faked. That is, done with editing and a fake audience to make it more of a television show arrangement than a conjuring or mentalism feat.
Click to expand...
And your evidence for this is..... that you can't work out any other way it could be done?????

Derren claims that he doesn't use stooges at the start of each show, so either you can take that at face value or not. Given the number of people who have appeared on his shows, either he has some way of keeping them quiet, or he doesn't use stooges.. Take you pick.

What about "instant conversion".. was that done with stooges as well?
 
Derren's a conjurer with a pair of highly sought-after books to his credit. He does play a little fast and loose with the "rules" on his TV shows, but not as much as the latest couple of TV magicians here in the US.
 
Hatchet said:
What about "instant conversion".. was that done with stooges as well?
Click to expand...

The difference I see is that dramatic religious conversions are a known phenomenon.

Putting people "into some state" where you can cart them around and they have no memory of it until you pop them out of it is not a known phenomenon.
 
I posted this in another thread recently, but it's of relevance here:

A friend of mine was on one of Derren Brown's shows, as a participant in a trick. Whilst the way the show was broadcast implied she was a random passer-by, she had actually been to a pre-screening where the most 'suitable' participants (whatever that might mean) were selected through a variety of means.

That's not to say that he "cheats" - my friend insists that she wasn't a stooge and the trick performed on her, which involved generating fear of a simple rock, if I recall correctly, was performed as televised. It's just that the people he picks "at random" might not always be as random as the TV editing implies.
 
CFLarsen said:
Induced religious conversions?
Click to expand...

Sure. Wesley (I'm pretty sure it's Wesley I'm thinking of) travelled all over England making people convulse, fall over and convert to his sect en masse.

Mind you I'm not saying I know for a fact that DB did his trick the way Wesley did or anything like that. My point is merely that inducing an ecstatic religious conversion is squarely within the realm of what is psychologically possible, whereas putting hapless video game players "into some state" where you can mess with them without them remembering does not.

People don't get blackouts?
Click to expand...

Induced blackouts? Not that I have ever heard of.
 
Patejdl said:
I've seen some episodes of his shows and alot of them were totally fake.
Click to expand...

This reminds me of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode where the movie showed a body being lowered down into a pit by means of a rope, at which point the viewers chimed in:

"That is so fake. You can see the string!"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom