Yeahbut – the obvious difference between the old-time newspaper trick and this one, is that as you yourself stated, the magician made his prediction AFTER the paper had been printed.
In this case, the possibility that the magician made the prediction AFTER the lottery was drawn, is foreclosed by the fact the lottery was being pulled live (on live TV) as the trick was done. This was confirmed by posters who said they switched from the channel showing the trick to the channel showing the lottery, and the lottery feed was the same.
Thus this trick could not have been done in the same manner as the newspaper trick – unless you’d like to join Night in speculating that the lottery was fixed.
**Peter’s **point, and its a good one, is that magicians have, live on stage, been producing apparent evidence of a prediction via sealed envelopes etc for eons. To everyone who says “it’s hard to see how he could have physically got the numbers on the balls so it must be video trickery” I say, can you figure out how magicians usually do their apparently physical tricks? I can’t, 99% of the time.
Jodi, you miss the point: in the usual stunt the magician appears to place his prediction in an envelope (or whatever) then a number is obtained from someone in the audience, and then it appears to match the number on an envelope that seemed to have been sealed the whole time. There is no schematic difference between that sort of trick and this one: the “envelope” is the balls on the stand, the numbers come from the lottery draw rather than the audience, and the reveal is of some balls on a stand rather than the content of an envelope.
I don’t think the rising ball is necessarily any more evidence of video trickery than of physical trickery. Ask yourself this: you are making a perspex stand with little boxes for ping pong balls, into and from which your assistant is, while hidden by split screen, going to do a rapid change of balls. Would you make the slots so tight that a ball can get stuck on the sides and not sit on the bottom of the box unless pressed down properly? Answer hell no you want those balls to be able to be scooped out and slotted in and then turned to face the right way with great speed. So you would make the size of the boxes a loose fit: not so snug a ball can get stuck part way up. It makes no sense. But if the boxes aren’t quite what they appear, and if there is actually some sort of mechanism involved, well that is where things might go wrong mechanically like a ball getting stuck.
Again, I agree that the video jerkishness is artificial, it could be to cover up physical jiggery pokery as easily as video jiggery pokery.
I also think that Brown’s long silence is anomalous and means something. It could well be that the machine moving or printing the balls makes noise and so they had to turn off the mikes while it was on.
Don’t get me wrong: I think it may well have been video trickery. I just don’t think it necessarily was, and I don’t think there is any evidence that is decisive one way or the other.
I don’t see how that forecloses it. All it does is limit the time in which to fake up the prediction answer, not make it impossible. In fact, if I remember right, i’ve seen Brown do a similar trick (in theory, at least, not execution) before.
Unless you have some information we don’t, “Derren Brown has the expertise…” is a judgement call by you only, and it’s a lot like a statement from personal incredulity. Until you say “Therefore…”, it would be good to tell us just how you think that trick can be done, and please remember that we already have an easy, cheap method already available in thousands of video studios around the world without inventing anything new. What method do you propose that is easier and cheaper?
Princhester: My theory about the jumping ball relies on these likely factors:[ul][]A tray for the balls had to be made tight enough that the balls didn’t shift or roll much, or you wouldn’t see the numbers clearly and rolling or clacking balls would have caused a noise. In retrospect, maybe it was made just a tad too tight.[]I don’t know what the QC is for ping pong balls, but I suspect they might not be made to a high tolerance and one or more may have been too big or had a rough spot.[]The tech putting the numbered balls was in a hurry and getting the right numbers in the right location and right orientation was the highest priority, not seating them, and they probably didn’t consider this as a possible flaw until too late.[]Heat from stage lighting may have had an effect on balls and/or tray, expanding or warping them/it.[/ul]
There obviously isn’t decisive evidence one way or the other. But there is AFAICT one demonstrated way how the trick could have been done. I hear a lot of people saying “it could have been done some other way,” but I don’t hear anyone explaining any of those other ways, either here or anywhere else.
Princhester: My theory about the jumping ball relies on these likely factors:[ul][li]A tray for the balls had to be made tight enough that the balls didn’t shift or roll much, or you wouldn’t see the numbers clearly and rolling or clacking balls would have caused a noise. In retrospect, maybe it was made just a tad too tight.[]I don’t know what the QC is for ping pong balls, but I suspect they might not be made to a high tolerance and one or more may have been too big or had a rough spot.[]The tech putting the numbered balls was in a hurry and getting the right numbers in the right location and right orientation was the highest priority, not seating them, and they probably didn’t consider this as a possible flaw until too late.Heat from stage lighting may have had an effect on balls and/or tray, expanding or warping them/it.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
If I was building something like this I would make the boxes loose enough that the ball fell straight into place. I would put a little doughnut shaped pad at the bottom to solve the first problem in your list. No way would I solve it by making the boxes tight. As you point out, there is too much chance that imperfect tolerances would muck things up. Also, the assistant is going to have to rotate the balls after they go in, to ensure the number is away from the camera. That’s another reason a little pad for the ball to sit on, and not a snug fitting box that might slow things down, would be used.
You could be right, but my point is that my (and others) inability to explain how physical tricks are done means nothing in this context since that’s the whole point of tricks.
I am just a little unready to accept the video option (while still accepting it may be the answer) because I am not ready to assume that every televised magician’s show is done by video trickery when, firstly I know that magicians can do things live, and secondly, there is no trick that can’t be done by video trickery on TV, if that is what you are ready to assume as a first option.
I don’t think you have to necessarily extend the reasoning to all magicians’ shows, nor do I think you have to extend it to every trick.
The question is whether there is another viable “solve” for this one trick, as done this way, this time. So I accept the video option because the evidence of the slightly moved ball seems to support it, and because no one has come up with any other viable solution. I could be wrong, of course, and I have never insisted I must be right.
I am an amateur conjurer. I have performed magic tricks in front of audiences. I have won talent shows with my tricks. I don’t know anywhere near as much as Ianzin does, but I’ll bet I know a lot more than you do. So, yes, I have information you don’t.
There is a vast literature on the subject. There are a huge number of ways that he could have made his reveal using standard conjuring tricks. There would be no need for him to resort to camera trickery.
No, I’d never spoil another magician’s tricks. It’s against the ethics of the profession.
I don’t even know for certain that he’s using my method, it might be something totally different. I just have a couple of ideas that could show the same effect.
The answer for me to this question, in relation to 99% of tricks, whether I see them live or on TV, is “I dunno”. The answer to the question “could this trick I have seen on TV have been done by video manipulation” is “yes” 100% of the time.
What about the possibility of virtual balls? Put three coloured dots on the face of every (otherwise blank) ball, have a computer track those, overlay each ball’s picture with a texture showing the correct number (and no tracking dots, obviously). And presto! Lottery number prediction.
I do however agree that Derren’s long silence appears to be signifying something. It almost seemed, to me, like he wasn’t really watching the live feed – he announces no number as it is actually being drawn, and he’s suspiciously late in announcing the Lotto show coming on; the TV also takes a surprisingly long time to ‘warm up’, which I don’t think modern TVs need to do at all. So maybe he was just acting out a pre-defined routine, and the feed was cut into it to match this routine. Why, however, and how the trick would work in this case, I have no idea.
I don’t understand this - I think you’ve been fooled!
Derren waited patiently for the Lottery numbers to be announced.
Then he wrote them on a large piece of card, sorting them into order.
Next he strolled over to the balls and finally, minutes after the result, revealed the balls had the right numbers on.
All he had to do was switch the balls after the numbers were known.
Nitpick - it’s actually just over 30 seconds after the final ball was revealed.
I would love to know what the “conjuring trick” could be that would have allowed a physical switch of the balls. In cases such as the “sealed envelope” trick, it’s pretty easy to see, as the envelope has to be opened afterwards and so the magician can easily switch the envelopes, either while opening it himself or passing it to the member of the audience to open.
In this case, though, Brown did not touch the balls at all at any time between the result being drawn and the reveal, so there was no opportunity for any palming or similar shenanigans.
To repeat what I said earlier, there is just an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence supporting a split-screen effect, both in the design and execution of the trick:
The design of the set, with the podium on one side of the screen and the TV set and Brown on the other.
The needless second camera, which was only used once, for one shot. Why bother even having this if not to create a convenient cut point to switch from the handheld camera in the intro to the fixed (but digitally wobbled) camera that filmed the rest of the trick?
See above - the camera shake that looks to be added artificially.
The unnecessarily long delay between the lottery being drawn and the reveal.
The bonus ball not being part of the prediction - OK, you may say it’s not vital anyway, but it all allows extra time for the switch to be made.
The left-hand ball jumping up slightly. Not only that, but jumping at just the exact moment you would expect the switch in video feed to be made, just before Derren crossed over to the podium side of the screen.
The use of a very similar split-screen effect in the trailer for the programme - with Brown talking on the right hand side of the screen, while on the left, the picture is replaced by fakery. If this isn’t a giant “here’s how I did it, folks” then I don’t know what is.
PS: Regarding the size of the stand for the balls, I would have thought it was deliberately made tight so that the balls couldn’t move at all laterally - if all the balls were able to roll half an inch to the side, it would also reveal the video wipe.
I would be interested to know how many of those methods would be possible given the footage of Derren Brown’s trick, and assuming that what we see is a genuine image captured by the camera. I’m sure there are tons of ways of switching an object if the magician is allowed to hold it, or manipulate something that contains it, or whatever. None of those methods would work here, unless you include the possibility that Brown somehow manipulates the balls as he walks behind them just before the reveal. That’s the only time between the lottery draw and the reveal that he is near the balls.
I exaggerated for dramatic effect!
However it is interesting that many people think that Derren somehow predicted the numbers in advance!
As we agree, he had some time between the numbers being drawn and his ‘prediction’ being revealed.
There was no studio audience.
Derren could have used a confederate.
All he needs is for someone to prepare a duplicate set of balls and switch them unseen.
The rest is just an illusion.
Not fooled, but misunderstood here, which – nevermind.
You’re obviously correct in 1-3 and your conclusion. However, the balls remained in view throughout the trick and no one approached them. So how else could the trick have possibly been done, other than through a split screen or similar video trickery? That is the only reasonable option, if one rejects – as I do – the possibility that the balls had the correct numbers on them before the drawing, which would require either (a) a fixed lottery or (b) true precognition, both of which I reject as reasonable possibilities.
I am not saying there might not be some other, correct solution that simply has not occurred to me (or anyone else) because it is so innovative. That is, of course, the “holy grail” of magic tricks: One no one can figure out how it’s done. But within the limits of my vision, I see no other possible solution than split-screen. The other options – placing the numbers of the balls remotely after the numbers were called? – don’t seem feasible. But maybe there was stick with a big number stamp on it that someone was using from behind to imprint the balls, keeping exactly behind the balls in the camera’s line of sight so as to remain unseen. I can’t say for sure that wasn’t done-- but it seems wholly unworkable, as does every other possible solution I’ve heard, other than split screen.
I did think of a variation of that idea which seems maybe 1% less insanely impractical – the balls we see at first are just hollow half-shells facing towards us. A complete set of correct balls is carefully slid into place directly behind them, out of our sight, fitting seamlessly enough in place that the join is not visible when Brown rotates the stand.
At least that means the assistant only has to perform one incredibly delicate operation instead of six. And it could even explain the “rising ball”. However, the design of the ball receptacle doesn’t appear to be amenable to such a method.
