Celebrities… You mean, like, actors? As in, people who make their living by putting on a show of being something they’re not? Yeah, they’re really hard to persuade to… put on a show by pretending to be something they’re not.
As for “all the people who weren’t fooled by it coming forward”, why would they? None of them knew it was Derren Brown beforehand, or the trick wouldn’t work. The ones who don’t fall for it, well, they’re not going to use footage of them in the TV special, so they don’t need to get signed waivers from them, so they’re never going to bother to tell them it was Derren Brown. So you’re not going to get people going to the national media and saying “Derren Brown tried to do his mentalist thing to me and 50 other cashiers at my store, and none of us fell for it”: You’re going to get all those people going home and saying to their spouse “The craziest thing happened at work today; some nutcase tried to pay for a new TV with blank pieces of paper”, and then forget about it.
My opinion of Derren Brown went down massively when he did that stupid “lottery prediction” show using basic camera trickery, disguised by some stupid “wisdom of crowds” nonsense - as if the wisdom of crowds could be used to predict random numbers!
(For those that haven’t seen it, he claimed to be predicting the lottery numbers right before the draw, on live television. What he actually did was use a split-screen and have an assistant select the numbered balls and place them in the rack after the draw but before the reveal. Then when everyone pointed out how lame his explanation was, he made up a story about not being allowed to use the “real explanation”.)
Since that shambles I wouldn’t trust him for one moment not to be using basic cheats like paid shills.
They’re human beings, capable or error, stupidity, selfishness and caprice, just like the rest of us It’s a bit of a stretch to imagine that they would all behave in the same, uniform manner.
I think it’s possible that the shows use a lot of stooges though, and maybe the production team has some clever patter that tends to convince them each, individually, that they are the only one in on the act (i.e. the only stooge in the room) - I’ve done that before in a stage performance and it was surprisingly easy (although the reveal of the multi-stooge reality was part of the performance, so it wasn’t necessary to keep up the pretence for long).
I would be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.
For a number of reasons.
The split screen makes no sense. The lottery is the national lottery. He had the audience pick the numbers that won insane money. The draw is nationally televised. He can’t simply fake up his own version with different numbers drawn. People really would notice.
It isn’t the style of magic be does. He is a mentalist. Mentalists excel in forcing the selection of numbers by mathematical tricks. Basically sophisticated versions of “subtract the number you first thought of.”
The obvious trick is to delay the showing of the national draw to the studio audience by, and to know the numbers ahead of time - enough for him to be prepared to use the mentalist style magic to force the audience to pick those numbers. But this is also probably not what was done.
You can be sure that the explanation that was cut was also not the real trick. One of his other trademarks is to do a trick, and reveal a fake explanation that leaves possibly even more puzzlement.
His style is also to take well know (in the industry) tricks, and place a new twist on them. He doesn’t seem to invent new tricks, but he is very good at creating new vehicles for old ones.
The following are listed on IMDB as being in that programme:
Sarah Alexander, an actress.
Jane Goldman, who wrote Kick Ass and other things and is married to Jonathan Ross.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy, a newsreader.
Raza Jaffrey, I don’t know who he is.
Al Murray, a comedian.
Jean-Christophe Novelli, a celebrity chef.
Simon Pegg, an actor.
Jonathan Ross, scandal-manufacturer and chat show host.
Peter Serafinowicz, comedian, sketch artist and actor.
Reece Shearsmith, comic actor.
Mostly very famous in England, obviously Simon Pegg internationally famous. I especially can’t see Krishnan Guru-Murphy playing along.
You need to investigate this more thoroughly, if we’re talking about the same event. The most reasonable explanation is that after the numbers were drawn, a technician put the correct balls in the rack, hidden by the split screen, which was displaying a static picture of the rack. After some patter and enough delay to let the tech do his thing, the cover screen was electronically removed and Derren revealed the balls, now with the correct numbers.
People who know how video works (including me) have verified that this is quite possible, indeed, incredibly easy. The clincher is if you look at one of the balls that was carelessly placed, and not perfectly aligned with the others. When the video cover is removed, one ball seems to jump up. Oops!
This short and clever video by Richard Wiseman may help you understand how such things can happen.
I don’t dispute that any such trickery is possible - just that it make no sense to use it. I haven’t seen the trick in question, so I can’t know for sure, so I’m guessing how it appeared.
But the lottery numbers were chosen in the studio by Derren working with the studio audience. The numbers are therefore known by the audience and recorded in some form before the draw. The draw is conducted somewhere else by Camelot, who run the lotteries in the UK. They televise the draw. The numbers from this draw are known across the UK, being published in every lottery outlet, and every paper the next day. In the studio, I assume Derren plays the “live” draw of the lottery. The numbers picked, by an independent, lottery operator, for the national lottery - one with millions of pounds prizemoney, match the numbers the audience and Derren picked. There is neither opportunity or need to fake up a rack of balls with a bit of TV trickery. There is only ever one possible set of numbers.
Is that the one? If so, please read the comments. One poster explains how it could have been done. There is opportunity, and unless Brown is indeed psychic, a need to do it as a trick. If he is psychic, why is he wasting his time doing TV shows for peanuts when he could win the lottery every week?
It is highly important and critical to the trick that the numbers he “picked” are never revealed until after the official announcement. If he knew them in advance, why doesn’t he reveal them before, and make this a truly amazing trick? For that matter, there’s million dollars waiting for him in Florida for 2 minutes work.
Yeah, I Googled the clip and yes, I now agree. That clip isn’t the same as was described upthread, and has all the hallmarks of a split screen. It is indeed rather disappointing.
Just to be clear - for those that don’t know of Derren Brown - he has never, ever claimed to be psychic. He is an illusionist and mentalist - it is all trickery and he has never claimed otherwise. In fact, he is about as much of a psychic as James Randi
Having said that, I’m not a great fan. I get bored of his shtick pretty quickly. Not as bad as David Blaine but getting there…
No, I had imagined a very different presentation based upon the upthread description. There was a description involving the audience participating in the number selection as part of the show - that wasn’t the case - so what we saw was totally different to what I thought was the case. As I wrote, Derren is a very good mentalist, so the idea of him forcing the picking of already known numbers made sense. But the actual show was just him on stage, probably with no audience at all. So a very weak reality.
To expand on the above I watched the show live. The national lottery draw was on BBC1, as it always is, shown live every Saturday night. Derren Brown’s show was on Channel 4 at the same time. To show that it was live, he had a TV screen on set with him, tuned in to BBC1. Viewers could confirm, by flicking between channels, or even watching two TV sets simultaneously, that the TV broadcast Derren was watching was indeed the live show being transmitted on BBC1.
However, after he placed his “prediction balls” in the rack, both Derren and the TV set stayed on the right hand side of the screen while the video feed was cut in to cover the ball rack and Derren’s assistant. Derren was then talking and making a big play of writing down the actual numbers that had been drawn, giving plenty of time for the switcheroo.
I’m sorry, but I don’t have any time for “illusionists” who use camera trickery. However clever, it doesn’t show skill.
I certainly am impressed by illusionists who can do close-up “magic” in person. An example that is fresh in my mind: at a wedding a couple of weeks ago I witnessed, from a distance of no more than 3 feet, a magician take the bride’s wedding ring, “vanish it”, and then less than 10 seconds later retrieve a box from his pocket secured with four rubber bands. Inside that box was another box, also secured with four rubber bands. Inside that box was a velvet pouch, tied up with ribbon. Inside that pouch, you guessed it, was the ring. Both boxes and the pouch were opened by the bride herself, in full view of me and more than a dozen other people, so no further opportunities for palming by the magician beyond that original 10-second window. I know it was the same ring, because it was a one-of-a-kind ring hand-made by the groom, and I also know that the bride was not in on it.
That is what a good illusionist can do. Camera trickery doesn’t cut it.
