I just switched over for the last few minutes and it would appear, unless I missed something, that he didn't actually give away how he did it. If that's the case I'm so glad I didn't waste an hour watching the show.
Apparently next Friday, he's going to make us all stick to the sofa through the telly. Like I need an excuse!
well I don't know the guy, it's the first time I hear about him, but what was on the show tonight was certainly not how he did it... he's built series of 'experiments' to try and demonstrate that you can predict randomness, first starting with humans. Then some sort of pseudo mathematical theory (that has so many obvious flaws it's not even worth explaining) plus a dash of automatic writing and subconscious smoke, to try and make us believe he had a group of people 'trained' to find the numbers (they start with finding 1, then 2, 3, etc).
So just more illusions and a bunch of 24 very gullible people (and whose strength must not be numbers...) to produce a pseudo scientific framework to make you believe this is possible... Obvious TV marketing tells you he's really going to tell you the trick, I can't believe I fell for it and watched the show (or half-watched anyways)
Well it was about what I expected.
He did indeed give a very plausible explanation of how it could be done, and I'm sure that there will be groups of people trying it out soon.
As for his final bit, it's his style to do so. He gives you an explanation of a trick, then does something to make you think that the explanation is rubbish and that the trick to the trick is a trick. It's all part of his ability and love of messing with peoples minds, and he really is the master of it.
I don't think it was a wasted hour at all. Anyone that expected for him to genuinely reveal a foolproof method of how to win the lottery and that he would not have his fun and mess with your minds is clearly as deluded as the people who think they will win the lottery without buying a ticket.
No, I wasn't expecting him to tell me how to accurately guess the lottery numbers, I wanted him to tell us the trick, which it clearly was.
What? Please tell me you're joking!
Worryingly, you're correct in that assumption.
Last edited by Double Trouble; 11th-September-2009 at 10:26 PM.
I really did not expect a truthful explanation because that would be stupid it’s obviously an illusion but I still felt disappointed by what I watched. The show was also very padded out and I cannot understand why the guy would stamp on the cups barefoot if he thought there might be a knife in the cup and then to go back and stamp on the remaining few – why? I also predicted that cup 13 would be the one to avoid as I guess as the majority of those viewing. My own fault for watching.
The crowd of people didnt even predict the numbers, - he wouldnt let them work out the averages, or know what they were.
Terrible television, - especially after the **** up of the balls moving on their own after the switch was made.
Anyway, changing the subject completely from Derren Bullsh*t Brown, I thought this was quite impressive
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1920181
At the very begining of the show, he tells you that what he does is a mixture of psychology, suggestion, illusion (a few others I can't remember),showmanship and most importantly of all, misdirection.
The explanation he gave is indeed plausible, group guessing is a mathematical thing that may indeed work for things like the weight of a bull, like he said when he first started with an explanation. As for the actual lottery numbers? Well I'm sure there will be many people who will see if there is actually any mathematical proof to the theory. It is plausible, as in for most of the show, we are made to believe that it actually is what he did to predict the numbers. If he had left the show at that explanation then I think most of you would have gone away happy with that explanation, if still skeptical about it.
And no, I don't think anyone believes he genuinely predicted the numbers. He said from the outset that it was a trick.
As for the padding in the show, it's all part of the showmanship. A magician would not do his best trick at the start of the show, he does a series of small tricks that lead up to the big one. In every single one of his shows, there is a build up to something much bigger than the rest of the show builds up to, often interlinking smaller tricks into one very big trick.
As for the cups thing, I to predicted that 13 would be the important one, but it is as he said, a hightened state of fear makes us more suggestible. Most people hold the belief that 13 is unlucky, and Derren at the very start of that part said that he placed it under the cup he knew for certain he would not step on. I think the vast majority of people would stay away from the number 13 when the potential of pain is there and we are in a state of fear. We resort to a more primal state and superstition, whether we believe it or not has a more powerful influence. What it really had to do with the show? I'm not too sure on that one, but it was still great to watch. Also, the guy was stamping on them for the potential payout of £500,000, but I doubt to this day whether Derren has ever actually lost one of these bets, and if he has, it would never be shown on TV.
As for not letting the crowd work out the numbers, that is all part of the misdirection he was leading up to and was done to make you doubt his explanation so that his final explanation, whether real or not, would seem more likely and plausible.
I don't believe that any TV trickery was used to do his 'prediction' it's just not his style. It might be that of other magicians to find some very clever way to make the correct numbers appear on the balls, but it's not his style. He much prefers to mess with peoples minds that technological trickery.
So for those of you that feel let down by the show, you either had far to high expectations of what he was going to reveal, or feel like you have been made fools of for believeing something that you saw on TV. And as we all know, everything we see on TV is real and never lies to us, oh no, of course not
The show was not what I expected, but then you really can never expect to know what he is up to, it's part of what makes him so entertaining.
Jeez, most of us aren't that stupid...
And to show you in a sec that such a mathematical theory is rubbish, you could virtually never get a group of 24 people guess the extreme numbers like 1 or 49, as you would need most of them to pick '1' or '49' for the same ball... using an average of their prediction means you're a lot more likely to get some middle range numbers. Yet of course '1' and '49' have exactly the same odds to be drown than, say, 22.
I actually enjoy 'magic' and was taken to a magicians convention many years ago.It really was facinating.After watching magicians do their acts they then went thro them again showing how they were done.Sometimes it is better not to know how these tricks are done and just enjoy them for what they are-part of entertainement.
Back to Darren Brown.I sat thro the programme and felt a little let down,it did seem to be a bit padded out and didn't actually give the answer that most of the posters on here thought it would be,although the explanation given seemed well presented and plausable.
Had you carried on and watched the next programme you would have seen a real showman in action.David Blaine.Brilliant.Or are you going to shatter my illusion and tell me its done with mirrors and split screens.
Not to people who actually study probability it didn't.
I don't know if he's going to give a better explanation later, but the problem at the minute is that pretty much all the evidence points at it being done with video trickery, and he hasn't given a believable alternative. If there's a general belief that he used a split screen, I think it's going to harm his reputation, however great the publicity right now.
The rules to the coin tossing trick were poorly explained, but if they were as I believe they were his method works, although no "deep mathematics" are involved.
I think alot of people have missed the real trick here. I originally thought Wednesday's show was done using mirrors, however, I am now convinced that it was just digital split screen and I'll tell you why...
Wednesday's show wasn't the trick, tonight's show was. There are three stages to an illusion:
The Pledge
The Turn (or the performance)
The Prestige
The Pledge was to predict the lottery, The Turn was Wednesday's show, The Prestige was tonight's 'reveal' show.
Therefore, my original argument against the use of a splitscreen (that it would offer little challenge to Derren) is null and void as it wasn't the real illusion. The real illusion was making a room full of people and the people at home believe he/they really did predict the numbers.
Last edited by daveb9000; 12th-September-2009 at 12:00 AM.
Exactly my feeling: after the show, it was like: "er...so....it was split screen after all " . And you're right - if the blogosphere/forums - are full of 'splitscreeners' and Derren is being rubbished, then he has misjudged it and his reputation goes downhill.
The thing about Derren is that he always has to go one step further than before - so what next? Famine in Africa - solved by Derren through a mixture of hypnosis, illusion, trickery and misdirection.
Don't know if anyone caught a programme not long afterwards with David Blaine, who actually did a trick not dissimilar.....only he did it in 1 min. He asked a group of people on the streets of New York to predict 6 numbers for that evenings lottery..and then produced a lottery ticket from his pocket that he had 'bought' earlier and it had on it the very 6 numbers.........now that was impressive
And how is that any more impressive than writing 6 numbers on the back of a cheque and then having a guy stamp on 20 different cups wwith the beliefe that one of them had a knife under it and the 6 numbers on the back of the cheque were the exact 6 numbers he left?
When I saw Derren live he had a box dangling from the rafters above the stage. Inside it contained his predictions for the entire show, right down the colour of clothes and type of shoes that the last girl who went up on stage to help reveal the contents of the box was wearing. When you consider that participants in most of his show were chosen by Frisbees thrown the audience, that to me was astounding.
As for David Blaine, he is just creepy and annoying.
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