Derren Brown: The Events

RogueLeader wrote:http://derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2010/09/hero-answers-questions/

Plenty of good reasons in there why he wasn't / couldn't have been an actor. Also explains the long hypnotising sessions, the train stunt, and the garden visits.

They made a point of saying the guy had to be REALLY suggestable. Otherwise it wouldn't have worked.

Seriously, what would be the point of doing it with an actor? It wasn't a magic trick with a hidden secret, it was a different type of show.

Derren's main reason for why he can't have used an actor is:

Derren Brown wrote:we explain who Matt is and that he has no idea these things are going on or that he’s being filmed etc. These things cannot be lies, as it is a huge legal no-no. Every word of voice-over script and picture is analysed by the C4 lawyer to make sure there is no misleading the viewer. A magic trick is different: there is licence to deceive, and a sense of theatre

So Derren is trying to say that they are legally not allowed to mislead the viewer as the show is not a magic trick. He then explains the train stunt by saying:

Derren Brown wrote:Needless to say, this was all very controlled, unbeknownst to Matt, so there was no way he would have been hurt.

That sounds very much like misleading the viewer as they clearly presented the train stunt as real and with Matt escaping just seconds before the train reached him.

And it doesn't take long to think back to other stunts he's done where he has clearly lied to the viewer. In the Russian Roulette show he tells us that he isn't using blanks and then it comes out that he did use blanks.

A further example is in the show where he attempted to teach an old lady to beat a table of professional poker players in a game of poker. During her 'training' he did a 'test' to see if she could read him by deciding whether cards where high or low. Actually what he wa doing was a classic card trick called "Out of This World" but only those who know about card tricks would be aware of that, to the average viewer it was never mentioned and the whole thing was presented in the same way this programme was and not as a magic trick.

TLDR: It wouldn't be the first time Derren has told us something is not a trick when it was. Most of his act is in disguising classic magic tricks as acts of psychology and more recently he has started to cheat in the same ways David Blaine cheats, by using camera tricks and actors.

Looks like there's no convincing you. Some people will never believe it I guess. Just think though, if he did use actors for the main roles, he could pull off so much more ambitious projects.

Usually his shows have a disclaimer about using a combination of magic, psychology, no actors etc. He didn't use it because he does have actors on the plane.

I do feel I have to point out your error about Russian Roulette. The papers made the same mistake. They weren't blanks, they were plastic bullets. The show was not a "hoax", if he had pulled the trigger on a loaded round he would have died, or at least suffered severe brain damage.

So I don't appear one-sided, the big chink in his armour for me was the lottery show. I'd be really disappointed if it was a camera trick. The only other logical explanation was the inside job one, which they can't admit to, and seems so unlikely.

With this recent programme there is no convincing me. Derren has often lied about the soloution to his tricks in the past so I'm not so quick to believe everything he says.

Despite what it may look like, I do really like Derren Brown when he's doing magic tricks, stage shows, and exposing frauds and I have his blog bookmarked and follow it occasionally. It's just his recent shows where he seems to have resorted to very cheap tricks that I don't like.

Here is one of the examples I gave earlier. It's a simple card trick but Derren presents it as mind reading with a load of fluff about heigtened receptiveness:

@ 11:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyr0bFcr4l8

And here is how the trick was done. Derren does it with high/low cards instead of Red/Black but the method is identical:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDn3kDXSg5E

satriales wrote:Despite what it may look like, I do really like Derren Brown when he's doing magic tricks, stage shows, and exposing frauds and I have his blog bookmarked and follow it occasionally. It's just his recent shows where he seems to have resorted to very cheap tricks that I don't like.

Exactly how I feel. Except for the bit about his blog, may have to check that out.

I turned this off after the 'dream gooseberry fool'

Memento Mori wrote:The "investigates" were good yeah. This latest thing and "The Events" were so bad they forced you to re-evaluate his earlier stuff in an unfavourable light.

At least they're hysterically bad.

I can remember nearly pissing myself when deep maths was mentioned

satriales wrote:With this recent programme there is no convincing me. Derren has often lied about the soloution to his tricks in the past so I'm not so quick to believe everything he says.

Despite what it may look like, I do really like Derren Brown when he's doing magic tricks, stage shows, and exposing frauds and I have his blog bookmarked and follow it occasionally. It's just his recent shows where he seems to have resorted to very cheap tricks that I don't like.

Here is one of the examples I gave earlier. It's a simple card trick but Derren presents it as mind reading with a load of fluff about heigtened receptiveness:

@ 11:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyr0bFcr4l8

And here is how the trick was done. Derren does it with high/low cards instead of Red/Black but the method is identical:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDn3kDXSg5E

To me Derren Browns trick looked different because he doesn't seem to change the piles half way through which is necessary to do the trick in the you tube video.

lex-man wrote:

satriales wrote:Here is one of the examples I gave earlier. It's a simple card trick but Derren presents it as mind reading with a load of fluff about heigtened receptiveness:

@ 11:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyr0bFcr4l8

And here is how the trick was done. Derren does it with high/low cards instead of Red/Black but the method is identical:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDn3kDXSg5E

To me Derren Browns trick looked different because he doesn't seem to change the piles half way through which is necessary to do the trick in the you tube video.

There are many variations. I learnt the trick many years ago from a book I've got and in it they say to perform the trick with two spectators and so halfway through you swap piles and switch between the spectators.

Derren does it similarly to that but instead of two spectators he has two people performing the trick (holding the cards) and that'll be when he changes Halfway through. It's edited so that you don't see the changover otherwise it'll be easier to guess how the trick is done.

satriales wrote:

lex-man wrote:

satriales wrote:Here is one of the examples I gave earlier. It's a simple card trick but Derren presents it as mind reading with a load of fluff about heigtened receptiveness:

@ 11:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyr0bFcr4l8

And here is how the trick was done. Derren does it with high/low cards instead of Red/Black but the method is identical:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDn3kDXSg5E

To me Derren Browns trick looked different because he doesn't seem to change the piles half way through which is necessary to do the trick in the you tube video.

There are many variations. I learnt the trick many years ago from a book I've got and in it they say to perform the trick with two spectators and so halfway through you swap piles and switch between the spectators.

Derren does it similarly to that but instead of two spectators he has two people performing the trick (holding the cards) and that'll be when he changes Halfway through. It's edited so that you don't see the changover otherwise it'll be easier to guess how the trick is done.

If that's true how does he get the woman to preform so well at Poker do you think all that's all a set up?

lex-man wrote:If that's true how does he get the woman to preform so well at Poker do you think all that's all a set up?

The card trick is definitely 100% a variation of the 'Out of This World' card trick.

As for the poker game it's really hard to know how she came 2nd as it edited down so much and they don't display the chip counts.

She doubled up early on when she called an all-in with flush and gutshot draws, but the 'pro' had basically the best hand she could have hoped for so it was a bit lucky that her draws were so far ahead. I guess Derren would have taught her about counting how many outs she has and so when she calls the all-in she knows that even if she is behind then there are lots of cards she can hit to win the hand.

We don't see then next two people get knocked out but they were knocked out by the other pros, not the old lady. After her early double up she could afford to play tight and survive a bit longer.

The 2nd hand we see her play is calling an all-in 3-handed with K9s v T7o. We don't know how many chips anyone had so it's hard to know how good of a call it was but when you're 3-handed K9s isn't a bad hand and pros are going to be shoving quite a wide range of hands there.

The 3rd and final hand we see her play is heads up with AQo v 99. Again we can't see how many chips they both have but as it was a SNG that started with 40BB and lasted 90 minutes I assume they were both fairly short and so neither as going to fold that hand. The fact that an ace hit on the flop made it look better for the lady but they could both just as easily gone all-in pre-flop and then the lady would actually be slightly behind.

At the end of the day someone who doesn't know much about poker is very hard to play against. In pretty much every tournament I play there will be someone who is an awful player but they somehow have the most chips. I guess the secret to her doing well in a six person SNG is the combination of the pros thinking she is a donk and trying to bluff her a lot, and Derren secretly teaching her about the game. All of the hand reading stuff is a load of rubbish in this case and pros aren't going to be giving off obvious reads anyway.

*What the strawberry float am I reading.jpg*