Derren Brown - outdone himself this time?

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If you've got it on sky+ just watch it again when he is reading the numbers out to himself, the exact moment when he says "twenty eight" the camera shake completely stops, Up until that point the camera was moving randomly, as if a camera bloke was holding a free camera, it unfreezes just before he says "thirty nine". Between those two points the screen is completely still. If any part of this 10 minutes was a real feat of wonder, then its the approx 3seconds when a human man, carrying a heavy camera is able to stand *perfectly* still without a jot of movement. It is possible this in itself could be a deliberate DB misdirection to get forum posters talking about possible theories, and it may be some other form of misdirection which doesn't rely on camera tricks. But one thing is for sure he cannot predict the lottery numbers.
 
NeilFawcett said:
I'm a little disappointed by this... If we're getting into the realms of camera trickery, then how long till CGI and anything is fair play? It's (camera tricks and CGI) sort of too much of a cheat really...

It's like the David Copperfield flying act, the entertainment in that was trying to work out how it really worked. If they're allows to now use camera tricks and CGI where's the fun in that?
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Thin wires and a harness? I don't think that had too many people scratching their heads, if you watch the bit where the woman spinning the two hoops goes past him because they are spinning there is actually a small vertical area that the hoops never obscure, the bit where the wires are.
 
He was clearly misdirecting us. Think about the opening of the show, he introduces 2 (TWO) cameramen, however we only ever see one angle. Don't you think that second camera man is filming something for the "reveal" on Friday. (He was sat up in the seating so would have had a view of any slightly off-screen antics....
 
qqg3 said:
He was clearly misdirecting us. Think about the opening of the show, he introduces 2 (TWO) cameramen, however we only ever see one angle. Don't you think that second camera man is filming something for the "reveal" on Friday. (He was sat up in the seating so would have had a view of any slightly off-screen antics....
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Good point, hadn't thought of this. I'm in half a mind to just not think about it, and enjoy the show on Friday, since whatever it is it'll be quite clever.
 
csmager said:
As said, it allows a switch to a fixed camera that appears as if it's handheld (shaky movement), rather than the actual handheld that followed him as he walked into the room.
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What I meant was, why would the scene be cut at 5:05 as that post suggests, when the result was still unknown?
 
anticonscience said:
Did you really think he could?
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At no point did I think he coulld, I would have thought my posts would have suggested that. The only uncertain thing is the method of misdirection, I'm sure DB would have anticipated people being able to analyse the footage frame by frame so I'm sure there will be a certain amount of double bluffing going on.
 
dmpoole said:
I thought subliminal messages were outlawed on TV.
Many many years ago on ITV a subliminal message was shown in Spitting Image and the feed was cut until the end of the show.
I saw it live at the time and replayed the video I had recorded.
It basically said that the crew were all sex gods and other stupid stuff.
The thing was that Spitting Image producers got into a lot of trouble over it and I thought that subliminals were banned.
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The subliminal messages were for the studio audience, and I'd imagine markedly more visible to the tv viewer, but not intended to have an effect on the tv viewer. I'd imagine this is why it's allowed
 
If it is anywhere near camera trickery it will discredit Derren and in his trade that is a no-go.
 
I just came across this which has been cross-quoted on a few forums, apologies if it has been posted before:

OK, I've got it. Or at least I think I have.

Using a random lottery number generator, I just did over 200 random draws. The numbers spread (lowest to highest) ranged from 17 to 49. Taking this as a sample, and also considering the fact I've looked at a ****load of lottery results and seen similar results, I have come to the conclusion that you would have to be really unlucky to come across a one-off spread where the numbers all fell within a 16 number spread.

If you take all these perms, and forget them for the time being, you have a drastically reduced number of perms to consider. Brown has simply decided on a spread of numbers which gives him the highest practicable number of perms to cover in terms of takes in a year.

The TV being turned off was the key for me, there is then a little jump, and it would make sense that the pre-recorded clips were filmed witha blank TV rather than attempt somehow to keep the TV looking realistic. The TV being on to start with is the hook to make you think the whole clip is live. In all actuality, the duration of time between the TV going off and the hurried "Goodbye" was 44 seconds. Brown also has bags under his eyes in the one closeup we see of him after the TV goes off, which he does not at the beginning of the whole clip. So, the TV going off was the cue to start the recorded clip.

The pad he writes the numbers on (or doesn't, if you watch closely enough) is another prop meant to distract you from the TV being turned off, it is done in passing with as little emphasis as possible.

I believe that the "hand over the mouth" routine while the draw was being done was in order for Brown to speak into a sleeve mic, probably to a technician who was getting ready to switch from 'live' to recorded video, and needed the numbers as quickly as possible in order to select the right clip and make the switch as seamless as possible.

I'm working on the numbers (or rather, a good friend of mine is) and I bet we'll find out that a spread of either 16 or 18 is reuiqred to reduce the number of perms to something like 1 million. This would mean that Brown was banking on something not happening on this one occasion that had never happened before, ie- the spread of numbers being lower than 16, or 18. And the beauty of the whole scheme was that if the numbers DID by some miracle come out 1,2,3,4,5,6, since he had only ruled out perms of numbers within a spread of 16 or 18 (somewhere round there, I'd guess), he'd still have video clips to select from which would include combinations of 5 of those numbers plus one other (1,2,3,4,5,(39), or (12),21,25,28,31,35, for example)... This way, he'd be odds on to get 6, but even if he didn't he was guaranteed 5. All he needed was for the spread of numbers to be greater than the number he selected, and he'd look a genius. If he missed, well, five would still be a great effort, and that would be the minimum. He also didn't promise to pick them all, but he did make reference to being certain of getting five.

To put it in perspective, with a projected spread of 16, which is about reasonable I would think (and lower than any spread of Lottery numbers I could find), if any number lower than 17 came out, then any other number over 33 coming out would guarantee him getting 6 out of 6. If a number lower than 10 comes out, he only needs one number higher than 25.... He'd be pretty unlucky not to get 6, when you look at it that way.

I may not be exactly right with the system I've chosen to pick the perms which he'd use, but the theory holds true, you can definitely do a number a hell of a lot lower than 13.9 million takes and guarnatee 5, and pretty much guarantee 6, and I'd guess that's what he's done.

If he recorded 1,000,000 perms, at one minute per clip (on average including setting up time, number/ball changes, etc) it would take him pretty damn close to a year, if he did 8 hours per day 5 days a week,if my maths are right. This would tally with the "year of my life" that he mentions.

The camera wobbles all the way through, uncharacteristically for a pro cameraman, because it makes the transition from live to pre-recorded harder to spot.

I became really certain of the switch from one to the other because of the hurried nature of the farewell message. Since the guy had just predicted 6 Lottery numbers and he had already made clear he had a 10 minute slot on C4, it seemed weird that suddenly he couldn't waitto ge toff camera. This made me think of the time it takes to pre-record, and the time per clip shot, and the accumulation of it over a year. Considering Channel 4 gave him all 5 of their channels, they wouldn't cut short his 10 minute slot, so I knew something was up.

Er... I think that's it. I've been trying to work it out for hours now, think I pretty much covered everything. As soon as my good friend gets back to me with some numbers relating to the spread of numbers, then I will post further.

Right, im off to bed
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Sounds like an interesting theory.
 
Sound slike a ******** theory to me. Just soundslike some douche bag on the internet trying to make himself famous off of DB.

He seems to miss the obvious fact that DB has said people can try this at home, like all the other ****s out there taling up camera trickery/digital feeds etc.
 
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Dup said:
I just came across this which has been cross-quoted on a few forums, apologies if it has been posted before:



Sounds like an interesting theory.
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How would they have got round the fact that he's got the real numbers on the white board though if he had only got 5/6? Would have gone completely wrong.
 
If this is using camera trickery I'll be disappointed.

However, the fact we're still all here stratching our heads is good stuff... Let's hope when he shows us what he did (tomorrow0 we don't feel cheated!
 
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