Derren Brown: Apocolypse

Hypnosis do not work with a single touch. That's just a myth to speed up progress of the plot in Hollywood, and apparently, Channel 4. Shortcuts Derren Brown took for time saving were so massive they even put "look into my eyes, the eyes, not around the eyes, but into my eyes" sketch into shame.

You're right it doesn't work in with a single touch. It requires someone is susceptible to manipulation and it requires them to be conditioned beforehand. If you look at one of his theatre shows. Before he brings up a person onto the stage to be his main hypnotism subject, he does a experiment on the whole audience where by they do something with their body (hands stuck together, one arm up etc). Then only a select will continue to be stuck in this way, because they can be impressed upon and he will choose one of them to be his subject. If he chose one random audience member out of say 400, chances are he will fail.

It's just an illusion. I work in broadcast production and Apocalypse was nicely shot but for mocumentary it was relatively sloppy work. They've gone through basic checks to ensure there were no cameras directly looking at each other or camera men in shot (although there are few shots in part two where we actually might be seeing shadows and jackets of someone who shouldn't be there). But otherwise they left errors everywhere. There were continuity errors between takes, wardrobe malfunctions, props moving between shots, cameras switching to first person/direct witness view, noctovisor/night vision mode featured strong directional light shadows casted in allegedly pitch black rooms, hand held cameras panning from behind shelving units everywhere, cameras at shoulder hight tracking on a dolly along narrow hospital corridors (if it's windows or mirrors - you've got a guy who allegedly doesn't notice cameras around his house, doesn't look in mirrors and doesn't find it odd that there are mirrors or black windows in every room he enters? wtf?), risk-the-entire-setup hand held closeups of characters feet and knees from inches away filmed from bushes, and so on so forth.

As for the continuity differences. You do know the program was not cut and broadcast in real-time? Things happen in between cuts. Real things that aren't exciting. People sit, people stand, people drink, people eat, people do poos and wees.

I don't remember the dark scene very well but if there were shadows, they would have been cast via the infra-red lamp and given that they used the same camera for the normal lighting and IR light, then that suggests they used an active IR camera which then explains the lamp.

Cameras behind shelving units were behind 2-way mirrors/material. Technically, one-way but I prefer 2-way!

Steven didn't notice the cameras because guess what, they were hidden. They served their purpose. Being in TV production, you should know that you can do nearly anything except from sticking an EX3 up someone's backside before they notice cameras are following them.

As for the shots that are really close and detailed, I mentioned earlier that I believe those to be pickups with an actor in costume. They don't have Steven's face but they do for the actors (girl and paramedic), which leads me to believe they were pickups.

Steve's voice can clearly be heard outside.. must have had a Mic on him.. and when he got changed from patient to his camouflage gear he would have noticed..

Audio would have been done with parabolic mics (the ones with dishes) and omnidirectional mics dotted around the location as well on the actors. I imagine they mixed in certain sound effects in like the helicopter and zombie moaning.

Why does it have to be "staged conspiracy"? It's a scripted TV show. You don't look at Top Gear and scream "conspiracy", we all except it as being scripted and staged for our fun and entertainment.

It's a conspiracy because the audience are led to believe that Steven is not an actor. When the car rolls off the cliff on Top Gear, the presenters don't say that it was totally unscripted. But sometimes unscripted interesting stuff does happen on Top Gear and the presenters actually say when it's unscripted.


On the other hand, you have screenshots from Steve's Facebook account and actors profile all over the internet (before profile was locked). There are also odd scheduling clashes, where Steve's facebook pics put him at one of the music festivals at the time when dates printed on the screen during show suggest he should be already watched at home prior to "apocalypse".

As for the festival, they probably decided not to show it as it wasn't conducive with his proposed lifestyle (to be a sit-at-home slob) not to mention the logistical nightmare of coordinating surveillance at a music festival. As I mentioned earlier, people do things between shots takes. However, please expand that point as I don't understand the second half of the second sentence.

I don't really see an issue with him being on Casting Call Pro. There are probably members of this forum who have a profile and have done a little bit of work here and there. Unsurprisingly, I do find that many young extras are just people who don't know what to do with their lives, much like Steven.

This whole Casting Call Pro thing is yet more evidence for people's inability to think logically. No, not logically. Properly. Just think for a second. No, stop reading, just think...

... ok even after thinking you haven't realised so I'll have to spell it out. When you get someone (X) to pretend to be someone they are not (Y), with the intention to deceive a large number people, YOU TEND TO REMOVE TRACES OF X TO SUPPORT THE STORY OF Y. It's not even a secret trick of deception and misinformation. It's just what you do to not get caught.

What you described above is not odd in any way. Happens all the time. Cast, crew and producers don't always leak TV series plots, set ups or filming locations. You sign the agreement, your job and future employment depends on these things. In fact, in entertainment industry, when someone does leak something, it's more often part of PR machine than drunken blabbing in a pub or letting your friends in on a secret.

You're right it's not odd when you've just got people keeping the script secret. But it is quite odd to have to tell your crew that he's an actor and tell your audience that he's not. Not to mention that so many people will know the secret, someone's going to give it up eventually.

You don't have to go through union if he wasn't signed actor. But in the same line of thinking - do you think any company, studio or channel would insure, produce or sign off on a TV show where lead character is unaware of the setup and at any moment within split of a second could panic surrounded by "zombies", and with one swift jump into the ambulance or single swing of a piece of wood or a pipe create newspaper headlines before anyone from production crew could reach the location from the monitoring room?

Look, you simply cannot have a lead in a prime time terrestrial show, without Equity being involved in the contract consultation. It just doesn't happen. Being signed or not has nothing to do with it.

As for Channel 4 and the insurers, part of the point of Derren's work is that he knows what's going to happen before it does. That's how he can "read peoples minds". Because he tells them what to think. In terms of insurance, all you need is someone who is good at writing risk assessments, that's it. I would suggest that he was actually in more danger when he was in the family car than when he was on the show.

They kind of did, the people not involved in production. Wasn't it how the twitter, Facebook pics surfaced?

I don't think a photo with Steven and Adam Buxton is evidence of a conspiracy. Extras like taking photos with actors when they're on set. Perhaps Adam wasn't acting but was presenting and Steven went as an audience member.

Why not? His contract will probably be up in a year and by that time no one will care? There were professional, published musicians stooged into talent shows and singing competitions before, in the end, nobody cares. You do the show, your contract ends, you go back to your daily job.

I don't understand. You opened this paragraph by disagreeing with me and you closed it by agreeing with me.

What would be easier - trick the extras into thinking the main character is unaware of the setup or trick random dude into thinking England was taken over by zombies?

The latter. It'd be easier to fool a carefully selected person who is suggestible than a group of people who Derren does not pick. Steven was not a random dude. How many times does it need to be said that Derren picked him because he knew was impressionable?

You are overthinking this. It happens all the time, in almost every rouge traders episode at the lowest of budgets - random filming location, random set of people for one day shoot. In fact there are a lot of pointers of it being one day shoot. In the house footage in first episode Steven wears the same clothes and holds the same pint in what was meant to be secret filming weeks apart.

What?! The rogue traders in Rogue Traders are not actors therefore you can send them to any house and they won't know. What are you going on about?!

Not disclosure agreement. It's not any different to hundreds of people involved in production not revealing the end of "Lost", or the plot of Star Wars movies. And the stakes are much higher on those occasions.

I've already explained a few pages back on how information has leaked through far far greater occasions in terms of scale, importance, professionalism and secrecy. Besides you seem undecided who on the crew knew or not regardless of the fact the whole cast and crew would've signed an agreement.


All the non-thinkers are going to go berserk at the next episode. As far as I know, he's going to convince people that they've taken a drug that eradicates fear. Get your Googles at the ready as it looks like we've got many more actors and conspirators to expose. I'd be very interested to hear your theories.

Oscar Zulu, out.
 
This whole Casting Call Pro thing is yet more evidence for people's inability to think logically. No, not logically. Properly. Just think for a second. No, stop reading, just think...

... ok even after thinking you haven't realised so I'll have to spell it out.

Epic.
 
I write about it in the very post that you replied to!

You haven't answered the claims :confused:

He had a profile on castingcallpro which linked to his facebook and twitter.

After he appeared on the show his personal details were edited (to throw people off the scent?), except the social media links remained active.

His facebook puts him filming a "BBC pilot" although he denies acting, so when the show airs and the **** hit the fan, all links were pulled.

That tells me they cocked up and tried to pull as much as they could once the cat got out of the bag.
 
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I think I answered this on page two, from Derren's blog.



Lastly, concern has sprung up in some quarters because Steven had a profile page on a popular casting site where a lot of people of all ages put themselves up for extra work and crowd/audience stuff for TV shows (this was NOT how we found him but a lot of people sign up hoping to be on TV). He has since changed/tried to remove his profile as he was upset at the negative attention from people who took it to mean he was actually an actor.In fact Simon Dale, a director of Casting Call Pro (the website in question) has contacted me to verify that Steven created a profile but never completed it; didn’t upload any professional acting credits or headshots; and so his profile was never “live” on their system because he did not meet the joining criteria – ie he didn’t have professional acting training or experience.Aside from an ‘ensemble’ school production he has never, ever, ever acted. Even if he returns to this early interest in the future (his brother works as an occasional actor so it’s possible he might), it won’t mean he was acting in this show.


Put it this way, to be selected for this program you would have to have signed up to it at some point, if you're the type of person who would sign up to something like this, you're also likely to set up a profile for some extra/audience work.
 
You haven't answered the claims :confused:

He had a profile on castingcallpro which linked to his facebook and twitter.

After he appeared on the show his personal details were edited (to throw people off the scent?), except the social media links remained active.

His facebook puts him filming a "BBC pilot" although he denies acting, so when the show airs and the **** hit the fan, all links were pulled.

That tells me they cocked up and tried to pull as much as they could once the cat got out of the bag.

I have answered the claims but I'll put it a different way.

Let's say you were the orchestrator(s) of this conspiracy. You were Derren or you were the producers.

Okay, you've now got your actor, Steven. You've done the shoot and the edit and now you're thinking about how you can fool everyone. Would you or would you not think it sensible and necessary to look into whether or not Steven's acting is profiled in any public medium? Well, would you?

I mean come on. I'm not a expert in propaganda and it doesn't take an intelligence agency to work out that when you create an identity, you have to remove the traces of the previous identity in order to convince someone of the new one.

So they spent all that money and all that time to create a lie but they didn't do two things. They didn't ask their stooge if there was information in the public domain that could lead to people thinking he was a stooge AND they forgot to Google their own stooge. Please. You may think TV producers are pretty stupid but one thing they are very good at is covering their own backsides so they'll be sheltered when poo hits fan.
 
I doubt you'll read/understand it this time either but it's worth a go I suppose:

Lastly, concern has sprung up in some quarters because Steven had a profile page on a popular casting site where a lot of people of all ages put themselves up for extra work and crowd/audience stuff for TV shows (this was NOT how we found him but a lot of people sign up hoping to be on TV). He has since changed/tried to remove his profile as he was upset at the negative attention from people who took it to mean he was actually an actor. In fact Simon Dale, a director of Casting Call Pro (the website in question) has contacted me to verify that Steven created a profile but never completed it; didn’t upload any professional acting credits or headshots; and so his profile was never “live” on their system because he did not meet the joining criteria – ie he didn’t have professional acting training or experience.Aside from an ‘ensemble’ school production he has never, ever, ever acted. Even if he returns to this early interest in the future (his brother works as an occasional actor so it’s possible he might), it won’t mean he was acting in this show.

Yet they didn't? As proved.

If that's what you consider proof, I hope you're never on a jury. Actual proof that he's an actor would be footage of him acting which, if it existed, wouldn't be all that difficult to find.
 
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It's a bit of a misleading term; he'd made a start on the profile but hadn't completed enough of it to be able to apply for, or be selected for acting jobs. So the profile itself was "live" on the website as we understand it, but not "live" in the sense of being useable.
 
I don't see the point of all this discussion if Steven was an actor or not. It's pretty obvious that he's not an "professional" actor. Darren Brown would not picked someone was because of the rumours it would cause.
 
I don't see the point of all this discussion if Steven was an actor or not. It's pretty obvious that he's not an "professional" actor. Darren Brown would not picked someone was because of the rumours it would cause.


it's obvious Steve isn't professional as his acting was bloody dire lol
 
Yeah, he should've been more Hollywood, that would've been much more realistic and believable, right?
 
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I doubt you'll read/understand it this time either but it's worth a go I suppose:





If that's what you consider proof, I hope you're never on a jury. Actual proof that he's an actor would be footage of him acting which, if it existed, wouldn't be all that difficult to find.

Enough of the personal insults, please :)

You have no "proof" other than your own musings. I submit to you that that link is the closest thing we have of any concrete shenanigans and gave you a chance to clearly explain.

I don't believe Steven was a professional actor, my stance is he was acting, but does not do it as a profession.
 
Yeah, he should've been more Hollywood, that would've been much more realistic and believable, right?

He wasn't believable at all, all of his actions were ridiculous. Woke up and noticed sever mould on a sandwich, two weeks had passed, and didn't have any facial hair?? blatant give away to any male who would have been in that position..
 
Enough of the personal insults, please :)

You have no "proof" other than your own musings. I submit to you that that link is the closest thing we have of any concrete shenanigans and gave you a chance to clearly explain.

I don't believe Steven was a professional actor, my stance is he was acting, but does not do it as a profession.

It wasn't directed at you and I'm not sure that what I said counts as personal insults, especially after being called gullible a dozen or so times but you weren't slinging that around so you're right, I shouldn't be disrespectful to you.

I think the paragraph which Derren wrote provides the most likely and best explanation for that profile. And if your stance is that he's not an actor, why would the profile have any significance to you anyway?

Even if he wasn't an actor and he was just playing along with it knowing full well he would be lying to the public, that still raises loads more questions. Why would he keep it secret? Were his family in on it too, or is he lying to them as well as the nation? If they are in on it, why would they keep it a secret? If they're not in on it, why would Steven lie to his family? I just deleted more questions as I think that's probably enough for now.
 
He wasn't believable at all, all of his actions were ridiculous. Woke up and noticed sever mould on a sandwich, two weeks had passed, and didn't have any facial hair?? blatant give away to any male who would have been in that position..

He was being looked after in a hospital, it's entirely plausible that he would've been shaved while being cared for. This point was made earlier in the thread. Alternatively, it might just not have occurred to him, I'm sure he had plenty of more important things on his mind.
 
Right, they'll shave him but not remove the mouldy sandwhich :p?
There's a few other things that got to me, I felt there was a bit of product placement going on.

Steven not being able to close the ambulance door was pretty lame too, almost felt thrown in for drama.

Where he sees the first zombie through the glass, you can obviously see something was wrong, why keep knocking? Just felt like a scripted scene to create that chase which led to them getting in the ambulance.
 
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