Derren Brown - outdone himself this time?

[ChrisJSY]

Thats how I see it too, He even says at the start of each show that the episodes have elements of misdirection and suggestion. Im pretty certain he can influence some people, However influencing them to withdrawl 5k seemed a little OTT didnt it

As much as getting a letter saying you've won 20k but need to deposit 5k to them before you get it all.

People are stupid.

Yet I'm always corrected when I say stupid people fall for it, they tell me intelligence has nothing to do with his tricks working on people.

 

[linktoinsanity]

Yeh i think 60/70% of it is set up/rubbish, but you still got to be pretty clever to pull it off like he does

I agree with this to be honest. A lot of his stuff is very clever trickery. But there is a tiny amount of his stuff that's real, just it's quite hard to tell which is which.

 

[SkodaMart]

I have seen a mate get hypnotised, It is hard to believe until you see it for real. He fell off a chair backwards, hit his head on the corner of the stage and didn't flinch. I have never seen anything like it.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

What if he asked you to sign a document prohibiting you from saying what "actually" went on during the act/show?

And what if you taking part in the show was contingent on you signing the above agreement?

Have you really thought about what you posted?
The piece of paper would be worthless.

 

[mjt]

he did that with "trick or treat" though
he'd get them to sign a contract written in red ink, with only red light bulbs giving light

 

[sunama]

I have seen a mate get hypnotised, It is hard to believe until you see it for real. He fell off a chair backwards, hit his head on the corner of the stage and didn't flinch. I have never seen anything like it.

Your friend probably did feel it, but in front of everybody watching, he didnt want to look like a girl, so took it like a man.

If you took a hammer, placed his hand on a flat surface and hammered down on the tips of his fingers, he would've flinched just like anybody as that is excrutiatingly painful.

When people get up on a stage, they feel pressured into behaving in a certain way and want to conform.

 

[sunama]

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/11102...izes_people_to_think_that_paper_is_money_lea/

Great stuff.

1 guy in the fish shop even gave him back change. I wonder what he thought the value of the blank paper was. At least the jeweller realised that he had been duped, but neither of these people were too bright.

Those 2 idiots looked at the pieces of paper, yet didnt seem to believe their eyes and the fact that they had in fact been handed blank paper.

I found it funny when the hot-dog vendor looked at the piece of paper and asked, "What the hell is this?" Then proceeded to call Derren an A-hole.

 

[sunama]

By far the worst stunt was the spray paint..

He literally says "first one... first".. and "second one.. choose the second can". I spotted it on the night, but re-watching it it's shameful.

But nevertheless, although he said first first, second second etc, the woman had to respond to his commands. If he said that to me, it wouldnt work. At the time, I had already decided that if I were there, the first 2 bottles I was going to pick were the red and black ones.

I still think that she was a stooge OR the trick is conducted in a different way, eg. none of the cans would work until activated (somehow) by DB.

 

[sunama]

Have you really thought about what you posted?
The piece of paper would be worthless.

It wouldnt. He could sue that person, as stated in the NDA that the person signed, for loss of future earnings.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

It wouldnt. He could sue that person, as stated in the NDA that the person signed, for loss of future earnings.

He wouldn't dare.

Reporter - "We've heard that you gave somebody £1000 to be quiet about being a stooge and they signed a contract?"
DB - "You're talking *******s"
Reporter - "Can we see the contract?"
DB - "You're still talking *******s"

...... And so on

I do agree about the lad banging his head though - he was definitely faking it.
When hypnotised you will still respond to danger or not doing what you don't want to do.

 

[bam0]

I have to admit i am a fan of DB and he is one hell of a clever guy.

Someone said his show was fake, i think this refers to the Seance he did at that hall where 17 Chinese students lived. He admitted openly it was a fake, but he also stated the reason he did it was to prove that there is something supernatural. Hence why when he was doing the show, he asked viewers at home to call in to the help line while they were doing their own Ouija Boards subsequently this help line was swamped within several minutes (thus proving his point that there is something wierd). My wife and sister tried calling it on the night he did it as apparently they "got through"

What the hell? Derren Brown is a sceptic and doesn't believe in super natural things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derren_Brown#S.C3.A9ance

 

[rea123]

Have you really thought about what you posted?
The piece of paper would be worthless.

Hi,

I don't buy the "if he used plants they'd have blabbed" argument; if he never used plants, why aren't we hearing from some guy who got conned out of his shoes? Has Ben been telling papers about what happened after the roulette show, or have we heard nothing from him since the event? (That last was not supposed to be rhetorical - he may well have done, I haven't checked very far).

Now I know full well that not all of DB's effects make use of plants. Take the Lady Who Doesn't Like Mice trick - no mice in any box; each box containing different, non-micey things; the only proof that he'd done anything clever at all is the casual afterthought of turning over a card to show mouse. Not exactly a marvel of prestidigitation, but vital in the show as a lead in to more ambitious feats. However I simply don't believe that none of his effects make use of plants. So I consider the "no stooges" footnote as not worth the pixels it was rendered via.

That said, I don't say this to denigrate the man. He openly admits that he uses many forms of trickery, and this is just one such form. If a magician claims to have "nothing up his sleeve", and it turns out he does, but in a way he can disguise, is he any less of a magician?

Predicting the lottery, working out a way to beat roulette, these aren't the main illusions of the Event shows. Getting a large portion of the nation to believe that he did what he claimed to have done; that was the real trick. And each show, with the gradual build-up of "sub"-illusions leading the audience to gradually accept as plausible what would have never been swallowable alone, he pulled it off brilliantly. You only need to look at the number of people posting "Hard luck on being one out" messages on his blog, as if that wasn't the plan all along.

Also puts me in mind of the Lottery trick, where one of the theories going around was that he'd pre-recorded each possible outcome; a theory supposedly strengthened by the fact that he'd taken a year to prepare for it. Because he told us he'd taken a year to prepare for it. Anyone care to deny the man can sell anything now?

Cheers,

Bob.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Hi,

I don't buy the "if he used plants they'd have blabbed" argument;

But that's also why he doesn't use plants - somebody would have spoken out by now because people can't keep secrets.

 

[sunama]

Did anyone watch yesterday's 'Trick of the Mind' (repeat). I actually enjoyed it. It was more akin to street magic (for the most part).

There was also a séance that occurred in a big hall, with lots of people, where the tables they were pressing down on were dancing around the hall. I couldn't see how it was done, as the people around the tables were pushing down on the tables and nobody seemed to be holding the tables up or pushing them around, which brings the question, "How were the tables moving?"

They also showed him trying to get a person's valuables from him/her and in some instances it worked and in others it didn't.

Great stuff.

 

[sunama]

why aren't we hearing from some guy who got conned out of his shoes? Has Ben been telling papers about what happened after the roulette show, or have we heard nothing from him since the event?

This is an interesting point: why haven't we heard anything from those people who were involved in the tricks?

 

[oli collett]

On a side note, he does a pretty good impression of Stewie:
http://derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2009/10/stewie-impression/

 

[sunama]

Who is Stewie?

 

[BananaDunka]

Who is Stewie?

Ban.

 

[Naffa]

Did anyone watch yesterday's 'Trick of the Mind' (repeat). I actually enjoyed it. It was more akin to street magic (for the most part).

There was also a séance that occurred in a big hall, with lots of people, where the tables they were pressing down on were dancing around the hall. I couldn't see how it was done, as the people around the tables were pushing down on the tables and nobody seemed to be holding the tables up or pushing them around, which brings the question, "How were the tables moving?"

They also showed him trying to get a person's valuables from him/her and in some instances it worked and in others it didn't.

Great stuff.

That's one of my favourite episodes I think, season 2 I believe. The phenomenon of table turning (people touching the table and it moves) is an incredible thing, even more so if you actually do it yourself. But the secret to how it works it ridiculously mundane. Basically, it revolves around something called the ideomotor effect. This is the source of ideomotor movement and all that is is the movement of the human body but the person moving has no conscious awareness of doing so. If you add this effect to suggestion which is what Derren does, you can get some fantastic results. The ouija board (pushing the glass to the letters) works on exactly the same principle, of ideomotor movement. The people are actually pushing the table, and the people are actually pushing the glass but they have no conscious awareness of doing so. Amazing, but mundane.

Watching Trick of the Mind just brings it back home how shocking the Events actually were.

 

[Lysander]

But that's also why he doesn't use plants - somebody would have spoken out by now because people can't keep secrets.

Maybe you can't, but some people can. There are some pieces of information which are so important to the people who have disclosed them that I have never passed them on, purely because the people who told me mean so much much that I would never be disloyal. Believe it or not, some people can keep their mouths shut.