Derren Brown

[db]

did anyone see him "predict" the lottery numbers last night? he gave some hand-wavy reason about not being able to do it in real-time cos bbc1 have exclusive rights to announce the numbers first, which is nonsense because he was predicting the numbers, not announcing the actual, real numbers as they came out of the machine.. by his logic, no-one could go on tv and say "i reckon the numbers will be 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 this week," as that would be "announcing" them and the bbc1 have an exclusive contract lol..

it looked to me like any "think of a name and i'll guess it," trick, where he convinces the audience the result is written down somewhere, then uses misdirection to install that result once he knows what it is..

also:

 

[basil]

twat, overshadowed by the numbskulls by his claims...............

 

[Rikki]

As you say he didn't actually predict anything as he didn't reveal his "prediction" until after the draw. The real trick is how he got the correct numbers onto the balls that were in view the whole time. Ive a couple of ideas how he could of done it although I hope I'm wrong as they all seem a bit to obvious

-some kind of screen split with a recorded image being played on the ball side alowing someone to write on them the correct numbers then flip a switch to revert to a full live image. Although the camera work was very shaky, maybe deliberatley so to try and prove this wasn't done.

-Record the last 30 sec to a minute number reveal section with every possible outcome and just press play on the correct bit of tape at the right time. This would of taken ages to do and he mentioned it took him a year to set it up, but I hope it was a deliberate red herring to make people think this.

He also seemed to be talking into a mic in his hand while the draw was being made.

 

[Gramaisc]

There was a marvellous video on You've Been Framed years ago, where a chap had set up a video of a previous week's lottery draw to play at the time of that week's actual draw, having given his wife this week's ticket with the known numbers from the previous draw on it. He then videoed her as each number 'came up'. She got quite hysterical at the prospect of the 'win', but, strangeley, didn't kill him when she finally realised the truth.

 

[wmrcomputers]

There was a marvellous video on You've Been Framed years ago, where a chap had set up a video of a previous week's lottery draw to play at the time of that week's actual draw, having given his wife this week's ticket with the known numbers from the previous draw on it. He then videoed her as each number 'came up'. She got quite hysterical at the prospect of the 'win', but, strangeley, didn't kill him when she finally realised the truth.

Quality!! I wish I'd seen that one

I was impressed by the derren brown prediction though. Obviously he's an ILLUSIONIST and there is of course a logical explanation to everything he does... although watching his show on TV after the prediction blew me away also.

 

[tek-monkey]

Lightscribe from a distance, he used frickin laser beams!

 

[db]

A-Record the last 30 sec to a minute number reveal section with every possible outcome and just press play on the correct bit of tape at the right time. This would of taken ages to do and he mentioned it took him a year to set it up, but I hope it was a deliberate red herring to make people think this.

well, there are over 10 billion possible number combinations, so that would have taken him a little while to organise lol..

edit: actually, he presented the numbers in ascending order (so a result of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 would be considered the same as 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1), so that reduces the possible permutations to a meagre 14 million.. still, good luck filming 14 million 30 second outcomes "just in case" lol..

 

[Rikki]

He only had to get 5 out of 6 numbers right. I imagine that reduces total quite a bit. Still a stupidly large number though and I don't belive he did it that way stil

infact it's impossible as there is 525,600 minutes a year

 

[John Marwood]

depends which year tho...

 

[shoes]

As stated above he's not psychic he's an illusionist so there has to be some trickery at play here. He's just very good at it. Apparently he's revealing the trick tonight on the telly.

 

[Rikki]

Indeed he is.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Indeed he is.

Indeed he isn't! If you read about it on the MSN news for yesterday, it says something like...
"he will explain how he could have done it and put idea's into your head - but in true derren style he's not going to be giving too much away"

sounds about right!! As for the "filmed clips" theory though.. never in a million years I say. Although did anyone ever see the horse racing system one he did on TV? Basically as part of convincing the woman he showed her a video of him tossing a 10p coin tails up about 20 times in a row. Later in the show he admitted it took a VERY long day of filming to acheive this and he'd never tossed away so much (ahem) in his life!

 

[Wookie]

The System was a beauty. The look on that woman's face when he told her there had been a few thousand other people...
He's definitely a highly skilled conjurer - I was lucky enough to pick up one of his magic books in one of the charity shops in town. Trust me, he knows his way around the magic arts. Let's not forget his creative/writing partner, Andy Nyman, apparently a respected magician in his own right.
This is an extension of an old mentalist/psychic act.

 

[Wookie]

Having seen the explanation show, I'm still firmly in the camp of printing, projection or camera trick.
Pretty much anything else must win somebody a Nobel prize or something.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Agree with you Wookie.
However it was "REALLY" done, it still comes down to being an illusionist and a bloody good illusion it was. Basically, he's a showman who gave us a good show - both live on Wednesday and tonight.

I enjoyed it

 

[Toble]

Split screen effect, despite what the Brown wants you believe. You can even see one of the balls move when the shots are mixed back together.

I'm having fun winding up retards on youtube about this.

 

[Rikki]

It was a very enjoyable program but I don't belive that's how he did it either. I found the tampering with the machine explanation very funny. It was also a totally plausible way you could predict the numbers yourself. Which I suppose was keeping his promise of showing us how you could do it yourself.