On Wednesday night much of Britain was enthralled by "mentalist" Derren Brown predicting the winning numbers in the National Lottery. If he had really done that it would have been amazing. I am a bit of an amateur magician and its been driving me crazy that this "prediction" seems to have baffled so many people in the UK. Derren Brown is not a member of the British magic circle and this trick was a cheat anyway so I don't mind revealing how he did it. However, if you don't want to know please don't read any more of this blog post.
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Still with me? Ok. What Derren Brown actually did on Wednesday night was tell us what the winning lottery numbers were 12 seconds after the numbers had been drawn. We all could have done that. Ah but what about the balls to the left of the screen which we saw while the live feed was coming through the TV, weren't they there the whole time? No, they weren't. What we were actually looking at was a split screen, running down the left hand third of the screen. While the draw was taking place one of Brown's assistants was placing the correct balls on the real stand while we watched the split screen. At 2:01 on the YouTube video you can see Brown look across to his assistant to check that the final ball has been placed, a camera wobble then occurs at 2:04 which covers the transition from the split image to the live image. Brown then walks over and uncovers the balls that his assistant placed on the stand.
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I'm sorry if this wrecks your belief in number theory, or mass hypnosis, the predictive power of crowds or a conspiracy with the lottery company; this wasn't any of those things. This illusion required almost no skill at all from Brown, it was patter mixed with a David Copperfield style camera trick, the kind of magic that I loathe. This was beneath DB who is very good at proper magic and doesn't need to cheat. Brown's explanation on Friday night that he used "deep maths" is what we amateur magicians call "misdirection" and what everyone else calls "total bollocks."
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20 comments:
Adrian,
There's a cool, though somewhat hokey, show the wife and I recently caught called "Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed." On the program, a masked magician performs tricks and then goes through the trick step-by-step to explain how the audience was fooled. Narrated by none other than Mitch Pileggi of X-Files fame.
Brian
In general I dont think its nice to go around revealing how to do magic tricks, you may be taking some poor guy's livelihood, but this illusion has created such a furore in the UK and was such a cheap trick that I felt I had to say something. When you have The Daily Telegraph and The Times etc. and people on the radio baffled and offering "telepathy", "mass hypnosis" "number theory" explanations you just scratch your head in wonder really. Its so lame too. A camera trick is no trick at all in my opinion. You dont see Penn and Teller resorting to that kind of thing.
I like Derren Brown, but last night's explanation was a bit feeble, I thought. I figured he'd used a split screen and really wanted him to admit it at the end. Then again, that would have made the team 24 auto-writers look a bit silly. Unless they weren't genuine, either... Where does the bollocks-- sorry, misdirection-- end, eh?
Did you ever see the book stunt he did with Iain Banks?
I remember Mitch Pileggi doing the voice of Commish Gordon on The Batman cartoons, not to be confused with Batman the cartoon or Batman Beyond the cartoon both of which featured Mark Hammill's Joker. Hey do you think they've milked that franchise enough?
Mike
I missed that one, but I liked the one where he freaked out that kid by telling him he could make the sun disappear and then hypnotised him, let him sleep until after sunset...Nice move that.
I like Derren Brown too (I remember the one in the bookies at the dog track, that's a classic) which is why I was so disappointed in this one. Camera tricks are beneath him.
The genius here was obviously not in the cheap trick but in the misdirection which always baffles less skeptical people more. The transition from the mouse trick, the knife trick, the coin tossing 'trick', a bit of real stuff (crowd wisdom), seamlessly flowed into a case of non-existent (and of course irrelevant) crowd 'wisdom' makes for good viewing, IMHO.
Also, the deceptive nature of the 'revelation' is part of the trick itself. It's all very clever but the split screen technique was a bit flat...
Gert
It obviously worked to an enormous extent. The fact that anyone could believe the wisdom of crowds or deep maths explanations is staggering and a tribute to Brown's skill, however I dont think camera tricks should be part of TV magic ever. They break the tacit contract between the magician and the viewer that what you see is what you get. I dont mind being fooled by twins or slight of hand or any other legitimate technique but camera trickery makes me think of David Copperfield and that really cheesy stuff from the 80's.
Yeah, actually the eighties probably ruined magic for me forever. I'm not clever about seeing through things, but the whole camera "sleight of hand" makes you feel like what's the point really?
I didn't realize how he'd done the lottery trick, though to be a bit kinder to myself, I didn't actually know what he was trying to do through the whole thing. I thought he was going to predict the numbers as they rolled down. So in the way going over and revealing the numbers felt a bit labored anyway.
The part I don't understand is why audiences don't feel exactly the way I do in general about magic on television, which is "Oh, that's unexpected, but there is some con involved that I'm either too lazy or too stupid to figure out, so let's just assume that." I guess what I'm saying is that I don't feel "amazed" but rather jaded and bored and usually somewhat dense, which I think is supposed to be part of the appeal, but it's not a program that works that well for me.
Seana
I was pretty annoyed by this. Its not on to use camera tricks and Brown to my knowledge has never done so before. It cheapens everything he's done before. He might as well be Chris Angel - the Coldplay of magic.
Live magic is different and can be a lot of fun though. A real puzzle for the brain. Ricky Jay for example is awesome.
Maybe he is just a male witch? I just got three out of four right in predicting a book prize shortlist. I gaze into space and wait for inspiration...
I've never seen Ricky Jay perform live, but I did catch an HBO special years back that was pretty good. Though he usually gets flamed for his acting, I think on the whole he does a good job in all those David Mamet movies and he had a small but memorable role in Boogie Nights.
Bookwitch, if it had been you guessing the numbers, I would have believed it. Congrats, by the way. I hope that's up on your blog.
I think what I was actually trying to say before, but veered from my point,is that when you see magic on television, the whole possibility of there being camerawork involved takes away from the illusion before it even starts. Even a 'live' show isn't quite enough to cancel cynicism.
We had a magician come to help celebrate one of our discussion leader's birthday a few years back. It was pretty cool, though I have to admit that the best part was when he hypnotized someone I knew and turned him into a plank stretched out between two chairs that someone could then actually sit on. Also, some of his revelations of his life were quite fascinating. The magic tricks I don't remember so well.
you're a magician too? I now await your Harry Potter-esque throwdown with Alan Moore & Grant Morrison.
Cam
Amateur, by which I mean that I know a few of the key texts and can do a trick or two that fools my three year old daughter.
Miss Witch
If you get any ideas about the Grand National or any other horse race let me know.
Brian
I saw one of his stage shows and it was good. I dont think his acting is that bad as long as he keeps within the bounds of what he does. Penn and Teller are incapable of acting either. They had a 1 second cameo in that Katie Perry video and werent convincing.
Seana
I dont why anyone would volunteer to be hypnotised. It seems nuts to me. Maybe there are a lot more secret exhibitionists in the world than everyone thinks. Those genes did not make their way through my family tree.
Well, this was among a small circle of people and I think the guy did it to be obliging.
My older cousin tried to hypnotize me once, and though I tried to go along with it because she was in college and seemed so sophisticated, it turned out that I had the same mental reservations you mention, and nothing happened.
Also, I'm not really sure that a person who roams the highways of France in a leprachaun outfit can really claim to have no exhibitionist genes in him.
Thanks for a great blog! On Wednesday night much of Britain was enthralled by "mentalist" Derren Brown predicting the winning Lottery Numbers in the National Lottery.
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