Derren Brown: The Events
The Events are forthcoming Derren Brown television specials that will air on Channel 4. Filmed for in front of a live studio audience, this new series is made up of four one hour specials, during which Derren will attempt what he has described as "some of the most incredible feats to date". The show will consist of a mixture of pre-recorded location pieces connected by theatre-based segments, with each of the four one-hour programmes building up to a major stunt performance.
The first teasers broadcast were very unusual with Brown speaking in reverse but walking forwards with events around him happening forwards. Seemingly cryptic messages were also hidden in the advert such as links to a "Manchester United" website. The advert was later played forwards (although now with Brown moving in reverse), and revealed the premise of the shows. Derren explains that in his new series he will be revealing the "inner workings" of his tricks and "showing you how to get away with it".
The teaser advertisement states that the first episode will broadcast on 11 September, 2009 at 21:00. However, Derren Brown: The Event Live, a 10-minute broadcast, is also noted in television listings, airing on 9 September, 2009 at 22:35, prior to a repeat showing of Brown's earlier special, The Gathering.[1]
Event 1: How to Win The Lottery
The first show, a live event broadcast on 9th September 2009, saw Derren Brown predicting that night's lottery draw. This was conducted by a set of white balls lined up, facing a wall, next to a television displaying a live feed from BBC One as they aired the live draw. After the draw, Brown wrote the results on a piece of card prior to turning the white balls around, facing the camera, to reveal that both the numbers on the balls and the numbers on the card were the same. The winning numbers were: 2, 11, 23, 28, 35 and 39. The bonus was number 15, however, his predictions did not include the bonus ball. If the numbers were chosen at random, there would be a 1 in 13,983,816 chance of predicting all 6 numbers correctly.
On Friday 11th September at 21:00, a show aired, which stated three possibilities for winning the lottery. The first of these was to fake a ticket, which Brown immediately dismissed as illegal and impractical. The second was to simply predict them correctly. Through a series of experiments and attempts at explaining complex psychology while avoiding the underlying maths, Brown provided the conclusion that he may have predicted numbers using a phenomenon known as the Wisdom of Crowds. He revealed 24 volunteers who, after a number of previous sessions, were shown to apparently predict the correct numbers by perusing a board filled with previous lottery numbers and guessing that week's through automatic writing. The third and final possibility was to fix the lottery machine. Again, Brown stated that this was illegal; however, while talking through all the steps that he would have had to take, various photographs were displayed in the background that suggested that this could have happened. Nevertheless, he re-iterated that, as such a thing would be illegal, it is something he would never admit to even if he did do it. Ultimately, even if all of these methods are in fact deceptions, and Brown used another, secret method, he ended the show stating that it is up to the audience to choose what to believe.
Likely explanation
Derren Brown performs this trick without any studio audience. Magicians generally do this when they employ camera trickery. In his opening remarks he mentions it is just him and "two camera men" - yet there is apparently only one continuous shot from one angle. If one looks closely the shot is constantly jerking up and down - yet it is filmed in a studio with a steady camera. This is an artifact of the splicing software used to join the two separate feeds. In this case one feed is trained on Derren who makes sure to stay at the right of the screen and another frozen feed of the row of balls on the left hand side. As the numbers are read out an assistant adds the correct numbers to the balls - unseen as the footage is frozen. After the numbers are called out the live stream is restarted and Derren walks over to reveal the balls. Close examination of the footage shows that the first ball has been misaligned by the assistant so that when the feeds are rejoined it appears to jump several mm above the rest. See also [1]
Event 2: How To Control The Nation
On Friday 18th September, the second event will be broadcast.[2] The Guardian published details of the second events. According to The Guardian, Brown will attempt to use subliminal advertising to attempt to "control the nation" by forcing an inability to get up and walk away from the show[3]: "Next week [Brown is] going to induce an inability among viewers to move from the sofa by the use of subliminal messaging".
Event 3: How To Be A Psychic Spy
Event 4: How To Take Down A Casino
References
- ^ "Derren Brown: The Event Live". RadioTimes. Retrieved 2009-09-07.
- ^ "Derren Brown: How to Control the Nation". RadioTimes. Retrieved 2009-09-11.
- ^ The Guardian, Pass notes 2,644: Derren Brown, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/sep/09/pass-notes-derren-brown