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Derren Brown - The Experiments
Inspiration
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Derren's new series starts 21st October.
Theme seems to be he will be talking people into doing things they normally wouldn't do. Seems similar to 'The Heist' but taking it a step further.
One of the episodes.. might be the first one, involves trying to talk someone into killing someone, ie, exploring the theory that some of the assassinations of the past were conducted by people who had been effectively hypnotised into committing the act.
The advert rocks.
Theme seems to be he will be talking people into doing things they normally wouldn't do. Seems similar to 'The Heist' but taking it a step further.
One of the episodes.. might be the first one, involves trying to talk someone into killing someone, ie, exploring the theory that some of the assassinations of the past were conducted by people who had been effectively hypnotised into committing the act.
The advert rocks.
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Before some smart arse replies with "well what did you expect?" I expected not to be falsely mislead by Nazi Channel 4
For me he's never recovered from the lottery fiasco. (Not that I was much of a fan before.)
That's part of why I'm not a fan. He crosses the line in terms of pretending his tricks are real.
I might be wrong, because I haven't seen all of his shows, but doesn't Derren Brown describe himself as 'an illusionist'? Surely if that is the case, then he is not pretending his tricks are real.
I thought the lottery one was quite good. We all had lots of fun on here working it out, if I remember...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sfvAhJLNlc
What about the disclaimer at the bottom of the screen, along the lines that "no stooges or actors are used in this programme"....can we take that at face value?
The one thing that gives me hope with this is I think he's at his strongest when he's doing these 'experiment' type things. ie the Heist was probably his best piece of work, even the build up to it where they are stealing petty things from a shop.
So I will give him the benefit of the doubt but he needs to pull something out the bag to redeem himself.
It was never going to be a great success; it would be impossible for him to show the winning numbers before the draw, though there are ways he could have made an illusion of doing so (e.g. delay on the TV showing the draw, showing a recording of a previous draw). These methods would have worked for about...oh...three minutes.
So he had to "record" the numbers without the audience seeing them, and reveal them after the draw.
He could have placed the cards with the numbers on into a black briefcase, and left it by a black curtain at the unlit rear of the stage (as he has so often before), but he chose to use trick camera work.
It was an illusion, which worked for a while, but it was always going to be one which could be revealed by studying recordings.
So an illusion which worked at the time, and generated a lot of interest - was it a disaster?
You don't just choose to use video tricks to pull this stunt off ...... because that takes no skill whatsover. So yes I stand by the fact it was a complete disaster because there was so many easy ways to explain how he did it.
What he should have done was something like, write it down on a piece of paper (say a celeb who could confirm they werent in on it) ...... have them put it in his pocket and stand next to Derren during the draw. Then after the draw ask the celeb to pull out the paper and 'tadah!'
Then that would have been more successful.
Of course he hadn;t predicted the numbers, no-one could believe that....but did he create, for a while, the illusion that he had?
Ok, we'll have to disagree over whether it was a disaster. While it took no skill to carry out, it clearly took some skill to design it, and then skill on the part of the cameraman and the film editor.
Does anyone think at the time of watching any magician that they are really sawing the woman in half?
So the same could be said 'I don't know of one single person who watched it thought and thought the woman was really being killed.'
I'm obviously not getting something here. Magic is an entertainment and anyone who does think it's real is barking mad. Surly it's a thing to just watch and enjoy?
Well in any trick and every trick on the planet, the general idea is that whatever method is used, the audience is not meant to know what it is and that is the only goal. Now of course some people find out or work out methods but that isn't the point. The point is that a magician can use anything under the sun to achieve the illusion that something has happened when it hasn't.
The viewer is no meant to know the workings and so judge the trick entirely on whether it entertained them or not. Your idea seems to be totally alien where you watch a trick, then before you state if you were entertained or not, you have to find out the secret or work out the secret and then assess how much 'skill' was involved before deciding if it was a good or bad trick.
The disclaimer at the start of Derren Brown's show tells everyone very clearly what is what. It states that using magic, psychology, illusion, hypnosis and misdirection he will pull of whatever it is he is doing. That means basically that just like any other magician he can use whatever he want, to make the trick happen.
Derren Brown, whilst extremely good at what he does, is just like any other magician and other magician's sure as hell employ anything they like to achieve the effect, yet it seems that some thing Derren Brown is not allowed to.
I really do think some just don't get magic as an entertainment and/or take it all far to seriously and act like it's their job to rid the planet of these people and sit in judgement over them.
The flight sim debacle was riddled with actors and ridiculously unbelievable setups. Any defence about how he uses misdirection, hypnosis or other psychobabble methods is completely irrelevant when he claims he doesn't use actors or stooges, yet by watching the show it's blatantly obvious that he does.
Or is a completely scripted show with no spontaneity what-so-ever just another DB 'misdirection' ?