There are several ways of getting the desired result, all of which involve a trick, and not psychology as he suggests. The only psychology involved is the willingness to be tricked. ;-)
Did he not tell you how he did it at the end? When I saw him, he recapped the whole the thing including video footage from the show. Although admittedly, he said it was pretty much all suggestion
That's just Derren Brown's schtick. He's a traditional magician who tells us all that it's all done with the power of suggestion. Suggestion does have influence, but not enough to be failsafe (as a magician requires). It's not a new "explanation". The old "missing card" trick has often been accompanied by the magician telling you he can suggest to you which card you pick. He can't, he's just rigged the result.
There is a long gap between you picking the word and Derren Brown producing the page from the book. Moreover the book Derren Brown uses is an obscure book so that nobody can go home and check if that's what the chosen page really says.
When you think how much he charges per ticket I'm sure he has the budget to make some top quality props. He also had stagehands to help him.
Therefore my guess is that before the show he makes up the book with a blank page ripped out. Some book have a blank page at the start or end so maybe he uses a knife to carefully remove it and glue it into the middle of the book before ripping it to give it an identifiable tear mark. Once you've picked the word a stagehand edits a template on the computer and prints onto the blank page a load of text that matches the other pages in the book. They then somehow get the printed page to Derren Brown to switch with the piece of paper he's had in his pocket since the start of the show.
The show's still touring, and DB is still asking for random words to be sent to twitter. I managed to find the relevant page, and it mainly consists of comments about the show. Here and there are the random words, prefixed by the sender's username and the page name. They're not at all easy to identify (though it might be easier if you're a twitter user), and they definitely don't constitute a list.
I'd still like to know how the OP got to the page on her phone, and what she saw.
The comments by egghead1 and DW2 are good, However, I think the role of the "other audience member" is being overlooked. They'd know the word the OP chose, and could relay it to another member of DB's staff. Otherwise, what's their function? Other than possibly part of the "stage dressing" which always goes on to hide what's really happening. Whether they could be classed as a stooge would depend on how you defined that word.
It doesn't really matter how it's done, though I see no harm in speculating. It's a brilliant piece of magic, performed by a master showman, and that's the important part. Definitely no video editing involved.
Even if you were there you wouldn't be able to replicate what happened.
Derren uses a mixture of psychology, slight of hand, power of suggestion and misdirection.
He has done shows on placebo effects, you have to watch his shows to see good he is.
Scrap the first and third element and that's how he does it in a nutshell. There are a few tricks he does that involve memory tricks that he uses and he explains these in his books, but other than that it's just regular magic tricks, but he is such a great showman that he makes it seem more than that. His stage shows are excellent, his TV specials, not so much.
And in the example I gave where I did see him using auto suggestion to get the man to draw a sailboat? Another trick?
Yep. The "sailboat" speech is actually dubbed in in post-production. Watch it again if you don't believe me. The camera move from Derren's face is artificial (i.e. added later) and the sound overdubbed. He doesn't say anything to get them to draw any of the other drawings, does he, so how could that even possibly be the explanation?
And in the example I gave where I did see him using auto suggestion to get the man to draw a sailboat? Another trick?
Yes, basically. I've seen many of Derren Brown's "suggestion" tricks, and have figured out how pretty much all of them work. In this case, I'm not sure, although I wasn't there to witness it. Perhaps if I could watch a video of it, I could figure it out. Magic tricks are normally quite simple when you know how they're done, and Derren often resorts to camera tricks.
It's far more likely this trick was performed by someone carefully watching her as she looks at her phone. Easy enough to do, and guaranteed success. You can then dress it up as suggestion and everyone believes you're some kind of psychological genius.
Yes, basically. I've seen many of Derren Brown's "suggestion" tricks, and have figured out how pretty much all of them work. In this case, I'm not sure, although I wasn't there to witness it. Perhaps if I could watch a video of it, I could figure it out. Magic tricks are normally quite simple when you know how they're done, and Derren often resorts to camera tricks.
It's from "Messiah" - as I said above, he didn't say anything about "don't go overboard, let it sail into your mind" at the time, it's added later. The woman is drawing in another room. He's got an impression pad, a rigged marker, camera, whatever, relaying what she draws to either him or more likely somebody else (cameraman) present who passes the info on. We're not shown the exact setup so it's impossible to be sure.
Google "electronic impression pad mentalism" to find what you can buy off-the-shelf to achieve these sorts of things.
It's from "Messiah" - as I said above, he didn't say anything about "don't go overboard, let it sail into your mind" at the time, it's added later. The woman is drawing in another room. He's got an impression pad, a rigged marker, camera, whatever, relaying what she draws to either him or more likely somebody else (cameraman) present who passes the info on. We're not shown the exact setup so it's impossible to be sure.
Google "electronic impression pad mentalism" to find what you can buy off-the-shelf to achieve these sorts of things.
Ah I see. I'm not sure why so many people believe his explanations of suggestion. I've watched Derren Brown since he first started, and have always been baffled as to how people can think these simple tricks can be in any way psychological in nature, apart from the ones that are clearly psychological and very easy to understand.
The pen i used was a marker that was half dried out.
The advantage of a "dried out marker" is that you write more carefully, large and heavily than you would with a biro. It's possible that was intentional. What did you lean on to write?
That's not "walking us through exactly how it was done".
A couple of times you said "it's a very old trick" then you said "it's the book trick" that is you stating you know how it is done. Then that changed to "probably a forced choice trick" now it's "most likely a variation of..." so you don't know then, you are merely hypothesising.^_^
Make a note of the time and date: I agree with Bolly.
It is a book trick, there are many techniques for doing book tricks, bringing in Twitter is 'just' another layer or twist to an old trick.
It is the one where he puts a twitter status on asking for a word, then the person chosen (me) had to pick a word and keep it secret) Then i was called up on stage with a book i had been given earlier
That pretty much intimates they were in full control of the trick.
Also, when explaining what happened in a trick people leave out a lot of information or mis-remember. The fact that you were given a pen...you kept the word secret. How? You were given a book. At what point were you given the book etc etc etc.
As for 'explaining' the trick...you should know by now that people don't give away such secrets. Firstly, because it spoils the magic and secondly, the explanation is normally pretty mundane...although the mundane method has usually taken months if not years to perfect and years to get right sometimes. Or the mundane method is due to spending years learning about magic, creating tricks and performing.
Card magic and coin magic are two types of magic where an explanation can be mundane but the actual 'act' of manipulating cards and coins will have taken hours of practice every day for years.
Ah I see. I'm not sure why so many people believe his explanations of suggestion. I've watched Derren Brown since he first started, and have always been baffled as to how people can think these simple tricks can be in any way psychological in nature, apart from the ones that are clearly psychological and very easy to understand.
Are you sure they were clearly psychology or were too 'baffled' by the method used?
Again, they aren't 'simple' - they are only simple because of years of practice.
Nor would it explain how the word was PRINTED on a page from a book. No getting away from one fact at least: the word was randomly chosen.
Explain that bollywood. ;-)
It's looking to me that we don't have all the details of how the 'random' choice was made.
The word almost had to be pre-chosen because the book trick involves giving someone a book, knowing what page and word they will choose, and taking a page out of a duplicate book and putting in your pocket., in advance. Then handing the duplicate book to the person and they see the page missing. The page with the pre chosen word you guided the person to, is in your pocket.
It seems there is no coincidence that her word was going to match a pre-chosen word in the book trick. Or so it appears.
I'm not going to default to camera trick as it's probably something more basic.
Are you sure they were clearly psychology or were too 'baffled' by the method used?
Again, they aren't 'simple' - they are only simple because of years of practice.
I can only think of a few examples where psychology was most likely actually used, and in those cases it uses well known psychological tricks. For example, the £10 note on the floor with a circle around it, people ignore it. But the reason for that is obvious, clearly the £10 is not there by chance, so people will not choose to interfere with whatever reason it was put there.
And in the example I gave where I did see him using auto suggestion to get the man to draw a sailboat? Another trick?
I'm not familiar with the trick but I'm quite sure that the only auto suggestion he uses is to trick people into thinking he uses auto suggestion, hypnosis or any psychology he's been credited with or pretends to use.
I was up on stage with Derren during one of his shows last month. It is really bugging me how he pulled off the trick he did with me, does anyone have any theories on how he did it? It is the one where he puts a twitter status on asking for a word, then the person chosen (me) had to pick a word and keep it secret) Then i was called up on stage with a book i had been given earlier and I was told to go to the number page that a person had picked earlier which was missing and in Derren's pocket. He had me take it out and one of the words was covered up and low and behold that was the word I had secretly picked earlier. Over a month later and I still can't figure it out. He must have placed hidden cameras around the place surely? That's all I can think of. Plus the word I picked was quite unusual so I don't know how it would have been in the book in the first place! Thanks in advance
Did you think to ask yourself how the classic book trick got co-mingled with yours, that was after all, a cell phone and twitter trick, supposedly.
Something is missing from how you chose the word, something you misremembered.
If your word was on a page of a book at the end, you were limited to a few words at the start. There is no way you chose from hundreds of words, unless you wrote them on an impression pad. And it seems you didn't. The trick can't be done with hundreds of words if we rule out spying. Even as a memory trick, the magician is limited to what he can memorize or make duplicate pages for.
If your word was on a page of a book at the end, you were limited to a few words at the start.
I think you might be heading down the wrong path here - if the word genuinely was on that page in the book, there would be no reason for it not to still be in the book in her pocket. The fact that the page is in Derren's pocket (if I've followed correctly) leads me to think it's because the page containing the word has to be manufactured at some point after the OP has written it. Every little thing in a magic trick tends to happen for a reason, I can't think why Derren would have the page if he didn't "need" to.
Can you verify that the book exists, and that your word is indeed on that page in that book OP?
I think you might be heading down the wrong path here - if the word genuinely was on that page in the book, there would be no reason for it not to still be in the book in her pocket. The fact that the page is in Derren's pocket (if I've followed correctly) leads me to think it's because the page containing the word has to be manufactured at some point after the OP has written it. Every little thing in a magic trick tends to happen for a reason, I can't think why Derren would have the page if he didn't "need" to.
Can you verify that the book exists, and that your word is indeed on that page in that book OP?
Yes if the word was on that page, although we don't know.
I'm saying this would be the case if OP was forced via magician's choice to pick a word on her cell phone that was on a certain line. And she thought it was a free choice and misremembered that she was guided there. Then it would be the same word that was in the book, that the other person was forced to pick, by magician's choice. DB could have taken the same page out of a twin book and put it in his pocket. So both persons picked the same word. Very clever.
That's the forced choice explanation.
If that didn't occur then the word had to appear to be ' printed' after she said it, even using a projection screen, maybe. There wasn't time to manufacture a page. It had to be set up before.
Would OP even know or recall the book and page. Often obscure books are used.
There wasn't time to manufacture a page. It had to be set up before.
I'm not sure I follow how you arrived at this conclusion? There is clearly some delay between the word being written and the OP being called on stage. As soon as the word is written the page can be manufactured, it would take barely seconds, wouldn't it?
Would OP even know or recall the book and page. Often obscure books are used.
Well yes again, that's the point. If the word is forced and genuinely does exist, we can use a common book and implore everyone to check for themselves later on. If the OP can not recall the book or the page or verify the actual existence of book, page or word, then again that's probably intentional.
I'm not sure I follow how you arrived at this conclusion? There is clearly some delay between the word being written and the OP being called on stage. As soon as the word is written the page can be manufactured, it would take barely seconds, wouldn't it?
I thought you were referring to the seconds after she announces what word it is. Not the time between her writing it and going on stage.
How are you figuring DB learns the word she wrote?
I'm doing this by ruling out spying or camera.
It's likely that the page was from a real book that the first person chose from.
How are you figuring DB learns the word she wrote?
I'm doing this by ruling out spying or camera.
Electronic impression pad or tech in the pen seems most likely. Why are you ruling anything out? (Forced words don't need to be written down, and usually aren't.)
It's likely that the page was from a real book that the first person chose from.
I don't understand the assumptions you are making.
If the word is forced, we don't need the OP to write it down. We can do the rest of the trick, and ask her to announce the word as we are holding the missing page aloft with the (obscured) word on waiting to be revealed. Generally speaking, you don't deliberately make tricks "worse" than they are by making it appear that things could have happened even though they didn't. If Derren's paper doesn't have to be obscured before the reveal, it wouldn't be.
Electronic impression pad or tech in the pen seems most likely. Why are you ruling anything out? (Forced words don't need to be written down, and usually aren't.)
I'm ruling out camera spying as I think a more basic trick was involved .
It could be an impression pad and surely OP can think back as to whether she wrote on a pad and tore it off, or wrote only on paper.
Or whether there were any instructions when she was called over, as the staff can give complex instructions and that's where the trick coming out right, is ensured. If this happens quickly enough the person won't catch it or maybe recall it.
I'm still favoring that it was a variation of the book trick, done with a cell phone. And a book.
She was told to write down her word. The writing or not isn't relevant except as proof she wasn't just going along with the trick.
I thought you were referring to the seconds after she announces what word it is. Not the time between her writing it and going on stage.
How are you figuring DB learns the word she wrote?
I'm doing this by ruling out spying or camera.
It's likely that the page was from a real book that the first person chose from.
It could well be magicians choice. It's hard to know unless we were there, as to how much guidance she had in "picking" the tweet.
There are several potential explanations even if there was no spy, for example, they could have manufactured all of the recent tweets on the feed, making it look like they were from people in the audience, when in fact they were all put in place by the production team. In this case, they might only result in a handful of possible words depending on how much she scrutinised all of the different choices.
Another possibility is that he said something like "Pick the 5th one from the top, I've no idea what it would be because I don't have access to a phone and they're coming in all the time." Of course, if that were the case, the production team would certainly be able to check at the same time and tell him which one to go for (the one they planted).
Lots of possibilities, although to be honest, I'm not a magician and so I don't know much about the practicality of pulling off these possibilities. A spy or camera would be a lot easier We know the DB is not beyond simple camera tricks, so a spy would be a perfectly sensible situation.
Comments
That's just Derren Brown's schtick. He's a traditional magician who tells us all that it's all done with the power of suggestion. Suggestion does have influence, but not enough to be failsafe (as a magician requires). It's not a new "explanation". The old "missing card" trick has often been accompanied by the magician telling you he can suggest to you which card you pick. He can't, he's just rigged the result.
When you think how much he charges per ticket I'm sure he has the budget to make some top quality props. He also had stagehands to help him.
Therefore my guess is that before the show he makes up the book with a blank page ripped out. Some book have a blank page at the start or end so maybe he uses a knife to carefully remove it and glue it into the middle of the book before ripping it to give it an identifiable tear mark. Once you've picked the word a stagehand edits a template on the computer and prints onto the blank page a load of text that matches the other pages in the book. They then somehow get the printed page to Derren Brown to switch with the piece of paper he's had in his pocket since the start of the show.
And in the example I gave where I did see him using auto suggestion to get the man to draw a sailboat? Another trick?
I'd still like to know how the OP got to the page on her phone, and what she saw.
The comments by egghead1 and DW2 are good, However, I think the role of the "other audience member" is being overlooked. They'd know the word the OP chose, and could relay it to another member of DB's staff. Otherwise, what's their function? Other than possibly part of the "stage dressing" which always goes on to hide what's really happening. Whether they could be classed as a stooge would depend on how you defined that word.
It doesn't really matter how it's done, though I see no harm in speculating. It's a brilliant piece of magic, performed by a master showman, and that's the important part. Definitely no video editing involved.
Scrap the first and third element and that's how he does it in a nutshell. There are a few tricks he does that involve memory tricks that he uses and he explains these in his books, but other than that it's just regular magic tricks, but he is such a great showman that he makes it seem more than that. His stage shows are excellent, his TV specials, not so much.
Yep. The "sailboat" speech is actually dubbed in in post-production. Watch it again if you don't believe me. The camera move from Derren's face is artificial (i.e. added later) and the sound overdubbed. He doesn't say anything to get them to draw any of the other drawings, does he, so how could that even possibly be the explanation?
Yes, basically. I've seen many of Derren Brown's "suggestion" tricks, and have figured out how pretty much all of them work. In this case, I'm not sure, although I wasn't there to witness it. Perhaps if I could watch a video of it, I could figure it out. Magic tricks are normally quite simple when you know how they're done, and Derren often resorts to camera tricks.
It's far more likely this trick was performed by someone carefully watching her as she looks at her phone. Easy enough to do, and guaranteed success. You can then dress it up as suggestion and everyone believes you're some kind of psychological genius.
It's from "Messiah" - as I said above, he didn't say anything about "don't go overboard, let it sail into your mind" at the time, it's added later. The woman is drawing in another room. He's got an impression pad, a rigged marker, camera, whatever, relaying what she draws to either him or more likely somebody else (cameraman) present who passes the info on. We're not shown the exact setup so it's impossible to be sure.
Google "electronic impression pad mentalism" to find what you can buy off-the-shelf to achieve these sorts of things.
Ah I see. I'm not sure why so many people believe his explanations of suggestion. I've watched Derren Brown since he first started, and have always been baffled as to how people can think these simple tricks can be in any way psychological in nature, apart from the ones that are clearly psychological and very easy to understand.
The advantage of a "dried out marker" is that you write more carefully, large and heavily than you would with a biro. It's possible that was intentional. What did you lean on to write?
Make a note of the time and date: I agree with Bolly.
It is a book trick, there are many techniques for doing book tricks, bringing in Twitter is 'just' another layer or twist to an old trick.
That pretty much intimates they were in full control of the trick.
Also, when explaining what happened in a trick people leave out a lot of information or mis-remember. The fact that you were given a pen...you kept the word secret. How? You were given a book. At what point were you given the book etc etc etc.
As for 'explaining' the trick...you should know by now that people don't give away such secrets. Firstly, because it spoils the magic and secondly, the explanation is normally pretty mundane...although the mundane method has usually taken months if not years to perfect and years to get right sometimes. Or the mundane method is due to spending years learning about magic, creating tricks and performing.
Card magic and coin magic are two types of magic where an explanation can be mundane but the actual 'act' of manipulating cards and coins will have taken hours of practice every day for years.
Are you sure they were clearly psychology or were too 'baffled' by the method used?
Again, they aren't 'simple' - they are only simple because of years of practice.
It's looking to me that we don't have all the details of how the 'random' choice was made.
The word almost had to be pre-chosen because the book trick involves giving someone a book, knowing what page and word they will choose, and taking a page out of a duplicate book and putting in your pocket., in advance. Then handing the duplicate book to the person and they see the page missing. The page with the pre chosen word you guided the person to, is in your pocket.
It seems there is no coincidence that her word was going to match a pre-chosen word in the book trick. Or so it appears.
I'm not going to default to camera trick as it's probably something more basic.
I can only think of a few examples where psychology was most likely actually used, and in those cases it uses well known psychological tricks. For example, the £10 note on the floor with a circle around it, people ignore it. But the reason for that is obvious, clearly the £10 is not there by chance, so people will not choose to interfere with whatever reason it was put there.
I'm not familiar with the trick but I'm quite sure that the only auto suggestion he uses is to trick people into thinking he uses auto suggestion, hypnosis or any psychology he's been credited with or pretends to use.
Did you think to ask yourself how the classic book trick got co-mingled with yours, that was after all, a cell phone and twitter trick, supposedly.
Something is missing from how you chose the word, something you misremembered.
If your word was on a page of a book at the end, you were limited to a few words at the start. There is no way you chose from hundreds of words, unless you wrote them on an impression pad. And it seems you didn't. The trick can't be done with hundreds of words if we rule out spying. Even as a memory trick, the magician is limited to what he can memorize or make duplicate pages for.
I think you might be heading down the wrong path here - if the word genuinely was on that page in the book, there would be no reason for it not to still be in the book in her pocket. The fact that the page is in Derren's pocket (if I've followed correctly) leads me to think it's because the page containing the word has to be manufactured at some point after the OP has written it. Every little thing in a magic trick tends to happen for a reason, I can't think why Derren would have the page if he didn't "need" to.
Can you verify that the book exists, and that your word is indeed on that page in that book OP?
Yes if the word was on that page, although we don't know.
I'm saying this would be the case if OP was forced via magician's choice to pick a word on her cell phone that was on a certain line. And she thought it was a free choice and misremembered that she was guided there. Then it would be the same word that was in the book, that the other person was forced to pick, by magician's choice. DB could have taken the same page out of a twin book and put it in his pocket. So both persons picked the same word. Very clever.
That's the forced choice explanation.
If that didn't occur then the word had to appear to be ' printed' after she said it, even using a projection screen, maybe. There wasn't time to manufacture a page. It had to be set up before.
Would OP even know or recall the book and page. Often obscure books are used.
I'm not sure I follow how you arrived at this conclusion? There is clearly some delay between the word being written and the OP being called on stage. As soon as the word is written the page can be manufactured, it would take barely seconds, wouldn't it?
Well yes again, that's the point. If the word is forced and genuinely does exist, we can use a common book and implore everyone to check for themselves later on. If the OP can not recall the book or the page or verify the actual existence of book, page or word, then again that's probably intentional.
I thought you were referring to the seconds after she announces what word it is. Not the time between her writing it and going on stage.
How are you figuring DB learns the word she wrote?
I'm doing this by ruling out spying or camera.
It's likely that the page was from a real book that the first person chose from.
Electronic impression pad or tech in the pen seems most likely. Why are you ruling anything out? (Forced words don't need to be written down, and usually aren't.)
I don't understand the assumptions you are making.
If the word is forced, we don't need the OP to write it down. We can do the rest of the trick, and ask her to announce the word as we are holding the missing page aloft with the (obscured) word on waiting to be revealed. Generally speaking, you don't deliberately make tricks "worse" than they are by making it appear that things could have happened even though they didn't. If Derren's paper doesn't have to be obscured before the reveal, it wouldn't be.
I'm ruling out camera spying as I think a more basic trick was involved .
It could be an impression pad and surely OP can think back as to whether she wrote on a pad and tore it off, or wrote only on paper.
Or whether there were any instructions when she was called over, as the staff can give complex instructions and that's where the trick coming out right, is ensured. If this happens quickly enough the person won't catch it or maybe recall it.
I'm still favoring that it was a variation of the book trick, done with a cell phone. And a book.
She was told to write down her word. The writing or not isn't relevant except as proof she wasn't just going along with the trick.
It could well be magicians choice. It's hard to know unless we were there, as to how much guidance she had in "picking" the tweet.
There are several potential explanations even if there was no spy, for example, they could have manufactured all of the recent tweets on the feed, making it look like they were from people in the audience, when in fact they were all put in place by the production team. In this case, they might only result in a handful of possible words depending on how much she scrutinised all of the different choices.
Another possibility is that he said something like "Pick the 5th one from the top, I've no idea what it would be because I don't have access to a phone and they're coming in all the time." Of course, if that were the case, the production team would certainly be able to check at the same time and tell him which one to go for (the one they planted).
Lots of possibilities, although to be honest, I'm not a magician and so I don't know much about the practicality of pulling off these possibilities. A spy or camera would be a lot easier