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Tsaedje posted:It's just well executed bog standard magic tricks, but dressed up with 'I'm not doing magic tricks, it's all clever science/psychology'. The trick is tricking people who think they're too clever to be fooled by magic tricks by saying it's neurolinguistic programming or advanced memory techniques, when it's actually sleight of hand, misdirection, cold reading, etc. I like Brown, but this sums up most of his stuff. His "specials" have been mostly good but the lottery one was a complete miss, mostly as it was so off his normal stuff. He started out as a more traditional close up magician (I've seen others say that he is VERY good), but transitioned to this to stand out. I've been to all but one of his live shows and they are terrific, came within 6 inches of being selected to go on stage, if only that frizbee flew a little longer. I have my tickets for his new show next year. However, as an old curmudgen who grew up in the 70s and 80s you can see some bits of his stage show are as you say relatively old tricks dressed up in a new way, like I recognise some tricks as stuff Paul Daniels did on his TV show. But in addition to the way he dresses them up, the whole package is great as well is mixing in new stuff. The theme, the way they are strung together towards a usually ridiculous finale is what makes his stuff entertaining. Some examples of old tricks. I've hypnotised you to make you drink vinegar, get someone else to verify it's vinegar it's brown water, there is a little bit of vinegar hidden in the lid I can regulate my heart beat and even have 2 different ones at the same time rubber ball clamped in the armpit to restrict blood flow I can be so zen I can hammer a nail into my head through my nose this is something anyone can do, here is a magician teaching his 12 year old kid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owa0BCpfGFk At the shows you get caught up in the momentum and just get blown away by the finale - it's not until after that you start to go huh? Example. The one where he has a pre recorded song by mcfly referencing a whole bunch of stuff and the order of that stuff that has all seemingly been randomly picked and ordered. This starts at the beginning of the show where the audience is invited to write a band and bunch of other stuff and drop it in a basket. Later someone is asked to pull a paper from it and he does some stuff to "read their mind" about what is on the paper. One of which is guessing the band mcfly. Seems impressive at the time. At the end when they appear on screen everyone is "woooow how the gently caress" and coupled with all the other stuff going on it is just sensory overload. In hindsight it is obvious that there is a compartment in the basket that blocks all the audience bits of paper off and just has a load with the same stuff on every one that is then selected (even more obvious when you see the recorded version has the same list).This is basically the seed for the finale that sets everything else up. As they say, by the time you are in the flow trying to work out what is happening, most of the time all of the work has been done by the magician and the rest is just presentation and spectacle. I have no idea how he forces the order of the things so they match the pre recorded song, but that is fine. Ive seen discussions with people trying to work out how all this was done. A lot of people go straight to "stooge" for the person reading out the paper. Nope, too error prone in selecting them and it's always better to use real people. They got Mcfly to record different versions of the song for every possible combination of the order of things - I think there were 6 things, so that is a lot of songs. Nope.
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Aug 22, 2020 09:25
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Mr Beens posted:I can be so zen I can hammer a nail into my head through my nose this is something anyone can do, here is a magician teaching his 12 year old kid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owa0BCpfGFk The thousands that have had the nasty covid test will understand how this one works better now
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Aug 22, 2020 09:59
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The Derren Brown lottery show was interesting because there was a rumour that there was more to that than we've seen but at the last minute Camelot made him pull some footage. A lot of this has disappeared from the web now, including an interview where he's quoted talking about it, but there was the lottery predicting show which was pretty much as-is, and then the "how I did it" show, and that's the one that was edited. If we believe the story, the idea was to have the obviously fake and disappointing "wisdom of crowds" explanation and then a cut to a segment filmed with schoolkids on an open top bus filmed in Oxford Street the Christmas before, where they held up the numbers. This is *much* more in line with how he does progressive reveals on his live act, with a whole "but if that were true, there's no way I could possibly have known this" kind of flourish. And if you think about it, it makes a better punchline for the explainer show. Building up a series of little tricks to an unsatisfying explanation where you're thinking "surely you're not saying it's this..." and then torpedo it with something that *looks* like it could only have been magic. But, as the story goes, Camelot weren't happy that that segment would cast more doubt on the security of their process than they were comfortable with and so they made him delete the segment by threatening to not allow him to use footage from the live cast on his show, which he was still dependent on to show the trick. How he would've done the pre-filmed segment with the bus is anyone's guess, presumably stitching together multiple takes or something. The live show is pretty well taken apart by Captain Dissilusion, it was a motion control camera doing split screen. But yeah, it would've been fun to see that show as it was meant to go out if this is all true.
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Aug 22, 2020 14:47
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I didn’t realise CDisillusion had done that. That channel is a pro follow. Interviewed him for a podcast at a conference once, lovely chap and i got VFX/editor imposter syndrome just being around him.
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Aug 22, 2020 20:30
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The entire point of Derren Brown is that he’s a magician in every way Paul Daniels or someone was, but he realised that no one believed in magicians any more. Everyone realised that it’s just slight of hand, or trick compartments, or mirrors or something. So he made himself a magician you could believe in: by claiming vaguely defined “mentalist” abilities, he would perform tricks that seemed just about plausible. The problem is that the “just about plausible” tricks start not to cut it as his career continues. So he’s forced further into Paul Daniels territory.
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Aug 23, 2020 00:29
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I’ve just checked out Captain Dissolution because of this. He’s ace! Love the trick shot one - and totally agree - those are everywhere right now.
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Aug 23, 2020 12:57
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People should just move on from Famalam and watch Enterprice instead, cos it's charming and awesome.
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Aug 25, 2020 23:31
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Annabel Pee posted:What is everyones best guess for how he actually does stuff? Its impressive at the least in a twenty year career that not one participant has ever come forward and said it was outright set-up. I might not have been as heavily involved as you were hoping, but I've been picked out of the audience for a very small trick at one of his live shows and happy to share how he did "my" bit. My involvement was about 3/4 of the way through the show. He went on a sort of cold reading frenzy, where he rushed around the audience, picking people at random and telling them things about themselves he couldn't possibly have guessed. During this, he came and stood in front of me and my friend and weighed us both up for a second, then said to me: "Is your name Tea?". Impressive I confirmed that it was and he carried on: "I'm sensing something in your knees?" I was blown away, I had sprained my right knee while skiing a few weeks previous. again he continued: "Is it your right knee?" "Yeah!" "And you hurt it while skiing didn't you" "What!? Yeah!" He then told me to come with him and started leading me up to the stage, all the while giving me more specifics about how I injured myself. My astonishment was real, and I got the impression the audience could see it was real from their laughter at my obvious bewilderment every time he said anything further. Midway to the stage he told me to stop and started his hypnosis induction, put me to sleep and left me lying in the aisle while he went and did the same trick to other audience members. To an average audience member, either I was a stooge or Derren Brown really can read people just like that, the truth is neither. This is probably going to be really disappointing, I worked it out pretty quickly while lying in the aisle waiting for him to finish the bit. It's just strait simple (yet very good) showmanship. During the interval, he had asked the audience to note down their name, seat number and a small fact about themselves with as much detail as possible and place it in a bowl on the stage. You can probably guess that I wrote down about my skiing accident. It really is that simple and seems obvious, but I promise in the moment my reaction of shock was completely genuine. The bowl of notes with the audience facts in had been used for a trick right at the beginning of the 2nd half, and Derren had burnt the notes after the trick so it was over and done with and well out of my mind by the time he picked on me. I'd like to say that the bowl never left the audience's view but I could be wrong on that. When he approached us he seemed more interested in my friend than me and looked like he was about to pick him right up until the last second so I was completely at ease and caught off guard when he switched his focus over to me. It was incredibly fast paced, my part lasted maybe 40 - 60 seconds max from when he gave me my name to when he put me to sleep, I didn't have a second to remember writing all this down for him. Of course it all became obvious the moment I had a second to catch my breath and think about it, but he only needed those few seconds to capture my geniune shock and convince the rest of the audience. As for being hypnotised and put to sleep? I was completely awake and aware the whole time, but what was I going to do with 1,500 eyes on me? I wasn't going to gently caress his trick up and stay upright eyes open, when he told me to close my eyes, then eased me onto the floor of course I just went with it. Mr Phillby posted:Whereas last time I watched a David Blaine special he put a skewer through his hand and then was all like "is this a trick or is the real trick that I found out how to put a spike through my hand?" I went to an evening with Penn and Teller a few years ago and while talking about other magicians, they said that David Blaine is batshit crazy. According to them, David completely believes his own stuff and won't drop the facade even around other magicians; as far as going to actually say to Penn something along the lines of: "You know the stuff you guys do is great but it's all tricks. What I do is real."
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Aug 27, 2020 10:33
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Ha probably done in the same way as complete prick Peter Popoff from the 80s, as revealed by James Randi https://youtu.be/q7BQKu0YP8Y
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Aug 27, 2020 12:52
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EL BROMANCE posted:Ha probably done in the same way as complete prick Peter Popoff from the 80s, as revealed by James Randi Wasn't one of his live shows specifically themed around faith healers, religious miracle-workers and the like? I wonder if it was that tour. Edit: I've seen him live a few times, he's really a terrific showman live, and I completely buy that he doesn't use stooges in the live gigs but obviously it's all a trick, you kinda know that going in
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Aug 27, 2020 13:45
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"Peeeteeey... if you can't hear me you're in trouble..."
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Aug 27, 2020 13:54
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I'm introducing some friends to "Don't tell the bride", honestly some of the most quality trash ever. Special shout out to the groom who tried to take his wife on stealth even though she's terrified and the really straight laced naval groom who's best man is tragically in love with him.
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Aug 27, 2020 14:11
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EL BROMANCE posted:Ha probably done in the same way as complete prick Peter Popoff from the 80s, as revealed by James Randi Yeah, come to think about it that part of the act was entirely about faith healing. Man I hope Derren didn't also use an earpiece, while the explanation might be mundane it's at least impressive to imagine he memorised my details along with everyone else he was doing the trick on.
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Aug 27, 2020 14:35
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I've always wanted him to do a show whereby he is able to talk about the personal lives of the audience, without them having provided any prior information prior to the show. Everyone is asked before the show to not reveal any information about themselves, or fill in information so that Derren can show you how this is all telepathy. The trick being that the audience have signed up for tickets using their personal details and Derren then has someone trawl through social media for any information. Basically it would be a warning about how much information we give out about ourselves to the public. As for the hypnotist thing mentioned by Tea Bone above, that's how all stage hypnotists work. They call it a temporary pass to act like an idiot on stage for 20 minutes and not have to take the blame.
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Aug 27, 2020 14:50
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Tea Bone posted:As for being hypnotised and put to sleep? I was completely awake and aware the whole time, but what was I going to do with 1,500 eyes on me? I wasn't going to gently caress his trick up and stay upright eyes open, when he told me to close my eyes, then eased me onto the floor of course I just went with it. I wonder if he's ever had anyone not go along with it? Tsietisin posted:The trick being that the audience have signed up for tickets using their personal details and Derren then has someone trawl through social media for any information. Basically it would be a warning about how much information we give out about ourselves to the public. I saw Jon Richardson live and he did this. It was kinda funny but it also felt seriously mean spirited. Taear fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Aug 27, 2020 |
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Aug 27, 2020 15:00
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Has anyone ever wrecked a famous magician’s show by refusing to play along with being hypnotised/not pointing out obvious tricks? TBF though, having been hypnotised, thinking “I totally COULD get up and ruin the show, I just don’t want to” is indistinguishable from really being hypnotised.
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Aug 27, 2020 15:41
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Taear posted:I wonder if he's ever had anyone not go along with it? I'd guess it's rare. His "requests" were done in a way which if you didn't go along with it, you wouldn't look like someone who wasn't hypnotised, you would look like an arsehole purposely being difficult. It's not like once I was under he asked me "Are you hypnotised?". With him saying to me to "close your eyes, relax, layback, don't panic I'll ease you down", if I hadn't gone along with it it would have looked to the audience like I was being openly defiant. Like a magician asking you to think of a card and responding "no". I've actually been on stage with another (not famous) hypnotist. A slightly different set up where he had maybe 15-20 people on stage and hypnotised them all at once. I went through the induction but when he started asking us to perform my heart wasn't in it and opened my eyes. He just thanked me for my participation and asked me to go back to the audience and enjoy the show, along with one other person who also wasn't going with it. This was at a private party so I had the opportunity to talk to the other participants after the show. Near all of them admitted they were aware but didn't want to ruin the show. Two of them, however, seemed to buy it hook line and sinker. One said he was in control but didn't feel any embarrassment or expected stage fright that he normally would, like he wanted to do as the hypnotist told him (like Tsietisin said, getting to act like an idiot without having to take the blame probably loosened him up). The other claims to have been asleep the entire time and doesn't remember a thing, which I'm sceptical of. I'd imagine Derren has some kind of screening process to judge how likely someone is to go along with him before getting them on stage. The reason I got left in the aisle is likely because he could tell from my induction that I was resistant.
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Aug 27, 2020 15:42
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Isomermaid posted:Wasn't one of his live shows specifically themed around faith healers, religious miracle-workers and the like? I wonder if it was that tour. There's a great clip of Benny Hinn, a US evangelist (who 'knocks people' over with a wave of his jacket and they lie on the ground overcome with the Lord and having lost $$$ to visit the scammer) where he has some family up on stage and they all lie possum while he raves on about God or whatever. The youngest kid, a few years old, peeks with his eyes, raises his head, and starts looking around. His father notices this, and raises up his hand to cover the kids face, pinning the kid to the ground and tells him to shut the gently caress up. So loving obvious they are all pretending, I wish I could find it again to watch.
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Aug 27, 2020 15:48
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Tea Bone posted:I'd imagine Derren has some kind of screening process to judge how likely someone is to go along with him before getting them on stage. It does the job of dispelling the notion that he’s selecting specific planted stooges but I imagine it skews pretty heavily toward people who are willing to actively engage with whatever might be thrown at them.
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Aug 27, 2020 16:00
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Some Strange Flea posted:I suspect this is the logic behind his thing where he yeets frisbees and whatnot into the crowd to select participants. Oh poo poo! God I never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. Haha. Simple things in magic, isn't it?
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Aug 27, 2020 16:04
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Tsietisin posted:I've always wanted him to do a show whereby he is able to talk about the personal lives of the audience, without them having provided any prior information prior to the show. Everyone is asked before the show to not reveal any information about themselves, or fill in information so that Derren can show you how this is all telepathy. I mean, he can't. He's a magician and the that's how the magic trick is done. It's like saying "I like this guy's trick where he makes a woman in a box disappear, but I've always wanted to see him do it without a box with a suspiciously large base to it, or a small flexible lady." He might be able to find some kind of new angle or workaround, but he doesn't have magical (or "mentalist") powers. If he's rattling off personal info, it's because he found out that info about you. Thinking about it, I wonder if any of these acts have tried just looking people up on social media en masse.
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Aug 27, 2020 18:06
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Comrade Fakename posted:Thinking about it, I wonder if any of these acts have tried just looking people up on social media en masse. That's what the post you're replying to is saying to do? I'm kinda baffled by your response here!
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Aug 27, 2020 19:59
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I just really love some of the blatant lies Derren tells. I still remember from a show he did years ago where he claimed to have memorised the smell of hundreds of dog breeds, so he could smell your hands and know what dog you owned. It's such utter nonsense and said with a straight face you have to admire him for it. He's also a pretty decent artist if you like caricatures.
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Aug 28, 2020 09:08
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Comrade Fakename posted:I mean, he can't. He's a magician and the that's how the magic trick is done. It's like saying "I like this guy's trick where he makes a woman in a box disappear, but I've always wanted to see him do it without a box with a suspiciously large base to it, or a small flexible lady." This is literally one of the things "psychics" and "mediums" do. In the old days they had to send researchers out to people's houses conducting surveys about random stuff, but these days social media makes it much easier. One of Browns shows was about highlighting the methods these people use (and probably he does too) Taear posted:That's what the post you're replying to is saying to do? I'm kinda baffled by your response here! Same
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Aug 28, 2020 09:10
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Some Strange Flea posted:I suspect this is the logic behind his thing where he yeets frisbees and whatnot into the crowd to select participants. Certainly true for me (or rather the opposite). I saw him years ago and the frisbee hit me up in the balcony. I really DIDN'T want to go up on stage so I kinda deflected it to the stranger sitting next to me who looked pleased as punch and whispered a "cheers, mate!" before happily trotting up.
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Aug 28, 2020 09:37
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Not sure why it’s taken me until s8 of Taskmaster to realize that the contestants sit in alphabetical order, but I think it goes to show I would not be good on it.
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Aug 30, 2020 23:18
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just saw a trailer for "the diagnosis detectives" and as if stealing House's synopsis wasn't enough they've stolen the theme music too
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Aug 31, 2020 20:31
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Mr Beens posted:This is literally one of the things "psychics" and "mediums" do. In the old days they had to send researchers out to people's houses conducting surveys about random stuff, but these days social media makes it much easier. Must be so easy for them now with people clicking 'attending' on the facebook events.
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Sep 1, 2020 13:28
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Harry Hill has a new TV show which is basically him doing weak TV Burp bits over archive footage. It's derivative and pretty tame but it's still funnier than most other things and I will absolutely watch all of it.
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Sep 1, 2020 15:39
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EL BROMANCE posted:Not sure why it’s taken me until s8 of Taskmaster to realize that the contestants sit in alphabetical order, but I think it goes to show I would not be good on it. Holy poo poo. Always thought it was a height thing.
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Sep 1, 2020 16:02
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reality_groove posted:Harry Hill has a new TV show which is basically him doing weak TV Burp bits over archive footage. It's derivative and pretty tame but it's still funnier than most other things and I will absolutely watch all of it. It reads like weak Screenwipe jokes. The Ties that Bind
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Sep 1, 2020 22:45
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There is now an Alan Partridge podcast! And an interview in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/sep/02/alan-partridge-podcast-interview-boris-johnson-oasthouse
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Sep 2, 2020 09:16
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I thought Mandy was pretty funny, requires you to be in a stupid mood though to enjoy the spiders bit. I wonder if the advert scene was shot knowing that Morgan would be featured on about 5 different currently airing adverts this year in real life. It may help that I know someone with the exact same name, so it's a massive source of comedy audio clips. It's also surprisingly different to the film version, but I guess it's hard to do without Nic Cage.
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Sep 2, 2020 11:37
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The Perfect Element posted:There is now an Alan Partridge podcast! Oh man I can't wait to see how he rubbishes a Podcast.
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Sep 2, 2020 14:06
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SeanBeansShako posted:Oh man I can't wait to see how he rubbishes a Podcast. Ugh it's Audible only. Still, I'm 15 minutes in and laughed quite a few times, even had to pause it once. Solid Alan.
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Sep 3, 2020 13:28
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Shame I had to temporary sub to something for a month to listen.
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Sep 3, 2020 14:00
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Late to the Derren talk and hypnotism but he talks about it quite a bit when he was on the Joe Rogan podcast. In short: there's a small small number of people who will fall into hypnosis. Then from there you get people who maybe sort of feel something and go with it or people who don't feel a thing and are just happy to be on stage and perform. I guess part of your job on stage is being able to adapt to what you have. I always liked the shows he did that were a bit more like an expose. There's a great one where he gets a group of people in for a kind of horrorscope reading. At the end he gives each person a reading and they're amazed because it describes them perfectly. Until he tells them that he wrote the exact same thing for all of them and it's all a scam. I seem to remember one person saying OK he says it's a scam but how did he know me so well?
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Sep 4, 2020 08:36
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wooger posted:I thought Mandy was pretty funny, requires you to be in a stupid mood though to enjoy the spiders bit. I wonder if the advert scene was shot knowing that Morgan would be featured on about 5 different currently airing adverts this year in real life. This makes it sound like you only saw the first one though?
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Sep 4, 2020 09:10
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DrVenkman posted:
Yeah that one was great! If I recall correctly, he even did one in Spanish? So it was like the same horoscope in UK, USA and Spain. Goes to show how everybody has similar thoughts about themselves.
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Sep 4, 2020 10:18
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BBC is putting Battlestar Galactica (2000s) box set on iPlayer and they're showing it on BBC2 tonight from 21:45. Seems like an odd thing for them to do but I like the show. Well, the first 2 seasons before it became wank 
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Sep 5, 2020 10:56
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