»Derren Brown - Mind Tricks - Channel 4 - Fridays 10pm«

dang crazy stuff....thanks for writing a summory, i would love to see that guy i wonder if he will eventually put the stuff on DVD?

Agent Zero wrote:

dang crazy stuff....thanks for writing a summory, i would love to see that guy i wonder if he will eventually put the stuff on DVD?

He did, there are details ch4shop.co.uk..., but it's listed as Europe Only.

I don't know if you can get it over there.

If not, there's always filedonkey.com...

BTW

There's an explanation of the wallet gag channel4.com...

i can always probably find it on ebay too!

Sorry I missed the warning last week.

So here it is early this week.

Derren Brown - Tonight 10pm Channel 4.

===

On a related note, I saw a condemning review of the show on the net.

The reviewer claims it's all a scam,

At the start of each show Derren tells us that he doesn't use actors to help him perform his "mind control", the reviewer tells us that this in itself is a "psychological technique" called "A lie".

This lie sets you up to accept whatever else is shown to you as "genuine" since Derren has already said it's not fake and why would he lie about that?

Dunno if ithere's anything to it, but thought I'd mention it in the name of balanced reporting.

did he give any basis for his claim that it was a lie? i highly doubt he'd be able to pull this off for so long and use so many plants and actors without someone coming out and exposing that. remember that he doesn't just do the TV show.. he does live shows as well, so that's much harder to fake.

someone tried to claim that Derren faked his Russian Roulette trick by "using blanks". this has to be the stupidest claim i've ever heard since firing a blank round into your temple from point blank range would still almost certainly kill you...

still for me the most intense piece of television i've ever seen.

Fortunately, I've found a link to the very thing so you can check it out;

simonsingh.net...

I agree that there may be some sour grapes here (for whatever reason), and no matter how he does it it's damned impressive.

BTW - he has a video out called "The Devils Picture Book" in which he shows how some of the card tricks are done.

Including how he uses psychological cues to get people to pick the right card and what to do if they don't.

A little slow, but well worth a watch.

magicweek.co.uk...

wAkE_uP_nEo wrote:

did he give any basis for his claim that it was a lie? i highly doubt he'd be able to pull this off for so long and use so many plants and actors without someone coming out and exposing that. remember that he doesn't just do the TV show.. he does live shows as well, so that's much harder to fake. someone tried to claim that Derren faked his Russian Roulette trick by "using blanks". this has to be the stupidest claim i've ever heard since firing a blank round into your temple from point blank range would still almost certainly kill you... still for me the most intense piece of television i've ever seen.

It was the gun expert on the show that alluded the bullets were blanks but Brown states they were real. He fired the bullet at a sand bag and pierced it. I am not bothered either way as like wAkE_uP_nEo stated, at that range blanks will kill, if it was a blank i feel there was no need for the sand bag effects.

i just read that review and man is that guy a bitter individual..

for a start.. Derren has quite openly stated that his act is a combination of psycology and magic tricks. so fucking what? Derren Brown is one of the most entertaining things i've seen on tv in a while.. the point of him saying that he doesn't use actors is to say that what we see on screen is really what happened.. unlike other tv magicians who'll use cuts to give us the illusion that the events are filmed exactly as they happened.

Derren has also quite clearly said that he can't really READ minds.. that the key is about backing people into a psychological corner, so that they react in the way that you want them to react. He has never made that secret.. in fact, i think it makes it much more intriguing than magic, because u know that what he's doing isn't just all 100% illusion, these are things that he can really do to people in the street if he wanted to.

i think its funny how Derren said that in the beginning when he learnt these techniques, he would use them for unscrupulous purposes.. i think he's banned from most casinos in the UK or something like that.. and he's also admitted to using his ability to pick up girls in the beginning although he says its no fun that way!

anyway, that reviewer in his criticism has completely missed the point. for a start, he's approaching it like he's completely exposing some scandalous fraud when Derren himself has already said that he uses some magic techniques in his act - of course there's some degree of trickery involved, but by concentrating on that, u miss the fact that there is a large degree of real life ability being used.. and in my opinion that is what makes Derren far more intriguing that your average magician.

oh yeah i forgot... i heard Derren on Jo Whiley's Radio 1 show a couple of mornings ago... and he said he's going to do this experiment on national tv, where he's gonna do this sort of exposé on spritualism, contacting the supernatural etc.

there was also a sceptic who called in wanting to put Derren to the test and he ended up putting her in her place, which was quite funny.

oh i found the link for the Jo Whiley interview in case anyone missed it.. enjoy:

bbc.co.uk...

HAHA i love this guy hes great!

I have a real problem with how he does the phonebooth trick, the person says hello and two seconds later they are on the floor asleep....he only has time to say two or three words in that time so what the hell is he saying of any psychological note that knocks them out?

he probably says

Fall on the ground or i wil shoot you....

ROFLMAO! yes you can see it now....

"I have your puppy, if you dont faint now it goes in the meat grinder!"

ROFLMAO?

whats that mean?

And he probably does say that LOL

Roll On Floor Laughing My Ass Off = ROFLMAO

oh right....crazy stuff. i really think thats what he does is threatens people....oops i found his secret!

haha, that's some funny shit guys!

but back to your question for real Crossfade.. i'm sure there must be some vocal technique, rather than just concentrating on specifically what he says..

i did some "research" into some of Derren's techniques before, just for the fun of it and i found out things like.. you can actually put someone into a certain degree of hypnotic trance by just shaking their hand a certain way.. crazy isn't it? you wouldn't think it'd be that easy to affect someone, but apparently so. i don't claim to know how he does the phone box trick, but when he says a combination of confusion and hypnosis techniques, its probably something akin to a vocal equivalent of the handshake technique.

Ok, a brief rundown of the show for anyone who missed it or can't see it.

1. We start with a hospital corridor. A payphone rings, someone answers it and falls asleep - same as most shows.

2. He does the "learn mind reading for 10p" gig - teaches a girl to read a guys mind and she does. She works out his pets name is George and is a Goldfish.

What's interesting is that the first guy to turn up he turns away saying "it wouldn't work for you". Curious, now come to think of it I'm sure they've all been women so far. Anyway he uses the guy he "can't train" to be the subject.

3. After a little chat he gives an Undertaker a stack of photos of people (about 30) and asks him to sort them into two piles, one pile for the ones he feels some kind of connection with, another for those he doesn't.

He tells him to do this without thinking about it - just go on instinct. The guy does this in a seemingly arbitrary way, and when he's done, Derren reveals that all the ones in the "has a connection" pile were still alive, the ones in the other pile were Dead.

4. He gets the top chef from a big London resteraunt to think of a meal that reminds him of an event from earlier in his life. He then gets him to prepare and cook it, then they sit down to eat.

Derren tells the guy to think back to what it reminds him of, the smells, the taste, to picture the scene.

Derren then goes on to give the guys age at the time, the fact he had two dogs, the colour of both and the name of one - he almost got the name of the other. He got the colour of the room and the fact that the guys father named one of his dogs after his resteraunt.

5. He gets three guys; A butcher, A baker and a candlestick maker. He sits them down in a room full of furniture for a kids room. He tells them a little story and then shows them to a second room.

They have 15 minutes to choose furniture from the first room and arrange it in the second, they can take as much and whichever furniture they like and there's only two conditions.

i) they must leave an object where they first put it, no maving things around after
ii) There's two items already in the second room, these must not be touched - the first a covered box of some kind, the second apirate chest.

The guys arrange the furniture in the room and Derren returns. He leads them to the chest and opens it, inside are loads of toys, he asks them to choose one each. They do.

He then leads them to the covered box, which turns wout to be a dolls house. Inside is a room laid out pretty much exactly as these guys have done it. There are only one or two pieces different, but the majority are spot on.

Also in the dolls house are three dolls dressed like the three guys, each of the dolls is holding a miniature toy, and each one matches the toy the corresponding guy picked from the chest.

FInally we return to the hospital corridor to see the person wake up - it's logged as two minutes after they fell asleep.

wAkE_uP_nEo wrote:

haha, that's some funny shit guys! but back to your question for real Crossfade.. i'm sure there must be some vocal technique, rather than just concentrating on specifically what he says.. i did some "research" into some of Derren's techniques before, just for the fun of it and i found out things like.. you can actually put someone into a certain degree of hypnotic trance by just shaking their hand a certain way.. crazy isn't it? you wouldn't think it'd be that easy to affect someone, but apparently so. i don't claim to know how he does the phone box trick, but when he says a combination of confusion and hypnosis techniques, its probably something akin to a vocal equivalent of the handshake technique.

Your probably right wAkE_uP_nEo, also maybe the tone of his voice is a factor? I have read about certain tones that are very relaxing and can bring on an almost daydream like state, these tones can be produced by the mouth quite easily. I guess as you say he's found the perfect ballance of what to say and how to say it

marl64 wrote:

3. After a little chat he gives an Undertaker a stack of photos of people (about 30) and asks him to sort them into two piles, one pile for the ones he feels some kind of connection with, another for those he doesn't. He tells him to do this without thinking about it - just go on instinct. The guy does this in a seemingly arbitrary way, and when he's done, Derren reveals that all the ones in the "has a connection" pile were still alive, the ones in the other pile were Dead.

The look on the undertakers face was the best i've seen in all the shows....you could see the disbelief and then the "is there something wrong with me?" look creeping over his face. Awsome.

Ok, it's Friday night again, so in the words of the Oracle.

"You know what I'm going to say..."

It's on after Big Loser...er...sorry Big Brother

CrossFade wrote:

It's on after Big Loser...er...sorry Big Brother

Yeah, now that really is "Scum TV".

I kinda hope that Big Brother and The Matrix don't share much of a common audience, they're totally at opposite ends of the scale.

Anyway, enough of that. Weekly Derren Brown Roundup;

For 28 May 2004

1. Phone booth gag - it's on every week now so no need to go into it.
2. Fingers

Derren pulls a woman up on the street and gets them to hold up their hands - fingers spread - he puts his hand in from of hers, palm to palm, fingers touching.

He tells her to think of one of their fingers but not to do anything to give away which one. He then goes on to correctly guess the finger several times.

Finally he holds up a number of fingers behind his back and gets her to guess how many - she gets it right.

3. Clinical Psychologist

"So what I do is a genuine mixture of psychological technique as well as all the chicanery and showmanship of the magician. But it was enormously tempting to see what a clinical psychologist would make of it".

Derren waffles on for a bit and then gets the head doctor to lie on a couch . Relating to the common psychological test of "word association" he tells the doc that they're going to do word disociation - ie the word he gives in response should be a word which does not connect with the prompt word.

Derren then (out of sight of the doctor) writes down a word - shows us it and says the prompt word, the doctor then responds. The words are (in the order PROMPT, WRITTEN PREDICTION, REPONSE) as follows;

SUIT - ORANGE - APPLE
PICTURE - TRASH - VOICE (I think, he does mumble it a bit)
EATING - WATERSKI - WATERSKIING
TIE - SCHOOL - SCHOOL

Finally, Derren says "This time I won't give you a word, when I say now, just wait three seconds and say any word you like".

He Rights down "Buffalo" says now and sure enough three seconds later the guy says "Buffalo".

The Psychologists conclusion:

"I don't know how he pulled out my responses like that, but erm, he's very good a reading.. Me... and people in general I think, and very good at manipulating the next thought."

4. Controlling people

Derren pulls some woman off the street and takes here to an upstairs room overlooking a street. He gets here to stand a certain distance from a window, he stands between her and the window then he chats for a bit to get her to relax.

Next he gets her to press the palm of her right hand against the palm of his left hand, he puts his right hand on her left shoulder then he starts the whammy. Now I'm gonna write it as I hear it, and some of the words don't sound right, so I'll italicise them so you know it's not a type.
(he says all this quite fast with no pauses).

(please try not to get hypnotised reading it )

"I know this is all a bit dodd but it's interesting as you just look at me now, just thinking about looking out that window, you see now its upto the end of err November, there's only 29 stopping days left 'till Christmas and just looking out there and just seeing all those people and just when you're do this and you're doing the Christmas stopping and you're trying to get all the gifts together and gifts for kids and gifts for the stocking fillers and the stopping fillers and the er, the Christmas tree and things to put on the tree, all of that, just the sort of strange trance state that it just starts to put you in as you start to walk around, and just trying to get all that done and just how in the back of your mind how you just want to put the brakes on and that's a really interesting thing , how that trance state can just start to set in now, it's a very interesting thing and that's what we're going to look at today, thank you ever so much"

(he covers the entire lot above in 34 seconds, could you?)

He then gets here to walk across the room and stop whenever she wants - behing her back he holds an open hand and when he closes it she stops.

He does it again, but tells her not to stop, she walks across the room and he closes his hand and she stops - unable to move.

It's kinda visual so I won't dwell on it.

Next he takes here to a window (overlooking the street) and tells her to pick a person in the street and when she wants them to stop, she's to say "3, 2, 1, stop", she has to say it out loud and absolutely beleive that she can make them stop.

She tries it on one girl but nothing happens. She tries it on a second - a girl with a distinctive red stripy hat walking away from here and this time the girl stops dead in her tracks.

Derrens says "get her to turn 'round, say 'Turn 'Round'" - the girl turns and looks straight up at her. The Woman shit's herself (not literally) and ducks out of site.

A Camera crew rushes up to the girl to ask her why she stopped "I just felt I had fogotten something".

Tempted as I am to debunk this one, I'm only reporting this so I'll continue.

End of Part one - No really this is where the commercials come. The best stuff happened after the break.

B.T.W. at several points in the show, for no apparant reason, we are subjected to a pseudo-subliminal picture of a squiggle on a red background. This squiggle appears later in the show.

But this post is big enough. I need a break and to dehypnotise myself

I dont know why but the girl who stoped in the street seemed fake, there was NO suprise on her face when a camera crew apeared out of nowhere and they ask her "you just stoped then...why?" why didnt she say something like "how the hell did you know that? what is all this about?"

The word 'stooge' kept popping into my head.