Derren Brown successfully predicts all six lotto numbers

[IglooDame]

Did anyone just see that on (British) TV?

He claims it took him a year of his life, but tonight made this perfect prediction, and will explain it all on Friday. He arranged his six balls (ho ho ho) facing away from the camera due to the legal right of the lottery organisers (Camelot) to announce the numbers before anyone else. After they were announced he rotated his stand to display the correct numbers.

Any thoughts on how he did it? Think he didn't actually predict them at all and it's an elaborate hoax?

It's a trick, duh.

They're having a phone in about how it's done on Radio 5. Best guess so far is some kind of laser printing the numbers on the balls.

Derren Brown isn't known for employing technical wizardry in his tricks. They're generally clever uses of misdirection and/or psychology. As an example, he went 4-4-1 (or something like that) against a group of high-end chess players once - the trick was that he was playing each player against another player (in pairs) and drew against the weakest player, not that he was using some sort of computer.

So... there's two ways to do this trick. The first would be knowing in advance what the numbers would be (actual ESP, time-delay - which he said he didn't use, rigging the actual numbers - which would be illegal), the second would be changing the balls in some fast and unknown way after the numbers were actually announced. I think probably the second is more likely. He showed a far-away camera, but didn't cut to it after showing it. Some sort of visual effect preventing viewers from seeing the balls get manipulated, is what I'd guess.

 

[warpus]

Have any of you bothered to consider that this guy is actually psychic?

Have an open mind, sheesh

 

[ParadigmShifter]

He doesn't claim to be a psychic... I saw a programme where he went to America to try and kid people into believing he was a psychic, that was pretty lolsome.

 

[Elrohir]

He probably just switched the balls somehow. I'm kind of curious as to how, but compared to other tricks that I've seen, this doesn't seem all that spectacular.

If he were really psychic (And I know he doesn't really claim to be, but anyway) the way to do it would be to write the winning numbers down, seal them in an envelope, and give them to a trusted public figure - say, the Queen - to be held until the numbers were announced. That way they could be sure that he isn't changing what numbers are there after the announcement.

 

[Munch]

He doesn't claim to be a psychic... I saw a programme where he went to America to try and kid people into believing he was a psychic, that was pretty lolsome.

Can you remember what the programme was called? His appearance on Richard Dawkins' Enemies of Reason was pretty entertaining, too.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

It was Messiah

Messiah
Main article: Messiah (Derren Brown special)

Shown on 7 January 2005, Brown traveled to the United States to try to convince five leading figures that he had powers in their particular field of expertise: Christian evangelism, alien abduction, psychic powers, New Age theories and contacting the dead.

Using a false name each time, he succeeded in convincing four of the five "experts" that he had powers, and they openly endorsed him as a true practitioner. The fifth expert, the Christian evangelist Curt Nordheilm, whilst impressed by Brown's performance, asked to meet him again before giving an endorsement. The concept of the show was to highlight the power of suggestion with regard to beliefs and people's abilities, and failure to question them. Brown made it quite clear with each experiment that if any of the subjects accused him of trickery he would immediately come clean about the whole thing, a rule similar to one of the self-imposed rules of the perpetrators of the Project Alpha hoax. His conclusion was that people tend to hear only things that support their own ideas and ignore contradictory evidence; this is known in psychology as confirmation bias.

 

[Mise]

Spoiler :

The right half of the screen is live, the left half is a picture of the balls on the stand placed in front of the camera (between camera and stand/balls, obscuring the real balls), or perhaps a camera trick that overlays a static image which is sync'd with the live footage and removed. Obviously, behind this (virtual or real) screen are the real balls, which are replaced with the real numbers by an assistant during the half a minute or so that Derren takes to write the numbers in order on the card. The screen is removed and Derren goes over to the real stand, flips it around to reveal the lottery numbers on the balls.

This according to a co-worker.

 

[Truronian]

The ball on the far right (pre-rotation) is jutting up slightly before he turns them, but not when he walks in...

 

[Munch]

Spoiler :

The right half of the screen is live, the left half is a picture of the balls on the stand placed in front of the camera (between camera and stand/balls, obscuring the real balls), or perhaps a camera trick that overlays a static image which is sync'd with the live footage and removed. Obviously, behind this (virtual or real) screen are the real balls, which are replaced with the real numbers by an assistant during the half a minute or so that Derren takes to write the numbers in order on the card. The screen is removed and Derren goes over to the real stand, flips it around to reveal the lottery numbers on the balls.

This according to a co-worker.

Ah, pretty much what I imagined a few posts earlier. Camera trickery and nothing more.

The ball on the far right (pre-rotation) is jutting up slightly before he turns them, but not when he walks in...

I'll have to re-watch the video to check that. Roughly at what time does the jump take place?

 

[oagersnap]

I'm a pretty big Derren Brown fan, and I love when he does his mind control tricks. I believe that most of the time, he's actually not doing any "cheating", but is influencing what people think about in one way or another. (To those of you who don't know him, he's not that much of a "magician" like David Blaine, he usually does things where he can influence people subconsciously to do what he wants.)

Sometimes, however, I'm sure that he cheats a little, and in this case, he of course couldn't really have predicted the lottery numbers. I don't really know about the camera trick thing, it just seems a little too easy to me. There's no doubt that he used some kind of trick - he wouldn't go on TV at 9 tonight and say "I'm a psychic" - but I'm guessing that it's a little more elaborate than just overlaying an image.

 

[Mise]

He'll probably give some elaborate BS about the mind, all the while using his real mind-powers to make us believe it!

 

[Munch]

I don't really know about the camera trick thing, it just seems a little too easy to me.

Yes it's cheap. I would have expected him to do something better than that.

There's no doubt that he used some kind of trick - he wouldn't go on TV at 9 tonight and say "I'm a psychic" - but I'm guessing that it's a little more elaborate than just overlaying an image.

Hope so. A friend last night having not yet seen the video suggested that perhaps he wrote down the numbers and showed them to the camera, distracting the viewer from what was really printed on the balls.

 

[Mise]

I think the simplest solution is probably the right one, in this case...

Although people would prefer to believe a more elaborate solution, so that's probably what he'll tell everyone he did.

 

[Munch]

The ball on the far right (pre-rotation) is jutting up slightly before he turns them, but not when he walks in...

Re-watched it and couldn't see what you meant. One ball is jutting up a bit when they do the close up but if anything, it looks like the same one as when he first entered.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I can't believe he would do a camera trick, he's always been against them.

 

[oagersnap]

Well, we'll see after tonight... The show explaining how he did it will probably be uploaded to YouTube pretty quickly, right?

 

[Munch]

Well, we'll see after tonight... The show explaining how he did it will probably be uploaded to YouTube pretty quickly, right?

Even if not, a textual explanation will be online within seconds. I can't help but think the ratings for the rest of his series will plummet if he uses his one hour slot to say "it was a camera trick".

 

[Truronian]

Re-watched it and couldn't see what you meant. One ball is jutting up a bit when they do the close up but if anything, it looks like the same one as when he first entered.

The jump is at about 5:08. I may just be seeing things though, an elaborate camera trick ball swap seems a bit too Jonathan Creek anyways...

 

[Mise]

Well he couldn't have picked the right numbers before the lottery results were announced. That's about the only fact we really know. For me, ball-swapping shinanegans seems most likely.

 

[Truronian]

What do people think the second camera was for? He only cut to it when it was introduced... Misdirection? Maybe it's supposed to convince us of the implausibility of camera trickery?