Budding entrepreneur Derren Brown takes his lottery prediction method to the Dragons’ Den. How will the dragons respond to such an unusual pitch?
Magic Tricks Blog
Budding entrepreneur Derren Brown takes his lottery prediction method to the Dragons’ Den. How will the dragons respond to such an unusual pitch?
I remember seeing the first ever Derren Brown: Mind Control special back in 2001 and being totally taken in by his explanations about what he was doing. And I think that it was the believability of his act that made Derren Brown so famous. The magic, as he put it, played to people’s intelligence and was attempting, rather than to hide the secrets to instead just make them believable and interesting. Given that we British are a generally cynical bunch, this brand of pseudoscientific magic was a breath of fresh air after a period of magic being thought of as cheesy.
The first three specials were must-see TV: compelling, interesting and addictive. A cult following was inevitable.
As a magician and somebody who knew what was going on 90% of the time, I was always interested to hear what other people had to say about Derren Brown. I would always listen in to conversations in the queue outside the theatre before a live show and it was as clear as day: the psychological aspect of the show was what made it so popular. People believed.
This credibility was first put under threat after a one off special called The Heist, which was in my opinion neither entertaining nor exciting. It also seemed to stretch the premise of what Derren claims he does, to something quite unrealistic.
Then a couple of weeks ago there was the lottery stunt. The stunt itself was good and had it been left well alone, I think it would have been fine. People knew it must be a trick. They would think that, and it would end there. But proposing to explain how he did it? Could he possibly tell the mundane truth? Not our Derren. The explanation, as usual, would be some seemingly complex method fusing magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship…oh, and “deep maths” (whatever that is).
Last night, in the shortest Derren Brown show ever – just 10 minutes – Britain’s favourite illusionist apparently predicted all the lottery numbers correctly.
Since I’d heard that this was going to happen only earlier in the day I already had several theories on how it would be achieved and presented, starting with my prediction that Derren would get at least one number wrong. It turns out I was wrong and he actually got them all correct.
For anybody who didn’t see it last night, here’s the video clip…
That ten minute spectacle seems to have caused quite a stir this morning as Derren Brown becomes the most searched for term on Yahoo and the show from last night spawns a 39 page forum thread on DigitalSpy.
So how was it done?
Well, the short answer is, “I don’t know exactly” but a more speculative answer follows.
Obviously Derren is no more in a position to predict lottery numbers than you are I. If he could really predict lottery numbers prior to the draw, then why did he not buy a ticket? He could have won the jackpot and got even more publicity because really, winning the jackpot would have proved that he had indeed predicted the numbers prior to the draw. In this case, we know he didn’t and in order to create the illusion of predicting the numbers, all he actually had to do was make sure that when he revealed his prediction, it had the right numbers in the right places. Which simply (or not so simply) means getting the numbers onto the balls after they were called out.
On Friday, Derren claims he will reveal all and explain exactly how he did it but some people just can’t wait. The 10 minutes of footage from Wednesday night have been watched and rewatched, slowed down and seriously scrutinized producing as many theories and proposed explanations in one night as there have been in the 40 years since the Kennedy assassination.
The proposals range from time delays between the actual draw and the time when it is aired, to camera tricks and everything in between.
It seems some have turned to Derren’s blog for clues as to how it was done and have for some reason fixated on pictures demonstrating forced perspective although I myself fail to see how this would help.
The most interesting thing I’ve seen regarding the method so far is footage of the prediction balls where one of the balls appears to move during the performance as if it is being tampered with. I had previously featured the footage in the image but it has since been deleted from the internet so I have had to remove it. But that is the most likely piece of evidence so far to hold the secret to how this stunt was actually pulled off.
All we can do now is wait until the official explanation is given on Friday. But I don’t think I’m the only one who is already doubting that it will be an accurate explanation!
Well done Derren! You’ve got us all guessing!
