Derren Brown predicted the UK lottery tonight live, 10 minutes before the machines picked the numbers. Here is his amazing feat:
You can tell how excited he is — usually he doesn’t talk so fast and ramble like that. Or at least that’s how he wants to appear… this is Derren, and he excels in showmanship.
Here’s the original ad:
On Friday he’ll explain how pulled this off. Usually I’d think something like this was done with a camera trick, but I’m expecting more from Derren. If he would have shown the numbers before they were picked, I’d have been more impressed.
Of course it’s some kind of trick, that’s what he does. But even knowing that, he always amazes me.
How do you think he did it?
(BTW if you haven’t read Derren’s Trick of the Mind, you’re missing a treat!)
I need more information.
Are those the accurate lotto picks? The national lotto website doesn’t list a draw for wednesday night yet.
Was it “live”? He did say you could flip around, but perhaps channel four was using some of its multiple channels to run a spoof feed of the lotto calls.
The most obvious idea is that the BBC lottery calls aren’t aired live.
Great stunt!
The balls could also contain some electronics to burn the numbers remotely, some combination of heat and chemicals.
I just sent an email to James Randi asking for his explanation. Will post his response if it is received.
I don’t think one magician would reveal another magician’s secrets, unless the other was victimizing people by pretending to have real psychic powers or some such.
right you are reginald…
here is his reply:
I don’t discuss magician’s techniques…
James Randi.
sweet!
He did not predict the lottery numbers. He waited until after the numbers were drawn and we had all seen them before telling us his ‘prediction’. What’s all the fuss about? Any idiot can do that.
neal,
a simple “i don’t know how he did it either” would have been sufficient
So explain it.
Of course he didn’t predict the numbers – the question is how he got the correct numbers onto the balls after the numbers were announced on TV without touching them. Since you haven’t told us, I assume you don’t know either.
Are you asuming that Neal is an idiot? Of course he can explain it.
So neal tell us. LOL
Explain it? I’ll do better than that. I’ll predict the numbers for the next lotto draw. I’ve written down six numbers. The next draw is Saturday. On Sunday I’ll show you what I’ve written down. You’ll be amazed.
As you said…”Any idiot can do that.”
So you don’t know?
It’s so obvious how he did it. Watch it again, can’t you see? He’s got a relationship with an invisible ‘magic man’ who knows the end from the beginning, and who, in order to prove that he knows the end from the beginning, spoke to (and through) Derren, telling him the numbers in advance. Duh. If anyone says they don’t see it that way, I say it’s because they simply choose not to. The truth is in plain sight for anyone with eyes to see. Also (as if that wasn’t enough) if you really need something a little more concrete, I promise- Darren will reveal everything to you… after you die (or on Friday, whichever comes first).
Seems trivially simple to me. He watched the lottery, then remotely displayed those numbers on the balls. Sure he COULD have had a more complex mechanism than that, but why would he need to?
Obviously he could not predict the lottery numbers, and it seems unlikely that the BBC would claim to show the lottery drawing live, but actually delay it by several minutes (which would be necessary for him to choose the balls before they were put on stage), and not only that, but provide for some other means to view the actual live feed.
So it follows that he had to manipulate the balls after the lotto drawing was aired. He couldn’t have written on them or input them all directly at the source, because his hands did not spend enough time near them. Thus they MUST have been controlled remotely, either by him or anybody else involved in the production. Not a camera trick, per se, but even simpler than that.
I think that Darren remotely prints numbers on the ball with something like an inkjet printer as they become available.
E.Ink with a wireless link.
I think, as the YouTube commenters mentioned, that there is some camera trickery going on, and that perhaps part of this was shot in split-screen (while the lotto numbers were being drawn), with the left side of the screen actually showing a replica room with blank balls.
Then as the numbers came out assistants arranged them on the pedestal in the room Derren was actually standing in. However, on television they would be blocked out by the split screen.
“blank balls”
this made me giggle immaturely
First of all, Neal, that’s hardly what Derren did and you know it. To say that Derren doesn’t have any psychic powers & is using trickery is to state the obvious. The fun is in trying to figure out how he was able to manipulate the balls to contain the accurate lottery numbers WHILE THEY WERE BEING ANNOUNCED LIVE without touching them as we all clearly saw.
I also have to say that I’m quite sure the trick doesn’t involve camera trickery or some fancy electronic controlling of the balls. That’s just not Derren’s style and my limited understanding of mentalism tells me there’s a far simpler way of doing what he did that doesn’t involve specially rigged props. I could be wrong but I’d be highly disappointed if that was the trick. Derren can do better. And in fact, he says he’ll teach the audience how to do it themselves. I doubt everyone can get specially rigged lottery balls. No, it’s far simpler than that.
Also, to learn some great tricks, I highly recommend watching Brian Brushwood’s Scam School videos on YouTube. They’re freakin’ brilliant!
According to the National Lottery website, the wed and sat draws are both made at 8pm – therefore the BBC feed wasn’t live last night and that’s how he did it, surely?! Two and a half hours is a fair amount of time to write the numbers on the balls and wait for the ‘live’ draw?
I think he is amazing and wish more people who believe in psychics etc would listen to him!
Unless an important football game is on at the same time perhaps?
One thing I find odd is the other camera that he shows in the beginning and then never uses during the whole clip. I have no idea of how that could help him but, knowing Derren, I think every detail is part of the trick… What do you think?
Actually… he does use the second camera at the start – that camera shows him and the other camera man walking into the studio. :)
who cares how he did it.i just know i emailed a stephen who put me in touch with a derrin brown auto.pic and thaqts great1hey you dont think he fooled me and had a machine sign it,do you?
My initial idea was the split-screen camera trick too. Trivially easy to pull off.
I’d rule out projected onto the balls numbers, because we can see that he moves the balls when he touches them with his finger, and the numbers moe with them.
So, I’ll stick with the camera trick.
The live/delay idea is a classic trick (remember ‘The Sting’ with Redford and Newman?), but I think too old fashioned and well known for Derren to present in this manner. But I can’t rule it out, if it’s true that he simply didn’t tell the truth about it being broadcast live.
*move
Doing a split screeen, of course he wouldn’t move to the left screen section without giving it away – which he indeed takes care not to do.
At least Derren Brown did something… attract millions of viewers across all 4 channels and triggered curiosity about how he tricked people’s minds…
He is definitely very good at creating illusions… but that is all it is… illusions…
He is familiar with aspects of psychology and had, through the years, mastered some of them… In his presence, most of us will get conditioned and minds will be focused on what he wants us to see or believe…
His ‘trick’, yesterday evening, was not a prediction (prediction = telling in advance) but most probably a post-production trick.
Most of us have been tricked into thinking that he really predicted the outcome of the lottery draw… He conditioned us into thinking that!
Now, how did the right numbers appear on his balls is a matter for him to explain…
Derren Brown declined the invitation to register as a magician with the Circle of Magicians but he should (if not already) register himself with the APA (American Psychology Association) or the BPS (British Psychology Society)… He surely pin pointed the human conditioning mechanisms…
Bravo again!
It’s the same as he did with his “ten heads in a row” trick. He simply filmed that sequence just under 14m times, and faked the video screen.
A less sexy, if in no way less impressive feat.
I do enjoy Derren’s shows, as well as that anticipation that he knowingly creates with them.
Also, 1 year = 525,948 minutes, so not really enough to film a 6 minute segment 14m times over. I think I’m off with my previous post.
All tricks, Derren… and some psychology…
But interesting to notice how much ‘we’ want to believe…
no, I think it’s pretty clear we want not to believe but to know HOW the unbelievable can be made to look believable.
In his book ‘Tricks of the Mind’, Derren Brown writes, “I am often dishonest in my techniques, but always honest about my dishonesty. As I say in each show, ‘I mix magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship’. I happily admit cheating, as it’s all part of the game. I hope some of the fun for the viewer comes from not knowing what’s real and what isn’t. I am an entertainer first and foremost, and I am careful not to cross any moral line that would take me into manipulating people’s real-life decisions or belief systems.”
Voila!
I think Olaf and Roberth have the best ideas here.
My parents are magicians, and I was raised around magic from birth. I haven’t performed myself for years, but I do have a little background in the art of prestidigitation.
A heat-sensitive compound on the ball could in fact be laser-etched from behind, in the same way that a lot of credit-card receipt printers work. Derren would likely have had to invent this system himself, thus the “year of his life” he alluded to.
Why Derren would use, and admit to using, two cameras when only one was needed is also an interesting thing to ponder.
I will say this. No self respecting magician would EVER use something so blatant and heavy-handed as a split-screen camera shot. That’s just not a realistic option in the world of magic. Camera ANGLES may be very carefully arranged, but camera “tricks” like some posters here are suggesting, are “verboten” in the magician community.
I look forward to hearing the secret when it is revealed.
Laser could explain it with a heat sensitive component on the balls.
But I would expect a laser to be going through the balls, and I see nothing. Then again a infra red laser?
A few things wonder me, in the beginning he is behind the balls and then moves in front of them blocking the balls from the camera view.
Als the number 02, why doe it have a 0 in front of it?
Why are the numbers all under an angle of 45 degrees?
Maybe somehing different, maybe the numbers on the balls are all 88, and somehow the segments got connected to some fish wire. So when the numbers gets drawn the fish wire removes the dark segments that is not part of the numbers.One could cut the fish wires that shpuld not be removed and finally when he moves behind the balls, the fishwire still connected could remove the obsolete segments from the numbers.
Also it is live, but are these the real lotto numbers or the lotto number from last week played at the same moment as the new numbers gets drawn.
You may be on to something, Olaf.
It is going to be something stupidly simple. ;-)
I think there is no significance to the superfluous zero on the 2. A lot of numbering systems use all double-digits for consistency’s sake. Not sure if the british lottery itself uses that numbering system or not, but other lotteries do.
His right hand is completely hidden through the entire actual draw, and he has an extra “cameraman” who could be doing anything during this time.
Lasers would shine through a standard table tennis ball, but not through a billiard ball or anything similar. I am still going for the laser (quite likely infrared) theory. he could very easily be using a remote with his right hand to enter the numbers as they are read.
If a trick can be done by simply playing a video tape of the lottery, then I’m not impressed at all if he does it another way.
Yes it could be done, but you coould check yourself that he did not do it this way since you could swap to the real channel and see for yourself.
If you check out this video in HD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS8AK3F8_sY&feature=player_embedded
You can see the far left ball on jumps up between 6:06 & 6:07 – the point the do the swap to the new balls :)
Simplessss
It would be more impressive (and profitable) if he had actually bought a lottery ticket with those numbers.
He claims they wouldn’t let him buy a ticket — but not sure how they could stop him from buying one from a store…
My guess he was just saying that for misdirection.
he could say it was for ethical reasons, too, but we should all know better. He can’t “predict” a dang thing, he’s just REALLY good at making it look like he did.
The story they leaked to the tabloids was also that Derren would correctly predict 5 of the balls, making all 6 that little bit more impressive. (cos anyone could do 5 right!)
Master showman, above all else!
Something a creationists that would never do, is explore other possibilities to explain something strange.
The laser is one possibility but there could also be a much simpler low tech explanation.
What if there is a false wall closer to the balls with a split just behind the bills. Then some assistent can put the numbers on the balles using a small long pincet or stick. Maybe the numbers are magnetic.
He is standing in front of the split when he rotates the balls.
Folks on Youtube have worked out a much easier, very plausible solution.
Two words: camera trick.
Anyway, he’s revealing his secret tonight.
Yes but a camera trick is cheating!
Well, he’s given his explanation and it’s bullshit to encourage pseudoscientific thinking. Really disappointing: http://camelswithhammers.com/2009/09/12/how-did-derren-brown-predict-the-lottery/