Derren Brown - the lottery trick

[BeholdTheNewTablecloth]

Hello
So following a quick interview in the Guardian (he has a new netflix coming out) I ended up down a Derren Brown wormhole. I like him a lot and can remember how pissed off I was about the lottery one (he 'guessed' the lottery numbers then 'revealed' the next episode it was done via deep maths/wisdom of crowds bumph).
Like everyone else, I was like That it?

It turns out the twist would have been a prerecord of children on a bus pulling out the correct numbers the previous Christmas (xmas lights weren't up yet at time of broadcast)
I am easily pleased so that would have made me go oooohhhhhhh
how did he do that? (given you cannot film the kids with all the variations even if you started the year before, there are what? 14 million combinations?)
So it would have been a satisfying twist for me Like I said, easily pleased.

Apparently only the studio audience saw that reveal because Camelot would not allow people to think the lottery could actually be fixed. D'Oh! I know that people me are gullible but ruining a show by thinking people would just believe it is ridiculous.

So, two questions (not the prediction bit, that was done by very clever use of split screen)

1. Why did Camelot really feel the need to spoil the fun given that all what would have happened would have peen plebs like me discussing how the prerecord was made?
2. How was the prerecord made?! Did they have kids pull out balls then superimpose the numbers on after (I have not seen the footage so don't know if the kids read them out or not) or did they have a bus go round post lottery and blue screen xmas decorations at the windows (is that doable, need a techie to explain it, like the split screen was)
3. Where is that footage now and why have none of the kids ever come foreward to talk of it? (NDA or it's very very old news )

been not peen obviously

it was an open top bus!
Poor fella, that would have been a cool twist. There were numbers on buses for advertising the show and a snowflake reference on the show.
A tabloid article no longer available and some results have been removed - Camelot are party poopers. If this thread goes poof! then dark forces are at work!

Well I found a blog purporting to be from someone in the audience who has seen the footage but it is private. I then found a copy of it on another blog and the missing footage does indeed sound awesome.
No wonder Derren was disappointed with how that show was received.
I am also well aware that 2009 are calling and asking for their illusion back...

[Derren speaking]

“If I had picked the lottery (which I did not) then I would’ve known ages ago which numbers would’ve come up and then the guesses of the 24 people would’ve been meaningless as I would’ve switched their set of balls for the numbers I knew were going to come up…

[shot of a switch happening on stage background screen]

…i.e. the numbers on the heavier balls that I put into the machine,

Now this next bit is fucking crucial, because it’s at this moment that live in the studio Derren introduced a short film by saying that what we were about to see was shot in November of 2008 on Oxford St. On the stage’s framed background screen they played a sequence of him on the top deck of an open top bus at night with last years Oxford St. Christmas lights going over his head. He walks down the centre aisle of the bus and has six kids (around 4-5 years old) sitting either side of him in banks of 2. He raises each pair of hands to show the balls they are holding, and points the numbers towards the camera. All 6 numbers that came up on Wednesday’s draw. He told us we were seeing an edited version and the full sequence would be shown when it was aired the next day.

In addition, here’s an entry from his blog dated the 27th of November 2008 (had to use Google cache as his blog is currently down) that supports the fact that he was

“Currently in the middle of filming on an open top bus around Oxford st under the Christmas lights (not pictured). Tried something I hope will pay off in a year or so. Could be quite exciting”

It’s also supported by an article on Broadcast Now from the 17th of August this year where they say

“The specials have been in production since last year and included some filming on an open-top bus in Oxford Street in the run-up to Christmas”

In addition, in the teaser trailer before the show he was holding a snowflake which is an obvious reference to the Christmas lights.

A picture of the 6 kids I refer to can be seen on Derren’s blog post dated the 12th of August 2009

In the original The Events trailer there is a bus around 30-31 seconds in with a fake lottery logo saying ‘it will be you!’

...why is he reduced to leaving this video on the cutting room floor and go straight to the words

“…but I would never admit to it, and if I was ever asked I will say ‘It was just a trick’”

Guess I am the only Derren Brown fan here
I am guessing he CGIed his balls on the bus

Unless Derren himself pulled it (sorry Camelot!) because the knowledge of using split screen would definitely give away CGI (could anyone use cgi ten years ago?) and non-disclosures thus giving him away as a sham (not that I care, a trick's a trick but many thought he was above using special effects and stooges).

The lottery one was done with split screen and motion tracking camera movement. A still frame was on the left hand side and a stage hand wrote the numbers on the balls.

Yes I saw the video on youtube by Captain somebody...but why would that prevent the bus footage from being shown?

“For the second explainer show there was supposed to be the ‘not very satisfying’ explanation, maths and so on, and then at the end we had another big twist showing how I fixed the lottery the year before. It showed school kids on a bus going down Oxford Street in the snow, shouting out the numbers. ‘Forty-two!’ But because of all the heat, with Camelot and the BBC, we had to pull that film as it would raise even more questions as to how I did it. It’s a shame but I understand how the audience felt a bit insulted by my fishy explanation.”

I still want to see the footage! and sad

So...you make the Xmas bus video 10 months earlier, use CGI to put numbers on the balls post lottery show Sept 2009 and having filmed the kids shouting nos 1-49 the previous November edit in the correct ones. Would doing a fake video like that be easy enough?

But then got cold feet and pulled it because the non-disclosures might not have held up with the huge amount of paparazzi locating said children and doorstepping the playground???

The bus footage probably wasn't convincing enough to be scrutinized repeatedly so was cut, but looked okay enough to be seen once in the studio.

I have no clue what you are on about! Do you mean he just edited something once he knew the lottery numbers? So no cleverness involved? And you think he was stopped from showing it?

Sorry noeuf will try to explain it better having become obsessed with something from nine years ago ffs

Derren did the lottery prediction trick using a split screen technique

Some said at the time it was a false wall but many decided it was split screen as shown above Because of a ball moving and various guys in production knowing how cameras work and fades etc they all came up with the same conclusion: he used camera tricks live and it wasn't perfectly spliced for those who know about such things - not me obviously.

The cleverness for me is in the technology anyway and having the balls - pardon the pun - to pull it off. Like the Kaiser Sose line about the devil convincing the world he doesn't exist.

But in the 'I will reveal all' follow-up - which was as disappointing for me as the season 1 finale of Lost - it was all cod psychology/maths bobbins with nothing as flash as he usually does at the end of his shows. So, like many, I was disappointed.

It then turns out that according to him he wasn't allowed to play the video he had made of a prediction from the previous Christmas which would have led the viewer to think 'Ooh, he did rig the lottery after all'
(I have to add another Usual Suspects anecdote here: a friend of a friend said at the end of the film that Kevin Spacey was so clever he had even made the mug!!!

Because I like twists I would have lapped it up.
The worst that could have happened would have been that the bus footage was as heavily scrutinized as the trick and that the viewer would have rightly concluded that the video was faked.

But I would not have cared at all because it still takes chutzpah to design a twist a year in advance and start filming it ten months before you use and edit the footage.

If there had not been such an outcry at the potential of the lottery to be rigged at all and you had not had lots of techies and geeks and armchair detectives discussing it then the official ending with the kids on the bus revealing the lottery numbers would have been awesome.
As it is, as captain suggests, it was cut because it would have been shown to be fake within 24 hours as the trick was and then Derren is accused of camera tricks/faking, not once but twice.
He said last year however that he was not allowed to use it rather than he chose not to.

in short
I have no clue what you are on about!
b) Do you mean he just edited something once he knew the lottery numbers?
c) So no cleverness involved?
d) And you think he was stopped from showing it?

a) I get that a lot!
b) the video made next to Oxford Circus Christmas Lights the year before must have been edited to show the children revealing the correct numbers yes - unless you believe in time travel
c) technical cleverness yes and pizazz/showmanship...but hardcore fans would be upset at camera tricks and cgi being used I guess
d) he says he wasn't allowed - no idea if this is true or not, that's why I started the thread sad geek that I am!

Oh I get obsessed with stuff like this , have to 'find out'

Ok so what I think you are saying is that rather than psychology, cold reading, etc which is clever he was using basic blunt tools of trickery that anyone could do?

But he says he wasn't allowed to show it rather than it was a bit crap? Sort of like a conspiracy theory.

Yes.
Prediction itself - camera trick which he always claimed he never used in his tricks which is why some fanboys didn't believe it
Video twist - editing (filming of children shouting out the numbers being edited after the fact as all numbers being shouted out were filmed and the balls having the correct numbers on them by superimposing)

Could anyone do them? Probably. Could they make you believe they had rigged the lottery? Maybe not as well he does have charisma
It IS like a conspiracy theory!!! The video had a certain mythology about it...as to whether bloggers were making it up to counteract the split screen cheating theories/as to whether it was leaked to press to make it look as though Deren was a successful lottery rigger/photos of him in his blog resurfaced (the blog was down following the show).
The twist was alluded to by Deren a few times in the last 9 years but only confirmed by him in an interview last year which I quoted above.
The children will be 13/14 now - I should ask MN was your child filmed multiple times shouting out numbers on a bus?!!!

I can't possibly read or understand all of your posts.

Can you just ask the question in one sentence? You appear to be having a convoluted conversation with yourself.

I've seen a few of his live shows and the main focus is on misdirection, trickery and persuasion.
So, you give people a choice, but prior to that choice, you've been bombarding them with subtle clues about what to choose. Combine that with some insightful (and basic) psychology on how people make decisions, and you can fool most of the people much of the time.
I didn't watch the lottery programme, so can't really comment.

I was monologue-ing until captain and noeuf took pity on me, aye.

Question: Who told Derren Brown to suppress his video reveal?

I don't understand what's interesting about this. I fail to predict the lottery numbers every week and nobody cares about that.

It's only interesting if you are a fan of Derren Brown and did not know of the video's existence. Otherwise I imagine it's boring as fuck. So not sure why you are so bored you needed to comment.

Bit over invested OP or is it Derren?

Totally overinvested. I don't read The Sun so missed this when the tabloid reported on it. Complete wormhole, I admit.

Ill in bed, and it was really only a joke. I'll leave you to continue monologue-ing.

Ah, did not realize it was a punchline. Get better soon.

I like derren brown though never watched the lottery one.

I have however been on stage with him a couple of years ago as I was picked out the audience to go up on stage for one of the tricks. It was totally rigged but the general audience wouldn't have noticed. He is very honest that it's all tricks, there's no such thing as mind reading, mediumship, etc. I do think he's very clever and also good at cold reading, plus people are highly suggestible....is that the right word