Does Darren Brown cheat ;-)

horgan_p

I'd highly recommend it , I'm going to see it in london next month , but I'll be going to Dublin also.

gorilla_image

Not sure what you mean you say Derren Brown 'cheat's?

DB openly admits that he uses trickery and deception, stating that what he does is not magic.

Imho, the 'cheating' is the whole point.

pH

gorilla_image wrote: »

Not sure what you mean you say Derren Brown 'cheat's?

What about those 2 clips above?

Do you consider the bit (8:05 in Messiah) where he says "Sail through your mind" cheating?

Do you consider the whole Ad men explanation segment cheating?

zuroph

Im not sure what you're saying, how is saying "sail through your mind" cheating?

gorilla_image

zuroph wrote: »

Im not sure what you're saying, how is saying "sail through your mind" cheating?

I'm absolutely certain that he's not sailing through anybody's mind. (because he says that he's not). It's clearly and openly trickery - he even admits it. The only thing here I would consider cheating would be if he were to use actors/stooges. He claims not to.

zuroph

in recent times theres been a few more accusations of stoogery. I havent seen any trick yet that has required it, however, I havent seen the last live show.

enfant terrible

zuroph wrote: »

lol. I'm not sure why. magic is the name we give to our art, its trickery, not spells and incantations, but its still a beautiful art, which brings a lot of joy to people when done well.

It's an illusion, zuroph. A trick is something a whore does for money.

zuroph

to quote Blindboy Boatclub "I'm an artist, but I looove money!"

gorilla_image

It would be dissapointing if there was stoogery. His strike rate isn't 100%, some of his shows have shown him fail. I must say I prefer the trick or treat stuff to the live shows. (I supposed you should actually see it live to get the full benefit)The one where he takes a guy to Morocco unawares in one of my favourites. This guy wakes in a market in Marakesh, and is totally disorientated - the first thing I would need in a situation like that is a HUGE piss - the guy was hypnotised for something like 14 hours! :P.

zuroph

hypnotised people can be brought to the jacks all fine and dandy. you could have him awake eyes open but taking nothing in around him other than the toilet break

The "fails" were deliberate too, it adds gravitas to the effect, makes it look more like he's pulling something really difficult off. notably, the off by one on the roulette wheel.

pH

zuroph wrote: »

Im not sure what you're saying, how is saying "sail through your mind" cheating?

How is it not cheating?

Also, what about the ad-men reveal, same thing - there are many many examples of this in his TV work, these 2 aren't anything special, just ones I found clips of first.

It's an recurring theme of Derren's work, in both cases he reproduces drawings, which to give him his due was most likely done fairly, what he does then to highlight his NLP and "suggestion" banter I feel is cheating. Yes some magicians argue that as long has he does the base trick fairly he can get away with what he likes in his false reveals, still to me it stinks.

horgan_p

Key questions when watching any Magician / Mentalist.

1) Did you enjoy the effect ?
2) Were you fooled by the effect ?


If the answer to the above 2 questions are yes then his job is done.
If you dont know how he did it , does it matter if he used NLP , Hypno , Peeks or if Jesus came down from the cross and gave him the answer ?
No.All that matters is that moment of surprise when he reveals the drawing.
That is the essence of magic.

He is under no obligation to reveal his secrets to you or anyone else. And I'd think less of him if he did.

pH

horgan_p wrote: »

Key questions when watching any Magician / Mentalist.

1) Did you enjoy the effect ?
2) Were you fooled by the effect ?


If the answer to the above 2 questions are yes then his job is done.
If you dont know how he did it , does it matter if he used NLP , Hypno , Peeks or if Jesus came down from the cross and gave him the answer ?
No.All that matters is that moment of surprise when he reveals the drawing.
That is the essence of magic.

He is under no obligation to reveal his secrets to you or anyone else. And I'd think less of him if he did.

Fine, but for some there's more to it, a pride in the skill of the profession, rather than your view that the end justifies the means - which is fair enough, you think that nothing else matters, therefore TV trickery, editing suite tom foolery, even stooges are fair game if they produce a good effect. I disagree, but then we all don't agree on everything do we?

Gillington

What do yous think about the Russian Roulette TV show where apparently he was caught going through customs with nothing but blank bullets?

I dont think he cheats. But he does re-takes until he gets it right.

pH

Gillington wrote: »

What do yous think about the Russian Roulette TV show where apparently he was caught going through customs with nothing but blank bullets?

Which is a bit like saying that David Copperfield was caught going through customs with no anti-gravity boots or magic pixie flying dust.

zuroph

the blank bullets thing was a publicity scam too.

Protip; a blank would kill you from point blank range.

So Ph, you feel him giving false explanations is the "cheating"? But magicians have done this since the start of time, some claimed magic powers, some said it was the magic word that did it, some blamed ghosts, some claimed psychic powers, Derren uses "psychology" as his smokescreen. IMO it was a very clever progression to use NLP as the excuse, he simply replace "psychic" with "pychological" and re-opened magic to a market that had grown cynical and would no longer pay to see a "psychic mind reader". Derren has taken the traditional stage show, and dragged it right into the 21st century by getting around the one reason people stopped attending stage shows.

Sofaspud

Gillington wrote: »

What do yous think about the Russian Roulette TV show where apparently he was caught going through customs with nothing but blank bullets?

And as he proved in the show, if he had shot himself in the head with a blank, he would've been in no danger whatsoever!

(other than a hole in the side of his head and permanent hearing damage, that is)

pH

zuroph wrote: »

So Ph, you feel him giving false explanations is the "cheating"? But magicians have done this since the start of time, some claimed magic powers, some said it was the magic word that did it, some blamed ghosts, some claimed psychic powers, Derren uses "psychology" as his smokescreen

No, I don't consider his false explanations as cheating (although others do), not sure what gave you that idea. As I said, I have a problem with "Sail through your mind" at 8:05 in messiah, and pretty much all of the ad men taxi ride reveal(as I said earlier there are many more examples of this these are two that I found clips of first).

My problem is not they are there, it's how he got them there.

zuroph

I think I see what your saying Ph? the post-editing done? TBH it doesnt bother me greatly, its still a false explanation, and packaged into a nice tv show. at the start he says he uses misdirection, I believe that includes false explanations, remember, the trick isnt only being played on the person on the show, but on the people at home.

pH

zuroph wrote: »

I think I see what your saying Ph? the post-editing done?

I think it's a really fine line, and I feel Derren crosses it too often.

In his defence, people (presumably yourself included) argue that as long as he does the trick itself fairly, then he's allowed "cheat" with the explanations.

I'm not that sure, to me when I watch the ad-men trick, I'm watching 2 illusions, the first where he reproduces their drawing, the second where he "shows" us how it's done.

Now we'll all agree, it's the second part where Derren's magic and attraction is, there are no magicians on TV doing standard "Draw a picture and I'll reproduce it" stuff, because no one is commissioning them for TV these days.

But the second part is impressive, before these men arrive at the building, their taxi ride is filmed and passes key objects/images that they're about to use in their poster. However, it never happened, it's another illusion, only this time it's cheap TV editing, interspersing their taxi ride with other images filmed later, to give viewers the impression, the illusion even that this really happened.

Whatever way you look at it, it didn't really happen, it's an illusion, it's on a TV magic show, and it's an illusion produced solely in the TV editing suite.

The same applies to the small example from Messiah, which isn't really a magic show, and should be clean, except even here we have overdubbed nonsense added later.

WastedSpace

Yes, I think he does. And sometimes he doesn't even convince me.

I really don't like Derren and his horse racing "system" was the biggest waste of an hour I've ever sat through.

NegativeCreep

Oh I should hope he cheats, otherwise it would be scary. He's incredibly entertaining anyway.

Nervous Wreck

Saw Derren Brown last year in GCT and he certainly cheated then. At the start of the show, everyone wrote down 3 things that came to mind and put them in a bag on stage (that was in full view of the audience the whole time). Then, part way through the show, he picked someone from the front row to pick a random piece of paper from the bag and, through conversation with this volunteer etc, Derren guessed what the three things on the piece of paper were. My friends went to the show the following night. The same three items, complete with the same jokes along the course of the conversation and the same 'hesitations' when guessing occurred both nights. Was really disappointing tbh. The show was great at the time though and some of the tricks along the way were great so I had fun. Conversely though, there were also some 'Derren contacts the dead' moments which were really annoying, especially considering he doesn't believe that crap himself.

zuroph

that effect doesnt require a stooge at all, its very simply accomplished as a solo magician. HE doesnt claim to read minds, and that is quite an old effect.

Nervous Wreck

What I meant was, the whole trick being just a result of something like a sleight of hand (or whatever) to make the volunteer pick a certain piece of paper (or however it was done) just cheapened the whole illusion, unfortunately. As I said though, the show overall was fantastic!

zuroph

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

What I meant was, the whole trick being just a result of something like a sleight of hand (or whatever) to make the volunteer pick a certain piece of paper (or however it was done) just cheapened the whole illusion, unfortunately. As I said though, the show overall was fantastic!

I've got bad news, that's how most stuff is done...

pH

zuroph wrote: »

I've got bad news, that's how most all his stuff is done...

FYP

Giruilla

I don't like the way Derren edits his tv shows so you can't see a trick being done from start to finish completely. Do people think this is a form of cheating?

tuxy

Good to see some people having some cop on about Derren Brown, he is just a regular magician that adds a bogus explanation to his tricks.

Normally these treads just have people trying to explaining his amazing psychological powers.

BTW I still enjoy watching some of his shows.