Derren Brown: The Events

Derren Brown: The Events
Title Card
Created by	Derren Brown Andy Nyman Iain Sharkey
Directed by	Simon Dinsell
Presented by	Derren Brown
Composers	Ken Bowlam Nick Foster
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	4
Production
Executive producers	Derren Brown Anthony Owen Andrew O'Connor
Producer	Hannah Dodson
Running time	One hour
Production company	Objective Productions
Original release
Network	Channel 4
Release	9 September 2009

Derren Brown: The Events is a Channel 4 television series featuring the illusionist Derren Brown. Filmed for in front of a live studio audience, this series is made up of four one-hour specials, during which Brown attempts what he has described as "some of the most incredible feats to date". The show consists of a mixture of pre-recorded location pieces connected by theatre-based segments, with each of the four programmes building up to a major stunt performance.

The first trailer broadcast included Brown speaking in reverse but walking forwards with events around him happening forwards. Seemingly cryptic messages were also hidden in the advert such as links to a "Manchester United" website. The advert was later played forwards (although now with Brown moving in reverse), and revealed the premise of the shows. Derren explains that in his new series he will be revealing the "inner workings" of his tricks and "showing you how to get away with it".

The teaser advertisement states that the first episode will broadcast on 11 September, 2009 at 21:00. However, Derren Brown: The Event Live, a 10-minute broadcast, is also noted in television listings, airing on 9 September, 2009 at 22:35, prior to a repeat showing of Brown's earlier special, The Gathering.

Event 1: How to Win The Lottery

The first show, a live event broadcast on 9th September 2009, saw Derren Brown predicting that night's lottery draw. This was conducted by a set of white balls lined up, facing a wall, next to a television displaying a live feed from BBC One as they aired the live draw. After the draw, Brown wrote the results on a piece of card prior to turning the white balls around, facing the camera, to reveal that both the numbers on the balls and the numbers on the card were the same. The winning numbers were: 2, 11, 23, 28, 35 and 39. The bonus was number 15, however, his predictions did not include the bonus ball. If the numbers were chosen at random, there would be a 1 in 13,983,816 chance of predicting all 6 numbers correctly.

On Friday 11th September at 21:00, a show aired, which stated three possibilities for winning the lottery. The first of these was to fake a ticket, which Brown immediately dismissed as illegal and impractical.

The Second Explanation: Genuinely Predicting The Numbers

The second was to simply predict them correctly. Through a series of experiments and attempts at explaining complex psychology while avoiding the underlying maths, Brown provided the conclusion that he may have predicted numbers using a phenomenon known as the Wisdom of Crowds. He revealed 24 volunteers who, after a number of previous sessions, were shown to apparently predict the correct numbers by perusing a board filled with previous lottery numbers and guessing that week's through automatic writing.

This explanation received considerable negative criticism from the press and leading academics with one journalist writing in The Times "Derren Brown turns from most intriguing man on television to the most irritating".

The Third Explanation: Fixing The Lottery

The third and final possibility was to fix the lottery machine. Again, Brown stated that this was illegal; however, while talking through all the steps that he would have had to take, various photographs were displayed in the background that suggested that this could have happened. Nevertheless, he re-iterated that, as such a thing would be illegal, it is something he would never admit to even if he did do it.

Possible explanation

Derren Brown performs this trick without any studio audience. Magicians generally do this when they employ camera trickery. In his opening remarks he mentions it is just him and "two camera men" - yet there is apparently only one continuous shot from one angle. If one looks closely the shot is constantly jerking up and down - yet it is filmed in a studio with a steady camera. This is an artifact of the splicing software used to join the two separate feeds. In this case one feed is trained on Derren who makes sure to stay at the right of the screen and another frozen feed of the row of balls on the left hand side. As the numbers are read out an assistant adds the correct numbers to the balls - unseen as the footage is frozen. After the numbers are called out the live stream is restarted and Derren walks over to reveal the balls. Close examination of the footage shows that the first ball has been misaligned by the assistant so that when the feeds are rejoined it appears to jump several mm above the rest. See also [1]

comparison of the balls

Event 2: How To Control The Nation

On Friday 18th September, the second event will be broadcast. The Guardian published details of the second events. According to The Guardian, Brown will attempt to use subliminal advertising to attempt to "control the nation" by forcing an inability to get up and walk away from the show: "Next week [Brown is] going to induce an inability among viewers to move from the sofa by the use of subliminal messaging".

Event 3: How To Be A Psychic Spy

Inspired by the CIA's top secret Star Gate project, Derren conducts a nationwide experiment in remote viewing.

Event 4: How To Take Down A Casino

Derren attempts to beat the odds at roulette, but there is a twist. Someone in the UK is about to get a big surprise as, live on television, they become the unwitting accomplice in Derren's mission to take down a casino.

External links

• http://derrenbrown.channel4.com/