Derren Brown Predicts the National Lottery
Well my flatmate and I are sitting astounded (still) that Derren Brown (a famous atheist skeptic & mentalist in the UK) managed to predict the National Lottery balls (all 6 of them). Here is the video:
We flicked between the BBC live reading and the Channel 4 program which Derren was on, and it was near enough in sync (given the small delay of it coming from the BBC and going through Channel 4). How did he do it? He’ll reveal all (apparently) on Friday night!
Please post how he does it! That's really cool.
Oh how I adore Darren Brown! I have got to see the reveal of this one! I have my tiny guesses, but I know they'll be wrong.
He used one camera and processing software that, on the fly, can make the left hand of the screen a static image.
When Derren first left the left of the screen to stand on the right-hand side of the television, the left-hand side was made into a static image, at this time a person came in and, as the lotto results were read out, changed the balls to match.
When Derren had finished writing the lotto results the second person(changing the balls) exited the camera's view and the left-hand side of the picture was changed back to a live image. This say, when Derren walked back over to the balls they were exactly as the lotto results were and appeared as if he had done them prior to walking over to the tv.
Interesting theory, but Derren isn't about camera tricks. You can bet there's a much cooler answer than a static split screen.
I reckon the balls had some photo-sensitive ink and they were exposed using a laser.
Perhaps, he's usually into psychology but is see no way he could deceive the audience with lottery numbers that were officially released buy a 3rd party.
Fergus' idea sounds cool too, but i'm sticking with the split screen for now.
DONT THINK OF A BLACK CAT
Now… the real test…DONT TYPE 'derren brown lottery' into the ebay search bar
This is where you will find my prediction for next wednesdays draw ONE day in advance of the draw.
Wish you the best of luck, oh and you did think about the black cat right?
I did find the "I can't announce the lotto numbers before the BBC" thing a bit suspicious, given that he wasn't announcing them, he was making a prediction (which by definition could be wrong). I mean, is it against the rules to read out 6 numbers on TV before the national lottery…really? Then again, of course he couldn't read them out first; he isn't *really* predicting the lottery at all, it's an illusion.
The problem with the split-screen theory is that the camera is being held by a guy, and is visibly moving. Doing split screen with a moving camera is difficult enough, but broadcasting it LIVE as well??? Course there is the other general problem which is that Derren Brown doesn't do that kind of thing, and he would ruin his career if he announced on Friday night that he'd done it this way; it is far too easy, not to mention disappointing.
I go along with the light sensitive ink theory there are any number of technolgies that could paint the number as seen on a pig pong ball, i mean why didnt Darren just write the numbers on a blackboard or a piece of card ?
Derren is first and foremost a showman; all that matters is the theatrical result of what he is doing. Using clever real-time video trickery is not really any different to "doing it with mirrors". The trick still has all the classic elements of misdirection and showmanship; ask yourself why there are two cameras present…He could have shown us that the room was empty by having the one camera man do a 360 turn; the reason for the second camera is that he needs to cut away from the first camera as he enters the stage to avoid him showing what is really in the room: a third rigidly-fixed high def camera (at a greater distance from the stage but with a similar field-of-view to the steadycam) which is used for the split-screen effect. It is this third camera that we cut back to and that is filming the remainder of the show.
People who say they would be disappointed by a split-screen solution fundamentally misunderstand magic. The solution is almost always mind-numbingly banal.
It is no problem if the camera is NOT being held by a guy…see my post above; I think the whole reason for the second camera that we briefly cut to is to allow a cut back to a THIRD camera which IS rigidly fixed. Applying real-time jitter and zoom effects as well as imperceptable split-screen is easily achievable with a home PC…provided, as you say, the camera is rigidly fixed.
That was definitely the technique used. As many have pointed out on Youtube etc, you can even see that one of the balls was not put into the tray properly and so appears to 'move' as the stactic image is replaced by the live one.
To anyone who doubts this is possible, check this YouTube video, which as TheBertster says shows how easy an effect it is to achieve these days: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqAt2akPHJ8
Face it guys, this was a cheap camera trick, although Derren Brown would never admit it because of course he 'never uses camera tricks'.