Anyone see the new Derren Brown show last night ?

Saw this show twice in London last year,a lot of the oracle act can be figured out fairly simply,while you're there live...a certain something can be seen going on during the Interval,

also anyone who filled out their info onto one of the envelopes,will have a fairly good idea of what was going on,though it's still technically impressive nonetheless..actually now that I think of it,I'm pretty sure I've just figured out the blindfolded part of the effect too

All in all,this special was incredibly well produced and pretty entertaining,but not quite as good as Something Wicked or some of his other specials.

pH

alan dunne 27 wrote: »

Derren's famous Taxi sequence:

Derren had planted subtle clues for them in their taxi journey. They passed special road signs and posters and such that planted subconscious ideas (I think).

The clip is on youtube, I suggest you watch the "explanation" section closely a couple of times (pay special attention to camera cuts and edits). Did you notice anything?

On the 'Oracle', anyone interested could do worse than reading Christopher Brookmyre's latest novel "Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks", which is fiction but 2 performances of this trick are featured.

zuroph

after second watch, i have it all sussed now.

damn it i love his presentation. the amount of planning he puts into one show makes it a joy for not only lay people but magicians to watch.

DarkJager

I still cannot figure out how the table moved. I know ye said to think about where the wires could be, but the guy that he got up on stage checked over the table and below and there was nothing. Its the first time in ages I'm genuinely baffled by something I've seen...

Red Sleeping Beauty

zuroph wrote: »

after second watch, i have it all sussed now.

damn it i love his presentation. the amount of planning he puts into one show makes it a joy for not only lay people but magicians to watch.

See? You enjoyed it and knowing the secrets or methods didn't spoil it for you.

Stop me if I've gone off topic here but with other pieces of theatre or art where there's methods (that used to be trade secrets) such as theatre productions like plays, flim making and , sorry to mention this but.... wrestling. These artforms had lots of secrets that weren't available to the public and to learn them you had to pay your dues. In the late 60s Colleges started to offer Film Courses, "film schools" essentially, where you went and studied film and you'd learn about the processes and methods etc.
This caused a small revolution throughout American Cinema (Read: EasyRiders RagingBulls by Peter Biskind ).

You could say the same about wrestling, during the 90s with the internet and the transfer of information , fans learned how it was all put together. By 1997 there was a huge change in mainstream Pro Wrestling because the fans that had grown up and smartened up. This then meant that the business changed to accomodate them .


Even though I'm not a magician or training or learning or anything, I still find that learning how the odd trick is done does heigthen my respect. I don't go searching wildly for stuff on the net but I've seen a few youtube videos and I don't think "Oh that's ****, look how fake it is. I know how it's done..." , rather I usually think "Wow, that really did take some amazing skill".

The Penn & Teller bullet catch springs to mind.

Again , sorry if this post was off-topic and a bit of a ramble.

zuroph

nah, i see where you're coming from. but i think your underappreciating how much this has happened in magic also. the info is all there if you want it. I appreciate Derren for the style and the way he puts the tricks together. same reason i despise cris angel. David blaine does very little "magic" these days, because the second he does, its ripped apart by kids online,and the reputation doesnt gain any more respect.
reveals are fine, once the revealer has right to reveal it. its about respecting people who work in magic to let them make some money to stay in the business, and in turn entertain us more.
As you can see, we made an attempt to teach some magic at the top of this forum, and, despite the huge debate that sprung up at the start of the forum about whether reveals should be allowed, there was pretty much no uptake of the opportunity to learn a fantastic piece of magic. simple too.
Seems people want to know how its done without having to do it, but dont realise the consequence of such actions. This is why Derren Brown sells so well, he's tricked lay people into believing that he IS telling them how its done, so they think they're in on it, but still pay to go to his shows etc. If his tricks were common knowledge, he wouldnt have a hope of selling out a tour like that.

Red Sleeping Beauty

I understand. I do commend magicians and mentalists for doing their damdest (is that a word?) to keep the secrets and methods within the community.

I'll keep an eye out for some teaching threads in future

--amadeus--

The Derren Brown book Tricks of the Mind is well worth a read for anyone who has a slightly deeper but not professional interest in what he does. I do a lot of presentations in my job and I use a card trick from it a lot. He also spends a lot of time on memory techniques which I found useful.

Agree with the others though - his presentation is outstanding.