BLOG OF AN ESCAMOTEUR

When first watching Derren Brown predicting the UK lottery I too was totally stunned. For anybody who has not seen it yet here is the YouTube clip:

Then on a second thought: I was just TOO clean. And after a short discussion with some friends it was clear that the only possible solution was that he used video trickery to make the manipulation of the balls possible while retaining the impression that you could see the balls throughout the show.

To be honest, I felt cheated, because I did not expect him to use such a method. Sure David Copperfield new how to use camera viewing angles to his benefit, but to use video trickery like split screen technology is another dimension.

Sure, one could argue it’s the show that counts, but here the challenge was just to much. He entered the deadly field of Rick Johnson’s Too-perfect Theory.

If you haven’t heard about it here is it in short:

If a trick is too perfect which means to close to real magic, too impossible and  the conditions are too hard, the audience is left only with one solution, the right one OR to settles on a wrong method that satisfies there needs e.g. §he must have used a stooge”. In both cases the impact of the PERFECT trick is immediately destroyed.

There are many that disdain the theory but I have seen several examples even in my own work where it’s true. For my understanding the core problem is that the often read statement “It’s fun to be fooled” isn’t true at all. You should not give your audience the feeling that you fooled them. If you set the conditions to high you tell them at the same time: “Hey look how clever I am”. Something nobody likes.

Back to Derren Brown: As said the trick was just too clean and the conditions set by the procedure of a lottery draw were extremely tight. Because of that the challenge for any intelligent audience was quite clear and it was not very difficult to guess the only possible solution although they tried to conceal the split screen with the hand camera like movement that threw me off track in the beginning too. You can find here a very good explanation how it was done.

Sure a lot of people argue that it was a great show and a lesson how to get media coverage but after all it did not leave a lasting impression on me after realizing how it was done. I doubt if the second of totally fooling is it worth, if your audience is left with a bad taste soon afterwards.

Even after knowing or at least being very sure how he did it, everyone was longing for his explanation on the following friday. And surprise surprise: Derren came up with a sound listening pseudo scientific explanation how he did it, no word about and cheap video trickery. But it was a real good show and I enjoyed it watching. Actually I liked some of the tricks more than the lotto stunt. The presentation with the mouse in the box was a nice take on the nail under cup theme. The one with the knife under the 20 cups actually really fooled me and I still have no explanation for it. Derren’s explanation of having fear stimulating certain choices was somehow undermined by the motivation of getting 500.000Pound. Great theater, but also in danger of leaving the audience only with one possible solution that a stooge was used.

The explanation of the lottery trick with the concept of  The Wisdom of Crowds was totally bullshit. Wisdom of Crowds is a real phenomena, but it’s not applicable on randomness. Randomness has no memory although people at the roulette table often don’t accept this when they bet that after four times red the next time it must be black which is not true at all. It’s completely impossible to see sequences or patterns in random numbers,because that is exactly  what randomness is per definition.

Jamy Ian Swiss made an important point in his, sadly no out of print, book Shattering Illusions in his essay Mentalism Grows Up about the danger of trying to make the impression of being a real psychic or to stay vague. He argues that the moment you do this and don’t make a clear statement that anything you are doing is just tricks and theater you will loose at least half of your audience that is smart enough to know that there is no such think like mind reading. You would insult there intelligence and therefore loose their respect.

I totally agree with him on this and I have the feeling that the same is true for using pseudo scientific explanations that are too far way out or that are definitely scientifically wrong. It’s not as harmful as saying you are real,I think, as you don’t claim to be something better than them but still it does insult the intelligence of an intelligent audience. If Deren wouldn’t be such a nice and charming person he surely would not have done himself big benefit with this stunt. Because he is Derren Brown and because he made such a good show presenting his false explanation and stating at least that if he was asked how he did it, he would say “It’s just a trick” I think he circumnavigated the danger of loosing the intelligent part of his audience that so for sure enjoyed how clever Derren presented this scientific nonsense.

Did he do Magic anything good with it? I really don’t know! But I see a danger to our art if people will attribute our wonders to video effects instead to skillful performers.

If you want to see another very popular example of falling into the Too Perfect Theory Trap have a look at Kevin James sawing illusion:

Also I recommend reading Jamy Ian Swiss essay The Too-perfec Theory in Action als in his book Shattering Illusions

Related posts:

1. On trick Exposure