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Derren Brown: The Events #4: How to beat a Casino
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Also, the sticking didn't work for me, although I reckon if I really thought myself into it and tried hard, it would have worked. The video was just for atmosphere as far as I can see. The trick is the build up.
It sounded like hypnotism. In fact the whole thing was very similar to the framework for hypnosis he lays out in his book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLQFKIK4Tf8
First he made the viewer open to the idea that it was going to work, through all the adverts over the past week, the videos of previous subjects having strange reactions, and avoiding using the word "hypnotism" at all and instead focusing on this idea of subliminal messages (which he had built up as being effective all through that program).
I reckon everything he says about this working on talented, creative, bright people is to help this as well. Much better than saying it works on suggestible or gullible people.
He gets us into a comfortable, relaxed position with the "safety instructions". Because he's on the TV we're already focusing on the screen and on his voice; no need to say "look into my eyes" or get out a pocketwatch like cartoon hypnotists.
The words he uses before playing the video are laced with presuppositions, like "there'll probably come a point when you'll feel that you're either going to fight it or let it work; when that happens just let yourself go with it..." and, "when you find yourself rigidly stuck, don't panic, just allow yourself to enjoy it, to find it interesting while you try in vain to unstick yourself" as well as the idea that if other people around you aren't affected, this will actually make it work better on you.
At one point he makes us focus on all the parts of our bodies that are touching the chair and on how heavy they are going to feel (including, interestingly, the tops of our legs) and gets us to breathe deeply a couple of times.
The film could just be a means of keeping us relaxed, quiet, and focused on a single point for a minute or so, or it might have some additional effect (like how cartoon hypnotists often use a spinning spiral). Or of course it could actually have some sort of weird subliminal message, but I don't see why he'd need that (I think he even says at the end of the show that no subliminal effects were used).
In his book he actually gives an example of sticking a person's arm to the chair, and it's very similar to what he says after the film:
Then everything he says at the end is much like how he describes bringing someone out of a trance.
Honestly, though, I'm losing a lot of interest in Derren Brown as a performer. He's at his best when he's working the suggestion angle, like the giraffe or the giving money to the homeless. However, I re-watched an old show he did - the one where everyone ended up at Shepherd's Bush Green - and while a lot of the suggestion and forcing people to pick a certain thing was great, the whole 'I've memorised the Greater London A-Z' schtick really put me off, especially when I noticed that he clearly had a speaker up his sleeve with someone telling him all the grid references.
Once that key illusion is broken, it's tough to believe anything he does. I have a hard time believing that he doesn't use stooges at all now, even. The guy who picked the green chair is a perfect example of that.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
But seriously, not one stooge has come forward? I don't believe that is possible.
There seemed to be an attempt to draw the viewer in way before the video and I was quite aware that he would do that. The way that he spoke and the language and "evidence" that he presented felt like he was trying to relax everyone's scepticism and just take everything he was saying as fact.
If he did manage to actually get some people to stick themselves to their chairs then I'd say that this week's was better than last weeks. At least it had some kind of genuine resolution this time and wasn't just an hour of misinformation.
I find it hard to believe that someone would be so taken in by imagery they'd give a bum 85£ or their shoes.
There are professional stooges in the Magic Circle.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
He hypnotised one of my friends at a stage show (the guy didn't know how hypnotism works, so fell for it hook line and sinker). I think he's genuinely quite a good hypnotist. As far as I can tell, the whole thing was basically him trying to hypnotise the viewers while saying all the time it was other stuff. The white flashes were there to get people to think they were being subliminally messed with to make them more susceptible to the suggestion. He tried to disarm various different attempts at struggling with it with manipulative language (if you watch this without wanting to be stuck to your chair, you have failed), and he primed everybody by showing how people "should" react to the footage.
I think he did an amazing job even sticking 50k people, and I don't think he used stooges.
Again, his books are really fascinating on this subject.
No, you're a stooge!
I realise that if you start thinking that it's all completely fake that you can go far too far, but using plants and actors has been a part of magic since its inception. I'm not saying that he can't use suggestion or 'hypnotism' or whatever in a very limited way, but it's the embellishment and showmanship that really sells everything else - part of which will definitely be actors involved in the production. It's just how magic works.
He says it all up front at the start of every show. He's a master of it, and I don't resent him for doing it, but the greatest trick he ever did was convincing people he was more than a simple magician.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
Actually, he always denies using stooges!
Remember trick or treat? Those were specifically prefaced with him noting that, unusually, these contain some actors (such as the ambulance crews). Normally, he says "I'm tricking you lalalallalaa but I'm not using stooges".
Oh, I know of his opinions about hypnotism. But I'm saying that inasmuch as anybody does hypnotism, what he did that episode was it. While he may not believe in the "hypnotic trance", that doesn't mean he doesn't believe in the power of extreme suggestion!
Okay, I haven't been following this before now, so let me just see if I've got this right. Basically, this guy gets on national TV and tells the viewers that they are now stuck in their chairs.
In other words, he just caused half of Britain to stand up out of their chairs at the exact same time.
That's fair enough, you're right. And yeah, extreme suggestion and using outside-the-box manipulation is really his forte - I'm reminded of him doing that greyhound race scam, and then later saying in an interview "Well, the cameras in her face probably helped."
Also; I keep reading your name as surrealitychick, and now you are inescapably linked in my mind with some girl wearing a Dali mustache.
Whereas when I read your name I think of that poor drone drifting through space, desperately trying to synthesise a drive engine out of its organic brain :x
Hah, that was exactly my thought when the programme started yesterday
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
My name is specifically engineered to induce fear and anxiety in Iain M. Banks fans.
The best is basically all of Consider Phlebas, or Look to Windward, depending on what day I'm being asked.
Didn't work with us because we recorded it!
Myself, I've not spoken to anyone who was. *Shrug*
But still, yeah, I'll watch until he jumps the shark completely.
This is a fair point.
I wouldn't call that skeptical, I'd call that normal. That's an accepted view of hypnosis nowadays.
For people knowledgeable on the subject, yes, but it's still a skeptical view, and he explains it quite cleanly and simply for the layman.
And it's not the common understanding of hypnosis in the mainstream.
*Thanks Thanatos!
This pretty much sums up my experiance too.
Just FYI, my cock remains uneaten.
Respect for Derren Brown dropping...
That's like saying "I bet I can make you all lose the power to hop on one foot". He does his thing and everyone hops to check and he says "ha! Got you! I just made you all hop on one foot!"
So? That wasn't the point.
Controlling the nation by making them stand up is no more impressive than controlling the nation by making them sit down and watch the program in the first place. I can't imagine that's going to be the reveal.
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http://www.audioentropy.com/
Honestly, it kinda freaked me out.
But yeah, I don't believe for a second that the video itself contained any power, it was just the final piece needed to sell it.
SoogaGames Blog
http://www.videosift.com/video/Derren-Brown-plays-with-Simon-Peggs-mind
Especially with the show last week to illustrate how people can be made more manipulable by making them afraid. The rest of the show was a buildup to the video and went a long way to setting the gravity of the scene. I genuinely felt tense before the video started, especially when he was talking to the camera right before it began.
Then the phonecalls afterwards.. it seemed a bit off that they were played in the background while showing the messages of advice on how to release yourself from the effects.
Well, no, that is the point. How to control the nation: "Lie about your intentions."