Derren Brown: The Events

Lol - well done deved! I like that one. You've changed the image that it links to... Very clever and I am officially impressed. (Unlike how I feel about Derren's prediction!!) I had noticed the different font and should have seen that it's an image so am a little bit disappointed with myself....

The main shot used throughout (after initial set-ups) didn't look handheld - it looked like a locked off camera DVE-ed to look a bit wobbly. The shot zoomed in and out a bit and XY panned a bit - but the camera didn't ever move from the spot - in contrast with the shots before the second wide shot. There is no actual movement of the camera itself - and no parallax as a result. It just looks wrong.

Plus Derren stayed stuck to his mark once he'd been behind the balls once.

If it was done using some TV techniques :

1. Lock off camera on ped (poss remote head). Record static shot including balls for a couple of minutes (it has to be moving - a freeze would be obvious).
2. Programme DVE to do twitchy zooms and flat pans.
3. Cut to full frame live lock off via DVE twitching after 2nd wide shot (note how different hand held looks before and after that wide shot - and how there is no dialogue over the cut, which is cut on the hands dropping - so wide shots, or the whole top of show could be pre-recorded, or the wide shot could be masked to hide ped?).
4. Let Derren walk behind balls live.
5. Once Derren has walked behind balls, wipe/mask/key in pre-recorded lock off shot on the left of frame - soft edge wipe - with both static live and static recording fed via twitchy DVE so they twitch in-sync.
6. Let people walk behind mask and put balls in quickly - note how long there is to get them in the right order.
7. Once all balls are in - remove wipe/mask/key - then let Derren move around.
8. Note how Derren's camera still doesn't look handheld...

Or I've got it completely wrong!

Anyway, anbody wanting to see the rising ball. I've tried to zoom in a bit but look very closely when Derren says "23":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72F_0wOtFLQ

That's spot on how I think he did it, but I really hope there's a lot more to it than that.

Although if it was done like that it's something they would have rehearsed and developed and gone through again and again until it was spot on, and it was a great bit of telly

Well I thought it was terrific and have absolutely no idea how he did it, look forward to finding out though.

Don't buy this split-screen theory at all...can you really see him on Friday night explaining to millions how to work a DVE and locked-off camera? There's clearly some other, more impressive way using misdirection or some other fancy techniques. I hope so anyway as that would make an extremely dull show if it is all camera tricks...

I'd love to be proved wrong - but there is something odd about the way the main camera moves. Of course that itself could be misdirection for us telly types if he's got another way of doing it...

The camera "movement" was what struck me about the whole thing too. That and the cut to the camera at the back of the studio didn't look to be live, but VT.

I agree, Noggins summary isn't just for the "tv types" the main camera is clearly on a ped or legs, look at the zoom into the numbers at the end, for an operator to be that steady (with bizarre wobble) is hard to achieve. Even if it isn't a locked off/camera trickery shot, there is defiantly something in the wobble it was just that bit too obvious and forced. No camera op would purposely have itchy fingers on the zoom or wobble quite a randomly as it did, either it's a DVE wobble added over a mask or it serving some other purpose.

As has been said he won't sell it to us that way on Friday it'll be a clever Maths thing. This isn't "behind the magic" he might pretend to tell us how it’s done but he never will.

Although I wonder if crews can be bribed... it's a tricky thing to keep secret if it was faked, regardless of contractual obligations I'd want to blab! No doubt the Sun will get its teeth into this in one way or another tomorrow.

Yep - watching the end the camera is rooted to the spot, and all the shot changing is entirely pan and zoom - when any decent handheld operator would do that much better as a move - and track in for the close-up to reduce the wobble (better to be closer rather than further away) (They'd also not chop off the top of Derren's head for so long)

The opening handheld is all done on the move (the operator is walking around) - so there is a major contrast...

The main camera is fixed and either a remotely operated pan/tilt/zoom head or a fixed mounting locked off.

Or I'm completely wrong - and I have been many times before!

Did you see his special about betting on the horses? That was kind of a similar idea, he 'trained' someone up to predict horse races and she won about 8 in a row. However he revealed how it was done:


and I reckon that's what will happen on Friday:

Is it worth mentioning that after Derren says '23,' as the infamous ball rises, the camera near-enough locks, and there's little sign of any shakiness. As for Derren being "dead still", no. Look carefully.

Despite these theories, we have to remember that Derren promises to show how we can do it too . Not everybody has camera equipment, a warehouse and advanced knowledge and experience of vision mixing. I still think the camera theory is a decoy and it'll be something far more complex.

Of course he didn't know the lottery numbers.

This is a man who, for 38 years of his life, has been unable to spell his first name correctly, or use a razor without ending in a result that makes him look like a knob head.