Derren Brown: Archive
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From: Blue Chip
Date: Mon Jan 13, 2003 12:33am
Subject: Re: [Derren Brown] Re: Photoreading
Hi,
I hope many people take the time to read your excellent writing, Rob.
I completely agree with you, presentation is everything. How does it go...
# Three forces + One reveal = One Trick
# One force + Three reveals = Three Tricks
...a note-worthy imbalance!
Beyond anything else, DB has come up with new reveals - and they are a work
of art.
I think the other thing we don't consider too much here, is that although
these effects may be PERFECTLY REAL - that does not mean that DB achieves
them this way. Ie. Photoreading - very real, but can DB reeaallly do it?
You are right, there is surprisingly little on "magic" here. More interest
is being paid in the presentation techniques - which I hope will make DB
proud of his inspirational approach.
I think I'm just agreeing with you verbosely (like I know any other way to
communicate - lol.)
To put the "pretend" reference to bed - NO, he does not _say_ the word
'pretend', but YES the explanation IS in the middle of 'how to make tricks
=look= mental'. But as ever, the B*st'd does it right after his "mental
forces" - LOL - So... again, having seen what is TRUE mentalism (card
forces, invisible deals - I do -hope- he shared with Peter WHY he chose the
FOUR). He then discusses how to make 'tricks' look the same.
I quite like:
DB: "...so if this card is the <x> of <y> - THAT WOULD BE FREAKY, wouldn't
it!" <no pause at all> "well it is!"
Man: "WOOOWWW THAT'S REALLY FREAKY"
DB: soto voce, "I know, I just told you it was!"
Shit! back onto nlp again, sorry.
The end (quickly)
At 07:24 10/01/03 -0800, you wrote:
>Sorry if it sounded stroppy. The 'fine, I'm sure...'
>was supposed to be sarcastic. It was a bad morning...
>
>I think in the context of what he's talking about in
>the video, (and I'm quoting from memory again..), he
>seems to be talking about putting mentalism into an
>understandable context. This is again the theme for
>his second book, that is, putting magic (as a broad
>umbrella term for mentalism ,card effects, etc) into a
>context that isn't patronising to the spectator.
>
>I realise this isn't a magic board (which surprised me
>at first I must confess), but bear with me a second.
>
>A lot of magicians present their effects as if they
>have some form of supernatural power. For example, the
>coin vanishes due to my amazing supernatural powers.
>Now any intelligent spectator knows that this is not
>the case, that actually there is some sleight of hand
>going on; in other words, that its a trick.
>
>Mentalism suffers from the same problem. In general
>mentalism demonstrations, there is nothing magical
>happening. For example, imagine that mentalism was a
>real skill, a genuine ability latent within us all.
>There would then be nothing magical about mindreading;
>it would just be the demonstration of an innate
>natural skill. Yeah, you can read my mind. So what?
>
>So take the normal demonstration of a book test. A
>person picks a book, that person picks a page and a
>line, concentrates on a word, and the performer,
>(after holding his hand to his head and closing his
>eyes), announces the word. So far, so tedious. After
>all, this man supposedly can read minds, so whats so
>good about that? Why did the spectator have to use a
>book to choose a word, why not just think of a word?
>It doesn't really make any sense in the real world,
>and spectators have difficulty relating to it. THey
>don't believe in the mindreaders supposed ability,
>there must be a trick to it. To a reasonably
>intelligent audience member, its insulting to their
>intelligence.
>
>Now if you were to take that effect and give to the
>audience a way in which they can see it might be done,
>a genuinely skillful way, then the effect changes.
>You're demonstrating a particular skill in
>photoreading, a particular skill which has no doubt
>either taken you years to develop or you were born
>with an amazing memory. The method could be exactly
>the same, and yet the audience can see, or at least
>think they can see, the process. The effect the
>changes completely in their eyes.
>
>The same applies to the lifting effect, the
>advertising execs effect, the gamblers effect in
>MC1,etc. All traditional 'magic' effects, but
>presented in a way in which the audience believes that
>they can see what is happening; making the magic more
>'real' in the audiences eyes.
>
>Another example to make my point a bit more: say I do
>a card effect where I deal myself 4 aces, or whatever.
>I could present that as the magical transformation of
>the cards into whatever I wanted them to be, however
>that would never be believable to anyone with an ounce
>of common sense. I could instead present it as my
>amazing skill with cards, from when I was 3 sitting at
>my fathers knee in the back rooms of gambling dens
>across the world, watching and learning from the
>gamblers and cheats, to the point where I had such
>uncanny skill with cards that I'd been banned from all
>casinos. The same effect, but the second presentation
>has so much more to offer to the audience. They can
>believe my supposed explanation about what I'm doing,
>and it makes the effect more real.
>
>Having re-read through that I realise it was probably
>more suited to a magic discussion board, so apologies
>if it was tedious to anyone. I hope not. As a
>magician, rather than hypnotist, hypnotherapist,
>NLP'er, etc, I look at these effects perhaps slightly
>differently, but I am learning a lot from those of you
>in these fields, and thank you all for that.
>
>Rob
>
>p.s. Now that isn't to say that there are no effects
>in these programmes that aren't genuinely
>psychologically based in method. There definitely are,
>and as you rightly say, he is exceptionally skilled in
>this.
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