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As you might know, these days Uri Geller has a TV show in Israel called "Uri Geller seeks the heir". It is quite a nice mentalism show, but most of the performances are classical effects and at an instant you detect how the effect was achieved. Some of the performances of simple effects were really nice though, for example someone made a whole "life risking" theater out of a simple pulse stopping effect.

After three shows, yesterday I found myself completely baffled for the first time. One of the participants, a very talented Amir Lustig, performed a body movement prediction effect (the performer predicts in advance what body movement will be made), exactly as performed by Derren Brown :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hClJLxsS1TY

At the time, watching DB's show, I thought this effect is a combination of suggestion and muscle reading and is too risky, having a high failure rate. But surely you don't perform such an effect in a show where you have only one effect to perform, and thus, no room for failure. And Lustig managed to do exactly what DB did perfectly (with only a slight hand gesture mismatch at the end).

I must say that for the first time watching this show I am completely dumbfounded. And I'm wondering, is there a book or other form of publication that covers any effect similar to this?

Omid.

Hey I'm also from Israel (Kiriat Mozkin if you know the place), so nice to meet another Israeli magician (?) mate here in the forum.

I am a rather novice to mentalism myself, but I do believe both routines (Amir's one and Derren's one) were based on deferent methods (unless some heavy editing was done on Derren's bit). From looking at Amir's routines I get the feeling it involves in it a kind of "dual reality" method to it (if you noticed how he moved her body parts before each posing) with maybe a hint of suggestion.
I believe the failure in the end was actually not an "intended failure" , because he asked her later what other body movement would she make, and he was wrong in that "rebound" as well , which might suggest the method he used was not a 100% hit one, but one safe enough to be done live.

ODT wrote:But surely you don't perform such an effect in a show where you have only one effect to perform, and thus, no room for failure. And Lustig managed to do exactly what DB did perfectly (with only a slight hand gesture mismatch at the end).

Or, perhaps he had the balls to take the risk - knowing that if it worked he would have a miracle on his hands .

Cardza wrote:Or, perhaps he had the balls to take the risk - knowing that if it worked he would have a miracle on his hands .

This is a mentalism competition for lay people, they think stopping your pulse is life threatening and Russian roulette with a knife is one of the most impressive things done yet.
And also this is a show that is broadcasted LIVE; there is NO place for mistakes, at least not one that could damage the whole routine.
No one would take the risk, at least not in these early stages of the show.

This is a mentalism competition for lay people, they think stopping your pulse is life threatening and Russian roulette with a knife is one of the most impressive things done yet.
And also this is a show that is broadcasted LIVE; there is NO place for mistakes, at least not one that could damage the whole routine.
No one would take the risk, at least not in these early stages of the show.

Exactly. Judging from the reaction of the people I talked to, and reading the comments on forums, the average viewer was not impressed by his performance. To the average person, the others were really reading minds in a display of supernatural power, while Amir was "merely" making some predictions, one of which went a bit wrong at the end...

But understandably Geller himself was impressed by Amir's performance more than others'. Probably because he didn't figure it out either

Here is the link to Amir's page in the show (didn't find a way to post direct link to the video). It is the second video on the list (click on the image of him standing besides the dark haired woman):
http://www.keshet-tv.com/geller/Details.aspx?CanID=3281

I have a hard time believing it is a case of dual reality, as he emphasized again and again that she should choose a free movement (he didn't say something suspecious like "you have a movement in your mind, do it", etc).

Omid.

ODT wrote:
I have a hard time believing it is a case of dual reality, as he emphasized again and again that she should choose a free movement (he didn't say something suspecious like "you have a movement in your mind, do it", etc).

Omid.

You forget that there is a lot of pre-show work done especially because it's a live show (after all no celebrity spectator wants to look like a fool not understanding what the performer wants him to do live on camera), all you need is to implant in the spectator the idea of what he needs to "look for" when selecting the position and you got all the dirty job done out of screen.

I may be horribly wrong, but something in the way he moves her limbs before each posing, every time the limbs that change position later, make me believe this is not only done for "show" purposes.

EDIT:
Now when I re-read what I wrote I think "dual reality" isn't exactly the right term for what I ment, PM if you want my possible explanation.

I think I have an explanation that is more or less consitent with what we see.
My explanation is not likely to be how it was actually done because I think a number of related methods will work. All I will say here is that I think Derren does not use dual reality at the place (i.e. when he performed in the street) but the dual reality is set up between what happened in the street and how it is clipped together and appears on TV. Very nice though.......

You forget that there is a lot of pre-show work done especially because it's a live show (after all no celebrity spectator wants to look like a fool not understanding what the performer wants him to do live on camera), all you need is to implant in the spectator the idea of what he needs to "look for" when selecting the position and you got all the dirty job done out of screen.

I think in such a competition where the public will vote who wins, pre-show work should be disallowed. After all, an average person watching the show sees three people doing what looks like direct mind reading, and an Amir Lustig doing some inferior effect (read the comments on the show's forum; everybody is saying why Amir wasn't kicked out as "he was the worst").

The last participant's effect was 100% based on pre-show work. I ask you to merely think of an object, a sentence, and a song, and I figure them out instantly. What does an average person think of this? He either thinks it is real supernatural powers, or in case he is more skeptical, he thinks all this is prearranged. Both being far from reality.

Anyway, back to the original topic about movement prediction, even though the effects were completely identical, it is possible that Derren and Amir achieved the effect by different means. In Derren's case he had the privilege of recording it first and then possibly making it look different than what it actually was (as pointed out by Soren). Amir, on the other hand, had to do it live, so probably he relied on pre-show work...

ODT wrote:The last participant's effect was 100% based on pre-show work. I ask you to merely think of an object, a sentence, and a song, and I figure them out instantly. What does an average person think of this? He either thinks it is real supernatural powers, or in case he is more skeptical, he thinks all this is prearranged. Both being far from reality.

Perhaps it's time to read the likes of Knepper and Banachek.

Tomo wrote:

ODT wrote:The last participant's effect was 100% based on pre-show work. I ask you to merely think of an object, a sentence, and a song, and I figure them out instantly. What does an average person think of this? He either thinks it is real supernatural powers, or in case he is more skeptical, he thinks all this is prearranged. Both being far from reality.

Perhaps it's time to read the likes of Knepper and Banachek.

You have just one effect to perform, and based on that, the public will vote for you. Will you dare perform something that is not surefire? Kenton's Wonder Words, Banachek's Psychological Subtleties, and Luke Jermay's Building Blocks are great, but you will incorporate them in a larger show, and not a single effect.

Anyway, in the show the sentence she was thinking of was something like "I would like to be given a chance to be an actor on TV". Have a hard time finding something from Kenton or Banachek for that

On the other hand, the effect can be very easily achieved by pre-show work (e.g., see Richard Busch's Peek Performances).

Watching Amir's effect a few more times, now I have little doubt some form of dual reality was involved (otherwise why did he ask her to close her eyes and not talk?!).

Regarding DB's street effect, the second one was surely a case of dual reality (a very elegant one though!).

Some of you might have heard of Nimrod Harel, probably the best Israeli mentalist, who has a TV program of his own very similar to that of Derren Brown. And most of the effects in the program are also taken directly from DB. (some videos here, albeit all in Hebrew:
http://vod.walla.co.il/?w=//858123&i=12).

In his last program I saw him doing something I have absolutely no explanation for (this is the second time it happens to me this week...a sign of senility?!). He went to a random person on the street (or so it looked) and asked her to buy two copies of a newspaper. He took one copy, and she took the other, and he stood back to back with her. Then he instructed her to tear one page out of any place in the newspaper. Before she did so, he tore his page first(!). Then asked her to tear her page in two and get rid of one half. He did the same. This continued on and on until both were left with a very small piece of a page of the newspaper. And both small pieces were identical...

You know, you can go completely crazy trying to work out how something is done. It's best just to enjoy the spectacle.

In his last program I saw him doing something I have absolutely no explanation for (this is the second time it happens to me this week...a sign of senility?!). He went to a random person on the street (or so it looked) and asked her to buy two copies of a newspaper. He took one copy, and she took the other, and he stood back to back with her. Then he instructed her to tear one page out of any place in the newspaper. Before she did so, he tore his page first(!). Then asked her to tear her page in two and get rid of one half. He did the same. This continued on and on until both were left with a very small piece of a page of the newspaper. And both small pieces were identical...

Sounds to me like he is just using a version of the "one ahead" principle? Well, maybe if I see the performance I will be more puzzled....

Anyway, we are not really allowed to discuss the methods here so I will refrain from going into details of my conjecture.....

Sounds to me like he is just using a version of the "one ahead" principle? Well, maybe if I see the performance I will be more puzzled....

That's the only thing that came to my mind as well. If he used that principle though, he did it very elegantly, especially towards the end where the page was torn into small pieces, and all the pieces but one were quickly thrown away.

Anyway, I guess it would be better for me to stop before going completely bananas... My time seems to be best spent fooling physicists and mathematicians in the university

Check out the works of Kenton Knepper,Derren brown,Bruce Bernstein and Docc Hilford to learn more about this principle.