Welcome. It's morning for you if you're watching this one and it drops. Good morning. It is evening for us. A long day with three beautiful, screaming children. They don't scream all the time. But sometimes they do. Sometimes they do.  I'm Stephanie. You've also Instagram, Twitter for more juicy content. Thank you to everybody's sports on Patreon. Follow us on official Twitter account, subscribe if you haven't like, blah, blah, blah. Are you done? You're just moving your mic. Don't unplug it. Well, it was like on the blanket and. Anyways, welcome back. And I'm doing another Watch Along with Stephanie. Hi. If you haven't seen our other Watch Alongs, please go watch them along with us. And today we got another romance film. Not Shahrukh Khan, unfortunately.  And it's of the 1999 film that I will never remember. Mind you. Hamdil de Chuk-chuk-i Sanam. Hamdil de Chuk-i Sanam. Which means something of the heart. Because Dil means heart. But it's directed and written and produced by Sanjay Leela Bansali. I believe this is your third Sanjay Leela Bansali film because you've seen Bhaji Rao and you've seen Black. Oh, okay. He directed Black. Oh, okay. Which, no, that Gershnach was a Shwaria, right? Which was that, him? Was Gershnach him? Did I see that? Rithik and Shwaria. Rithik is like, I think Rithik's blind. Do you remember that one? He did, Gershnach. I believe you watch that one with me. He's blind. Dying. I don't think I launched that. I'm pretty sure he did. Regardless, so it's either your second or your third. This is a big Bollywood, big Bollywood film. Okay. Sanjay Leela Bansali and his beautiful vision. Great. A Shwaria Rai, Ajay Devgan, and Salman Khan. Your, no, you've seen. My third Salman Khan. Are you counting his cameo? Yeah, I'm counting it. His cameo, his basketball cameo. Hey, he was crucial for the story. Technically he was, you're correct. And the other one was the little Pakistani girl one. Yes, yes. I always took Bajirajan or something like that. And this is early Salman Khan, so 90's Salman Khan, so he was in a similar role of like a Shah Rukh Khan in terms of. Like romance. Romance, love, all that kind of stuff, which we haven't seen any of that outside of in the 90's, but he wasn't really the romance guy in, it was kuch kuch, it was a kuch kuch. Or was it the other one? No, it was kuch kuch. Regardless, this will be a watch long, so if you're watching this on YouTube, obviously it's gonna be very, very cut up, it's a long movie, and it's gonna be cut up in multiple parts because you can only do about five, 10 minutes of each part, five, 10 minutes of very cut up footage in each part, so if you'd like to see the full uncut version, you can head over to Patreon up the link in the description below and the pinned comment. I feel like you should make a master of this, and just. Just insert it so I don't have to say it every single, like we have to spend like two minutes of me just saying intros and outros before we start the movie. I'm ready for Bollywood, Bollywood, Bollywood, I'm ready for Bollywood, smack me in the face. What?  I don't like to be smacked in the face by anyone. Oh yeah, you do. I get smacked by my children a lot. That's true. They don't mean anything by it, they're just, they're one. Some of them. Banzali productions. Don't mind me, I have tea. Should I spill the tea? Yes. We've reacted to a lot of songs from this, so these would be your first time. Beautiful songs in this movie. Okay. It's supposed to be that quiet. I don't know. Does it sound quiet to you?  Especially boring ones like this. All of these people are important. They deserve to be seen. Oh, any relation to Rick? Probably not. If he talks in Italian, what will we talk to him? No, no, no. This must be Nandini. Watch out, they spit. What are they playing? Epic hair flip. And that was a Shwaya Rai. What a great film. Oh, there's more. Giant Pog. It does, yeah. Oh, baby, you're going to make another one of those this year, right? Why does she look like a porcelain doll? Yes, she should. That's not, not fair. Oh, I may have leaned on the statues. Oh, don't touch me. Why are you in the middle of the dunes, man? Shit. Everything looks the same here. Everything looks the same here. Are you pushing me? Is he Jesus? What's going on there? I'm sure we'll find out. What, t-shirt contest? Why was he talking to God? You're the prettiest woman on planet Earth. I know. Huh? Cool. I like it already. They are very sharp. The Riz on him, am I right? That was a funny transition. That was so much transition. That was a funny transition. He's a dork. Where's the Italian? Can you stay for dinner? Can you stay forever? Let's do that grandma. What is he doing?  She just saw your badoink-a-doink. Someone has a potty mouth. I know. Shit! Poor salmon. Go. Go? To a table of strangers? No, absolutely not. The acoustics in that room are amazing. I didn't expect this movie to be so quirky. It's got pipes. It was all a ruse in the beginning. Bro, he just told you to go to the other end of the table. Her nethers be wedders. Such a baby face. Thank you, sir. As long as you haven't eaten anything, you haven't eaten anything. You're so young. What will happen to a 10-12-year-old?  I'm really sorry, I'm really embarrassed. You see, I'm from Italy, right? So all this, dal, dhokla and undi, I just cannot digest it. Oh my God, I was not expecting that. What is he doing? I did not expect a fart joke in a Sanjeev Leela Bansali, but I'm going to be completely honest with you right now. That caught me off guard. Agreed. Oh man, I was not expecting that at all. Fart, boy. I love Sanjeev Leela Bansali's shots. They're like magical. Think about your farts. Calm down, Quentin. Well, hot damn. Maybe I'll be your girlfriend. He's... I don't know what his character is. But he's not just some guy. How much you lift, bro? Are they playing duck-duck-goose? Why is he wearing a magic hat? Which is a basketball team. Because he loves basketball. Michael did play for the magic for like a little bit. For Jadu.   He's so true. No, they could definitely do it. I think you guys might like each other. I get that joke. Shwarya, calm down. Words of affirmation are her love language. What is happening? I think we're gonna find out. I'm so in the weeds. She was Ms. World. Rightfully so. She won Ms. World competition. Anu, what happened? It's gonna take some time. It's the first time I've become a married woman. Are you scared? A little bit. Anu, I'm so happy for you today. I'm so happy. Okay, you get ready. Learn something, Beyonce. Am I right? Why were you in the picture? Nandini, listen to me. I was trying to wake you up.  Okay, you wanted to go. What were you going to say to me?  Cut it out, potty mouth. No, you should have slapped him there. Why are you upset? You were being the creep and not taking a no.  You're not worthy of my love because you wouldn't... You kept saying no and you slapped me. What a shot. Ajay, you should only advise for Kajol. He has a sour lemon. That was a great song. Shwarya killed it. True. She always kills it, especially with her dancing, man. She's... Or you know, just existing. Yeah, she's probably not an element of existing that she... that she's flawed at. Yeah. I'm done, Mr. One Raj. Did you see that you disappeared? I married to Kajol. I didn't think so, ma'am. Maybe. So we're going to have a love triangle of sorts. Oh! But she's my favorite daughter.   He's trying to get us to not like you. There's a bunch of grandmas in Italy. They make great Italian food.  My bro. I swear if he's farting again. If he has another fartsie. Now I want Ajay to win. She's so patient. She shouldn't be. That's like seven.  Must be one of those dated things that's happening right now. Where she's apologizing for something she has to say.  Where she's apologizing for something she absolutely should have done. What a shot. And that'll be the end of our part one reaction to hum-del-de-chuki-sun-um. I'm probably saying that perfectly. If you watch us on YouTube, you saw a very cut up version of our reaction. If you like to see the full uncut version, get out to Patreon. Upload link in the description below and the pinned comment for you to go. Check that out. On to part two!


Good evening, everyone. My name is Caroline Bowman. I'm the director of Cooper Hewitt-Smithsonian Design Museum and Thank you. Thank you. And I am absolutely delighted to welcome all of you here for our Design by Hand design talk with Pixar's John Lasseter. This really is the event of the season and to accommodate demand we decided to host tonight's design talk in Museo Del Barrio's stunning El Teatro, which seats a few more people than Cooper Hewitt's lecture room. Tickets sold so fast, not even Woody and Buzz Lightyear could get their hands on them. And I think when I was coming in I saw sadness outside weeping. I don't know. Seriously though, John is a legend and it was something else to witness the teenagers today following him as we walked through the Cooper Hewitt. Design by Hand is Cooper Hewitt's series of workshops and conversations dedicated to the exploration of the vital role of the human hand in the design process. Many thanks to our partner Van Cleef and Arpels and thanks to them we have brought the designers of iconic firms like Mari Mekko, Heath Ceramics, Ralph Rucci and now Pixar Animation Studios to the museum to lead hands-on workshops for all ages as well as to take part in public discussions. Pixar of course is the perfect fit for our Design by Hand series and when you visit our installation Pixar, the design of story at Cooper Hewitt, just a few blocks south of here, you see why. Exploring the more than 600 preparatory drawings, paintings and sculptures Pixar designers have created by hand to make their classic films and that are now installed on our digital tables and in our process lab. You really see that. No matter how technologically advanced we become as designers, the hand remains critical to the creative process. Tonight's conversation coincides with the launch of an exciting three days of immersive learning at Cooper Hewitt with members of Pixar's creative team. In fact, just this morning over 84th and 5th graders from PS 102 in East Harlem took part in a Pixar led workshop where they sculpted dinosaurs and designed their own inside out characters. The students were simply enthralled with the design process and amazed to learn how hard Pixar designers work on each film project. When told how much time it took Pixar to create inside out, one student said, four years, that's how long I've been in school. I'd like to give a very warm thank you to Pixar's talented Brim Imagiri, Chris Sasaki and Albert Lozano for sharing their expertise with our Design by Hand workshop participants. And I have to give a shout out to our curatorial director, Cara McCarty and deputy director of education, Kim Roblita Diga. It was very funny today after meeting with John at the museum. Kim said to me, working on this Pixar project with the Pixar team and meeting John Lasseter today, I have to give my resignation. I can't get any better than this, which I just loved. Special thanks as well to our dear friends at Van Cleef and Arpels for their generous support of Design by Hand. Alain Bernard, president and CEO of Van Cleef and Arpels in the Americas has created a special video message for us tonight, which I'd like to share with you now. Good evening and welcome. I am Alain Bernard, president and CEO of Van Cleef and Arpels in the Americas. On behalf of Van Cleef and Arpels, we are proud to welcome you tonight as we continue our partnership with the Cooper Hewitts to bring you the fourth installment of the Design by Hand series, Pixar, the design of Story. The development of Design by Hand was born out of the museum and the Maison's shared belief in the importance of the Design by Hand process and the mutual desire to preserve interest and awareness on exceptional craftsmanship across the arts. In many ways, the Pixar's approach to design is much like our own creative process at Van Cleef and Arpels. While the link between hydrary and animation may seem unlikely, and our tools may be quite different, our co-objective is the same. We are both in the business of bringing imagination to life. Each of our creations begins with a story, one that captivates imaginations and captures our emotions. Each stage of the design process calls upon exceptional talents, true masters of their craft, who rely on innovative techniques and parallel expertise to transform these ideas into their own forms of art. In the end, our creations present our own unique and positive vision of the world, where butterflies and ballerinas are transformed into precious jewels, and where our childhood toys, curious robots, and good dinosaurs are transformed into cherished characters. A vision of the world as it should be, not always as it is. We really want to extend our thanks to a few people in the room tonight who have made this evening possible. To Caroline Bowman and the Cooper Hewitt for continuing to be champions of design through educational programs such as Design by Hand, to Michael Beirut for leading this evening's discussion, and of course to John Lasseter and Pixar Animation for allowing us an inside look at your design process and reminding all of us all that great art begins with a great imagination. Thank you very much and have a great evening. We are really missing our friends at Van Cleef tonight. We wouldn't be here without them and we really thank the whole team at Van Cleef from the bottom of our hearts. Great design does indeed begin with a great imagination, but few possess an imagination that compares to the brilliance of John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. It has been a long dream of ours to bring John to Cooper Hewitt to share his singular vision. During my recent unforgettable tour of the Pixar campus, what really struck me were the designer's studios which reflected the designer's creative spirit, like nowhere else I've seen.  It has become part of film history that in 1986, when John showed Pixar's new studio owner Steve Jobs the storyboards for his first computer generated short tin toy, Jobs gave but one comment, all I ask of you John is to make it great and boy did he ever. Both in his storytelling and his use of technology, Lasseter showed the world that computer animation could be just as emotional and exquisite as any classically animated feature. And since winning an Oscar for his first feature tour story in 1995, John has animated, written, directed, produced and even acted. Yes I said acted, how do you think animators make their characters so lifelike in one classic movie after another? When The Good Dinosaur opens later this month, it will be Pixar's 16th feature film and as with every Pixar animated feature, the realness of Arlo's world will be breathtaking and the story of a dinosaur and his boy will move you to tears. John will be in conversation tonight with Michael Beirut, another design genius and a dear friend of mine and of Cooper Hewitt. A graphic designer, author, design critic and educator, as well as a partner in the International Design Consultancy Pentagram, Beirut was the recipient of Cooper Hewitt's Design Mind Award at the National Design Awards in 2008. It is now my enormous pleasure to welcome John and Michael to the stage.  And Michael sit under Woody or Buzz so, I let you choose. He kind of looks like Buzz doesn't he? So John, thank you so much for joining us this evening. So glad to be here. If you haven't seen the Pixar Design by Hand at the Cooper Hewitt Museum exhibit, you have got to go see it. It is, I'm really proud of it that Pixar team working with the incredible Cooper Hewitt team has done a great exhibit and it's very inspiring. It's beautiful and, you know, with Cooper Hewitt and our country's National Design Museum, it delivers more thinking about what design is and what it can do in more concentrated a space than I think anywhere in the world probably. So it's really an amazing thing. Well worth your time and you'll be able to spend a lot of time there. Trust me. John. Yes. When you were little, what did you want to be? When I was little, my mom was an art teacher and so all I really cared about was drawing, you know, in painting and whatever. My mom would bring home at the end of the school year, all of the kind of paints and things that would kind of dry out and the old construction paper and board and we would just draw and do stuff. And so I always loved cartoons as a kid, even when I was growing up when I should have been into girls or cars or sports. I still loved cartoons. I would quietly race home with my best friend and we'd sit and watch Bugs Bunny cartoons at 4.30 every afternoon. And I just love that. And so when I was a freshman in high school, I read a book called The Art of Animation by Bob Thomas and it talked about how Walt Disney made animated films and it dawned on me. And seriously, I never even considered that people actually make cartoons for a living.  That's what I want to do. And my mom blessed her heart. I mean, I was kind of rare to have a mother who really felt that the arts was a noble profession because she really felt that way. It was her whole life of being an art teacher and she said, you know, that's a great goal to have. And I said I want to work for Walt Disney Studios and be an animator. She goes, that's a great goal to have. And from that point on, that's the only thing I've ever wanted to do. Do you remember the first movie you saw that really kind of moved you that sort of like transformed you in a theater? Right after I read that book, The Art of Animation, I remember going to see, and for all you young people, you didn't experience this world, before there was a home video, yes, there was a before. There was such things as a first run movie theater, then there was kind of the general movie theaters, the second run and so on. And then there was always your last run movie theater, the budget one. And for me, it was I grew up in Whittier, California. It was a Wardman theater, Uptown Whittier, 49 cents to get in.  And I remember a re-release of The Sword in the Stone, the Disney animated film was at the Wardman. And I begged my mom to take me up there, she dropped me off, I went in by myself, I sat and watched that. And I had seen cartoons my whole life and loved them. But it was now with this new realization that this was an art form that people actually created. And I looked up there and it was just pure magic to me. And I remember coming out and sitting in the car, my mom picked me up and that's when I said, I want to work for Disney. I want to be an animator. She said, John, Johnny, she always called me Johnny, that's a great goal to have. And I just was filled with it. And so that to me always has a special place in my heart. But my favorite movie of all time is Dumbo. I think Dumbo is like, what do you like about it? It's not a near perfect film. The more that I always loved it because it was so funny. And I always thought how amazing to have a main character that actually never speaks a word through the whole movie. I thought that was really interesting. It's the most cartoony of all the Disney films, which I love. And it's also very short. It's just over an hour long. And it's so concise, storytelling. But the more I learned about animation and storytelling and filmmaking, the more that I realized how tight the story was and stuff. So even the more that I learned, the more I loved the movie. And as you talk about that character never saying a word, I think immediately of films like Up and Wally that have prolonged almost movie, tell a whole movie's worth of story in the first few minutes without saying a word. It's a really remarkable thing to be able to do. And you would say that's in a way the essence of storytelling. Yeah, because one of my mentors whose work really, really always inspired me was Chuck Jones, who was a great Warner Brothers cartoon director. And he always said, John, great animation.  And that's always been sort of as I've made films myself and then overseen the films that Pixar and Disney animation. It's my big mantra to all the filmmakers is like, how can we tell the story visually? And it's the dialogue and the voices and all like that. It's great, but telling the story visually. And if you, you know, all of the short films we've made at Pixar, most of them in Disney now as well, most of them are told without any dialogue at all. Yeah, Luxo Jr., which is on view. You can go watch Luxo Jr. like any time the museum is open, it's on continuous view right next to the exhibit as part of the exhibit. And our new movie, The Good Dinosaur, is probably our most... I'm so proud of this. It's in a weird way. We've made very brave movies before in the sense of doing something no one else has ever done before. But this is really special, this film. There's a simplicity to it that was really hard to get. And there's only dialogue in 20% of the film. I mean, it's pretty amazing and one of the main characters, the little boy character, and it actually never says a word the entire time. And it's really, but I would say it's one of our most emotional films. You know, Pixar's made some emotional movies. Don't you think? Yeah. This one's gonna gut you. Bring the hankies. Yeah, I'm warning you. No, I heard there was gonna be that little preview before and I brought my handkerchief and used it actually myself so I can vouch for that. It's a little tangent. I think I read somewhere that one of the directors you admire most is Preston Sturges. Oh yeah. But he's extremely verbal. All that rapid fire of screwball comedy back and forth. I mean, what do you admire about that? Well, it's his strength of character. The incredible, he creates characters that are incredibly smart. Incredibly witty and very, very, very clever. I would say also there is a moment, I saw a film of his when I was at Cal Arts and I had never seen it before and it had such a profound effect on me. It was Sullivan's Travels. And do you guys know Sullivan's Travels? If you don't, please go see this film. It's a remarkable film. It's very, very funny. Preston Sturges made really, really funny movies. And daring movies too for the time. Yeah. This movie though is really exceptional. There's a, it's about, the main character is like a Steven Spielberg like director. Like the most famous director in Hollywood for his comedies and his feel good movies. And it's the depression. And he's feeling so guilty because all these people are out of work and stuff. And he says, I want to make a drama. I want to make a great American drama. And it goes on the road. He decides to do a thing where he becomes a hobo with his friend to see what it's like.  I said, this isn't going to work. So he needs for him just in the middle of the night, ditch. And they just disappear, you know, in a railroad yard. But immediately he's mugged and his jacket is stolen from him and it had his identification in it sewn into the lining. And the guy who mugged him got killed in a train accident.  Meanwhile, he wakes up knocked out on a train in the south and he's arrested for being a hobo and trespassing on a train and he's thrown into a work prison. And no one believes that who he is because the guy just died and they had this funeral for him and so they don't believe. So he's stuck. But the profound moment comes later on.  The famous one where he gets his paws stuck on the fly paper. Very legendary, great cartoon. It's really funny. And in the depths of their misery, both the parishioners of this church and the prisoners, they're laughing hysterically. And he realized the power of movies to deeply entertain people and for a moment in their life take them out of their daily lives and they get lost in this pure entertainment and he sees the importance of what he does and how entertainment is actually a good thing. And when I saw this, and it starts, he figures out a clever way, I'm not going to tell you how, but to get back and then they say, oh my goodness, you've had such a horrible existence, you clearly got great material to do a drama like you wanted to and he goes, no, I'm going to make comedies. That's what this world needs. And it had such a profound effect on me because I've always been so deeply moved by the films of Walt Disney. It's why I do what I want to do. That very special entertainment that only Walt Disney was able to do and I just really want to do that. But when I saw that movie, it just really affected me so deeply saying that's what I want to do. And it was, I was already at animation school at Cal Arts but this really had a profound effect. And by the way, you just heard John Lasseter pitch a movie to you. So many have not had that privilege. Thank you, John, even though it was made 60 years ago or so. It's fantastic. Can you talk about Cal Arts a little bit? Yeah. Talk about your first day there, your arrival there, what you were expecting and what you found. Cal Arts, I was very, very fortunate. I graduated high school in 1975 and I know to all you young people, yes, yes, we had pencils and paper. It wasn't, we weren't carving on stone back then. I know it's a long time we go to you, but I was really fortunate. I had written to the Walt Disney studios and sent them my drawings and say I'm really interested in becoming a Disney animator. They were great. They invited me over. They walked me around the studio. They introduced me to the animators and they were so excited to have a young person really interested. And they, at that point in time, they recommended, you know, this, I think it was probably a software in high school at this point, and they recommended to me to take a great grounded art education, just a general art education, then come to the studio and they would teach me animation, right? Because there was really no animation schools that taught their style. And so I said, that's what I'm going to do. And then I got a letter in my senior year of high school saying that they were starting a Disney-style character animation program at California Institute of the Arts, which was a school that Disney helped found with combining Shenard Art Institute and the Los Angeles Conservatory Music together in one school. And they were going to start it. And they invited me to submit a portfolio. And I couldn't believe this. So I submitted a portfolio. It was the second person accepted to the program. And so we started that class. And they made the first couple of years classes out of young people that had been writing to the Disney studio. So we were incredibly passionate. And it's like we found our tribe, right? I was like a lone nutcase at my school that I still loved cartoons and wanted to make cartoons. And we were all that same way. We were so excited and passionate. But in my class, it was John Musker, who went on to do, I still work with him, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, just some of the greatest Disney films. Brad Bird, who you probably know with Incredibles and Ratatouille and Iron Giant. Tim Burton. Chris Buck, who did Frozen. Mike Giamma was the art director on Frozen. And kind of on and on, a guy named Joe Lancicero, who's one of the head imagineers for Walt Disney Imagineering. So we were all in those first two years of classes. What were you guys like as college freshmen? I'm trying to imagine this. We were nerds.  Plenty of time. Plenty of time to spend in the studio.   I'm walking away from you. And no one had girlfriends and no one could get a date. We all just kept hanging out with each other, you know, all the time and stuff. We loved, we actually had so much fun together. We probably learned, what's great is our teachers were these great Disney animators that they had pulled out of retirement that had helped invent the art form of animation with Walt Disney. And they were, none of them had ever taught before. And they would come. And so they would kind of teach us lessons about the, you know, my design teacher was, a layout teacher was Ken O'Connor, who was a great, great Disney layout artist who invented so much things, you know, within Disney films. And he was Australian. He had a dry sense of humor. And he said, I've never taught anything before. I'm just going to tell you what you need to know. And I said, it's good for me, you know. And they would go, they had access to the Disney, you know, the archives in the morgue. And they would bring all this original Disney artwork up, pin it up on our boards. And it was just pin, pin, pin, pin, pin. And, you know, these things are working like millions of dollars now. And they're just pinning them up on the board. And, you know, and we're like amazed by this stuff. And they would talk about it. And it was really great. And then in the afternoon, and it was very interesting because our classes were structured very old-fashioned art education. We had one class that was the entire day, figure drawing, design, layout, animation. You know, we basically had spent the whole day, you know, really, really working and studying. And it was magical because after lunch, you know, they would just start telling stories of working with Walt Disney and inventing this stuff and hearing the good and the bad side. And it really was fascinating to hear, you know, the difficulties of working with Walt as well as like how magical he is.  But he was tough. And he was strong. And he was driven in all these things.  And in fact, so much of my leadership, you know, the things that I've learned was from those stories of what to do and what not to do, you know, and hearing those stories. And I can't imagine it was like, now I look back and I realize, oh my God, what they were doing, they were handing the torch off to us. Because there was a short period of time in the 1960s that they actually, after Walt had died in 1966, they actually were considering just closing the animation department at Disney and not making any more Disney animation. But it was this handful of great Disney animators that said, no, let's start training a new generation. Because what happened is that they were doing all the work and they didn't hire anybody at the Disney studio for a good 20 years, like through the 50s and 60s. They never hired anybody. And so they started a training program, one of the great Disney animators, Eric Larson, said, I won't train the new animators when they come in. Then they started the character animation program right behind that as a feeder to Disney. And it was pretty remarkable. Now that looking back at it, I was telling Michael that the head of the program was Jack Hanna, who did all the Donald Duck. He's not Hanna Barbera Hanna. It's Jack Hanna who directed all the Donald Duck cartoons. And he was the head of the program and he asked me to be his student assistant. And I worked at the Disney studio the summer between graduating high school and starting the program in September. And it was only, now looking back, I realized it was only nine years after Walt Disney had died, which at that point in time, it was half of my life practically.  It was 18. And it was, yet, but now it's like a drop in the bucket. And it was amazing, just yesterday. And so it was just so exciting to think back of being there during that time. And all the great Disney artists were still working in the prime of their lives. And it was so exciting. And we just talked about animation. But I learned a lot from them, but I also learned equal amount from my fellow students. We were so passionate about this. Disney had given the Cal Arts Library 16-millimeter prints of six of their animated films, six of them. And we kept checking those films out. And we would watch them again and again and again. We had a 16-millimeter projector in our animation room. And we were kind of the new kids on the block at Cal Arts. And so they gave us this room. All of our classes were in the same room. And there was no windows. It was kind of in the basement. Did the room have a number or a name? Yeah, it was the famous A113, if you've heard of that. I put it in all of our films. Brad Bird puts it in all of his films. I think Tim Burton has put it in some of his films, too. Anytime there's a license plate or a room number or something, you'll see A113 used a lot. And part of it is because it's a badge of honor, because it was the room no one else wanted. And it was really like... But we loved it because of that. It was like a bunker. You were down inside. And we were right across the hall from the Indonesian gamelan room. Gamelan is a beautiful, beautiful form of music. But hearing like American kids learn it... I had no idea what it was. At first, we were sitting there drawing and doing stuff. Are we near the kitchen? They're like banging pots and pans all the time. I thought, what are they doing? Me and a couple of guys went over there and kind of poked our heads in. And it was like, oh, it's music. I didn't know that. And so anyway, I finally went to a gamelan concert and it's magnificent music. But it was hard hearing people learn it all the time. Did you guys feel like you were girding to fight a lonely battle? The films you were watching, none of your friends were watching these old movies. Oh my God, yeah. They were watching Dirty Harry or whatever was big in the mid-70s. And you must have thought that these guys were passing you a torch but sort of like a flame that was barely flickering, right? Yeah. It's a good way, Michael. It's a great way to put it because we had this strong belief that animation was for everyone. Walt Disney, when he made his films, he made them for everyone. Snow White and the Seven Doors when it came out was the number one movie of 1938. The number one movie, the first feature-length animated feature film. You don't get to be number one with just kids going to it and families, right? And so we believed in that. Chuck Jones, all the Warner Brothers cartoons we know and love were made to be seen in theaters before Warner Brothers films for adults. But it was television. When TV came along, the movie studios closed all of their cartoon studios. Every big major Hollywood studio had their own cartoon studio making cartoons. And they closed them down and they sold their libraries to television. Television showed cartoons only during kids' hours, Saturday morning and after school. And so it was during kind of the late 50s and mostly the 60s, the public opinion of who animation was for shifted to being, oh, it must just be for kids because television is only putting it on during the kids' hours. And so even when we started working at the Disney studios, even the folks like the great Disney animators had retired and there was this kind of second tier of animators like during Waltz time that were not the ones that were really good enough to be a top animator. They were in charge through attrition, not through talent.  And we were like, you know, and I don't know if you know Brad Bird, but he's so passionate about like, come on, man. It's like this revolution that was going on in cinema with Francis Coppola, with Scorsese, with Spielberg and Lucas and Star Wars had come out, man. And like, Raging Bull, come on. We can do this in animation, you know. And that's how we felt. We said we want to make movies for everybody. We believe in it. And we literally were the only ones that believed that. We literally were the only ones. The animation industry in Hollywood existed. It was Disney and it was Hannah Barbera in Filmation and that was about it. You know, and they did Saturday morning cartoons. It was really cheap, limited animation. And Disney was putting out a movie every four or five years. And even they were thinking it was just for kids, but we really believed and we kept pushing and we kept pushing and we kept pushing. And that time at the Disney studio was really hard. I mean, it's amazing to have this dream for so much of your life to work at the Disney studio, to be there. I went to Cal Arts and I breathed all these stories into myself. It became part of my DNA of working with Walt and all these things and invention and all this stuff. And I can't tell you how it felt to have your dreams so thoroughly crushed when you got to the place of your dreams and they didn't want to hear anything from you. You know, we kept trying to make the movies better, kept pushing, kept trying to do things and I just kept getting into trouble. What were the kind of arguments you would have? Like what would you propose and why would you reject it? Well, okay, here's a great example. So, I don't know if you've seen The Fox and The Hound, right? Don't applaud, please. I mean, you know, that was a film that we were working on when we got there. And, you know, it started out with these amazing, amazing pastels by this great Disney artist named Mel Shaw. Oh my gosh, this guy, I had the fortunate opportunity to work with him for a while and he taught me how he drew pastels. And I just loved his drawings. This incredible story of like, you know, The Fox and The Hound becoming best friends when they're young and they grow up to be, they separate and then they come back together as adults and they're supposed to be mortal enemies. You know, it's such a great story and it's like, in the hands of these guys it was just pathetic what they were doing and we were watching it and we were just going, this could be awesome but it's not. And so we kept pitching ideas like that. And I was literally told by the guy who was managing the animation department and he said, we don't want to hear your ideas, just be in your office and do what you're told and, you know, if you don't want to do that there's a line of people outside this studio that would be willing to take your place. I was so hurt and I thought, that's amazing. In what's that? Three sentences. The guy just made me not care about the project and not care about the studio. And I just thought to myself, boy, if ever I'm in charge I'm never going to say to a passionate young person who's just trying to make the movie better, I'm never going to say those words to him. Because what you want to do is encourage the opposite, I thought. I'm never going to do that. And it actually formulated kind of a way that I was dealing with this as I was learning what not to do, you know.  And just in the worst situations in your professional life just learn, take out the positive spin on it and just learn what not to do from it. Because one day, you know, you will be in charge at some point in time and never do what that person did to you to the young people in charge. Never do it. Because to me, you know, creativity is about collaboration. And you can't possibly have all the ideas in the world. You can't. And animation is the most collaborative art form there is. And it's about one person saying one thing and the other one, I hadn't thought of that. That's a great. And then you could do that. And you go, oh, that's it. And it just snowballs with great ideas. And that's a foundation of a great creative collaboration. It's what the great Disney animators all had together. And it's just this excitement building upon each other's ideas. And it's like we were just being squished at that time. But did I stop? No. Never. I didn't stop. I just would go to somebody else and pitch ideas and stories. And so I got, we were talking to, we saw a screening of Fox in the Hand.  It was awful. And so I got together. My real close friends were the great Disney animator, Glen Keane and Randy Carr, another great Disney animator. The three of us were sitting there. And just talking, talking, talking. And I remember this one incredible drawing Mel Shaw had done of this waterfall.  The hunter owned the hound dog. And get in this thing where basically, at one point the hunter is about to shoot the fox. And the hound dog steps in the way. And there's a bear. And it just was like messy. And it had no emotion, no power, no nothing. And so we pitched this idea to have this incredible bear come in. I think, yeah, we came up with the idea of where the bear come in and have this, you know, really have this exciting ending and bring it to this emotional point. And the only thing that could be more powerful than this bear is this giant waterfall. And we said, oh, we could do this. And so we pitched this idea to one of the directors. He said, oh, that sounds great, guys. And then he went off and he storyboarded it. And later we heard that the head of the studio goes, yeah, I heard you guys came over the idea for the ending. It doesn't really work very well. And we were like, what did he do? So he got the reels. We put it on our movie Ola in our office. We watched it. And it was awful. It had nothing to do with what the power we thought. And so we sat there. And we just, we had turned on a tape recorder. Look at that player. And we started talking. We were just talking about what this ending could be. And we just talked it through, you know, the three of us. And just passionately and just with the power, with the kind of filmmaker we wanted to have. And I remember taking the tape player home and just handwriting verbatim of this whole story on animation paper and just wrote it out. I think it was, I want to say like six or seven pages of just picturing. It was not really a script. It was just literally telling visually what this whole ending would be. And I stayed up really late doing this. I was living at my parents' house at the time. I drove in really early. And I went up to the head of the studio. His name is Ron Miller. And it was Walt's son-in-law. And so I just went in before anybody and went into his office and set this on. I made a copy and then I, you know, first thing. And then I set this thing that I had written on his desk. And I just went back to my office and just working away, working away. I'm wondering, I don't know. And all of a sudden the director of the film poked his head in to my office and said, hey, do you have a copy of that thing you put on Ron's desk? And I go, yeah, yeah, I have one right here. And he grabbed it to me and walked away. And then by lunchtime, myself and Glen Keane had been assigned to storyboard the end of the film. And so we sat there and it was, it worked.  And if you remember the film, right, it's like, you know, the Fox and the Hound and we're like, you know, cute little things and all that stuff. And all of a sudden the ending is like from some other movie. This giant bear and this action, and it's awesome, you know. And it's just like, you know, it's a completely different movie. And it was like, well, that Glen Keane and I did that ending. And it's awesome, you know. It's so great that ending. And it was just, but it showed the power of what animation could do.  And that's about the time I saw, I started seeing the beginnings of computer animation. And so your time at Disney came to an end. Yeah. So that Fox and the Hound story kind of illustrated my relationship with the people who were running animation at the time where they would typically say, no, go back to your office and I wouldn't. I would find somebody else to talk to and try to, because it was just about, I knew we could make these films even better. Then two of my good friends that had worked in Disney animation and left came back working with a guy named Stephen Lisberger to do Tron, the very first Tron. And they were storyboarding and choreographing the computer animation. And they invited me up. And I was really curious about this. And they invited me up to their office when they got the very first dailies back for the light cycle sequence from a company in New York, a computer animation company in New York called MagiSynthivision. And I came out to look at it. And when I saw that, it was like this door in my head opened up and I walked through and there was a magnificent new world. It was really like one of those profound moments in my life. And I looked at it and the first thing I thought to myself, this is what Walt was waiting for. Walt Disney was always striving to bring new technology into his film and his films to help make the animated films more believable. He was always striving for more depth, the multiplying camera, all that stuff. They dabbled in puppet animation and stop-motion animation, but it never had the smoothness that hand-drawn animation had. Because you could not iterate. There's a notion of when you're doing art that you try something and you adjust it, you adjust it, you adjust it and you keep doing that. And that's one of the beauties of computers. Computers make it whether it's Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator or Paint Systems or Word Processes or anything like that. It makes it so you can iterate and change things and edit and cut and paste and do all this stuff really fast. But hand-drawn animation, you could do that as well, but it was much more labor-intensive because you had to erase a lot. And redrawn and trace and all that stuff. But what Walt was waiting for was three dimensions, was making the worlds more believable. And I looked at this and I went, this is it. This is what Walt was waiting for. And it wasn't what I was looking at. It's the potential of what I saw in it. And to me it was clear as day. It was clear as day. And I turned to everybody else at the studio and I was like, hey, look, it's so great. And everybody's like, it looks kind of cold to me. I go, don't look at that. Look at what I'm thinking about, what you could do with it. And so I got Glenn Keenan and I, we kept pushing it within the animation department and they didn't want to have anything to do with it. And it's the same guys that he and I did, the bear fight sequence of the Fox and the Hound. So I can understand it. But we found a young guy who was the head of production of live action at the time, a guy named Tom Wilhite, was developing something with Marie Sindak. And so he said, well, let's do a test. I said, we want to do a test. And he goes, great, let's do it. And so we started with development money from where the Wild Things are, from Marie Sindak projects. So we took the first two pages of the book, Children's Book, where the Wild Things are, where Max is riding on the wall and there's the dog and he chases the dog out the room. So it's two pages. And we just took that and we kind of created this little test where, and our idea was that the backgrounds would be done with a computer and we would do hand-drawn animation over it. We did computer animation with MagiSynthVision. And a guy turned into my best friend, Chris Wedge, who did Direct to the First Ice Age. And we will always thank him because he introduced my wife, Nancy, to me. And so he's really talented and he was working at MagiSynthVision. And so we worked together on this. And I did all the backgrounds and computer work and stuff like that. And then we animated like a little geometric shape that represented Max and represented the dog through the scene and did all the camera work. And then we took it and gave it to Glenn and Glenn did the animation over the background stuff. We printed out on photo stats that were the size of animation paper and he did this drawing. And we did it and then we colorized it with a computer paint system that we kind of invented for the project with tone mats and everything. And we did this test and then we showed it to everybody. And the whole time we were doing the test, I said, I want to have a feature film that we can say, look at this amazing test. Here's a film we could do with it. And a good friend of mine had given me a collection of sort of fantasy and science fiction short stories and in it was a little novella, a 40 page story by a guy named Thomas Deesha who was called The Brave Little Toaster. And I got Tom Wilhite, the live action had to license to get an option on The Brave Little Toaster. We did and we started developing it as a feature film and Joe Raft and I did this at the Disney studio while we were doing the Wild Things test at Magi and Glenn was working on it. So I had these things going and it was so exciting, you know. And we finished the Wild Things test. We presented it and pitched The Brave Little Toaster as this we can use this for it. And I didn't know this thing called politics. But I was just so excited and eager and all like that and the whole project had been undermined by the manager of the animation department, the guy who told me to just do what I was told. And so we pitched the whole project to the head of the studio and he asked, well how much is this going to cost? And we did a rough budget that was going to be the same as a regular animated feature film and he said the manager said the only reason to do computer animation if it makes it cheaper or makes it quicker to do. And he got up and walked out and said, you know, we're not going to do this.  He said, your project is complete, your employment with Walt Disney Studios is now terminated. Boom. And I was like, I can't tell you how devastating that was to have a dream from a young boy, like a 13, 14-year-old and a singular focus, the one who worked for the Disney Studios to go through college, to be trained by these great Disney artists to get there and just keep pushing to make it better to be fired from the place of your dreams. And I'll be honest with you, I never told anybody I was fired. I, by the time that this happened I had met Ed Katmell, who was doing the Lucasfilm Computer Division and doing computer animation research at Lucasfilm. And they loved the stuff I was doing, but they were not in any market. I was looking for someone to do the computer animation backgrounds for Toaster. And they were just a research facility.  And my days were numbered and I finished the project. And during that time I went to a computer graphics conference at the Queen Mary and Ed was there and gave a talk and then he saw me. He said, how's Toaster going? I said, it's been shelved and, you know, it's been shelved. They didn't want to do anything to it. And he was so sad and he came back and then in the middle of a talk, I'll never forget it, you know, from behind a column in the grand ballroom, it's like, Cha, cha, cha. And I snuck in and he said, do you want to come work with us? And I was like, yeah, that would be great, you know. And so it was just a freelance job he had that would last about a month. And I said, you know, I'll go. And so I basically had, I didn't get fired from Disney once. I got actually fired twice. And then I got let go a second time. But I had gone up to, you know, by this time I was on my way up to Lucasfilm. But it had a profound effect, you know, of just this... But it was the best thing that ever happened to me. That was the start of Pixar, basically. Yeah, it was the start of Pixar. You know, and I just never let go of that dream. And Ed Katman had always had a dream to do a computer animated feature film one day. But the tools didn't exist and all that. And he was just working. And so when I first went up to Lucasfilm I was so worried that I was going to need to learn how to program because, you know, that's really what all the computer animation, everything was all programmed based animation. Nothing was interactive back then.  And I'm going to have to like... I went to art school to not do math. I have to do math. And so we went to...  I was so into computer animation at that point I was getting every tape I could get. I was looking at all this stuff. And when I got up there and I looked at... And there was a tiny, tiny group of people doing the computer animation research at Lucasfilm, computer graphics research. And I realized, oh my goodness, Ed had gotten every top... All the stuff I loved that I'd seen, he had gotten those people there. And I said, Ed, how did you get all these amazing people? And he just goes, oh, it's easy. I just try to hire people that are smarter than myself. And I laughed. But I walked away and I thought just from my experience at Disney of these people being so threatened by young people and people who are smarter than them to have a leader that says, oh, I try to hire people that are smarter than myself. And then he lets them be amazing and lets them be stars, lets them shine. And I was like, that's the guy I want to work for. And so I started working with him and I realized these guys all have PhDs. I'm never going to know what they know about computers. But then I thought, you know what? They don't know how to bring a character to life and give it personality and emotion through pure movement. That's what I was taught by the great Disney animators. They don't know that. So I said, I'm just going to sit right next to them and I'm going to work in collaboration with them. I don't need to know what they know. And they don't need to know. And they don't need to know what I know. And what happened in my working relationship with Bill Reeves and Evan Osby and Ed Katmell and Tom Porter, those original guys, who by the way are all still at Pixar and we're all making movies together. The way I worked with them, I coined this phrase, that art challenges technology and technology inspires the art. It's this incredible kind of yin-yang, this circle that happens. And what it is, is that I would say, I'll get so excited and I would draw something. Can we do this? And they go, no, we can't. Not yet.  And they go, how's that? And I go, that's even better. Oh my goodness. And they were like, well, if you can do that, can you do that? And I would get an idea I would have never thought of in a million years if I hadn't seen the R&D that they were doing. And I loved the mistakes when things didn't work out because then I was like, oh my goodness. Can we, can you do that again? Oh, then we could do this. And it became this thrilling, thrilling, like, it was so exciting that we were inventing this stuff and it was so fun to keep like developing new stuff in this incredible circle that kept happening. And I just, and our whole philosophy was that the technology is never going to entertain an audience by itself. It's what you do with a technology.


Welcome to Seymour's World commentary. How can you make a difference? This commentary is dedicated to my very good friend Paul Block. Sue and I just returned from Los Angeles where we were invited guests for his memorial service. Who was Paul? Obviously a very good friend. He was chairman of Rogers and Cowan, the largest public relations firm in Hollywood. Paul represented stars such as Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Michael Keaton, Tony Bennett, Sylvester Stallone and many many more. What does that have to do with us? Paul was in a totally different stratosphere but yet every month he would call me. He would ask personally about Sue, Aaron and Alana, what they were doing, how I was doing with my fight with cancer, how his business always complimenting on my foundation and my philanthropy. Why did this man pay so much attention to me in my family? You know in the course of one's lifetime if you are lucky you cross the path of someone who fundamentally changes the course of your journey. I spoke to so many of the 300 guests at the service who told me the same thing. Paul reached out to them as well. He called them, he emailed them, he sent them notes and was there for them whenever they needed an ear or a shoulder. That was his human touch. It was his belief that every friend, hundreds of them, deserved his attention. So now I realize that we, you and I, can make a difference by simply reaching out to one person every day and saying hello. How are you? What's doing? In my last commentary called What is Happiness, I received hundreds of responses that this was one of my best commentaries because it highlighted the need for all of us to realize we need to do something more than live our lives. We need to do it because we need to do something for others. What's the simplest thing to do? Reach out and touch someone every day. Just send a note, an email, a phone call and once this becomes habit, as Paul did in his life, you will be rewarded by friendship, by feeling in your heart and soul that money can't buy. Paul's legacy has taught me that human touch in any way possible is the answer to making a difference. There will be never enough words to describe the enormity of Paul's influence on all of us but I can tell you the imprint he left on me will help all of us live a better life. By watching this commentary and passing it on to others, we are honoring Paul and helping ourselves, our families, our friends, and making this world a better place. I will miss you Paul and I hope that what you have given me will enable many others to do what is right to make a difference. Thank you for watching Seymour's World Commentary on Think Tech Hawaii. Please send me your comments. Aloha.


Welcome, I'm Ann Schenck from the League of Women Voters and we're here today with Wells Lyons and Mayor Michael Brennan to have a conversation about the issue that's on everybody's mind in Portland, partly about discussing how to protect public parks and urban spaces in Portland and how and the level of citizen involvement in that process. We'll do the approach, two different approaches. The first is that there's an elected representatives of city council who actually enact ordinance and park commissions that make decisions about how those lands are taken care of. The citizen's initiative, which will be on the ballot this spring, gathers signatures from the city and through that process then puts it on the ballot and if it wins during the election then that becomes part of city law. So what we'd like to do first is to start with an introductory statement from each of these representatives to talk about this from their perspective. And so we'll start this afternoon with Wells Lyons. Thank you Ann. I'm Wells Lyons and I'm a volunteer with Protect Portland Parks and we're here today because Portland's parks are under attack. A few years ago the city council closed the parks department. They cut 26 positions in the parks department and just recently the mayor and the city council have tried to sell in a no bid process one of our parks in the heart of the downtown. Unfortunately this process resulted in a sale or attempted sale that was a fraction of the fair market value. Now they're claiming the problem is solved with this ordinance that they've just passed but in fact what the ordinance has done is offered only weak protection. Protect Portland Parks formed in response to these threats to our parks and what we are intending to do is to pass a law on June 10th by voting yes that will add protections to 60 of our city parks and open spaces. What this law does will give the voters a right in deciding whether or not their parks are sold. Okay. May I write it? Well I really didn't think I'd get an opportunity to disagree with Wells so quickly but it's absolutely untrue that Portland Parks are under attack and Portland are open spaces under attack. In fact the city council has made a concerted effort over the last several years to add to our public spaces and we're very focused on protecting and enhancing our parks in the city because we know the value that they have to the city. With this initiative that people will be voting on on June 10th is simply whether or not people support the congress square proposal or whether they don't. It's really not an issue about whether or not your protecting parts are not protecting parts. Briefly what the city council did at the end of April at the meeting was to pass an ordinance that had a protected list that is actually more robust than what is in the petition drive. It says that in any time in the future that anything that's on that protected list if it were to be sold or another use for it would take a seven to two vote and it would also be an advisory opinion from the parks commission. Very straightforward, very clear, very easy to understand. So I really don't think that there's any evidence that anybody can point to that parks in Portland are under attack and really what this boils down to is a disagreement with some people in the city as to whether or not the congress square initiative goes forward. Is there anything unique about congress square as opposed to the other parks either from your perspective or yours? I think the only thing that's unique about congress square is that it's the park that the city council just recently tried to privatize to Rockbridge through a no-bid process and with a result that ended up in a much less than a fair market value for what the property is actually valued at. One of the things that is unique about congress square is that it used to be a Dunkin Donuts, it used to be lums, it used to have a number of other commercial uses other than what it currently is configured at this point. So I think that the opportunity that we have at this point is to revitalize the downtown, bring people to the downtown, to take almost everybody, there may be some few accessions, but almost everybody agrees that that's a failed space at this point. This is an opportunity for us to bring people to the downtown, to revitalize the space that is usable and transform that intersection at congress street and high street. That's a unique opportunity for the city of Portland and I hope we don't pass that up. Great. One of the other questions that I myself need a little clarification about is how are the city-owned parks and public lands managed now? You want to go first? Well, there are a couple of different ways. We do have a parks commission, we do have a parks department that was rolled in as Wells pointed out to public services and we do have a land bank commission. But the land bank commission was really set up as a way to take land that is really for passive use. For example, the city just recently purchased almost 12 acres of canko woods and that went into the land bank. That's not really considered so much a park and it is set up as a way to protect it against, quote, development. One of the things that's unfortunate and the issue that's been put for in the petition is it really misuses the land bank and the land bank was never set up for the purpose that's been identified in the petition and the chair of the land bank has reaffirmed that position and said this is not really what the land bank was set up for. So there are several different ways that the city manages parks and manages open space and we think that the route that the city council shows is a more prudent way to continue to manage those spaces and those parks. And so to clarify, a commission is an appointed body that makes decisions at the higher level, the big picture level, but a parks department rolled back into public services is actually the administrative body of the city that actually manages those lands. Well, you are addressing how those lands are managed and you want to add something? Absolutely. I think that by adding these lands, the 35 parks to the land bank, which is essentially a safety deposit box against development for our parks and open spaces, and by adding a category of urban open spaces to the land bank, what we're doing is making it much safer through our citizens initiative to protect against these parks from being sold in the future. Now the mayors talked about the ordinance that the city council just passed with an advisory opinion of the parks commission on whether or not the city council should sell or develop a property. Unfortunately, the city council asked the parks commission whether or not they should sell Congress Square and the parks commission unanimously said, no, we don't support this proposal. The city council then steamrolled that advisory opinion. So we don't think that's strong protection. The other issue that we take with the so-called protection that the city council passed just weeks before our referendum is that it can be changed at any time, any time at all. It can be changed at the next city council meeting. And what our referendum does is it adds 25 or 35 new parks to the land bank. It adds protections to the 25 properties that are already there, requires the recommendation of the land bank commission and then it requires a supermajority vote of the city council to sell a park. A very important piece of this is that it also requires the referendum on whether or not the parks are sold to go to the people. And we think this is critical. These referendums aren't anything that are unusual. I mean, we vote, we're voting May 13th on the school budget via referendum. And we think that when the city is about to sell off a public asset, they should have a say in that. The people should have a vote in whether or not the parks get sold. Okay, I wanted to. And if I could just point out and I know Wells knows this, but many of the properties that he's talking about that are going in the land bank have protections that are far beyond the land bank or what the city council has done. For example, the Eastern Promise and state statute. The Western Promise also in state statutes. They're also covenant in deeds to protect those properties. So again, to make the assertion or to somehow try to argue that these properties can be sold at the whim of the city council is just not true. There are all kinds of other deed restrictions and other kinds of protections for those properties. And that's why this petition drive and what's being proposed in there in terms of land bank ordinance simply aren't necessary. And again, I have to go back to the fact that this is really a debate about whether or not Congress square and that initiative goes forward. And I think overwhelmingly when people in the city understand the benefits of what's being proposed that they're going to see that this is a clear winner in a win-win situation for the city of Portland. The if I may respond to that, I think the only winner here if the sale of Congress square does proceed is going to be Rock Ridge Capital. A parking lot that's just a couple of blocks down from Congress square park was valued at over $2 million when it sold a couple of weeks after the proposed sale of Congress square park. And frankly, the half million dollars that the city got for the deal is just embarrassing. I mean, this was a deal that was made by politicians, not businessmen. It was not through the real estate market. And it was a no bid process. And we don't think that's how our parks should be sold. They should be decided by the people in the event that that happens. But this is about adding protections to 60 of our parks. And absolutely, some of our parks do have stronger protections. And that's fantastic. We want to add to those protections, especially for the parks that don't. But again, as I pointed out, the ordinance that was passed by the city actually adds more protections to more parks. But secondly, I just have to go back and, you know, well, we can disagree about this. But we clearly understood the importance of getting maximum value for that property. And we had city staff that went at that issue backwards in front. And to say that we didn't get maximum value for that, or this is somehow windfall to Rockbridge, just isn't true. It was based on a 2008 evaluation at the bottom of the housing bill. This may not be where you wanted to go, but is there any clarification at all about what their intention is with that space? There's an event center that's planned. And that event center would bring three to four hundred people on a regular basis to the downtown of Portland. And one of the long term goals of the city of Portland has been to revitalize the downtown and to bring more people to the downtown. That clearly fits that objective. And that's why the city council acted in the way that it did. We have struggled in the city of Portland, along with other cities and main across the country to anchor our downtown, to make sure that our downtown is a place that is vital and that people want to come to. And again, this is a unique opportunity for us to bring people into the downtown where there are businesses, where we have arts, and to revitalize that section of Portland. So we're very excited about that possibility. The city council seems to think that this event center, which is really a one-story windowless bunker, is going to be the golden ticket for economic development in our downtown. But that's incredibly short-sighted. And it's based off of the theory of economic development for cities. It's probably 30 years old. The event centers are somehow going to bring in jobs and visitors and things like that. What we should be doing is looking at our context in the global economy, where we have young professionals who can really work anywhere, who base where they're going to live and work and raise families and pay taxes off of more than anything the quality of life of a city. We should look at attracting retirees to Portland. It's been held up as one of the best cities to retire to. And something that retirees care so much about is open spaces and quality of life. And if you look at the property taxes that parks provide, it's actually fantastic. Boston did a study of this back in 2006, where they found that the property values of Boston residents were increased by $720 million because of well-maintained, healthy parks. That added $8 million in municipal tax revenues. So to suggest that by selling off our parks that we think are failed spaces is somehow going to increase economic development, that's very, very short-sighted. That's eating the goose that lays the golden egg, when we should be investing in our parks, strengthening them and improving them. Unfortunately, the idea that this is a failed space, you know, it's the city council that's failed this space, Mayor. It really is. This, the Friends of Congress Square and Protect Portland Parks has done more in the last two months to improve this space than the city council has done in the last 20 years. And we've done that through some very simple things, bringing in seating for one, removing the planters with the spikes on them that keep people out, bringing in a food truck. And if you go down there today, you'll see 30 or 40 or 50 people having lunch enjoying that space. It's not a failed space anymore, it's a space that's being saved. And it's important to the downtown. A lot of people in the most densely populated part of Portland don't have other access to outdoor space. So this is just one space, but our initiative goes so much farther by adding that to some of those other parts. Right, and you know, again, I think it's important to point out that there was a group that was put together in 2008, Congress Square redesign committee that spent three years looking at what to do with Congress Square. And by the time they got to the end of the discussion, it was simply, we're going to do an RFP to look at what to do there. So I think it hasn't been necessarily lack of attention by the city. I think the fact that I'll go back to use the word, it is by consensus a failed space. This is an opportunity not only for us to utilize that space, but to take almost 4,800, almost 5,000 square feet in the front of that park and enhance that in a way that really will provide more public access and more utilization by the public. So that's why I say it's a win-win situation. We can either, and I would invite anybody that to go look at Congress Square now and say, is this what we want to continue to have? Because if people vote for the petition, that is basically an endorsement of the status quo. And we've had the status quo for several years, and I think people in the city of Portland are willing to move forward at this point. I would invite the voters in the city of Portland to come down to Congress Square as well and to see the events that are planned there, the free Wi-Fi that's being provided, the tables and chairs that are now there, and the landscaping, and it's an enjoyable space. It's a good place to have lunch. It's just too bad that it took the actions of volunteers to improve this space when the city had done nothing but fail that space for so many years. Who's responsible for what those changes that are being made this spring? That's exclusively the Friends of Congress Square Park. There's some programming that's being provided by Space Gallery as well, and these are the things that are going to make that a space that people want to enjoy. And virtually everything that Wells is talking about they're doing now will be possible with the plaza that will be developed as a result of the Congress Square initiative. But I think the other point that Wells is leaving out is that this is also an opportunity as for transform that intersection in Portland and make it a gateway to the city in ways now that we don't have. And so again, I think it's a three-part win-win for the city to bring people to the downtown, to have a space that is usable by the public and accessible to the public and to transform that intersection. Well, I don't want to backtrack too far, but I wanted to make it really clear what is the difference between the Land Bank Commission and the Parks Commission, and then talk a little bit more about what properties are covered by each and how that would change. Do you want to go ahead? Well, the Land Bank Commission was set up by the City Council, and it has Cheryl Lehman, who's a City Councilor, is one co-chair and Tom Jewel, who's a volunteer, is another co-chair. There are people on it, served by appointment by the City Council. And it was set up with the intent of looking at the land or property in the city that we would want to quote, put into a Land Bank because it wasn't to be developed. But typically what has gone into the Land Bank have been properties that aren't intended to be developed, but also have a very passive use to it. It was not intended for parks and for other open space in the city of Portland. And so that's why it's not a very good choice in the referendum to have the Land Bank be the holder of the public parks and other spaces within the city. So it would be those two things, and I would like to know a little more about the Parks Commission. Sure, sure. And the Parks Commission is set up for the purpose, and again members are appointed by the City Council to oversee the parks in Portland and to recommend to the City Council and to appropriate people how we can best maintain, how we can enhance, and how we can maximize use of parks and open spaces within the city. And we just signed a letter with the main Land Trust Commission to work with us to inventory all our open space in the city of Portland and to look at ways that we can protect other properties into the future, but also look at other uses that we could have that would achieve goals that we have within the city. Well, we think that putting the parks under the protection of the Lands Bank Commission makes all the sense in the world because we're trying to do exactly what the Land Bank Commission is also trying to do, which is to preserve open undeveloped spaces. This referendum simply adds a category of urban open spaces to the mission of the Lands Bank Commission. As far as the importance of the Parks Commission, unfortunately the City Council doesn't particularly take a whole lot of interest in the Parks Commission or the parks generally, I would argue. And I'd say this because under the ordinance that was passed by the City Council, they're claiming it's a strong protection when in fact it can be changed at any time. And it only requires the advice of the Parks Commission. Well, the Parks Commission gave their opinion on the sale of Congress Square Park. They unanimously opposed it. Every single member of the Parks Commission opposed this measure and the City Council said, thanks for your advice and threw it in the trash. We think that the decisions about whether or not to privatize our public spaces, which are so important to our quality of life, our neighborhoods, and our economy, that is something that should go to the Lands Bank and then it should be up to the voters to decide whether or not their properties get sold. I mean, it's not your park to sell, Mayor. If you want to sell two-thirds of your front lawn, you can, but you can't just sell our parks. And it's your park. And it's my park, too. To mention quickly, that the chair of the Land Bank said they were not consulted in the development of this petition drive and they don't think it's an appropriate use of the Land Bank for what has been identified in the petition drive. So, and, you know, I think that's a great soundbite, Wells, to say it's not my park and I can't sell it. As I pointed out earlier, that particular piece of property has gone through any number of different uses over the year. When we initially looked at it, I've lived in Portland for a number of different years. I actually lived in the Parkside neighborhood. That is a failed space. We as a city need to do something differently with that space. And to continue to cling to the status quo, I don't think serves the City of Portland best. But we're not talking about the status quo. What we're talking about, Mayor, is what has happened in that park in the last couple of months and what we can do to make sure that our public spaces aren't sold in the future. This citizens initiative on June 10th is going to add protections to 60 of our parks and open spaces. And it adds protections that are much, much, much stronger than those suggested by the City Council. You're talking, and theoretically, you're talking about all the properties, the parks plus those that are in the land bank now. Absolutely. That's how you get to the number of 65, 70. But the ordinance that got passed by the City is a more robust list. We actually have more on the list that we've put on a priority list. And I have to say, you know, I appreciate some of the comments that made by Wells. But I've never really seen where good public policy has been drafted through a referendum process. It is always drafted by a few people that sit down and say, here's what we think best represents our idea. And that's what happened in this case. There was very little public process. There was very little public input. And it was a very small group of people that sat down and said, now it's going to take an eight to one vote by the City Council. And if they don't get an eight to one vote, it's going to have to go to six votes in the City Council. I'm glad the Mayor brought that up because it wasn't a small group of people who decided that this should be on the ballot. It was 4,200 Portland voters who broke records in signing our petition to get this to a vote. The people want to decide. We tapped into something really, really big here. After the City Council initially denied us our rights, denied us our petition and, you know, the slower court agreed with us and just recently the main supreme judicial court agreed with us that we had a right to collect those signatures. That you have a right to have them on about it. But those court rulings had nothing to do with the merits of the proposal of Congress Square. And again, I have to go back to the fact that when people vote on this issue on June 10th, it really is simply about whether or not they believe going forward with the proposal on Congress Square makes sense or whether or not they accept the status quo. Absolutely not. We have about four minutes left. So I wanted to make sure that we did cover the question about how ordinances are amended through City Council and how they would be through your measure. So, Mayor Brennan. Well, if this petition referendum were to pass, the City Council, nobody can change it for five years. That's somewhat unusual in the state legislature when there's a referendum that is passed. The legislature treats it like statue and it can change it immediately. And it has done that in the past because some of the referendums have been written in a way that they've been unable to implement. And the case of an ordinance that has been passed by the City Council, it stays in place until the City Council chooses to do something differently. Great.  So you want to go ahead about how the amendment process? Absolutely. What the vote on June 10th is going to do is to provide protections for five years. I think that if we're serious about protecting our parks, what we should do is not take the word of the City Council that just voted to sell one of our parks and then realize there's public outcry. We better make it look like we're doing something and pass something that we can change whenever we feel like it, whenever public opinion shifts or attention is diverted. But instead to put it to the voters and say, if we think we should protect our parks in a way that's serious, in a way that is meaningful, and in a way that's going to preserve these open spaces for future generations, then yes, we need to take it out of the hands of the City Council because sometimes politics determines policy. And we think that this is something that the people should decide on. All right. And I just have to point ahead again, and I'm sorry, Wells, to keep going back to that. But that threat just doesn't exist. And the second thing is, as I pointed out earlier, many of the parks that we're talking about already have extensive deed restrictions, legal restrictions, and as I already pointed out in the Eastern Prom and the Western Prom, it's a state legislature that passed statute. So this idea that the City Council randomly can sell off parks or open space, it's just not true. It's just what they tried to do. And nobody on the City Council is more protective of open space and public space than I am. And I believe that that sentiment is shared by other City Councils. Congress Square is a completely unique circumstance. And as I pointed out, the history of Congress Square has been a dunk in donuts. It has been a lungs restaurant. To equate that with the Eastern Prom in terms of protection, it is really kind of a non sequitur of my mind. We are coming very close to the end. You have one quick sentence for our close. Great. Thank you so much, Anne. I'd urge the voters of Portland to vote yes on June 10th in support of strengthening our protections for all 60 of our parks and open spaces. And thank you for watching. And thank you for watching. The importance of this issue cannot be overestimated. We know how important this conversation is and helping to give you a better idea of the kinds of things that are happening and the different impacts of these different proposals. We hope that you'll take this to heart and that you will vote on June 10th. And we appreciate your being with us today. Thank you.