Rob Legato: The art of creating awe

Summary

El guionista de video explora cómo las emociones alteran nuestra percepción y memoria, ilustrado con el regreso a la escena del lanzamiento del Saturn V en 'Apollo 13'. Descubre que lo que los espectadores recuerdan no es lo que realmente sucedió, sino una versión alterada por sus emociones. Utiliza esta teoría para crear una secuencia de lanzamiento memorable. Luego, se adentra en la creación de efectos visuales para 'Titanic', donde combina imágenes reales con elementos inventados para evocar emociones profundas. Finalmente, muestra cómo la ilusión cinematográfica puede ser usada para contar historias de manera efectiva, como en la secuencia continua de 'Hugo', que revela la maestría del personaje en su mundo.

Takeaways

• 🎬 El guionista de 'Apollo 13' aprendió que las emociones alteran nuestra percepción y memoria de los eventos.
• 🚀 Durante la creación del lanzamiento de Saturn V para 'Apollo 13', se realizó una prueba para determinar lo que era memorable en el material de referencia.
• 🧠 La memoria colectiva y las emociones influyeron en lo que los espectadores recordaron del lanzamiento, más allá de lo que realmente sucedió.
• 🎥 Para 'Apollo 13', se creó un lanzamiento basado en notas y recuerdos colectivos, en lugar de simplemente replicar lo visto.
• 🔧 Se utilizó una técnica de cámara con lentes cortos para dar una sensación de distancia, a pesar de estar cerca de la acción.
• 🎉 El clímax de la película 'Apollo 13' fue logrado con un modelo lanzado desde un helicóptero.
• 👨‍🚀 Un consultor de NASA, quien era astronauta, revisó y a veces desaprobó las representaciones de los lanzamientos espaciales en la película.
• 🤔 La memoria del astronauta no coincidía con la representación en la película, lo que demuestra cómo las percepciones pueden ser subjetivas.
• 🌊 En 'Titanic', se combinaron imágenes reales tomadas por James Cameron con escenas recreadas para contar la historia completa.
• 🚂 En la película 'Hugo', se utilizó la ilusión cinematográfica para crear la sensación de que el tren se movía mientras en realidad era el escenario el que se desplazaba.
• 🌌 Se creó una toma en una toma para 'Hugo', que simboliza la percepción de que el protagonista es el maestro de su universo, usando varios sets y técnicas de cámara.

Q & A

¿Qué descubrió el ponente sobre cómo funcionan nuestros cerebros al trabajar en la película 'Apollo 13'?

Descubrió que cuando estamos llenos de entusiasmo, asombro o afecto, nuestra percepción de las cosas cambia, lo que afecta lo que vemos y recordamos.

¿Cuál fue el propósito del experimento del ponente con la proyección de imágenes de archivo?

El propósito era descubrir qué recordaba la gente sobre el lanzamiento de un cohete Saturno V y qué imágenes les resultaban memorables para replicarlas en la película.

¿Qué encontró el ponente sobre las memorias de las personas tras ver las imágenes de archivo del lanzamiento?

Encontró que las personas alteraban sus recuerdos añadiendo movimientos de cámara y combinando tomas, lo que le llevó a replicar lo que recordaban, no lo que realmente vieron.

¿Cómo recreó el ponente el lanzamiento del cohete para la película 'Apollo 13'?

Utilizó lentes cortos para estar cerca de la acción y luego combinó notas y recuerdos de la audiencia para crear una representación que evocara sus memorias del lanzamiento.

¿Qué técnica utilizó el ponente para filmar la escena del lanzamiento en un aparcamiento?

Utilizó extintores de incendio, cera para simular hielo y un modelo lanzado desde un helicóptero, creando una ilusión convincente del lanzamiento del cohete.

¿Qué reacción tuvo el consultor de la NASA sobre las tomas recreadas del lanzamiento?

El consultor criticó las tomas por ser poco realistas, señalando que nunca se diseñaría un cohete como el mostrado, lo que resaltó las diferencias entre la percepción y la realidad.

¿Cómo reaccionó Buzz Aldrin a las imágenes generadas para la película 'Apollo 13'?

Buzz Aldrin pensó que las imágenes eran de archivo y nunca antes vistas, destacando la eficacia de las técnicas del ponente para crear una ilusión convincente.

¿Cómo enfrentó el ponente el desafío de recrear escenas del Titanic para la película de James Cameron?

Tuvo que rellenar los huecos de las imágenes auténticas de Cameron recreando escenas en un garaje con modelos a escala, logrando que las emociones del público se mantuvieran.

¿Qué truco cinematográfico utilizó el ponente en la película 'Hugo' para simular una escena peligrosa?

Utilizó un truco identificado por Sergei Eisenstein, moviendo el suelo en lugar del tren, para simular el movimiento del tren y la pierna del personaje atrapada.

¿Cómo logró el ponente que una escena en 'Hugo' pareciera una toma continua?

Combinó cinco sets diferentes, dos actores distintos y múltiples tomas para crear la ilusión de una toma continua que siguiera al protagonista a través de la estación de tren.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 La creación de la ilusión en 'Apollo 13'

El primer párrafo narra la experiencia del orador al trabajar en la película 'Apollo 13', donde descubre cómo la emoción puede alterar la percepción y la memoria. Para recrear el lanzamiento de un Saturn V, realiza un experimento con público en una sala de proyección, mostrando material de archivo y analizando lo que los espectadores recuerdan. Descubre que lo que los espectadores describen no coincide con lo que realmente vieron, sino con lo que recordaron emocionalmente. Basado en estas observaciones, crea un lanzamiento que refleje la 'conciencia colectiva' de lo que la gente recordó, utilizando técnicas de cámara que sugieren distancia y acción, pero que en realidad son ilusiones creadas con recursos sencillos como extintores y lámparas.

05:02

🎬 La memoria y la ilusión en el cine

En el segundo párrafo, el orador comparte anedotas sobre la importancia de la memoria y cómo esta puede ser manipulada en el cine. Se menciona un incidente con un consultor de NASA que criticó la precisión técnica de las escenas recreadas, pero cuestionó su propia memoria al recordar su misión en Apollo 15. Además, se relata una anécdota con Buzz Aldrin, quien no estaba involucrado en la película y cuestionó la procedencia del material de archivo utilizado. El orador también habla sobre el desafío de trabajar en 'Titanic', donde James Cameron había filmado el verdadero Titanic y él tuvo que recrear escenas para complementar el material real, jugando con la ilusión visual para que la audiencia experimentara una transición entre el barco en su esplendor y su estado actual en el fondo del océano.

10:04

🎥 La magia de la transición en 'Titanic'

El tercer párrafo se centra en una de las técnicas más destacadas de la película 'Titanic': la transición mágica entre el barco en su gloria y su ruina actual. El orador describe cómo utilizó la atención del espectador para realizar una transición fluida entre los dos estados del Titanic, marcando el punto exacto en que el espectador cambia su enfoque visual para realizar la transición. Esta técnica fue elogiada por su naturalidad y capacidad para dejar que la audiencia experimentara la transformación sin notar los trucos detrás de ella.

15:06

🤹 La ilusión del plano secuencia en 'Hugo'

El último párrafo relata el proceso creativo detrás de un plano secuencia en la película 'Hugo', que buscaba transmitir la sensación de dominio del protagonista sobre su entorno. El orador describe cómo se recreó un seguimiento en un plano continuo a través de cinco sets diferentes y dos actores diferentes, creando la ilusión de una toma continua. Esta técnica fue elogiada por críticos y el público, y el orador reflexiona sobre la ironía de que la apreciación de la técnica se debe a que parece tan natural que nadie sospecha el trabajo detrás de ella.

Keywords

💡Percepción

La percepción se refiere a la manera en que interpretamos y recordamos los eventos que vemos. En el video, el orador menciona cómo las emociones pueden alterar nuestra percepción, lo que afecta lo que vemos y recordamos. Este concepto es central cuando habla de cómo la gente recuerda el lanzamiento del Saturn V de manera diferente a como realmente fue.

💡Memoria colectiva

La memoria colectiva se refiere a cómo un grupo de personas recuerda un evento de manera similar, influenciada por sus emociones y experiencias compartidas. El orador utilizó las memorias colectivas del lanzamiento del Saturn V para recrear la escena en 'Apollo 13', basándose en lo que la gente recordaba, no en lo que realmente vieron.

💡Recreación

La recreación implica volver a crear una escena o evento con la mayor fidelidad posible. En el video, el orador recrea el lanzamiento del Saturn V para 'Apollo 13', utilizando diversos trucos y efectos especiales para capturar la esencia de las memorias de las personas, en lugar de los detalles exactos.

💡Falsificación

La falsificación en este contexto se refiere a la creación de una versión de la realidad que no es completamente verdadera pero que es convincente. El orador habla de cómo recreó el lanzamiento del Saturn V usando efectos especiales que parecían reales, pero eran en su mayoría inventados.

💡Verosimilitud

La verosimilitud es la apariencia de ser real o verdadero. El orador menciona cómo intentó capturar un sentido de verosimilitud en las escenas de 'Apollo 13' al hacer que las tomas parecieran auténticas, incluso si los métodos para crearlas no lo eran.

💡Emociones

Las emociones juegan un papel crucial en cómo interpretamos y recordamos los eventos. El orador señala que las emociones como el entusiasmo o la admiración pueden alterar nuestra percepción, lo cual es clave en cómo la audiencia recuerda el lanzamiento del Saturn V.

💡Ilusión

La ilusión se refiere a una percepción que engaña a los sentidos. En el video, se menciona cómo se utilizan ilusiones para crear escenas convincentes en películas, como en 'Hugo', donde se hizo parecer que un tren se movía cuando en realidad era el suelo el que se movía.

💡Efectos especiales

Los efectos especiales son técnicas utilizadas en el cine para crear imágenes que serían imposibles o demasiado costosas de producir de otra manera. El orador detalla cómo usó efectos especiales para recrear escenas en 'Apollo 13' y 'Titanic', logrando que se vieran realistas.

💡Suspensión de la incredulidad

La suspensión de la incredulidad es cuando el público acepta elementos irreales o improbables en una obra de ficción. El orador habla de cómo los espectadores aceptan las escenas recreadas como reales, gracias a la habilidad de los efectos especiales para mantener la ilusión.

💡Transición mágica

La transición mágica se refiere a un efecto visual que transforma una escena de una forma a otra de manera fluida. En el video, el orador describe cómo creó una transición en 'Titanic' que convirtió la imagen del barco hundido en su estado original y viceversa, utilizando las habilidades naturales del cerebro para procesar cambios visuales.

Highlights

Discovery of how emotions can alter perception and memory during the making of 'Apollo 13'.

Experimentation with audience perception by showing stock footage of a Saturn V launch.

Realization that what should be replicated is not what was seen, but what was remembered.

Creation of a collective consciousness of the Saturn V launch using audience feedback.

Use of short lenses to create a sense of distance, mimicking long lens shots.

Tom Hanks' character, Odyssey, communicating with Houston in 'Apollo 13'.

Recreating the launch of Apollo 13 with unconventional methods like fire extinguishers and wax.

The importance of achieving verisimilitude in film through practical effects.

Incorporating a NASA consultant and astronaut's feedback into the film's accuracy.

The humorous moment when the astronaut consultant pointed out inaccuracies in the recreated launch.

Buzz Aldrin's reaction to the recreated launch footage, mistaking it for never-before-seen archival material.

James Cameron's use of real footage of the Titanic and the challenge of filling in narrative gaps.

Creating a haunting and emotional connection with the audience through film effects.

The illusion of the Titanic's transformation from glory to wreck using audience's brain perception.

Seamless transition effect in 'Titanic' that leverages the brain's natural attention shifts.

The one-shot theory and its application in 'Hugo' to convey the protagonist's journey and personality.

Technical challenges of creating a one-shot sequence in 3D for the film 'Hugo'.

Combining multiple sets and shots to create the illusion of a continuous scene in 'Hugo'.

The significance of the one-shot sequence in 'Hugo' and its reception by critics and audiences.

Reflection on the art of visual effects and how they can go unnoticed when done well.

Transcripts

Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast

I worked on a film called "Apollo 13,"

and when I worked on this film, I discovered something

about how our brains work, and how our brains work

is that, when we're sort of infused with

either enthusiasm or awe or fondness or whatever,

it changes and alters our perception of things.

It changes what we see. It changes what we remember.

And as an experiment, because I dauntingly create

a task for myself of recreating a Saturn V launch

for this particular movie, because I put it out there,

I felt a little nervous about it, so I need to do an experiment

and bring a group of people like this in a projection room

and play this stock footage, and when I played this

stock footage, I simply wanted to find out

what people remembered, what was memorable about it?

What should I actually try to replicate?

What should I try to emulate to some degree?

So this is the footage that I was showing everybody.

And what I discovered is, because of the nature

of the footage and the fact that we're doing this film,

there was an emotion that was built into it

and our collective memories of what this launch meant to us

and all these various things.

When I showed it, and I asked, immediately after

the screening was over, what they thought of it,

what was your memorable shots, they changed them.

They were -- had camera moves on them.

They had all kinds of things. Shots were combined,

and I was just really curious, I mean, what the hell

were you looking at just a few minutes ago

and how come, how'd you come up with this sort of description?

And what I discovered is, what I should do is not actually

replicate what they saw, is replicate what they remembered.

So this is our footage of the launch, based on, basically,

taking notes, asking people what they thought, and then

the combination of all the different shots and all

the different things put together created their sort of

collective consciousness of what they remembered

it looked like, but not what it really looked like.

So this is what we created for "Apollo 13."

(Launch noises)

So literally what you're seeing now is the confluence

of a bunch of different people, a bunch of different memories,

including my own, of taking a little bit of liberty

with the subject matter.

I basically shot everything with short lenses,

which means that you're very close to the action,

but framed it very similarly to the long lens shots

which gives you a sense of distance, so I was basically

was setting up something that would remind you

of something you haven't really quite seen before. (Music)

And then I'm going to show you exactly what it is

that you were reacting to when you were reacting to it.

(Music)

Tom Hanks: Hello, Houston, this is Odyssey.

It's good to see you again. (Cheers) (Music)

Rob Legato: I pretend they're clapping for me.

(Laughter)

So now I'm in a parking lot. Basically it's a tin can,

and I'm basically recreating the launch with

fire extinguishers, fire, I have wax that I threw

in front of the lens to look like ice, and so basically

if you believed any of the stuff that I just showed you,

what you were reacting to, what you're emoting to,

is something that's a total falsehood, and I found that

really kind of fascinating.

And in this particular case, this is the climax of the movie,

and, you know, the weight of achieving it was simply

take a model, throw it out of a helicopter, and shoot it.

And that's simply what I did.

That's me shooting, and I'm a fairly mediocre operator,

so I got that nice sense of verisimilitude, of a kind of,

you know, following the rocket all the way down,

and giving that little sort of edge, I was desperately

trying to keep it in frame. So then I come up to the next thing.

We had a NASA consultant who was actually an astronaut,

who was actually on some of the missions, of Apollo 15,

and he was there to basically double check my science.

And, I guess somebody thought they needed to do that.

(Laughter)

I don't know why, but they thought they did.

So we were, he's a hero, he's an astronaut, and

we're all sort of excited, and, you know, I gave myself

the liberty of saying, you know, some of the shots I did

didn't really suck that bad.

And so maybe, you know, we were feeling kind of a little

good about it, so I brought him in here, and he needed

to really check and see what we were doing,

and basically give us our A plus report card,

and so I showed him some shots we were working on,

and waiting for the reaction that you hope for,

which is what I got. (Music) (Launch noises)

So I showed him these two shots,

and then he basically told me what he thought.

("That's wrong") (Laughter)

Okay. (Laughter)

It's what you dream about.

(Laughter)

So what I got from him is, he turned to me and said,

"You would never, ever design a rocket like that.

You would never have a rocket go up

while the gantry arms are going out. Can you imagine

the tragedy that could possibly happen with that?

You would never, ever design a rocket like that."

And he was looking at me. It's like, Yeah, I don't know

if you noticed, but I'm the guy out in the parking lot

recreating one of America's finest moments with

fire extinguishers.

(Laughter)

And I'm not going to argue with you. You're an astronaut,

a hero, and I'm from New Jersey, so --

(Laughter)

I'm just going to show you some footage.

I'm just going to show you some footage, and tell me what you think.

And then I did kind of get the reaction I was hoping for.

So I showed him this, and this is actual footage

that he was on. This is Apollo 15. This was his mission.

So I showed him this, and the reaction I got was interesting.

("That's wrong too.") (Laughter)

So, and what happened was, I mean, what I sort of intuned

in that is that he remembered it differently.

He remembered that was a perfectly safe sort of gantry

system, perfectly safe rocket launch, because he's sitting

in a rocket that has, like, a hundred thousand pounds

of thrust, built by the lowest bidder.

He was hoping it was going to work out okay.

(Laughter) (Applause)

So he twisted his memory around.

Now, Ron Howard ran into Buzz Aldrin, who was not

on the movie, so he had no idea that we were faking

any of this footage, and he just responded

as he would respond, and I'll run this.

Ron Howard: Buzz Aldrin came up to me

and said, "Hey, that launch footage, I saw some shots

I'd never seen before. Did you guys, what vault did you find

that stuff in?" And I said, "Well, no vault, Buzz,

we generated all that from scratch."

And he said, "Huh, that's pretty good. Can we use it?"

(Explosion) ("Sure") (Laughter)

RL: I think he's a great American.

(Laughter)

So, "Titanic" was, if you don't know the story,

doesn't end well.

(Laughter)

Jim Cameron actually photographed the real Titanic.

So he basically set up, or basically shattered

the suspension of disbelief, because what he photographed

was the real thing, a Mir sub going down, or actually

two Mir subs going down to the real wreck,

and he created this very haunting footage.

It's really beautiful, and it conjures up all these

various different emotions, but he couldn't photograph

everything, and to tell the story,

I had to fill in the gaps, which is now rather daunting,

because now I have to recreate back to back

what really happened and I had, I'm the only one

who could really blow it at that point.

So this is the footage he photographed,

and it was pretty moving and pretty awe-inspiring.

So I'm going to just let it run, so you kind of absorb

this sort of thing, and I'll describe my sort of reactions

when I was looking at it for the very first time.

I got the feeling that my brain wanted to basically

see it come back to life.

I automatically wanted to see this ship,

this magnificent ship, basically in all its glory,

and conversely, I wanted to see it not in all its glory,

basically go back to what it looks like.

So I conjured up an effect that I'm later going to show you

what I tried to do, which is kind of the heart of the movie,

for me, and so that's why I wanted to do the movie,

that's why I wanted to create the sort of things I created.

And I'll show you, you know, another thing that I found

interesting is what we really were emoting to

when you take a look at it.

So here's the behind the scenes, a couple of little shots here.

So, when you saw my footage,

you were seeing this: basically, a bunch of guys

flipping a ship upside down, and the little Mir subs

are actually about the size of small footballs,

and shot in smoke.

Jim went three miles went down, and I went about

three miles away from the studio

and photographed this in a garage.

And so, but what you're emoting to, or what you're looking

at, had the same feeling, the same haunting quality,

that Jim's footage had, so I found it so fascinating

that our brains sort of, once you believe something's real,

you transfer everything that you feel about it,

this quality you have, and it's totally artificial.

It's totally make-believe, yet it's not to you,

and I found that that was a very interesting thing

to explore and use, and it caused me to create the next

effect that I'll show you, which is

this sort of magic transition, and all I was really attempting

to do is basically have the audience cue the effect,

so it became a seamless experience for them,

that I wasn't showing you my sort of interpretation,

I was showing you what you wanted to see.

And the very next shot, right after this --

So you can see what I was doing.

So basically, if there's two subs in the same shot,

I shot it, because where's the camera coming from?

And when Jim shot it, it was only one sub,

because he was photographing from the other,

and I don't remember if I did this or Jim did this.

I'll give it to Jim, because he could use the pat on the back.

(Laughter)

Okay. So now the Titanic transition.

So this is what I was referring to where I wanted to basically

magically transplant from one state of the Titanic

to the other. So I'll just play the shot once. (Music)

(Music)

And what I was hoping for is that it just melts in front of you.

Gloria Stuart: That was the last time Titanic ever saw daylight.

RL: So, what I did is basically I had another

screening room experience where I was basically tracking

where I was looking, or where we were looking,

and of course you're looking at the two people on the bow

of the ship, and then at some point,

I'm changing the periphery of the shot,

I'm changing, it's becoming the rusted wreck,

and then I would run it every day, and then I would find

exactly the moment that I stopped looking at them

and start noticing the rest of it, and the moment

my eye shifted, we just marked it to the frame.

The moment my eye shifted, I immediately started

to change them, so now somehow you missed

where it started and where it stopped.

And so I'll just show it one more time.

(Music) And it's literally done by using what our brains

naturally do for us, which is, as soon as you shift

your attention, something changes, and then I left

the little scarf going, because it really wanted to be

a ghostly shot, really wanted to feel like they were still

on the wreck, essentially. That's where they were buried forever.

Or something like that. I just made that up.

(Laughter)

It was, incidentally, the last time I ever saw daylight.

It was a long film to work on. (Laughter)

Now, "Hugo" was another interesting movie, because

the movie itself is about film illusions.

It's about how our brain is tricked into seeing a persistence

of vision that creates a motion picture,

and one of the things I had to do is, we —

Sasha Baron Cohen is a very clever, very smart guy,

comedian, wanted to basically do an homage to the kind of

the Buster Keaton sort of slapstick things, and he wanted

his leg brace to get caught on a moving train.

Very dangerous, very impossible to do, and particularly

on our stage, because there literally is no way to actually

move this train, because it fits so snugly into our set.

So let me show you the scene, and then I basically

used the trick that was identified by Sergei Eisenstein,

which is, if you have a camera that's moving with a moving

object, what is not moving appears to be moving,

and what is moving appears to be stopped,

so what you're actually seeing now is the train is not

moving at all, and what is actually moving is the floor.

So this is the shot. That's a little video of

what you're looking at there, which is our little test,

so that's actually what you're seeing, and I thought it was

sort of an interesting thing, because it was, part

of the homage of the movie itself is coming up with this

sort of genius trick which I can't take credit for.

I'd love to but I can't, because it was invented

like in 1910 or something like that, is I told Marty,

and it's kind of one of those mind things that it's

really hard to really get until you actually see it work,

and I said, you know, what I was going to do, and he said,

"So, let me see if I can get this straight. The thing with the wheels?

That doesn't move."

(Laughter) (Applause)

"And the thing without the wheels, that moves."

Precisely. (Laughter)

Brings me to the next, and final --

Marty's not going to see this, is he? (Laughter)

This isn't viewed outside of -- (Laughter)

The next illustration is something that, there's like

all one shot theory. It's a very elegant way of telling a story,

especially if you're following somebody on a journey,

and that journey basically tells something about

their personality in a very concise way,

and what we wanted to do based on the shot in "Goodfellas,"

which is one of the great shots ever,

a Martin Scorsese film, of basically following Henry Hill

through what it feels like to be a gangster walk

going through the Copacabana and being treated in a special way.

He was the master of his universe, and we wanted Hugo

to feel the same way, so we created this shot.

(Music)

That's Hugo. (Music)

And we felt that if we could basically move the camera

with him, we would feel what it feels like to be this boy

who is basically the master of his universe,

and his universe is, you know, behind the scenes

in the bowels of this particular train station

that only he can actually navigate through

and do it this way, and we had to make it feel that

this is his normal, everyday sort of life,

so the idea of doing it as one shot was very important,

and of course, in shooting in 3D, which is basically

it's a huge camera that's hanging off of a giant stick,

so to recreate a steadycam shot was the task,

and make it feel kind of like what the reaction you got

when you saw the "Goodfellas" shot.

So what you're now going to see is how we actually did it.

It's actually five separate sets shot at five different times

with two different boys.

The one on the left is where the shot ends,

and the shot on the right is where it takes over,

and now we switch boys, so it went from Asa Butterfield,

who's the star of the show, to his stand-in. (Music)

I wouldn't say his stunt double. There's a crazy rig

that we built for this. (Music)

And so this is, and now this is set number three

we're into, and then we're going to go into, basically

the very last moment of the shot is actually

the steadycam shot. Everything else was shot on cranes

and various things like that, and it literally was done

over five different sets, two different boys, different times,

and it all had to feel like it was all one shot, and what was

sort of great for me was it was probably

the best-reviewed shot I've ever worked on,

and, you know, I was kind of proud of it when I was done,

which is, you should never really be proud of stuff, I guess.

So I was kind of proud of it, and I went to a friend of mine,

and said, "You know, this is, you know, kind of

the best-reviewed shot I've ever worked on.

What do you think was the reason?"

And he said, "Because no one knows

you had anything to do with it."

(Laughter)

So, all I can say is, thank you,

and that's my presentation for you. (Applause)

(Applause)