Robert Rodriguez
Around the time Konk
died I started thinking about creating a more ambitious show, one that
included scripted live bits and funny edited videos. This was long
before youTube, and my first thought was student short films. The
University of Texas film program held a screening a couple times a year
to screen student film projects. These screening were open to the
public, and Ben and I attended to a couple. Most of the films were
either bad or not right for the show, but a few seemed like a good fit
and we approached the film makers about letting us broadcast the film on
our cable show. The answer was always no. They were film students,
and didn't want to have anything to do with television. It really
surprised us.
At the time, the UT film students were using wind up film cameras and being taught to edit film by taking a razor blade to their master footage. They had no interest in video at all, it was a dead end.
Not long after that, Ben comes back to White Boys Central with a videotape he got from work. He was working at the Austin Chronicle and they had sponsored a short film competition in conjunction with the UT film dept. He brought home a tape by one of the winners called 'Austin Stories'. Robert Rodriguez was a UT student who had been rejected from the film department because of grades, and entered the contest to show the heads of the film department what he could do.
He won, beating out many of the junior and senior film students who were in the UT film program.
He won because the 3 shorts he created were great. Robert had been making short videos for several years and it showed. The energy, the pacing, the shot composition were all top notch. They really blew us away, but one thing stood out to me. The shorts were shot on video, edited on video, and had the style and energy of the stuff we were doing on Access.
I had to get them on the show.
Ben got his contact info and we called him up. He said yes... immediately. No hesitation.
We went to his place to pick up the tape and met his wife Elizabeth. Cute couple. We hit it off immediately. Robert quizzed us on Access and we got the story on him. I'm not sure who was more impressed. He was blown away by the idea that you had access to high end video equipment and and an opportunity to put your stuff on TV, and we were fascinated by his story.
'Austin Stories' was a series of 3 short films, and they were all shot on a home video camera using (primarily) his siblings as actors. He had a big family. There was a piece missing though, and I asked him how he edited them, because there were a lot of edits and some sequences had a background music track. His response, "Flying erase head"... I could put a long geeky explanation here about this, but just suffice it to say that he shot these award winning short films on a home camcorder, and edited them on two home VCRs by hitting record on one machine and pausing and un-pausing while hand syncing with the other machine.... Insane.
The other news was that he was accepted into UT film program. After beating their best and brightest he went to the head of the department and plead his case successfully. So, he was off to learn the 'right way' to make movies and we were off to broadcast 'Austin Stories'.
The shorts were a hit. We ran them several times.
A few months later Robert came back to us with his film one project. Let me start by saying that all film one projects suck. They were given a wind up Bolex camera, a very limited amount of film, all sound had to be recorded after the fact, and the edit bay included a roll of scotch tape and a pair of scissors.
Surprise, it was good. He made a fun little silent film homage starring his siblings.
We showed it, it also got a great reaction.
Robert about this time was getting frustrated with film school... he already knew how to make movies, he just wanted access to the film equipment. At the same time he saw all the toys we had and wanted to get in on that action. For his next film project, he wanted to cut it on video. He thought that it was crazy that they were making him physically cut up his master footage.
It was going to take some time for Robert to get cleared on the edit equipment, but I was up there most nights. The equipment room closed down around 10 and the security guard locked us in and went home. There were limits to the number of hours you could book a week, but if you booked the last hour before they closed up, you could stay there all night and take up as many edit bays that were available. Most nights I was up there all night long... So I would sneak Robert in and let him edit in one of the empty bays. Five minutes of showing him the basics and he was off and running.
Next up, he shot a great short called 'Bedhead', and he had a plan going in. He was going to shoot it on film with the school's equipment, but pay extra money out of his own pocket to get the film transferred to 3/4" video. This would allow him to get the look of film but all the benefits of the modern linear tape editing system. Robert was raised on MTV. Quick, precise cuts, often edited to driving background music track. That was his style, and he had perfected his technique by editing video. He saw the future and cutting film on an editing bench was not it.
By the time he finished editing 'Bedhead', he had finished all the required ACTV classes and was free to book his own time. We screened Bedhead many times on the show, and it always got a great reaction. He started sending it out to film festivals, and it started winning... cash prizes. He ended up making back his production costs and a little more.
His last project at UT was a short called 'Pretty Good Man'. It wasn't his script, he wasn't technically the director, but you could see his fingers all over it. Most prominently on the opening credits which were drawn and animated by Robert and his wife Elizabeth. He came on the show with his friends from film school to screen it, and it was on this episode that he spilled that he was planning to go shoot a feature in Mexico in the summer. He was mum on many of the details, but it was clear that he had a plan, and he was heading south for the summer.
While his film student classmates were talking about finishing film school, moving to L.A or N.Y.C., and getting a job as an assistant to an assistant to someone who had the job they really wanted, Robert was planning to take the summer off and make a Spanish language feature in Mexico.
He had this idea that he could make a feature and sell it to a Mexican distributor for $20,000, and if he could make the movie for $10,000, he could use the $10,000 profit to make another movie. Making shorts was OK, but if he wanted to be a real director, he had to make a feature. One bonus of making it in Spanish, was that if it sucked, nobody would see it. He could make 3 or 4 of these movies and in the process, he would learn a lot more about film making that any college class could ever teach him.
Every couple weeks Robert and I would end up running into each other and he'd give me an update. The script was written... he had the key actors... the date was scheduled... He was a little worried about the camera. He needed to rent one, and then there was the insurance, which might have been more complicated since he had to take it across the border... And he couldn't afford the camera that he wanted, so he was going to have to settle for lower quality camera...
"You know Robert," I say, "I happen to have a 16 millimeter film camera sitting in my living room."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that, I have a camera, and I'm not using it."
"What kind of camera is it?"
"I don't know, it's big.. it's an ari something"
"Arriflex?"
"Yeah, that's it"
"OK... you're saying that you have an Arriflex 16MM film camera... at your house... right now...?"
"Yeah, why don't you come by later and check it out."
... and he did... and he was very happy.
We'll back up a second... there's a little story here.
I had a friend who got me on a video crew shooting crowd reaction shots on a state-wide satellite broadcast. The gig was fairly tedious, but the pay was good and it looked good on the resume. When the shoot was over, we had to take the equipment back to the warehouse. It was my first time there and the place was piled high with crap. We stow the equipment and I'm wandering around while my friend finishes up.
I spot about a half dozen equipment cases stacked up in the corner, and I open one. The case is covered in dust, but inside is a film camera. At this point, I know my way around most consumer, industrial, and professional video cameras, but I had never touched a film camera like this. I call my friend over and ask him about the cases. He explains that the production company is all video now, but years ago they used to shoot all their commercial work on film. They probably hadn't opened these cases in a decade. I ask him if they work. He figures they probably do, but the battery packs are probably shot.
So... then I ask if I could borrow one.
He says "Sure... Nobody would miss it, just bring it back in the same condition."
A few weeks later, Robert Rodriguez is walking out the front door of White Boys Central carrying a case, and he has a big grin on his face.
He's able to get new battery packs, and test the camera. The film comes back looking good, and he's all set to go.
I only see him one more time before he leaves. He stops by to show us a severed head. If you've seen the movie, there is a dream sequence and in it the Mariachi's head rolls into the frame. Robert had befriended a special effects makeup artist, and he loaned Robert the head for the movie. He showed us bits of the story-boarded script, and then he was off.
A few weeks pass, Robert is in Mexico with the camera, and my phone rings...
It's my friend.
He says, "Hey Keith, I need to get that camera back."
"Um... OK... why?"
"Oh the boss decided that he wanted to clean up the warehouse and found the cameras, he wants to sell them off."
"Really... Can I buy it?"
"No, he doesn't want to sell them individually, he wants to sell them in a bundle."
"Oh, OK... When do you need it back?"
"Oh today or tomorrow would be fine..."
"OK, well... Can I call you back in a little bit?"
Scramble, find Robert's number, call... ring, ring, ring.
Elizabeth picks up... "Hey, is Robert back yet?"
"No, He'll be back in a few days"
"Can you get a message to him? Cause I need to get the camera back to the guy I borrowed it from as soon as possible"
"I'll see what I can do."
... yikes...
It all works out, within 72 hours, the camera's back in Austin, and Robert was able to get the shots he needed.
He gets the film processed and transferred to 3/4" tape and starts cutting. First he cuts a trailer and brings it down to the show. We're blown away. We play it on the show and everybody loves it. Austin is a film town, and the callers are really responding to it.
While hanging out, Robert hears some music we're playing by Marc Trujillo, and asks about it. I give him Marc's number and Marc composes some soundtrack music for the flick. I didn't know Marc very well, he was really my friend Gray Miller's buddy, but there was just a lot of talent bubbling up around that time, and it's funny how the connections got made.
Then he went away for a few months to cut the film. I saw him here and there, and he always looked beat.
He finally came to me and said he was putting the credits on, and wanted to know how I wanted to be listed. Since my big contribution was the camera, and I was not supposed to have the camera, much less loan it to a friend to take to Mexico... I said, just make it a special thanks to "The White Boys"
He had another problem. The contract you make with Access states that the product you create with Access equipment, has to air on Access first. Once it's aired, you can do what you want with it. You have two ways of getting a show on the channels, submit a tape to programming or schedule live time. The problem with submitting a tape, is that taped submissions would go into the library to be played back whenever Programming saw fit. He wanted to be clear with Access, but he didn't want them to have a copy, in case it might mess up any deal to sell it.
"No problem", I say. We'll just have the World Premiere on my live show.
This way he fulfills the contract with Access and does not lose control of his ability to sell it. I'll need to add a hour on to my normal scheduled live time, and that will take a couple weeks, but it's not a big deal.
A few nights before the show, I get a call, and Robert has quite a story to tell. I seems that in the last 10 days, his whole world has exploded. He got the tape to a guy in L.A. That guy starts showing it around, and before you know it, it's the talk of the town. More importantly though, Stephen Spielberg has requested a copy, but he wants one with subtitles. I'm more familiar with the edit equipment, and he wants to know if it's possible to do on the Access edit machines.
"...No... well... not really. You can't do it in the edit bays, but you might be able to do it on the CG in the main studio. You'd have to lose a generation to do it... Do you have Main Studio Certification?"
"No"
"Well, I've got time scheduled tonight, come on down and we'll figure it out."
It turned out to be fairly easy, luckily since Robert was not shooting sync sound on Mariachi, he kept the dialogue to a minimum. He worked at Mark's desk while I finished the prep for that week's show. It was a long night.
Premiere night went off without a hitch, we did the show, showed the movie, and then an impromptu interview after.
If you watch the tape from that night, a couple things stick out, first that the movie is just great, very close to the theatrical release, and second, that there is an annoying copyright notice that keeps coming up. Robert insisted on this because he said that on one trip to Mexico to sell his short film 'Bedhead' to a Mexican TV distribution house, they said that they already bought it. After much discussion, they showed him the tape they bought, and it was indeed his short film... with a little tag in the lower corner of the screen that said "White Noise". Someone, evidently had taped the short off our broadcast, and went to Mexico and sold it. Crazy.
Then Robert went to L.A. and we didn't see him again for quite a while. The company that bought the film wanted to release it into theaters, and he spent months and several hundred thousand dollars get to a film cut made.
One day, I get a call. They're finishing up the movie, and it's credit time again... and someone at the studio is uncomfortable putting a credit to "The White Boys" on the film. They're pushing the Latin angle hard in the press and it doesn't seem right that the 'One Man Show' that is Robert Rodriguez needed help from some white boys. I laugh, and say it doesn't really matter anymore. He puts my name and Ben's name in the credits and that's how I got my one and only IMDB credit. :)
Robert published a diary about the making of El Mariachi called 'Rebel without a crew', and I appear a number of times in it. The only story he left out was the one about the subtitles, and in a funny way that's the one I'm most proud of.
Robert would have made El Mariachi without ever meeting me. He would have found or rented a camera, he would have figured out an editing solution, and eventually he would have been a successful Hollywood director, but he had an offer of $25,000 from a Mexican distributor for the movie. He almost took the deal, but they were slow in getting him the check, and in that time he started to get noticed in L.A.
He had a compelling story... young kid makes a $7,000 action film... but Hollywood don't speak Spanish.
I may be wrong, but I think that exhausting night we spent putting subtitles on the film really helped the buzz about the movie spread, because it was seeing the movie that sold you on his talent, and as that tape was passed around Hollywood, I wonder how many people would have given it a chance without subtitles.
One last bit. When the 3rd Mariachi movie debuted in Austin at the Paramount, Robert asked my wife and I to be there. After the movie, he did a Q&A and in his opening remarks he ask me to stand up. He introduced me to a packed house and said that if it weren't for me that Mariachi would probably not have been made.
That was very kind of him to say. As I said before, he would have made that film anyway. Robert had both the talent and the single-minded focus that it takes to be successful. I'm just glad that I had a front row seat to witness it.
At the time, the UT film students were using wind up film cameras and being taught to edit film by taking a razor blade to their master footage. They had no interest in video at all, it was a dead end.
Not long after that, Ben comes back to White Boys Central with a videotape he got from work. He was working at the Austin Chronicle and they had sponsored a short film competition in conjunction with the UT film dept. He brought home a tape by one of the winners called 'Austin Stories'. Robert Rodriguez was a UT student who had been rejected from the film department because of grades, and entered the contest to show the heads of the film department what he could do.
He won, beating out many of the junior and senior film students who were in the UT film program.
He won because the 3 shorts he created were great. Robert had been making short videos for several years and it showed. The energy, the pacing, the shot composition were all top notch. They really blew us away, but one thing stood out to me. The shorts were shot on video, edited on video, and had the style and energy of the stuff we were doing on Access.
I had to get them on the show.
Ben got his contact info and we called him up. He said yes... immediately. No hesitation.
We went to his place to pick up the tape and met his wife Elizabeth. Cute couple. We hit it off immediately. Robert quizzed us on Access and we got the story on him. I'm not sure who was more impressed. He was blown away by the idea that you had access to high end video equipment and and an opportunity to put your stuff on TV, and we were fascinated by his story.
'Austin Stories' was a series of 3 short films, and they were all shot on a home video camera using (primarily) his siblings as actors. He had a big family. There was a piece missing though, and I asked him how he edited them, because there were a lot of edits and some sequences had a background music track. His response, "Flying erase head"... I could put a long geeky explanation here about this, but just suffice it to say that he shot these award winning short films on a home camcorder, and edited them on two home VCRs by hitting record on one machine and pausing and un-pausing while hand syncing with the other machine.... Insane.
The other news was that he was accepted into UT film program. After beating their best and brightest he went to the head of the department and plead his case successfully. So, he was off to learn the 'right way' to make movies and we were off to broadcast 'Austin Stories'.
The shorts were a hit. We ran them several times.
A few months later Robert came back to us with his film one project. Let me start by saying that all film one projects suck. They were given a wind up Bolex camera, a very limited amount of film, all sound had to be recorded after the fact, and the edit bay included a roll of scotch tape and a pair of scissors.
Surprise, it was good. He made a fun little silent film homage starring his siblings.
We showed it, it also got a great reaction.
Robert about this time was getting frustrated with film school... he already knew how to make movies, he just wanted access to the film equipment. At the same time he saw all the toys we had and wanted to get in on that action. For his next film project, he wanted to cut it on video. He thought that it was crazy that they were making him physically cut up his master footage.
It was going to take some time for Robert to get cleared on the edit equipment, but I was up there most nights. The equipment room closed down around 10 and the security guard locked us in and went home. There were limits to the number of hours you could book a week, but if you booked the last hour before they closed up, you could stay there all night and take up as many edit bays that were available. Most nights I was up there all night long... So I would sneak Robert in and let him edit in one of the empty bays. Five minutes of showing him the basics and he was off and running.
Next up, he shot a great short called 'Bedhead', and he had a plan going in. He was going to shoot it on film with the school's equipment, but pay extra money out of his own pocket to get the film transferred to 3/4" video. This would allow him to get the look of film but all the benefits of the modern linear tape editing system. Robert was raised on MTV. Quick, precise cuts, often edited to driving background music track. That was his style, and he had perfected his technique by editing video. He saw the future and cutting film on an editing bench was not it.
By the time he finished editing 'Bedhead', he had finished all the required ACTV classes and was free to book his own time. We screened Bedhead many times on the show, and it always got a great reaction. He started sending it out to film festivals, and it started winning... cash prizes. He ended up making back his production costs and a little more.
His last project at UT was a short called 'Pretty Good Man'. It wasn't his script, he wasn't technically the director, but you could see his fingers all over it. Most prominently on the opening credits which were drawn and animated by Robert and his wife Elizabeth. He came on the show with his friends from film school to screen it, and it was on this episode that he spilled that he was planning to go shoot a feature in Mexico in the summer. He was mum on many of the details, but it was clear that he had a plan, and he was heading south for the summer.
While his film student classmates were talking about finishing film school, moving to L.A or N.Y.C., and getting a job as an assistant to an assistant to someone who had the job they really wanted, Robert was planning to take the summer off and make a Spanish language feature in Mexico.
He had this idea that he could make a feature and sell it to a Mexican distributor for $20,000, and if he could make the movie for $10,000, he could use the $10,000 profit to make another movie. Making shorts was OK, but if he wanted to be a real director, he had to make a feature. One bonus of making it in Spanish, was that if it sucked, nobody would see it. He could make 3 or 4 of these movies and in the process, he would learn a lot more about film making that any college class could ever teach him.
Every couple weeks Robert and I would end up running into each other and he'd give me an update. The script was written... he had the key actors... the date was scheduled... He was a little worried about the camera. He needed to rent one, and then there was the insurance, which might have been more complicated since he had to take it across the border... And he couldn't afford the camera that he wanted, so he was going to have to settle for lower quality camera...
"You know Robert," I say, "I happen to have a 16 millimeter film camera sitting in my living room."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that, I have a camera, and I'm not using it."
"What kind of camera is it?"
"I don't know, it's big.. it's an ari something"
"Arriflex?"
"Yeah, that's it"
"OK... you're saying that you have an Arriflex 16MM film camera... at your house... right now...?"
"Yeah, why don't you come by later and check it out."
... and he did... and he was very happy.
We'll back up a second... there's a little story here.
I had a friend who got me on a video crew shooting crowd reaction shots on a state-wide satellite broadcast. The gig was fairly tedious, but the pay was good and it looked good on the resume. When the shoot was over, we had to take the equipment back to the warehouse. It was my first time there and the place was piled high with crap. We stow the equipment and I'm wandering around while my friend finishes up.
I spot about a half dozen equipment cases stacked up in the corner, and I open one. The case is covered in dust, but inside is a film camera. At this point, I know my way around most consumer, industrial, and professional video cameras, but I had never touched a film camera like this. I call my friend over and ask him about the cases. He explains that the production company is all video now, but years ago they used to shoot all their commercial work on film. They probably hadn't opened these cases in a decade. I ask him if they work. He figures they probably do, but the battery packs are probably shot.
So... then I ask if I could borrow one.
He says "Sure... Nobody would miss it, just bring it back in the same condition."
A few weeks later, Robert Rodriguez is walking out the front door of White Boys Central carrying a case, and he has a big grin on his face.
He's able to get new battery packs, and test the camera. The film comes back looking good, and he's all set to go.
I only see him one more time before he leaves. He stops by to show us a severed head. If you've seen the movie, there is a dream sequence and in it the Mariachi's head rolls into the frame. Robert had befriended a special effects makeup artist, and he loaned Robert the head for the movie. He showed us bits of the story-boarded script, and then he was off.
A few weeks pass, Robert is in Mexico with the camera, and my phone rings...
It's my friend.
He says, "Hey Keith, I need to get that camera back."
"Um... OK... why?"
"Oh the boss decided that he wanted to clean up the warehouse and found the cameras, he wants to sell them off."
"Really... Can I buy it?"
"No, he doesn't want to sell them individually, he wants to sell them in a bundle."
"Oh, OK... When do you need it back?"
"Oh today or tomorrow would be fine..."
"OK, well... Can I call you back in a little bit?"
Scramble, find Robert's number, call... ring, ring, ring.
Elizabeth picks up... "Hey, is Robert back yet?"
"No, He'll be back in a few days"
"Can you get a message to him? Cause I need to get the camera back to the guy I borrowed it from as soon as possible"
"I'll see what I can do."
... yikes...
It all works out, within 72 hours, the camera's back in Austin, and Robert was able to get the shots he needed.
He gets the film processed and transferred to 3/4" tape and starts cutting. First he cuts a trailer and brings it down to the show. We're blown away. We play it on the show and everybody loves it. Austin is a film town, and the callers are really responding to it.
While hanging out, Robert hears some music we're playing by Marc Trujillo, and asks about it. I give him Marc's number and Marc composes some soundtrack music for the flick. I didn't know Marc very well, he was really my friend Gray Miller's buddy, but there was just a lot of talent bubbling up around that time, and it's funny how the connections got made.
Then he went away for a few months to cut the film. I saw him here and there, and he always looked beat.
He finally came to me and said he was putting the credits on, and wanted to know how I wanted to be listed. Since my big contribution was the camera, and I was not supposed to have the camera, much less loan it to a friend to take to Mexico... I said, just make it a special thanks to "The White Boys"
He had another problem. The contract you make with Access states that the product you create with Access equipment, has to air on Access first. Once it's aired, you can do what you want with it. You have two ways of getting a show on the channels, submit a tape to programming or schedule live time. The problem with submitting a tape, is that taped submissions would go into the library to be played back whenever Programming saw fit. He wanted to be clear with Access, but he didn't want them to have a copy, in case it might mess up any deal to sell it.
"No problem", I say. We'll just have the World Premiere on my live show.
This way he fulfills the contract with Access and does not lose control of his ability to sell it. I'll need to add a hour on to my normal scheduled live time, and that will take a couple weeks, but it's not a big deal.
A few nights before the show, I get a call, and Robert has quite a story to tell. I seems that in the last 10 days, his whole world has exploded. He got the tape to a guy in L.A. That guy starts showing it around, and before you know it, it's the talk of the town. More importantly though, Stephen Spielberg has requested a copy, but he wants one with subtitles. I'm more familiar with the edit equipment, and he wants to know if it's possible to do on the Access edit machines.
"...No... well... not really. You can't do it in the edit bays, but you might be able to do it on the CG in the main studio. You'd have to lose a generation to do it... Do you have Main Studio Certification?"
"No"
"Well, I've got time scheduled tonight, come on down and we'll figure it out."
It turned out to be fairly easy, luckily since Robert was not shooting sync sound on Mariachi, he kept the dialogue to a minimum. He worked at Mark's desk while I finished the prep for that week's show. It was a long night.
Premiere night went off without a hitch, we did the show, showed the movie, and then an impromptu interview after.
If you watch the tape from that night, a couple things stick out, first that the movie is just great, very close to the theatrical release, and second, that there is an annoying copyright notice that keeps coming up. Robert insisted on this because he said that on one trip to Mexico to sell his short film 'Bedhead' to a Mexican TV distribution house, they said that they already bought it. After much discussion, they showed him the tape they bought, and it was indeed his short film... with a little tag in the lower corner of the screen that said "White Noise". Someone, evidently had taped the short off our broadcast, and went to Mexico and sold it. Crazy.
Then Robert went to L.A. and we didn't see him again for quite a while. The company that bought the film wanted to release it into theaters, and he spent months and several hundred thousand dollars get to a film cut made.
One day, I get a call. They're finishing up the movie, and it's credit time again... and someone at the studio is uncomfortable putting a credit to "The White Boys" on the film. They're pushing the Latin angle hard in the press and it doesn't seem right that the 'One Man Show' that is Robert Rodriguez needed help from some white boys. I laugh, and say it doesn't really matter anymore. He puts my name and Ben's name in the credits and that's how I got my one and only IMDB credit. :)
Robert published a diary about the making of El Mariachi called 'Rebel without a crew', and I appear a number of times in it. The only story he left out was the one about the subtitles, and in a funny way that's the one I'm most proud of.
Robert would have made El Mariachi without ever meeting me. He would have found or rented a camera, he would have figured out an editing solution, and eventually he would have been a successful Hollywood director, but he had an offer of $25,000 from a Mexican distributor for the movie. He almost took the deal, but they were slow in getting him the check, and in that time he started to get noticed in L.A.
He had a compelling story... young kid makes a $7,000 action film... but Hollywood don't speak Spanish.
I may be wrong, but I think that exhausting night we spent putting subtitles on the film really helped the buzz about the movie spread, because it was seeing the movie that sold you on his talent, and as that tape was passed around Hollywood, I wonder how many people would have given it a chance without subtitles.
One last bit. When the 3rd Mariachi movie debuted in Austin at the Paramount, Robert asked my wife and I to be there. After the movie, he did a Q&A and in his opening remarks he ask me to stand up. He introduced me to a packed house and said that if it weren't for me that Mariachi would probably not have been made.
That was very kind of him to say. As I said before, he would have made that film anyway. Robert had both the talent and the single-minded focus that it takes to be successful. I'm just glad that I had a front row seat to witness it.