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Life & Times Transcript

11/16/07

Announcer>> Tonight on Life and Times --

No one's calling it a drought just yet, but one community isn't waiting.

Kevin Wattier>> We either have to conserve or we have to conserve. Those are the two choices and our perspective is let's do it now. Let's do it sooner rather than later. Let's do it the right way and let's not wait and see what happens.

Announcer>> And then, it's not your grandfather's 3-D. Can a new technology help bring audiences back to the movies?

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

With additional support for Life and Times from The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

Val Zavala>> If you live in Long Beach, you probably already know there are four days out of the week where you can't water your lawn. Well, pretty soon, water restrictions like that may be throughout southern California cities because experts say we're headed for a drought. Roger Cooper has our report.

Roger Cooper>> It's been about fifteen years since our last big drought, but once again, the warnings are going out. Water officials in southern California say that, if present conditions continue, we'll be facing a serious water shortage.

Jeff Kightlinger>> This is almost a perfect storm or maybe another way to put is a perfect lack of storm.

Roger Cooper>> Jeff Kightlinger at the Metropolitan Water District is always preaching water conservation, but this time there's a special urgency in his message.

Jeff Kightlinger>> The entire southwest United States has basically been gripped into an entire regional drought. The Colorado River? Eight driest years ever recorded in history, and we get water from the Colorado River. The Bay Delta? Last year, one of the driest years ever recorded. And here in our own Los Angeles Basin, the driest year ever recorded here. So all our sources of supply are extremely dry at this moment.

Roger Cooper>> And on top of all that, there's a new complication -- the fish factor. This tiny endangered fish is called the Delta Smelt. It gets sucked into water pumps and dies. So this August, a federal judge ruled that the fish must be protected. That means the amount of water that southern California gets from the Sacramento Delta will soon be reduced by as much as thirty percent.

Jeff Kightlinger>> That's going to cut our water supplies anywhere up to twenty-five, maybe even thirty, percent each and every year.

Roger Cooper>> Yes, it's true. Southern California also imports water from the Colorado River Aqueduct, but that supply has also dropped over the past four years.

Kevin Wattier>> Well, we've been watching the situation very carefully, particularly when the endangered species rule came down in August with the Delta Smelt.

Roger Cooper>> All this sets off alarm bells for Kevin Wattier who heads the Long Beach Water Department.

Kevin Wattier>> Particularly, we've been watching very carefully the reservoir levels in northern California. When we saw all these things kind of come together in August, we said it was time to get real serious here in Long Beach about conservation.

Roger Cooper>> So this September, Long Beach took the plunge. It became the first southern California city to limit watering lawns to three days a week and only during evening hours. Long Beach restaurants can serve water only when customers ask for it and there's no washing down sidewalks or driveways with a hose. An exception is made for these special low-flow water brooms.

Kevin Wattier>> And this uses about seventy-five percent less water than if you were out here with your garden hose.

Roger Cooper>> Long Beach residents are encouraged to report water waste on a special phone line.

[Film Clip]

Roger Cooper>> And Long Beach has put up conservation videos on YouTube, and homeowners are also encouraged to plant water-saving lawns.

Kevin Wattier>> Grass uses a large amount of water. Fifty to seventy-five percent of a typical homeowner uses irrigation water.

Roger Cooper>> Interestingly, Long Beach's larger neighbor, Los Angeles, has decided to stay with voluntary conservation for now while it monitors the water situation. But Wattier says that Long Beach wants to be ready.

Kevin Wattier>> Our approach to this is that this is different. This is different than what we lived through in 1987 to 1991 or previous droughts because we don't think that this is going to go away. So we think the sooner we get started, the sooner we'll get to where we need to go.

Roger Cooper>> The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is taking action as well, cutting water supplies to southern California agriculture by thirty percent, but city dwellers could be next.

Jeff Kightlinger>> We're going to put in place our allocation plan that would lead to urban rationing for users. We're not going to order it yet, but we're going to hold it in abeyance and see how the water situation goes.

Roger Cooper>> And in time, consumers can expect their water bills to rise.

Jeff Kightlinger>> What we're really looking at, you know, as long-term 2009, 2010 and beyond and what we're projecting is anywhere in the range of five to ten percent increase as we have to take those additional actions to acquire water.

Narrator>> "California's vital water. The reality is that drought and climate change have already left us with a glass that is half empty and our state's fragile water storage and delivery systems are barely holding their own."

Roger Cooper>> A group of California water agencies has launched a television ad campaign calling the situation a water crisis. The ads urge the state to approve bond money to build dams and other infrastructure in the Sacramento Delta.

Narrator>> "Because we can't take water for granted."

Roger Cooper>> Jeff Kightlinger says that southern California used to have adequate water supplies seven out of ten years. No more.

Jeff Kightlinger>> Now it's reversed. With that court-ordered cutback, seven out of ten years, we're going to be short of water and have to go out and find supplies. That's a very different situation and, frankly, it's a fairly alarming situation. That isn't really sustainable. We have to get some fixes in place so that we can get back to a world where seven out of ten years we have adequate supplies.

Roger Cooper>> So do we have any kind of backup supply? Since the big drought in the late 1980s, Diamond Valley Lake has been built in Riverside County. It holds two hundred sixty million gallons of water, an emergency reserve that Metropolitan Water is glad to have.

Jeff Kightlinger>> Extremely glad. It's been our number one insurance policy. With that water in place, we can look at this and say we can have a nice sensible discussion about potential rationing down the road if necessary. Without that water in place, we'd be having the discussion of how fast and how soon do we start rationing?

Roger Cooper>> But even Diamond Valley Lake may be hard to replenish if Sierra snow packs this winter are small. And then there's the longer term challenge of climate change. Kevin Wattier thinks there's really just one answer to our water shortage.

Kevin Wattier>> Well, I think we either have to conserve or we have to conserve. Those are the two choices. Our perspective is let's do it now. Let's do it sooner rather than later. Let's do it the right way and let's not wait and see what happens because it's inevitable that this is happening. So that's what we're saying in Long Beach. Let's get out in front and let's do it right. Let's make it work for everybody.

Roger Cooper>> I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> Things were going just fine for Terry Byland. He had a stable job, a nice family, a good middle-class life. Then he got the word that, within a few months, he would be completely blind and his life changed forever.

But then some technology came along that he's helping to advance, a technology that could offer a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Terry Byland is completely blind unless he's wearing these glasses equipped with a camera that sends light signals to his brain.

Terry Byland>> If that's not a miracle in itself, I don't know what is.

Val Zavala>> Terry and Sue live in a modest home in Corona. He's one of those steady regular guys, a father to five kids, working at a power tool company for nearly fifteen years. He had plans to retire and enjoy his grandkids, but then at age thirty-seven, all those plans disappeared. It started when he began having trouble with his night vision.

Terry Byland>> Finally I went to see a couple of retinal ophthalmologists and they both told me that I had this disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa, which at the time I'd never heard of.

Val Zavala>> Terry and Sue, his second wife, got the test results on their honeymoon.

Sue Byland>> I thought my biggest challenge would be being a stepmother to four children. Little did we know.

Val Zavala>> Retinitis Pigmentosa affects one in four thousand people worldwide. It's hereditary, a disease that attacks the photoreceptor cells that line the retina at the back of the eye. As the cells die, so does a person's sight.

Terry Byland>> I was told that I had probably ten, maybe twelve or thirteen years of limited vision before it would all go. In my case, it was gone in seven.

Val Zavala>> His youngest son Danny was five at the time. That was the last time Terry has seen him. Despite the declining vision, Terry's employer let him stay on for those seven years, but the day came when he could no longer read his own writing. He knew he had to quit.

Terry Byland>> And I went to my boss that day. He looked at me and he goes, "Well, you know, I hoped this day would never come, but I knew it was because I could see you struggling more and more." So I guess it was around the middle of October of 1993 that I walked out that door for the last time.

Val Zavala>> That's hard.

Terry Byland>> Yeah, it was real hard, real hard.

Val Zavala>> The next few years were very difficult. He didn't know what to do with himself. His whole social circle dissolved. He was frustrated and angry and he had to rely on Sue who became his eyes.

Sue Byland>> We've had a few communication issues over the years (laughter). Like I'd forget to say it's a down escalator instead of an up escalator and he thinks he's going up.

Val Zavala>> Then in 2004, eleven years after going blind, he heard about a study at the Doheny Eye Institute in Los Angeles. The world-renowned eye center was looking for people with Retinitis Pigmentosa who could help test a new device. They had found five volunteers. They needed just one more and Terry qualified.

Dr. Mark Humayan>> We've been able to implant six patients with such a device.

Val Zavala>> Dr. Mark Humayan is heading up the development of what you might call a bionic eye. It begins with surgery. A microchip is implanted near the back of the eye. The microchip is the receiver for signals. The signals are transmitted from a tiny camera that's attached to glasses.

Dr. Mark Humayan>> With the wearable camera in the glasses, these patients can now see light from dark. They can also see movement in their area. Some of these patients can also distinguish between a plate, a cup or a knife.

Val Zavala>> After more than a year of testing and training, Terry was allowed to bring the retina prosthesis system home. He doesn't wear it around the house because he knows where everything is, but it helps when he's in unfamiliar buildings.

Terry Byland>> And right over there, I can tell I'm looking at a window. There's a lot of light coming from there.

Val Zavala>> He also wears it outside. It works best on bright days when there's high contrast.

Terry Byland>> A lot of it depends on if there's shady areas. The contrast isn't so good. It doesn't work as well. But on a bright day like this, I can look ahead and see the concrete which is a brighter color and everything else is dark on either side.

Val Zavala>> So you can make out the path of the sidewalk?

Terry Byland>> I can see the little edges of each side, yeah.

Val Zavala>> The field of vision is quite narrow, so Terry has to move his head to scan the area.

Terry Byland>> You see how I'm scanning my head? Between the cane and the glasses, I can tell where the borders are at.

Val Zavala>> Now a lot of people would say, "Well, that's not a big improvement." You know, because you say regained sight, they'd think, "Oh, he can see like we can. He can see color and perfect focus and all that." It's not like that, is it?

Terry Byland>> No, it isn't. First of all, there will never be any color. It's always black and white. No, it's not the vision that I remember at any time when I could see perfectly. What it is, it's the kind of vision where you rely at this stage and where I'm at right now on light and dark. So it's not like I'm seeing anything in any shape or form.

Val Zavala>> For those of us who take our vision for granted, it may not seem exciting. But for Terry, a glimpse of light is amazing.

Terry Byland>> They took a totally blind person and, you know, through means of artificial vision, given him something that I can work with.

Val Zavala>> Perhaps the most promising aspects of the retina prosthesis are the advances that the Doheny Eye Institute is making.

Dr. Mark Humayan>> We hope to take this to not only have people gain unaided mobility, but also to help people to be able to read, recognize faces and really bring into their lives the parts that are missing.

Val Zavala>> This technology is still experimental, but Terry and Sue know that it's the future that holds the biggest promise.

Sue Byland>> I've seen some of the prototypes like on a computer what they feel the later chips will be and can see eyes and a nose. You know, I think he's been amazing for these last three years. For someone that's not patient, he has been extremely patient (laughter).

Terry Byland>> "Did you lay any tile today?"

Val Zavala>> That's certainly been true when it comes to seeing his son. You may recall that, the last time he saw Danny, Danny was in kindergarten. Then one day, Terry was using the system outside his house when Danny and some friends walked by. Terry knew the shadowy figure was nineteen year old Danny.

Terry Byland>> Now I can say that, after all these years, I finally found my son. In a very different way, but there he was. Every time he passed through, then I could see the next person and the next person. So it's only the beginning. I can honestly say that I have every bit of confidence that all the people that are working so hard with all combined efforts, it's going to happen.

One day, some or all of us are going to be able to see. People say, "Well, how can you be so sure that that's going to happen?" I say, "If you'd been through what I was through for eleven years with no sight and to be able to go through this for the last three years, you'd believe too."

Val Zavala>> I'm Val Zavala for Life and Times.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Hena Cuevas>> Remember going to the movie theater and watching those old 3-D films, the ones where they would give you those white glasses so you could watch images jump off the screen? Well, 3-D technology has come a long way and supporters say that it's going to revolutionize the movie-going experience.

But there's just one question. How do you convince viewers to give 3-D a second chance? This new revolution in 3-D is led by Michael Lewis, founder of Real D.

Michael Lewis>> I'm going to show you some examples of next generation 3-D technology.

Hena Cuevas>> And you gave me these shades that look very different from the paper ones that we grew up with.

Michael Lewis>> Exactly. That's the idea. The idea here is to give the audience a very new experience, something very, very different.

Hena Cuevas>> Real D, based in Beverly Hills, uses a high-resolution digital projector to create the effect.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> Viewed with the naked eye, the images look blurry. But once the glasses come on, the complete 3-D experience is launched. How is this different from the 3-D technology that we grew up with?

Michael Lewis>> It's kind of like comparing the Wright Brothers with the space shuttle. It's digital technology, for starters. It's the same technology that was used by NASA and the military for 3-D visualization. It's like you're in the movie. It's like you're there. It's the most real lifelike experience you can have.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> Real D is counting on this lifelike experience to take the technology beyond films. Lewis says that movie theaters could use it to show live sporting events, documentaries, commercials, as well as performances. This fall, U2 premiers its first concert in 3-D.

[Film Clip]

Michael Lewis>> We really see the cinema of the future, or actually today now, as being able to program that theater much like you program the television station. So every hour of every day, there will be something that the audience can enjoy, whether it's putting you on the field for a Super Bowl game, putting you on stage with Bono at a U2 concert. It's really about suspending that disbelief which is what cinema is about anyway.

Hena Cuevas>> Lewis says this is also a way to get people back into the theaters and to provide an alternative to the internet and home theater systems that have stolen audiences away from the movies. It's similar to what happened in the early 1950s when people started staying home to watch television instead of going out to the movies.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> The development of 3-D technology then was also seen as a way to bring audiences back. It was in 1952 that the first American 3-D production, "Bwana Devil", was released.

Michael Lewis>> I didn't see it as a kid, but "Bwana Devil" was the first 3-D movie I ever saw. Then I remember, of course, "Jaws 3-D" in the 1980s.

Hena Cuevas>> Oh, that's right. I'd forgotten that there was a "Jaws 3-D" that the shark basically came at the audience.

Michael Lewis>> Right, and I think that killed 3-D for the next twenty years, so now we're starting again.

Hena Cuevas>> The new 3-D technology is already attracting interest from the big studios. DreamWorks, for example, has announced that, starting in 2009, all of their pictures will be in 3-D.

Michael Lewis>> It's usually been a gimmick used to somehow help bad movies that were produced. This time around, we have the top filmmakers in the world that say, you know what, this is much like color and sound. The technology is now bulletproof. It works perfectly every time. The capture technology has gotten a lot easier as well. What we want to do is take people into those movies and we want to make them a part of that experience.

Hena Cuevas>> How difficult has it been, or do you think it will be, to convince people to give 3-D a second chance?

Michael Lewis>> Well, seeing is believing in experiencing it. What we've found is that, once we show someone five minutes of the new Real D technology and experience that it's so real and so lifelike, I think it's very hard to go back.

Hena Cuevas>> And the public seems to be responding. Take Disney's "Meet the Robinsons".

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> On opening weekend, theaters showing the conventional version made an average of six thousand dollars per screen. Those with the Real D version brought in twice as much, twelve thousand dollars a screen. That's because, according to Lewis, theaters can charge more for a 3-D film, almost twenty-five percent more per ticket. And because it's easy to convert regular films into 3-D, old movies are being re-released.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> "The Polar Express" from 2004 --

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> And "The Nightmare Before Christmas" from 1993 are both getting another run at the box office.

Michael Lewis>> This is the way it's worked in the last hundred years. This is obviously film and it's cumbersome and it comes in canisters like this down here. You know, every other part of our world is digital, so this is one of the last holdouts, film projectors.

Hena Cuevas>> Lewis says that it's a simple process to convert a movie theater into Real D, only taking about fifteen minutes.

Michael Lewis>> The average for a Real D upgrade is about twenty-five thousand dollars a year. It's an annual license fee that we charge and that includes all the maintenance and all the hardware and software upgrades over time.

Hena Cuevas>> The only equipment a theater needs to have is a digital projector.

Michael Lewis>> So this is the 2-D digital touch screen right here. The entire projector is controlled from this screen right here. We have the Real D drive module. This is the software component of how this system works. Then I'm going to show you the hardware upgrade here in front of the projector.

Hena Cuevas>> In front is a movable arm which holds a screen.

Michael Lewis>> We move the arm back and that's in 2-D mode. So what's happening here is now we're showing 2-D, now we're showing 3-D, and that's one of the things that we've really focused on, making this technology as simple and elegant as possible.

Hena Cuevas>> And Lewis points out another advantage to the studio's bottom line from showing those blurry images. What are some of the benefits of the technology when you talk about copyright infringement? Because you mentioned the camera not being able to videotape or to shoot on a screen.

Michael Lewis>> Normally, piracy happens when someone walks in with a camcorder and they start filming. Well, if you film a Real D image, it's not really worthwhile to show it. And once you do capture it, there's no place to show it anyway. So this is one of the great benefits of Real D and 3-D technology.

Hena Cuevas>> Currently, eighty-five percent of digital projectors in the country are equipped with Real D. And the same way sound and color revolutionized the movie-going experience, Lewis believes this 3-D will be more than a fad.

Michael Lewis>> This time, we think it's here to stay. At the end of the day, it's about great storytelling. So if we can provide technology and experience to the customer that is very different from anything they can get anywhere else, then I think that's where the future of this medium is going to go.

Hena Cuevas>> I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala in 2-D. We'll see you next time. Thanks for watching.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

With additional support for Life and Times from The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

Sponsored in part by:


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