And what does systematic change actually look like when a ski company uses its influence to drive that?

Yeah.

Thanks, Nick.

A- and I mean, that really is the kind of model and, and our way of thinking here at Aspen One.

And it, you know, in many ways, Auden and I have very similar, uh, worldviews as it relates to corporate sustainability.

Look, I think, you know, the, the, the fossil fuel industry would love for us as resorts or frankly even us as individuals to see climate change as our problem to solve sort of on our own.

We should make better shopping decisions.

Sure

What was that experience like for you as the film was really connecting with people and, you know, taking off weekend after weekend after weekend? Were you sneaking into screenings? Were you aware of how it was catching on with folks?

Um, I mean, yeah.

You make these things.

You really, uh, you're hoping, like a message in a bottle, you're hoping that people are going to connect to them.

And, and we, while we were making it, we felt like we were working on something special.

Everybody on the crew, um, could feel that it had the potential to be something special.

So we felt like we had a lot of, um, you know, pressure to deliver something as, as, as good as what people thought it could be.

Mm.

Yeah

Uh, and then we said no again.

And then we were like, "But we love LEGO.

It's a great, like, creative tool.

It's engineering and creativity, and, like, the way that my son plays with the LEGO is, like, he'll put the little Batman in the s- in the ship with Chewbacca, and they'll, they'll fly around.

It doesn't matter.

So you should have a thing where you bring all these different genres together"

Right [laughs]

You know, the

first time Rocky, you know, we'd spent all this time with Neil Scanlon and the Creature Shop, like, designing, you know, what would be an appealing design for this character with a bunch of different, you know, his carapace had different facets that you would try and project a face onto even though there was no face.

And then giving his arms and body all this detail of carvings and sort of gemstones and all this stuff.

And Talk about the range of movement, but the first time the puppeteers moved him and they're like, okay, you're going to meet Rocky for the first time.

And his little finger is moving around.

You're like, oh my God, he's alive.

And there's something in your lizard brain that goes like, oh, what is this creature? I can't identify it.

So then the next morning, talk me through how exactly this began to move into place.

Do you remember the first film you made together?

Ooh, well, funny enough, we were making films side by side.

So we took animation classes, started, took Chris out of a government class and into a spring semester animation class our freshman year.

And so we made our own films, but side by side in a shared studio.

One of the, the first studio was my dorm room.

Because Chris had roommates and I didn't.

And then finally we had a studio across from Career Services where all of our classmates were interviewing to take down the world financial system in 2008.

Can you explain this?

He was a

producer on the movie, which was a great advantage because that meant that we can pepper him with questions all the time.

And if he didn't have something that he imagined, he would imagine something for us.

Or if there was a new, you know, if we did something where we needed to simplify a section and we're like, well, how can we make this work? He always had a solution.

What's great about Andy, besides being like this brain that's unlike anyone else's, is that he really gets off on solving problems with a creative, like, scientific solution.

And that's what all of his books are.

And so, having a problem solver on your team while you're making a movie is the best thing you're gonna have.

I was kind of stalling while you were thinking

You also-

Yeah.

But I think what's cool about, about R- uh, Ry- Ryland and Rocky's relationship is that they are super different.

They couldn't be more different.

They look different.

They speak a different language.

They come from different cultures.

Yeah.