- Okay.
Wow.
I'm, like, kind of nervous.
This is crazy.
Alright.
(lively music)
Can you see what's inside this circle?
If not, don't worry.
Neither can I.
Chances are, you're probably colorblind just like me.
The only time my colorblindness is really an issue
is when I'm editing
and I have to do color correction--
- So, are you color correcting right now?
- Yeah.
- Does it look red at all to you?
The answer is that it's very red.
- It doesn't, that doesn't look red.
I'm sorry. (laughing)
Like, it doesn't.
There's the occasional moment where I may have
gotten something confused.
- I wear this color.
I don't wear this color.
- They're the same color!
- They are not the same color.
- They...
I've been colorblind my entire life.
I didn't really think that I
was missing out on anything.
I can still see color.
I just don't see color
the same as everybody else.
About a year and a half ago,
I heard about this company called EnChroma
that makes these glasses that are supposed
to help colorblind people see color.
I saw these videos that kept coming out
of people trying the glasses
and having these big emotional experiences,
like they were seeing something amazing
for the very first time.
And with all of this excitement,
I realized I had to at least try these glasses.
So, I grabbed Becky and we headed up to Berkley, California,
to tour the company and, of course, try out the glasses.
- I have a company and we're making laser-safety eyewear.
And one of the features of these eyewear
was that it greatly enhanced colors.
Just sort of a side effect.
The surgeons loved it so much
they were stealing them. (laugh)
So I started wearing them and was like,
"Oh, these work great!"
I'm an avid Ultimate Frisbee player.
And I was at a tournament in Santa Cruz, California.
At the tournament, my friend borrowed the glasses.
And he said, quote, "Dude!
"These are awesome!
"I can see the cones!"
Turns out he was colorblind and he couldn't differentiate
the fluorescent orange field marker cones from the grass.
- The orange cones
and the grass? - Yes, and the green
were the same to him
until he put the glasses on.
Then he could see these,
the cones clearly.
(lively music)
Well, the lenses that I had made
absorb our laser function.
Eventually we figured out it was because
they were creating separation between the photo pigments.
I read everything I could on the subject.
Most prevalent form is Red-Green colorblindness,
which is what 90-some percent of everybody
who has, who's colorblind,
is called Red-Green.
And that's hereditary.
Males have like a 50-50 chance.
- I fell into that 50% because my grandfather was colorblind
and passed that trait down to my mother,
who then gave it to me.
In fact, my grandfather actually found a way to cheat
the colorblind test to get into the Navy.
What exactly is it that's happening inside somebody's eye
that makes them colorblind?
- To really understand,
you have to understand how
normal color vision works - Okay.
- Because you have three photo pigments.
You can call them blue, green, and red.
The red and the green one
actually are right next to each other.
The normal color vision,
the red and green sensitive photo pigments,
have some overlap.
In the abnormal form, for color blindness,
they overlap too much.
The more they overlap, the more severe it gets.
- And what do the glasses do to someone like me,
that's, you know, red-green deficient?
Does that kind of separate them more
so you can see the difference
between the red and the green?
- If you cut-out wavelengths that correspond
to where there's too much overlap,
you recreate a separation.
You reestablish normal capture of photons.
And now, all those mechanisms
that are in here start to function.
It's like, oh! - Yeah.
- Yhat's clearly different.
Now the question is, can you, are you seeing a difference
or are you actually seeing red and green?
(light music)
- We were driving past this thing
and I had to check it out.
So, here we go.
This is the first time me putting on the glasses.
These look like some cool,
like, Ray-Ban wayfarers.
I'm into that.
I'm like, kind of nervous.
This is crazy.
(inhales deeply) Alright.
Whoa!
This dress, it looks so blue!
- That? - That's green!
And pink!
I couldn't see that green before!
I thought it was gray.
Wow, okay.
Let's keep moving!
Let's go!
Let's see what's next!
(upbeat music)
The trees and then the grass on the hill
and then the red,
and then the brown,
and then the green,
and then the blue.
There's so many colors!
Oh my gosh!
This has multiple shades of green in it.
It's like being on an acid trip,
from what I've heard.
Wow. (exhales deeply)
I can't believe that this is what everybody else gets to see
on a regular basis.
To see this,
to see why people cry at sunsets sometimes.
I don't know if I've ever seen
anything as beautiful.
(light upbeat music)