The Making of Panache - DCE Alumni site

The Making of Panache, Troika 1999……
By Arunabh Das (Electrical 2001)

Prelude…

Soumen Ganguly and Len V George were the key figures in an ongoing DCE charade. A plot to reveal the truth about the existence of super-intelligent forms of life in DCE. It was a global conspiracy, actually with key players like Chief Saurabh Zindal and VC Nitish Mathur, at the highest levels of power and it reached down into the lives of every dude, stud and quizzer in this city. So ofcourse, no one believed us. They said Panache would never live up to the tall claims we had made…

Conception

Panache was no stranger to the DCEite. He had seen it happen the previous year, as an internal event. It had been a success and the idea was to give the rest of Delhi a chance to experience the same excitement, the same shear stress, the same sheer adrenalin and tension. With our high bandwidth minds constantly craving inputs, an idle mind, this spring, was well going to be a certain miracle. The idea was not just to amplify the scale and magnitude of the event but also to change the traditional concept of quizzing. We were going to challenge the limits. It was on one fine day in the month of September ’98, within the stimulating environs of Room 325, CVR Hostel, that "the idea" struck Soumen Dada, Cute George and Rahul Kumar like a bolt from the blue. "The idea" was an audio-visual, "multimedia" quiz which would be as much a crowd-pulling entertaining extravaganza for a techno-savvy crowd as an educational and informative rendezvous of intellect and all things cerebral. It was going to be a test of mental prowess, of elan, of flamboyance, of verve. The common denominator between all these qualities was ofcourse "panache". The name stuck.

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machine Jeans--23 Nov, 1998

The very crucial odd semester majors were drawing frighteningly close. But we knew that once we had conquered them, there was going to be lots to look forward to. We were riding high and enthusiastic on the promise of a fun February. But just then, with the spectre of exams hanging like the sword of Damocles over our heads, there was barely time enough to hastily arrange an impromptu meeting and constitute a team. And what a team it proved to be. Although each person’s specialty was not clear and defined to begin with, it all unfolded beautifully, with each person displaying a command over his department and doing his brief immaculately. It must be mentioned that everyone was in effect a master of all trades since it was presumed, that every single soldier, was abreast, informed and knew everything about everything. For anyone to say, "Hey, I can’t do that. That’s not my department .", was downright blasphemous. Martin "Codeguru" Joy was the programmer. He wrote all the code for the crossword and the scoreboard in Visual C++. The challenge for him was to make it lean, yet visually appealing. Plus, he had to take care that his executables were both 800x600 and 640x480 compliant. because it was not certain which resolution the BARCO projector would support. Sameer "Diskman" Thakur was the hardware-software guy. From procurement of all the nitty-gritty software to performing major surgery on the PCs and transplanting hard-drives to enable faster data transfer and mounting AGP cards, it was all in a day’s work for him. Anshul "Xing-MPEG" Sharma was the movie guy. He downloaded and obtained cracks for many of the shareware that he downloaded from the net so that all the movie clips from "Mission Impossible", "ID4" and "Godzilla" could be sequenced into one long avi file. Sanjoy "Dexter" Ghosh was the 3DStudio MAX man working in his MAX laboratory, always highly enthusiastic about twisting and twirling or otherwise, exploding or vapourising stuff, that is to say, not really, but rather in the animation sequences. Creating all the spectacular effects of the castle and the walkthrough, the PANACHE logo, the hold me-thrillme-quiz me-grill me sequence and all those knockout sequences before the start of each round was right down his line of work. Dakshay was the Gridlock and Warpzone expert. The things he did with faces, was sometimes downright hillarious. So Dakshay, was it really DeClerk who won the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela in 1995? Mayukh "Bongo" Mukherjee was always going through encyclopedias and mountains of quiz stuff always on the lookout for that intriguing and elusive, "Gosh, I knew that" -types quiz question. He was also the food man. Abhinav "Feynman" Chaturvedi worked the morphs beautifully. He was also the "Can’t we have it, like this and like that" man. Amit "Angry Young Man" Luthra was the smooth negotiator getting all the clearances and the auditorium permits ready in the nick of time. We had all had our Andy Worhal’s fifteen minutes of fame. Arunabh "AD" Das was the eccentric but diligent worker. Every job was his cup of tea or should I say, every cup of tea was his job. If Dexter was the toast of Panache, then AD was the tea. Shankha "Basu" was the public relations expert, always shying from the limelight, in a behind-the scenes kind of way. He made sure that not just quizzers but everyone who was anyone was there to experience the magic of Panache. Piyush Shah was forever the man at the helm of the logistics and strategy departments. He had a backup plan for every possible scenario. It would have been no surprise to me if a 7.8 Richter Earthquake hit the venue but Panache continued uninterrupted. We are told that an earthquake did hit the venue. But that, ofcourse, was purely a consequence of the overwhelming audience applause and not an act of God. Panache was an act of God to many in the audience, who simply could not believe that a bunch of amateurs from their own college could create something that, perhaps, the only other place they might get to see would be on Grammy Awards Night at the MGM Grand Hotel. Aakash "Download" Sinha was always ready to dole out all the exciting and useful shareware and utility that he downloaded from the net. Rahul "Demo" Kumar was responsible for creating the demo which contained morphs and warps. The services of K Kartik, the sound, light and projector controller and Abhishek Rajan, the scorer, proved invaluable. Credit is due to the Publishing team of Manish Mohta, Rahul Kumar, Atul Pokhriyal and Piyush Shah who had the unenviable job of designing the Panache poster ready in record time. The poster worked its magic on us in extraordinary ways. Soumen "Dada" Ganguly and Len "Cute" George were the directors, pun intended. Together, they figured out how to work the Macromedia Director software.

The Plot Thickens

A winter’s morn, in a deep and dark December. We were through with Majors but not quite through with coursework. Desolate as things were, we were seeking meaning from our mundane lives. We finished designing an AC synchronous motor on the AUTOCAD Workstation. As we watched it gain form and render, we started discussing "Panache". Ideas flew forth from all directions and soon a shape had emerged. It was going to be advertised as "the quiz with a difference". Panache promised hours of learning fun. Panache this, Panache that. But we realized at the outset that Panache would have to be professionally created. We could not afford to underestimate the crème-de-la-crème of the Delhi Quizzing fraternity. We were going to have to earn every ounce of their appreciation.

27 Dec, 1998—K-13 PANACHE LAB

It was going to be the most nutritious tea and snacks for a long time to come. We had all gathered to discuss the content and presentation of rounds, the software to be used and other logistics and sponsorship details. Methodically, we remember, Dada made out a neat list of requirements. Separately, he made out a priority list. Macromedia Director was the unanimous choice of software since it empowered us with full control over every aspect of production including enabling us to closely synchronise the sound with each frame of video. The rounds were finalised. There were going to be clueless, warpzone, morphomagic, arena and gridlock rounds in the semifinals. For the finals, it would have to be the video, krossword, rapid fire, hyperlinx, toon and progressive clues rounds which would test the quizzers’ mental faculties. The stage was set. The ball was set in motion. The graphic-intensive morphomagic, warpzone, gridlock and hyperlinx rounds had to be tackled first. The video, krossword, toons and numerous clueless rounds would be done in the second stage. The work of creating and demonstrating a demo for the companies could not be left pending. We parted late that night with the agenda clearly mapped out. The work was evenly distributed among all of us. The K-13 Panache Lab was chosen as the most appropriate place for operating from because of its proximity to Siri Fort Auditorium. A certain Maruti Omni became the Panache vehicle for spreading the message of peace, harmony and Panache all over the land.

Logistics…

The die was cast. From that moment on, it was going to be uphill all the way. But it was clear there and then that we were going to be up against some queer and quaint logistic problems. The biggest problem was that of data transfer. Since we were going to work on all the various rounds, separately and individually(to begin with), from our homes, over weekends, a method of data sharing and transfer (so that all the various rounds could be integrated in one place into the Macromedia program) which was less tedious than the floppy disc mode was going to have to be sought. However, the incredible part is that even though file sizes grew as big as several tens of MBs, we stuck with the floppy disc method of data transfer. Email was a trusted ally but not even email could handle the the huge sizes of file fragments.

The People and the Places

Chronologically speaking, the days leading upto Panache can be divided into 4 phases. There was the initial racking of brains and drive for sponsorship phase which happened in late December-early Jan soon after the Odd Semester Majors got over. Then, there was the actual working and creation of questions phase which happened in late Jan-early Feb. Then, there was the inspired putting together phase which happened in early Feb. This was also the time that we got confirmations from our sponsors and hence the mood was upbeat and we felt secure in the knowledge that things were going to work out, after all. Our sponsors have been very kind indeed. From Summit Data Products, who offered us not just financial support but readily agreed to lend us their IMAC to Discovery Channel who readily agreed to send hordes and hordes of merchandise in the form of caps, calenders and other goodies for audience giveaways. Then, ofcourse, there was PCQUEST who thought nothing of giving away a couple hundred CDs. These were given away, also, as audience prizes. Last but not the least, MTNL and VSNL helped by sharing the financial burden. Nortel Networks were very gracious to lend financial as well as technical help to actually get the event through. That’s not to say that we weren’t operating under severe currency crunch, since most sponsors’ cheques were post-dated. BARCO, as always, made life easier by sponsoring the BARCO projector. We shall always be indebted to Mr. Aashish Bhatia for giving the event a lot of positive publicity and for dispensing tips and helpful advice., giving us the confidence that we would make it. Also, Amit Narayan and Sagorika Ghose for taking interest in our work and egging us on. The fourth phase was the last week or the days leading up to Panache. The time when everything went down to the wire. This was one roller-coaster ride after another as we toiled frantically to meet short notices and body-huggingly tight deadlines.

The Rounds

Warpzone is the round which involved identifying the face of a prominent personality from a picture in which the face had been distorted. Morphomagic involved identifying faces of personalities as one face metamorphed into another. Arena was the round in which blocks of 16 disjoint parts of a music video had to be joined by clicking and dragging with the mouse. In Gridlock, a grid of nine squares hid an image and each square on the grid corresponded to a question. As the squares are uncovered, the semi-finalists take a shot at identifying the picture at the back. In the video round, questions related to the specific video clip were asked. In Krossword, the finalists were asked to choose a clue and the answer would fit snugly in the crossword grid. Rapid Fire involved the clock ticking down, the stream of spotlight, and the unending stream of questions. In Hyperlinx, the real web environment is simulated and the player follows hyperlinks as he hunts for the destination page. In Progressive Clues, a series of clues about a person were supplied and the person has to be identified using as few clues as possible. In the Toons Round, only questions relating to comic strip characters were asked.

The Software

To make a complete list of software used would be lengthy. But suffice to say, 3Dstudio MAX and its plugins, Macromedia Director, Visual Dev Studio, Front Page Explorer, Paint Shop Pro, Fast Movie Processor, Morph25, Deformer and Kai’s Power Goo were used along with other shareware We have got to thank the World Wide Web which gave us so much in the form of shareware and all the quiz sites on the net, specially inquizitive.com, which, though not a source for questions, gave us the inspiration to create our own quiz questions. Books like Hard Drive and Connections by James Burke served as excellent references.

Creation

Grappling with the complexities of 3Dstudio MAX and Macromedia Director proved a major challenge for the team. Dexter and Feynman joined hands to create some visually spectacular and stunning effects. They stored their work as MAX files (to be rendered on a fast high-configuration PC later). Next, it was time to source questions. This required extensive research as the need for hand-crafted, original questions was felt rather than old, recycled ones.

Rock Show Night—The Turning Point—11 Feb

It was the night of the Rock Show that we remember in vivid detail. Morale was down. Then the DCE Rock Band Nemesis and Delhi Rock Band Euphoria made magic that night. It was a real boost to our sagging spirits. From that night on till Panache got over, we stayed overnight at the K-13 PANACHE LAB, not once thinking of leaving for home, much to the chagrin and anxiety of our parents.

The Day After—12 Feb

It was the day after the Rock Show.. It was that night, Soumen Dada and Cute George really pressed down on the gas. We broke some deadlines and some records that night. We scythed through atleast a zillion questions that night and compiled a gazillion links for the hyperlinx round that very night. We retired that night but the quartet of Dada, Len, Angry Young Man and Bongo were still at the terminal sorting god-knows how many questions into 5 neat bundles titled Prelims, Semis, Finals, Audience and Backup.

The Next Morning—13 Feb

It was the next morning that detailed plans about buses, registration, control desk, posters, banners, sponsors’ billboards, direction signs, stillcams, moviecams and digicams, furniture, computers and barco projector were chalked out. Three of us went down to Siri Fort to check out the sound and lighting arrangements. There was still a lot of work to be done. Mics had to be arranged, chords of various specs and lengths had to be obtained. It was time again to divide the workload. Firstly, Angry Young Man and Pussy Shah rallied around getting permits and clearances from myriad dozens of obscure places. Simultaneously, Dakshay and Bongo rushed forth getting all sponsor’s merchandise and sponsor’s billboards. AD rushed to make sure that those multitude of people who had come to the rescue of Panache in times of trouble, were given invits for the event. Diskman and Abhinav painted the town red putting up posters on the notice boards of colleges all over Delhi. Basu got cracking on the phone getting confirmations of participation from ace and amateur quizzers. Soumen Dada and Cute George were left putting finishing touches to the Macromedia Program.

D-Day Minus Five—14 Feb

Dakshay set forth with AD to Maharani Bagh to get the Barco Projector booking confirmed. Angry Young Man and Pussy Shah rushed to Khan Market to get the audi booking confirmed and settled. Bongo and Abhinav did the Chairman’s job of arranging chairs and innocuous other furniture.

D-Day Minus Four—15 Feb

Panache ran into rough weather barely 4 days before the event when it emerged that a certain government department were insistent that Panache was going to be heavily taxed. We were anyways cutting it tight with our budget. There was no way we could afford a 20% tax. It was at 10 PM that night that this exigency was circumvented. But things were still not looking good. With three rounds still in limbo, we thought it was time to press the panic button. Fiercely and fast and furiously. The printer spewed printouts so fast, we were knee-deep in paper before long. But trivialities like having to wade through a sea of paper and computer cables to get to the door were least on our mind. Other than the fact that us souls were drifting under the limitation of severe sleep deprivation and caffeine overdose, things had started moving fast. It was as though the script of a movie were being played out. Everyone knew their parts well, almost by heart. We’d sit up with a start at eight am in the morning after a three hour nap and we each knew what we were going to do between 10 hours and 12 hours, between 12 hours and lunch, between lunch and 1700 hours and between 1700 hours and 500 hours, there was no doubt at all, that all us were going to be crammed like sardines into that 10 feet by 8 feet space, where 3 computers, haphazardly networked by flimsy makeshift cables had been jampacked. The choice of background music that we’d play, ranged from Creedence blasting out "There is a bad moon on the rise" one minute and "Yeh Haseen Waadiyan, Yeh Khula Aasmaan" from the Roja Soundtrack, the next. Downstairs was ultimate chaos. Because the programming team of Anshul Sharma, Sameer Thakur and Martin Joy had decided that they wanted the modem in the downstairs room. Since the PC in the downstairs room could not possibly be networked with the ones upstairs, there was this floppy boy who ran up and down so that the stuff downloaded for, say, the Toons Round, could be quickly sent upstairs for processing and integration into the Macromedia program.

D-Day Minus Three—16 Feb

So Mr. Dexter, do you think we’ll make it?

Rendering the sequences was taking an infinite amount of time. We watched helplessly as Dexter showed us the remainder rendering time….4 hours. The others were on the couch, clutching their respective hair follicles in exasperation. This was just great for team morale. But Dada, cool and composed as always, was egging Dexter on. Enter Dakshay, fresh from a nap and a shower. "So, Mr. Dexter, do you think we’ll make it?". This was enough to incense Dexter. Something within him had stirred. "Sure, we’ll make it. Just give me a P-II processor and we’ll make it like that", said Dexter, snapping his fingers. When Dexter makes animations, its awesome. When Dexter is himself animated, its hilarious. Dexter didn’t have to wait too long. The P-II processors arrived the next morning. But, another calamity was about to strike. A virus scare was about to strike. This was followed by the act of someone inadvertently misplacing the drivers of the AGP cards. So although, the graphic sequences would render, we could never make out if they were rendering ok until we re-installed the AGP cards.

D-Day Minus Two—17 Feb

It was the day before the day before Panache. We had successfully made 2 backups of the entire Panache Sequence. One backup was on the Chief’s notebook PC and the other was on the Pentium II PCs which had been shipped to us courtesy Apollo Computers, C R Park that same morning. But something was wrong. Dada’s system was hanging too often for comfort and the Director Program refused to run on the P-II computers. We suspected that despite taking the precaution of running routine virus scans before intrusive data transfer from floppies, a virus had managed to sneak in, somehow. The virus scare was so frightening that from that moment on, we made sure that no executables were transferred between PCs. A thorough scan was implemented but no virus was detected. We breathed a sigh of relief. Our systems were uncontaminated. Pretty soon, we figured that this was a hardware conflict problem and could be circumvented only by obtaining a more recent version of the Director Program.

D-Day Minus One—18 Feb

Macromedia Director 5.0 was obtained. The drivers of the AGP cards were found. The sequences were rendered. This took no time at all on the P-II processors as opposed to taking upto 8 hours on the Pentium-166 MHz processor. Everything fell well into place. Pussy Shah made sure, that night, that all the Plan As were foolproof and all the Plan Bs sealed tight. We ended the day with Dakshay remarking, "Whatever was in our hands, we have taken care of. Now its up to Murphy." By the time we were through with taking the final printouts that night, we were famished. It was precisely then that the Chief landed there with potato parathas and popcorn. We would not perish of malnutrition after all. It was at some point then that it became clear that everything had worked out smoothly, because the Chief had pushed us to meet deadlines and to tie loose ends. We could not sleep that night from the excitement and anticipation of it all.

D-Day—19 Feb--The Execution

It was a crisp winter’s day. The venue looked beautiful, all decorated with banners of sponsoring companies, billboards, posters, the works.…it all ran smoothly, surely, flawlessly. Only someone who was there to feel the pulse racing, can understand the feeling. It would be a feeling of sheer bliss as the music would kick in at exactly the right moments. From Christies’ Turns to Chinese Wall to Project Chess. The questions simply refused to run dry. No hitches, no glitches. It had all clicked perfectly. Summit Data had lent us their IMAC so that all of Delhi could actually touch, feel and use, what was up until now, a figment of their fantasy. What clinched it, in our favour, was the gasps of wow from the audience. The rest as they say is history. The prize winners team of Saiket Sengupta of IITD and Pratyush Jha of KMC won Rs. 3000/-. All the finalists were also given some really "COOL" IBM shirts. The audience bagged a truckload of merchandise including CD-ROMs, caps, calendars and more. The junta was happy, so were the sponsors. We witnessed some fireworks go off behind Siri Fort. They were obviously for some other occasion but it was as good as being for Panache itself. Panache is now immortalized on hard-print as surely as it is in our hearts and minds. We lived, breathed and slept Panache. It had become a part of our biological system, an extension of our beings.

Technical Problems…What’s the Frequency, Kartik?

The need to have a CASE structure or atleast some few if…then sequences during the running of the Macromedia program was felt. This was necessitated by the need to have response-dependant levels of questions for each new round. This required a substantial level of nifty-coding but was accomplished.

Then ofcourse, there are the tales of that fateful night—the night of the modem malfunction. The story of how changing modem settings can make grown-men weep and a wet man lose sleep. These are part of Panache folklore and will be recounted for generations to come.

XLR may be an institute in Jamshedpur but for us, xlr signified that oh-so-important connector which would make sound amplification through the auditorium’s sound channels possible. Although these are easily fabricated at a friendly neighborhood electrical store, it was imperative that this 2-input-3-output cable’s terminals were connected according to the audi specifications. Although, the fabricated cables were diligently tested two days before the event and seemed to work fine, it was not until on the day of the event that the sound engineer dropped the bad news. We were going to have to change the polarity of the wires. With no soldering iron in sight, only someone with ingenuity could save the day. Diskman did. He worked with his bare hands and made the requisite connections in a jiffy.

As the test run began to roll, we were hit by another one of Murphy’s Law Scenarios. The barco to computer cables were amiss. This was a case of projector engineer’s oversight. But we had to deal with it. How? Well, we simply used that high-tech device known as the larynx to yell to Kadu and Basu to change channels and swap cables respectively. Why? Cause, we couldn’t see on our monitors, what was on the screen. Complicated? Simple, for us.

Everything’s going great. We just need 10 minutes to test run before the prelims get underway. But hey, what is this we see. The audi had already filled up with people. Quick, what’s a good way to clear an audi without shouting "fire"? How’s "There’s an IMAC outside waiting to be touched, stroked and fondled by you?" Believe us. It works great.

…ooh now we wish it would rain, rain down, down on us

The best part about Panache was that we had everything scheduled down to the last minute. It was all going to work like clockwork. Chaos works on screen, not in-production. However, that, oh no, was on paper. For no one, not even our superhuman, super-dashing, superstar Soumen "Dada" Ganguly could have foreseen all the last minute circumstances and situations and contingencies that cropped up. We wrote several glitch-handling flow-charts and algorithms. We knew we couldn’t leave anything to chance, we simply had to have a backup for everything.

Having Done It

We are the guys from Audio-Visual Wowdom. We feel superhuman, supercool --so invincible that we feel we can do anything. You could throw anything our way, hit us with anything, we would be unfazed and we would just go ahead and do what was needed to be done. Its in the script, we do it. We don’t hang around asking questions. You may call us a bunch of starry-eyed youngsters who have been seduced by the lure of using technology to make the world that much more a vibrant and earthly place to live in. Know what, that’s who we exactly are. Today’s technology has made such an impact on our lives that we know longer think of anything as being impossible. From inculcating that high bandwidth art of event management to having a pre-occupation with all things techie and beautiful, we’ve enjoyed every nanosecond of it. To know what it is to make things look good, look glamorous, to look high-wattage and to look visually wow, has been a learning experience beyond our wildest dreams. To know what it is to get a job done, to feel that sense of achievement, of accomplishment gushing through our veins. The message from the Panache team is, we had as much fun creating Panache as the audience had watching it and let us take a little bit of time off from our adult lives, put aside adult things like thick fat engineering coursebooks and revel in the simple joy of imagining what can be and making what can be, what is. What’s next, they ask me. We hope to work, together, on BIG projects in the future also. Some of us have offers for graphic and multimedia design. There are umpteen other plans brewing. But the future is another story.

Panache To Hona Hi Tha

We no longer call it "the quiz with a difference". We call it Inimitably, Inevitably, Truly, Madly, Deeply Panache. The team that was constituted this year may not have been "great" or "stupendous" or any of those adjectives. But, the characteristic thing was the rapport between us. This was a project on which students from mainly the second and third years were involved with support of only a moral and alimentary nature from the busy fourth-year execs. The best thing about it was that we got to know each other so personally that they turned from being seniors to friends and from friends to bosom pals. I am only too glad to say that as opposed to, prior to all this, when we thought of our seniors as basically a bunch of bumbling dolts, who would be stumped by a light switch, forget being able to organize a national level seminar, our seniors are now, etched in our minds as idols. They have our respect, admiration, adoration, adulation, even outright awe, veneration and reverence. How should I say this? We are our best friends’ biggest fans. The third-years being the event heads, we thought we’d have a hard-time convincing them about our ideas. What occurred in the end, was a case of the views of one person being multiply echoed by others. It seemed like our minds and hearts and souls were as well intertwined as our computers were networked. There was a synergy, coherence and lots of bonding. Working for Panache helped us know ourselves, better and helped us know others, the best. Our character traits shone through in all its intensity and we each earned a nickname.

Whatsmore

Another great fallout of the event was that we found new and revelationary uses for everyday objects and we learnt that when these everyday systems are properly administered, a high level of bandwidth can be derived from them. We learnt Simultaneous and Distributed Operation of toilet tissue rolls, after we figured that toilet paper served as an excellent stop-gap material as a rough-work surface for doing calculations on, or the fact that curtains made excellent ad-hoc bedspreads, and that reams and reams of computer printouts, randomly strewn on well-worn carpets served as excellent pillow-mattress combos. Not to mention that the crud left at the bottom of the coffee pot from four days before made excellent after-dinner dessert. Needless to say, coffee, carelessly spilt on the computer printouts, served as both hair-gel and shampoo.