It was decided at coordination meeting with the organizers to use the LED Display of SM City to flash the 300 seconds countdown because of its strategic location and ideal dimension. Simple at the outside (for watchers), the 300 seconds countdown is one complicated project for no one from the team I created to handle the project has ever done a program to sync-in with the LED Display of SM City. The project was even made a little complicated for we don’t know the kind of flat form SM City is using and gaining access to their system is one complicated task. Good thing, the Mall Manager, Wesley Villanueva was very accommodating and allowed us to work with their technical group and work on the program.
The countdown is scheduled to start at 11:55pm sharp. All our watches were synchronized to have a common ground. At quarter past eight in the evening, I received a call from one of the organizers informing me of their plan to change the 300 seconds countdown display from the LED Display of SM City to the Stage through an LCD Projector. The reason is that the LED Display is not directly facing the audience from where the stage has been set-up. Funny, but this thing has just been noticed 3 hours prior to the countdown but the stage has been there already over 12 hours ago. Sensing an imminent danger due to the proposed change of plan, I immediately inform our lead programmer, Jojo “Piolo Pascual” Imperial, and asked him to do another 300 second countdown program with the LCD Projector as its primary output.
My greatest fear of totally abandoning the LED Display of SM City (Plan A) came true with a call from one of Fr. Wilmer Trias close-in aids at around 10:15pm. She told me to meet Fr. Wilmer near the stage for a change of plan. Waiting there was Fr. Wilmer and Sir Noel (my college professor back in Ateneo), I got the point of Fr. Wilmer that the LED Countdown would be futile since only few people would see it and the best place to do the countdown is at the stage itself. Their question was, “Can you come up with a 300 seconds countdown and do the set up in 45 minutes?” My answer was yes and a smile. Prior to my meeting with Fr, Tria and Sir Noel I already got a confirmation from my lead programmer that the program has been finished and tested.
30 minutes prior to the countdown, our team has already settled-down and we are waiting for the cue. Since we have the best seat in the house, we devoted few time enjoying the program as we had close-up views on few celebrity guests for the night which includes singer-songwriter Mark Velasco, PBB Grand Winner Bea Saw and Box Office Prince John Llyod Cruz. We were there for a totally different purpose but we must admit, we enjoyed taking shots-after-shots as if we were diehard fans! Hahaha!
Looking back on day one, I came to realize tonight that nothing is impossible under the mantle of our Ina. The project assigned to us may be complicated, and the manner plans changed so drastically few hours before the countdown was really a nightmare, but everything happens for a reason. My fear of program breakdown due to the very limited preparation time disappeared in thin air as we, together with the crowd shouted in unison 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 and watched zero appear on the screen simultaneously with the launching of the first wave of fireworks. Our Ina has always been there for us during our most trying times in the project and She had no plans of letting us down. A gift received and a gift to share. Viva La Virgen!
No comments:
Post a Comment