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FESTIVAL OF IDEAS

DAY 1


The Festival of Ideas as an event is an innovative creation of the Editorial Board of Kasturba Medical College. It is an annual fest conducted to showcase talent across the college through forms of art like photography and writing, with events based around the same. These were based on the firm belief that medicine is incomplete without an understanding and appreciation for the fine arts.
The first day of the Festival began with the inauguration of the event, which lasted for about an hour, from 10 to 11 AM. For short, the Festival of Ideas (FOI) had events and a workshop that lasted over 5 hours, starting from 4 PM till 9 PM, based either in or around Interact Halls at KMC.

INAUGURATION
The Editorial Board of KMC Manipal along with its collaborators marked the beginning of the Festival of Ideas on the 6th of October. A bright blend of events ranging from writing to videography, it is aimed at sparking excitement for fine arts among students across MAHE. Dr M Mukhyaprana Prabhu graced the occasion with his presence and was joined with Dr Arvind Pandey and Dr Reena Sherin, whose enthusiasm lit the room up.

Festival of Ideas commenced with the guests painting the first brushstrokes on a blank canvas, an act symbolic of euphoric beginnings. The following two days were lined with a string of events, and many were in collaboration with other clubs like Lumen and Film Crew, and committees like the Cultural Committee.

And thus, with vivid colors and vivacious words, the festivities began !

PHOTOQUEST
The first event to mark the start of this Fest was Photo Quest, a photography-based treasure hunt. It involved and relied on problem-solving skills required to figure out the locations and clues and on photography to click pictures based on the given prompt. This event took place across four different locations across the KMC campus, Interact Hall, where it began; the Library located in the EDU Building, The Stage, followed by MAP, then Butterfly Café, and came full circle by ending in Interact Hall, where it began.
There were 33 teams, with two participants per team, with different chosen team names. They had an hour and 15 minutes to speed through and find the other locations, based on riddles in the form of clues, where one clue led to the next, and the same for finding each location.
Scanning a QR code at each location leads to the next clue, and one team member from each time must sign on the given sheet for the QR code to the next location clue, which was solving a riddle. Groups of two or three persons from the event committee were sent to each of these locations, with strict instructions not to reveal any information that might help the teams of participants. Teams were constantly on the run to figure out the following location and beat the ticking timer.
The top two teams won a cash prize of 500 and 300 rupees, respectively.

MASKED OUT
A workshop on Graphic Design followed this exciting and exhilarating event, which lasted an hour. The workshop was named Masked Out, and it started at 5:30 pm inside room 1b at Interact. The registration fee for this workshop and the events for the first day was only 40 rupees. It was a very informative workshop covering the fundamentals and principles of Graphic Design. Some basics, like elements of graphic design, how to make a design appealing, and the elements of graphic design, were explained very well with the use of practical examples.
As time progressed, the workshop moved to the concept of typography and critical concepts like the psychology of fonts, with regards to their use and effect, as well as the different kinds of fonts that were visited. Key concepts like font weights, font sizes, contrast, alignment, hierarchy, balance (be it symmetrical or asymmetrical), and the use of colors for a transition, such as for making posters, along with concepts of positive and negative space and movement of text were all explained in detail.

NIGHTMARE AT THE M STREET
The very informative workshop was followed by the last event for the day, Nightmare at the M Street (Escape Room), for which students had been waiting with held breaths. It began at 6:30 in the evening. There were many teams of two participants each.

The event lasted for 2 hours with 2 slots. The teams had 40 minutes to solve all the riddles and puzzles in two rooms, given that they started off in one room before moving on to the next. There were nine different stations in both rooms.
Only the top 4 teams that solved all the riddles in both rooms were allowed to go into the hidden third room. Cash prizes of up to 1500 rupees were given to the winning teams.

DAY 2


The Festival of Ideas is a brainchild of the Editorial Board of KMC. It illuminates the amalgamation of the arts and sciences. It is meant to showcase the best the institution offers and the essence of what it means to be a student. Every year, this festival is held with eclectic workshops and competitions.


Festival of Ideas is what one can make it out to be. It provides every individual a space to explore oneself through a plethora of different art forms that enable them to uncover their hidden talents. The Editorial Board of KMC aims to showcase talent in all the colleges across MAHE in the form of Art, Photography, and Writing through the premier content on social media.

PHOTO MARATHON
The second day of the festival, 7th October, got a great start at 4 in the evening with an event called ‘Photo Marathon,’ which was held in one of the lecture halls of KMC. Photo Marathon is an event that includes a workshop as well as a competition related to photography.

At the start of the event, a workshop was conducted by one of the interns of KMC, Anirudh Sharda, who had also served as the head of photography of a reputed student media body in his junior years. The workshop lasted for 30 minutes in which he pondered over many aspects and elements of visual art.
He began his photography workshop by talking about the three elements one must keep in mind while taking pictures: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.
Anirudh went on to explain how pictures should be taken in different situations with different shutter speeds. Continuing his workshop, he talked about the various photography techniques a few being rule of thirds, leading lines, and then advised all the budding aspirants of photography to keep the distractions out of the frame. He concluded his workshop by sending his best wishes to all the participants of the competition.
Before beginning the competition, a memento was provided to Anirudh Sharada, for sharing his insights into photography.

After successfully completing the workshop, Participants were pumped up for the competition, where they had to work in groups of two. This visual art competition comprised two rounds: 


The first round was theme-based photography, where the theme was provided on the spot. Apart from this, each group had to do product photography, where the editorial board also provided the product with all the necessary props and lights. The theme for the first round was clicking four photos depicting a college student’s life. 

The second round was also about theme-based photography, which was provided on the spot. Throughout the competition, participants were seen clicking pictures of products such as cosmetics and eateries like Oreo.

The grand winners of this eventful competition were Mridul Dhingra and Abhimanyu. Soham and Sedhu finished as second runners-up in the competition; Simran Singh and Rohan Gupta acclaimed the runners-up spot. 

DUET ART
Simultaneously another competition started at 4:30 PM in another lecture hall in the building called ‘Duet Art.’ Duet Art is a unique and exciting competition where each team member finishes the other’s artwork. Each member was given one of the two contrasting topics. After the first 15 mins, the work of each member was switched with other, for the next 15 mins. At the end of 90 minutes, both must submit one from work (mutually decided)—final results must-have elements of both topics given. 

In this game, no form of communication was allowed between the teammates. The themes given were Light and Dark, Ocean and Space. Arundhati and Navya finished as runners-up, and the Swarupa and Sai duo were the competition winners.

REEL DEAL

The third event was ‘The Reel Deal,’ a videography workshop. In this workshop, Aayush Rana and Manas taught how to shoot and edit a professional reel video on a smartphone using simple techniques.
Aayush Rana opened the workshop by showing two videos; one video was shot by someone who was not experienced enough with video shooting, and another video was shown which was shot by a professional. The workshop started by focusing on how different camera movements can make a difference in the quality of the video.

Later, the focus was shifted toward the different camera settings involved while shooting and what are some of the common mistakes amateurs commit while shooting the video. The emphasis was also on other stabilization techniques like the Ninja Walk.
During the workshop, the importance of pre-planning a shoot was also stressed. Aayush mainly explained the importance of SFX and the song in the video as it creates a mood for the video and gives different contexts to the background.

STORY SPINNER
The next event lined up was Story Spinner. Spindling around the words and mysteries of various tarot cards, the event was a story telling event having people with the potential to grasp people in the enigma of their words. The participants were divided into teams of two. Each team was assigned 2 random characters, with which they were asked to develop a story.  The characters ranged from a carpet area to a lady smoking. The story was based on the creative ability of the teams and they were handed 3 minutes to write the story. The main twist pulled in when the teams after putting out their story were asked to pull out a tarot card and based on that bring a twist in their story. The tarot cards had characters like the chariot, death, star and others. The event judged the creativity and the writing skills of the teams and independent on the individuals in a unique way as well.

OPEN MIC
To withdraw from this fantastic event and to make the night warm and memorable, an Open Mic was organized at the end. A night to remember, the open mic was a plethora of talented people showcasing their insane and diverse talents. 
Starting the night with a delightful piano performance, a guitar performance playing the song Lovely by Billie Eilish was then in store for the audience. The participants recited several poetry performances based on different themes like Durga Puja, unfinished time, and the murder of George Floyd from the point of view of a black cop. 

Bringing in another heart and ear-soothing musical performance was a myeloid of old and class Bollywood music, including songs like Zara Zara, Ek Hasina Ajnabi se, and Chaap Tilak. A rich and lilting rap was performed, which enlightened the audience. 
The board then presented a little yet packed video that encapsulated the behind-the-scenes and highlighted the work done by them. 

Conclusion
To conclude the show, there was a speech by the Editor-in-Chief of the Editorial Board, speaking about her love for the journey and congratulating the other board members on successfully hosting the event in an offline mode after two years with 250 plus registrations. One of our official collaborators, Lumen, left no stone unturned to show us how much of a hardworking and supremely talented crew they have. The above video was made by them in mere two days, 6th and 7th October when the FOI was being conducted. They say,” Great minds can do great work” and we cannot doubt the crew of Lumen for that.The board also thanked Film crew and the Cultural Committee, KMC for collaborating for the event and Manipal Digest for being their media partner.

Credits

Design: Shivika Saraogi, Editor-in-Chief, The Editorial Board KMC
Photography: Manan Chawda, Sparsh Srivastava, Samir Gulati, The Editorial Board KMC, Lumen KMC & Manipal Digest
Writers: Manipal Digest
Uploaded by: Alisha Chrissel Lobo, The Editorial Board KMC
Edited By: Sourabh Singh, The Editorial Board KMC