The brains behind baffling questions
JAKARTA (JP): Ani Sumadi's sobriquet is the question editor of quiz shows. However executive producers Helmy Yahya and Reinhard. R. Tawas are on a higher plane; they are dubbed the question thinkers.
Having worked with Ani Sumadi for eight years and currently the host of ANteve's NBA basketball show, Helmy explained what goes into "forming the questions."
"One Ani Sumadi quiz show alone, like Aksara Bermakna, requires 9,000 questions at the minimum," Helmy said.
And what has he gained from going through years of differences, not to mention millions of mind-boggling questions?
"We keep learning things.
"It's amazing the amount we can learn in a very short period in life... from forming 10 different questions for a single answer to managing an entire quiz show."
Helmy added that he traveled a lot and one of the first things he did after ending up in a new city was to ask for directions to good bookstores.
"The kind of books I buy for quiz shows include reference books, books of facts, unique things, categorized information and oddities," Helmy said.
"It takes days to prepare questions and the three of us form them in our minds almost routinely like living our day-to-day lives. Sometimes while driving, I make small notes in the car and once at the office, I pen questions down."
Information is regularly taken from the "rarest and most unthought of books, such as the Guinness Book of Misinformation.
"For example, the black box (in airplanes) is not necessarily black, it could be orange," Helmy said.
He mentioned that for music quizzes (Berpacu Dalam Melodi, Gita Remaja and Persembahanku), questions were compiled by him and Ani alone.
Reinhard added that reading the International Herald Tribune, Time, Singapore's Straits Times, Newsweek, The Jakarta Post, books and encyclopedias was routine.
"We manage to overcome differences by reading a lot... feeding ourselves with information to better our question- selection skills and ensure correct information," Reinhard said. (02)