Introduction

• Don’t Stop Me Now

Country

• 39′
• Long Away
• Leaving Home Ain’t Easy
• Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Rock

• Keep Yourself Alive
• Headlong
• Seven Seas Of Rhye
• Now I’m Here
• Stone Cold Crazy
• Death On two Legs
• Tie Your Mother Down
• We Will Rock You (Live at Wembley)
• Hammer To Fall (Headbanger Mix)
• Princes Of The Universe
• I Want It all
• I Can’t Live With You
• The Party
• One Vision (Extended Vision)

Opera

• The Prophet Song
• Teo Torriatte
• Fat Bottomed Girls
• Bicycle Race
• Good Old-Fashoned Loverboy
• Somebody To Love
• Save Me (Live)
• Play The Game
• Killer Queen

Finale

• Bohemian Rhapsody
• Show Must Go On
• We Are The Champions

Designed by Stephen Pelkey and Matt Shea. Pyrodigital firing with 430 16-cue modules, PyroMate NightHawk firing with 29 45-cue modules. VisualShowDirector scripting with 7396 cues

The Atlas press released promised thunder and lightning and so mother nature cooperated. For only the second time this year, we had to watch the radar before heading to La Ronde as ominous clouds gathered. About 15 minutes before show time, lightning was seen above downtown Montreal, though no thunder was heard. Despite a few tiny sprinkles at one point during the show, the weather remained dry. The only unfortunate aspect was that the wind direction shifted by 180 degrees literally seconds before the display stared, ensuring the smoke and debris were directed at the audience at La Ronde. Fortunately the wind was strong enough such that the smoke didn’t accumulate too much and spoil the display.

One other thing of note, before my review-proper, is that both the opening and closing competitors this year had the largest cue counts and most one-shots.

The display began quite dramatically after the 1 minute 22 second narration was over (though there nice bengal and strobe stick effects during this). I’m not a big fan of narrative elements so was grateful that this was the only one in the display. Fairly quickly we got to see fantastic sequences of one-shots and bombettes during the Toccata segment. The go-getter shells fitted well with the music too and the audience reaction was very enthusiastic.

There were interesting firing patterns in the Nutrocker segment with ramp 3 divided into sections to good effect – though on the parts where piano notes were synchronized to the shots, it would have been even more effective to have the position of the shots correspond to the position of the notes on the keyboard! All that said, this was a really well done segment as was the Night on Bare Mountain one.

Shell selections were interesting during the display, with some particularly nice farfalles and shells in the shape of butterflies. The lauded ghost shell effects (where a wave of colour sweeps over a shell’s stars) were not too effective, though, since too many were fired at once as well as other shells which really made the effect hard to discern. I was also surprised that there was a fair bit of repetition of effects (notably the farfalles, but with some other shells too). This was a bit surprising and did detract from the overall design of the show in my opinion.

Ramp 5 was used and the effects on it were good, giving the impression of great height, but the firing angles used made it sometimes difficult to really know that it was ramp 5 and not ramp 3 being used. One of the photographers asked me afterwards “how come they didn’t use ramp 5″, but I pointed out that “they had”. This is always a challenge with this extra set of pontoons close to the audience: how to use them to present something different. To be fair, Atlas did have fireballs fire on these, but there was so much else going on in the sky that these weren’t too obvious and they weren’t particularly large.

One negative aspect of using so many one shots is that, because of the way the angles were set up (either vertical or in V patterns), the range of effects produced was somewhat limited. Because of the the calibre of the products, there was less “dynamic range” than there would have been with, say, 4″ mines added into the mix. As much as the one-shot sequences were good, once we’d seen a few different ones, there was nothing left to give any additional WOW factor. I also noted that the synchronization, though good and consistent, was just off by a fraction of a second. Maybe this was due to the distance I was from the sound system – perhaps further back (with a longer audio delay) it was right on. From my vantage point, the one-shots in the Vaccalluzzo show had the best synchronization of the entire competition this year.

The finale was good, but not quite as good as I expected as I was disappointed to see the same shells used again that had been used earlier. The vaunted pyroarch give some good effects but I would have enjoyed them more had the arch been a true semi-circle. As it was, the angles ranged from about 45 degrees to vertical. There were some good nauticals at the end and, of course, these would have been nice to have at other points during the display but, of course, ramp 5 precluded this (though they all exploded quite a long way away – so it might have been OK). Due to the smoke, it was hard to see the effect of the special salutes, though the apotheosis of the display was good and loud.

All in all, it was an excellent display and good use was made of the sky. The one-shot sequences were good, but the restricted range of angles meant that the display wasn’t quite as “wide” as some of the others this year and the calibre of the devices did limit the dynamic range a bit. The capacity audience certainly enjoyed the display and it must surely stand an excellent chance of a Jupiter this year.

Close Proximity effects installed on a ramp 5 platform

This display is the most complex Atlas have ever designed and will hold the record for the largest number of cues ever fired in Montreal. Initially they had scripted it at 8000, but with careful editing thanks to the use of VisualShowDirector, the final cue count is 7396. It is being fired with 430 FM16 16-cue firing modules as well as twenty nine 45-cue modules in the PyroMate NightHawk line. The PyroDigital setup will be using Patrice Guy’s wireless interface, intelligent splitter and IsoBoost system as well as five field controllers (with 2 extras as backup).

In terms of pyrotechnic material, manufacturers of shells include Vincente Caballer of Spain, Vulcan, Sunny and Ang Ping of China as well as an American manufacturer, Grand Fireworks of New York, who produced special crossettes and salutes laced with a special type of titanium. Low level effects are from Vincente Caballer and Vulcan for outdoor material and a lot of indoor specialFX from Western Enterprises, NextFX and Vulcan – most of which will be used on ramp 5. Ramp 4 will include a special “pyro arch” that features 15 firing positions and almost 800 cues! I noticed some large mines on ramp 2 and Stephen told me these are 6″ studata mines! Stephen said he’s not a big fan of nautical effects – and ramp 5 often precludes large calibre devices – but he said he had decided to bombard the lake once ramp 5 was no longer needed. For aficionados of large shells, there will be seven 12″, around thirty 10″ and seventy eight 8″.

One half of ramp 3

For the design of the show, Stephen and Matt both worked on the music selection as well as the scripting, spending a total of nine months. They entered the script and then used VisualShowDirector to refine it – Matt flying to Seattle to spend time with Infinity Visions head honcho, Alberto Navarro (whose company produce VSD). Matt noted that the used of VSD allowed them to refine the show and perfect the angles and effects they wanted to achive. He also noted that, with 21 positons on ramp 3, they were planning to do some interesting effects where the ramp is subdivided into 3 sub-sections that can play with each other.

The music is based on the Disney Classic, be re-worked with a modern twist. Both designers noted that it’s important to achieve a WOW factor and that the Montreal audience, having witnessed so many displays, makes this hard to achieve, but they would try their best. The theme of the display is that of a pyrotechnic apprentice putting on their first display in Montreal, giving a pyrotechnic twist to the classic Disney tale. Stephen noted in a press handout that:

The design we are seeking is to parallel the story of Fantasia, capturing the similarities of a young pyrotechnic choreographer whose dream is to achieve the ultimate prize of mastering his skills of music, design and pyro-orchestration…the ultimate achievement is what we thought to be as “Thunderstruck” which of course is a play on words with our intro for the Grand Finale.

Stephen said he’d been disappointed not to win a prize in 2003, but enjoyed the challenge of competing in Montreal and so had decided he wanted to return. He also noted that all the competitors put their hearts into their displays and that the local crew are wonderful to work with.

Stephen Pelkey (L) and Matt Shea (R)

There are a couple of surprises up their sleeves and both designers hoped the weather would be fair, especially with some many indoor pyro effects in their arsenal. As much as competing in Montreal is very hard work, they both noted that they were enjoying the experience.

1. Toccata: David Garrett
2. Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Trevor Rabin
3. Nutrocker: Trans-Siberian Orchestra
4. Carnival of the Animals: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
5. Night on the Bare Mountain: Modest Mussorgsky
6. The 5th: David Garrett
7. Selections from the Firebird suite: San Francisco symphony & Michael Tilson Thomas
8. Summer: David Garrett
9. Nothing Else Matters: David Garrett
10. Thunderstruck: David Garrett

English version of the narration:
“Welcome to the enchanted story of an apprentice wizard who yearns to one day master the ability to create a symphony of light and sound…but first this young apprentice must battle the fears of good and evil within his young mind. This journey will begin with bolts of lightning and sounds of thunder until he learns to tame his thoughts of conducting the clouds in a magical dance. As the skies darken into the night the young wizard must challenge his fears and to conquer his ascent to the top of Thunder Mountain…only then will this young apprentice face his fear of capturing this magical moment that happens only but once, in every 28 years. At that very moment as the clouds dance, the thunder strikes, is there a symphony of light and music never seen or heard like any other place in time…Nothing Else Matters…this is the moment of being Thunderstruck and the tale of Pyro Fantasia…begins…”

Designed by Salvatore and Marco Vaccalluzzo. Galaxis firing with 32 100-cue modules and ~3000 cues

Perfect summer weather for the much anticipated participation of the Italian team of Vacculluzzo. Renowned as manufacturers, they presented a strongly themed display set to the famous book by Khalil Gibran. With Michel Lacroix being otherwise occupied by the 2012 Olympics, the usual countdown at 10:00pm didn’t quite come off as expected and the display had already started as the countdown began, without the Ferris wheel being extinguished until after the countdown was over. This marred the initial introductory narration.

The display began with a fairly simplistic firing scheme of triplets of shells, but these were of very interesting effects. The pace was slow at first but eventually started to pick up as more use was made of ramp 3. Narrative sections linked the segments of the display together, but the narrator’s voice was not always easy to hear and sometimes the narrations were just a bit too long, interrupting the flow of the display.

One very noticeable element was just how good the synchronization was. Not only of the candles and one shots, but of the shells and especially the studatas. The timing on these perfectly fitted the music and, even when several were fired at once, the timing of all the individually sub-shells matched. The one-shot timing was always spot-on, the time being carefully chosen to give the correct visual appearance of synchronization no matter the effect being used.

There were many beautiful shells deployed, including some I’d never seen before such as skymine-to-multibreak and many interesting horsetail effects – especially  the shell-of-shells silver horsetails. The display was very colourful, with many bright and contrasting combinations, teal  and orange being one such. Good use was made of the space of the site, with the shells firing in a pretty broad pattern, though it was noticeable that the shells burst at a lower altitude than, say, the Japanese display. The products used always reflected the music used and moments of the display were dramatic enough that I exclaimed many WOWs.

As the clock passed 10:30, we still hadn’t had a finale, though the pace became intense enough that we thought we were in a finale, with many large shells being fired and some dramatic support from sequences on ramp 3. This being an Italian display, the expectation is always that the finale will contain salutes. So there was a gold segment ending with large shells but no salutes, leaving people to wonder if this was just a different way of ending the display. But the Ferris wheel remained resolutely dark and the music continued until 10:31 and a bit. But still the Ferris wheel remained off as drums rolled and the audience cheered. Was the Ferris wheel dark due to the disorganized countdown at the start? Then the music stopped and a final narration started, so it wasn’t over yet, even though the time was now 10:32. The finale began at a frenetic pace with studata bombardments and runs of comets below. For a full two minutes the pace increased and increase as massive barrages of studata lambis (studatas of salutes) and other shells filled the sky with a final bombardment of cracking gold nautical shells with the same above, filling the sky and then a thunderous volley of massive salutes, bringing the display to an end (at 10:34!) to raucous cheering from the capacity audience, who then rose to their feet to give the Italian team a well deserved standing ovation.

This was a fabulous display by the debutante Italian team, featuring beautiful products and the most incredible timing. Definitely a display for connoisseurs of fine Italian fireworks. I found the narrative sections somewhat of an interruption and there was some repetitiveness of some of the effects used. Also, some of the firing patterns in the early part of the display were a bit simplistic. A bit more use of the lake would have been appreciated too, especially as the final nautical shells were so dramatic.But the overall effect of the display was that it was of a quality where there’s no doubt it must win a Jupiter this year.

Salvatore noted that the company’s production is environmentally friendly as they don’t use any plastic in any of their fireworks, but use traditional materials such as paper, card and cotton string. I asked what percentage of their products would be used in their show and was told, in no uncertain terms, that it would be 100%! Salvatore said he and his brother had been talking about how they would like to do a display around Khalil Gibran’s book, The Prophet when the invitation to compete in Montreal arrived. The conception of the display took about fifteen days with a further four months required to specially fabricate all the pyrotechnics required. Antonio noted that he had to test lots of formulae to get the effects the brothers wanted with just the right shades of colours. They also noted that there wouldn’t be any repetition of effects throughout the display. The ten segments of the display are designed to reflect the chapters of the book and its portrayal of different aspects of humanity.

Salvatore, Antonio and Marco Vaccalluzzo

Since the theme is tied to the book, they wanted something special for every segment and told me, when asked which part they were looking forward to seeing most, that they were anxious to see all of it! They had used ShowSim to help visualize the show as they designed it, but noted that they just found it faster to write the script in that software so they weren’t so focussed on the 3-D capabilities, though said it was very useful to check angles and sequences for comets etc.

On the technical side, they are using thirty two 100-cue Galaxis firing modules (assisted by Renzo Cargnelutti) with  around 3000 cues. There will be nautical effects and they will not be using the floating platforms that form ramp 5. I didn’t ask about the calibre of shells as it’s deceptive with traditional Italian cylinders – a 6″ shell may be four feet high and weigh two or three times as much as a 12″ spherical shell. Vacculluzzo are renowned for their products so I’m sure we will be in for a treat.

1. Soundtrack from the movie “Transformers : The Score”: Steve Jablonsky
2. Soundtrack from the movie “Pirates of Caribbean”: Hans Zimmer
3. My Heart will go on: Celine Dion
4. Save the Last Dance For Me: Michael Bublé
5. Overture of Marriage of Figaro – K.492: Wolfang Amadeus Mozart
6. Liberation: Immediate Music orchestra
7. A Hard Day’s Night: The Beatles
8. Price igor: Alexander Borodin
9. Freedom: Aretha Franklin
10. Lacrimosa: Immediate Music Orchestra
11. Age of Gods: Thomas Bergersen + short exctract of the trailer movie “Sherlock Holmes 2”
12. Dance of the Hours: Amilcare Ponchielli

On arrival at La Ronde, it was clear there were special structures floating in the lake that had been hinted at on their facebook page as “pendulums”. In fact, there were each of these floating on their sides in the lake, obviously replete with pyrotechnic effects. More on these later.

Three of eight "pendulums"

The music for the display began during the countdown, but this was done quite deliberately. When the countdown hit zero, the well-known “voice of Radio Canada”, Winston McQuade, introduced different pyrotechnic effects as a conductor might introduce the different instruments of an orchestra. Then the music-proper began with the familiar refrain of Carl Orff’s opening movement from Carmina Burana, a piece that has been (over)used on pyromusicals many times before. But this was a joke as McQuade interrupted the display to say just that – that this piece was overused and we needed something else! Surprising and effective!

The display proceeded with great interplay between the one-shots and candles on ramp 3 and the shells above, with many typically Portuguese effects such as a type of go-getter. Then a surprise, as fireballs erupted on ramp 4. More surprises followed later with volley after volley of rockets, something we haven’t seen in Montreal for a while and another traditional Portuguese specialty.

Intermixing soulful music with more-upbeat pieces was effective, particularly when another Portuguese effect, the relampago, came to life and gave the feeling of being in a disco. Relampagos are a form of multi-effect photoflash shells.

After the first Fado piece, fire was seen on the lake and the pendulums started to rise to a vertical position! Initially firing strobe pots, they were certainly surprising, but that wasn’t it. They had, as I found out afterwards, 50 cues on each of them. One dramatic effect was that of firing small shells. This gave the distinct impression that the shells had been fired directly at the audience and evoked the first of several WOWs from me during the display. Later, drivers on the top of the pendulums made them swing around as drivers fired at alternating sides. Later, gerbs were fired and at other points horizontal and vertical wheels. Definitely a very unique effect!

But the surprises weren’t over, though the last of them had been publicized. Violinist Eric Speed and Fadista Yolanda Soares appeared on a small stage for the final two segments of the display, to great cheers from the audience. Yolanda’s piece formed the finale which was done in traditional Luso style, with massive barrages of shells, all of the same colour, but cycling through the spectrum and ending up with white and volleys of salutes, bringing the display to a close to cheers from the audience.

I enjoyed this display and found it more balanced and integrated thematically compared to Luso’s 2008 entry and it caused me to utter the most WOWs so far this year! The music editing was cleaner with good transitions between pieces. The special effects, especially the pendulums, rockets and fireballs, were great. But there were a few mistakes which marred the performance, with one position on ramp 3 unfortunately appearing to do everything in reverse compared to its peers. I also found that some of the fireworks effects used were repetitive, with many segments with horse-tail or go-getter or crossette-type effects. I also found the range of colours used appeared to be biased towards the warm end of the spectrum, though there was one segment with a rainbow-type effect. However, on a creative level, Luso must be credited, once again, with presenting something unique for the Montreal audience with their unique pendulums.

Vitor Machado

So the first question was, naturally, what had changed his mind about returning to Montreal? Vitor noted that they were disappointed with the display’s placement in 2008 but he found himself thinking about “what to do next time in Montreal”. Aha! So they did want to come back. “Of course!”. We then had a discussion about how Montreal is such a special place given that the audience’s whole reason for being there is to see the fireworks, that the fireworks are the central event of the evening. He also mentioned that the Montreal competition is one of the most stable in terms of format – this also being important as well as the fact that the Montreal site is especially designed for fireworks.

We then discussed what had changed since their debut in 2002 and one thing that immediately was mentioned was the fact that now, all displays are electronically fired whereas back in 2002 about one third of the shows were manually fired. This, Vitor noted, makes for a more level playing field and means that creativity and design become key, rather than technology.

In terms of the design process, Vitor said he’s thinking about it all the time and is already thinking about his next visit to Montreal and noted that the process is much longer than just a month or so. One other thing that has changed, for Grupo Luso, is that, since 2002, they have become much more of a pyrotechnic products manufacturer. Their display this year will feature 100% Luso material, with about 70-75% coming from Portugal and the rest from Luso’s production facilities in China. This change is important and Vitor said he also wanted his display to be a showcase for their products, but, of course, without it just appearing to be product demonstration. Several new products will be shown to the public for the first time in Montreal and he noted that the competition is a good place to try new things out. Sensitive to cost, Vitor said he’d rather spend the money on something disposable rather than on an expensive structure (such as the ring or dome used in 2002/2005.

Vitor was somewhat circumspect about the design of the show, wanting people to experience the special effects themselves but not so willing to talk about them, save for the live performances by violinist Eric Speed and fadista Yolanda Soares. He did say that he wants to create an emotional environment that involves the audience, especially including music that is so dear to the Portguese soul, Fado. At the end of the day, he said he wanted to represent his company’s culture and do the best display for them and the audience.

Technical aspects are that the display will be fired using FireOne and Galaxis (also used by Sugyp and Vaccalluzzo – sharing the system saved all  three companies some costs). There will be around 3000 cues. Vitor did all of the design but was assisted by Montreal native, Melanie Cagnon who now works for Luso and assisted with the choice of music.