I met with Marc Masson, designer for BEM, who will be celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2020. This is BEM’s fourth time competing (2000, 2005 garnering the Bronze Jupiter for their display entitled Au Pied du Courant, and 2011). They were invited to perform the opening show in 2015.
Marc was very motivated by the 50th anniversary of the first footsteps on the moon, which took place at 10:51pm EDT on July 20th 1969 – which less than 30 minutes after the end of the show on Saturday! He said he was inspired by the 1960s feelings of optimism, ambition and the drive to achieve the moon landing, something that was accomplished for all of humanity. The choice of music in the soundtrack is design to reflect these higher ideals rather than politics. There was a lot of choice for music to use and he said he hoped the pieces chosen would reflect this over ideal.
The display will “start hard”, following the usual dramatic countdown performed by the inestimable Michel Lacroix. The soundtrack and design were performed in close collaboration with his brother, Paul and their uncle, Gilles, was responsible, together with the company patriarch, Bernard, with procuring products and all of the logistics. Marc said they have a very close team who are excited to work hard on this display which they hope will provide they company exposure on a broader stage. Marc noted they don’t usually compete in other competitions but were honoured to have been invited to the Montreal competition.
Marc Masson
In terms of technical design, the display will not feature and special structures nor ramps 4 nor 5 as Marc said he wanted to focus the budget and effort on producing an excellent and entertaining display without “reinventing the wheel”. Products are sourced from several manufactures including Igual (Spain), Panzera (Italy), Luso (Portugal) and BEM’s only line of Chinese products (including some that are yet to be homologated in Canada). Fans of large calibre shells will be happy to learn the display will have plenty of 8″, 10″ and 12″ shells. The display will be fired from 122 FireOne 32-cue modules for a cue count of around 4000.
Marc said he’s hoping to win a Jupiter and wants to create emotion and frisson in the audience to celebrate humanity’s achievement of landing on the moon 50 years ago. I could certainly feel the passion Marc had for the theme driven by a lifelong love of space exploration.
