I met with Ferenc Tóth (Managing Director) and Anikó Tóthné Seres (Designer) of Nuvu (pronounced “New View”, representing Hungary for the first time in Montreal.
I had originally met Ferenc in Budapest in 2001, when he had invited me to photograph his company’s display for the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of Hungary. This link has photos of that historic display. I also saw him at some of the displays at the end of the 2019 season – leading me to think his company would be invited.
Indeed it was so – Ferenc had met the organizers at the Symposium on Fireworks in Mexico and, after visiting Montreal to see how the competition works, was subsequently invited for the 2020 season which, of course, ended up cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. Well, not so much cancelled, as postponed as 2022 is the continuation of the competition series.
Circular one-shot racks
Ferenc formed a new company in the 2007/8 timeframe and named it Nuvu – which is pronounced “New View” – a name that had inspired him whilst attending a course in Australia in 2002 to improve his English skills. This company continues to present the St Stephen’s Day display every 20th August in Budapest and it’s now the largest display in Europe. Fired along 4 1/2km of the River Danube, from 7 barges, 65 pontoons and two bridges, it has a huge budget and brings out crowds of over 700,000 each time. He said both this display and the Montreal competition present huge challenges for the company, but in different ways. The Budapest display is very complex logistically (and is also 30 minutes in length – the whole evening also includes multimedia effects such as video mapping on the Budapest parliament building). Ferenc said Montreal is very challenging technically and he has wanted to compete for many years, but needed time for the company to “pull its trousers up” before they finally felt ready.
Letter mine racks
Ferenc designed the entire soundtrack for the display and passionately spoke about Hungarian culture and artistry. The Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály was famous for introducing a method of teaching music that lead to the now familiar concept of “do-re-mi”. The soundtrack is a historical journey through musical culture and includes a folk song that every Hungarian knows by heart, since it was written when the country formed just over 1,000 years ago. The version in the display is translated as “Spring Wind” and should bring tears to the eyes of all the Magyar people, including technical director Paul Csukassy, who also has Hungarian roots. Designer Anikó passionately described how she worked on the design and also how she wove in contemporary Canadian music for the latter half of the display. Hungarian is a unique language quite different to all others, so they had the band who performed the piece “The Red, The White, The Green” (colours of the Hungarian flag) do a special version in English.
Anikó Seres & Ferenc Tóth
On the technical side, all of the products used in the display are from Europe with Hamex from Slovenia, Igual and Europla from Spain, and Parente from Italy. Ferenc noted that they had learned in Budapest to use products that don’t create too much smoke when it’s hot and humid. All ramps will be used but ramp 5 will be special – five large pontoons and an inverted V shaped array of 30 smaller ones. There is a plan to use “pyrofiguration” which is a very nice term for pictures made with lancework – ramp 4 being the venue for these, should time permit their construction. The hope is to produce at least the iconic Hungarian Crown – as can be seen here in the photo I took in 2001.
Firing will be performed using 80 Galaxis 100-cue modules with over 3600 single shots alone and around 6700 total products. During the interview I noticed many circular one-shot holders – these will be mounted on three towers and many “letter-mines” were being setup as well. Finale3D was used to visualize the display during the design process.
The team were so full of passion and pride during the interview, which was interrupted by a call from the Hungarian Consul-general. It was truly a pleasure to welcome an old friend to Montreal.
