I met with Michael Lutz, co-designer of the show (his uncle Joe Rozzi is the other co-designer), Maria-Grazia Gerbaudo (Panzera’s Chief Sales Officer), Franceso Armigliato (Panzera’s Chief Technology Officer) and Paul Csukassy (designer of the soundtrack and Montreal International Fireworks Competition Technical Director) for what turns out to be my 100th interview since following the competition.
Michael was in the slightly unusual position this year in designing an in-competition display as well as this usual closing show with the usual collaboration between Rozzi and Panzera SRL. Rozzi are both customers and collaborators, being the main importer of Panzera products in the United States as well as providing collaboration with Panzera in terms of putting on large-scale displays. Indeed, this has been a big year for Michael and both companies as they competed in Cannes, Montreal and, of course, designed this closing show. Michael did tell me the design for this show was done before his in-competition display and he had the talents of his uncle, Joe Rozzi, to work on the design. The two split the work pretty much 50/50 and so it will be interesting to contrast their styles.
Michael said he had no input into the soundtrack, but this is usually the case for most of his customers who commission a display. He gets the soundtrack and then has to design the display to fit. For this year’s tribute to Metallica, he said it was a joy as he loves the band and they were the first concert he attended. He said that both he and his son have “Master of Puppets” as their favourite Metallica track. On the technical side, the display was designed using Finale3D and will be approximately 5000 cues with all ramps being used except for the top control room, ramp 4. 95% of the products used are from Panzera and the remaining 5% are various cakes and slices. There will be plenty of large shells with 300mm, multiple 250mm and 200mm shells. No special effects or structures, just classic display design.
Maria-Grazia said that there have been lots of changes at the Panzera factory over the past couple of years, with new shell-wrapping machines and other automation, but one of the biggest changes has been to eliminate the use of all plastics in shells and design a new range of one-shots that produce zero debris. These are made of plastic that can be recycled, but the shots themselves produce nothing that isn’t consumed by the device itself. Francesco stressed that the company has worked hard to eliminate the use of perchlorates in 90% of their products, this being important for certain clients that shoot large numbers of displays in sensitive sites with water features. Despite the changes in the chemistry, Francesco and Maria believe their colours have never been brighter nor more vivid than now and we should expect to see a lot of these in the display, including their range of ghost shells and “Medusa Polyps”. Maria said that Panzera is doing well, exporting six 40′ containers per year from Italy now, though with an increase in the numbers of one-shots versus shells in the product mix. And, of course, Rozzi are a key customer for the North American market.
Last, but not least, Paul explained how he crafted the Tribute to Metallica soundtrack. He said he was quite a large fan of the band in the 1980s and 1990s, but lost some interest from the 2000s onwards, until the release of their latest album, 72 Seasons. He said he spent a lot of time going through all of their repertoire, first selecting the opening and closing tracks, and then working to build a soundtrack with good dynamics in between these flanks. The length of some of the songs makes this difficult and he sought to find tracks that would blend well together when woven together, with perhaps a common note or chord. Some songs were too long to use even a full verse or chorus, so he included important elements such as a guitar solo etc. As in previous years, the mixing was done at Studio Piccolo.