Gary Caimano
I met with Gary Caimano of Western Enterprises, a small family run fireworks company based in Carrier, Oklahoma. Founded by the current president, Jim Burnett’s, father over 64 years ago, the company is one of the few fireworks manufacturers in the United States, producing products under the Skyworks label as well as having joint operations with Vulcan Fireworks in China.
Participating for their first time in Montreal, Gary told me they had received a call last November and are coming to the competition with fresh eyes, having never witness a show here nor watched any videos. They had won a special prize in 2008 at the Chutes de Montmorency Competition outside of Quebec City for the 400th anniversary portion of that competition and also competed in Vancouver the same year – both those competitions being Western’s first foray into the International Competition field.
Gary told me that, after receiving the call, they immediate came to Montreal to look at the firing site and to start work on their show. He told me the firing ramps themselves inspired his thought process, forming a pyrotechnic stage for various actors, those actors being the different fireworks effects.
Having decided on the Love Reign Over Us theme, Gary came up with a list of one hundred songs that he had in mind to represent the three phases of love in his theme. He whittled these down to around 30 and found five pieces that he absolutely had to include in the display, coming up with a final tracklist of twelve songs. He worked with Steve Linn, Western’s sound engineer to edit these songs into the final form for the display. He told me he always wanted to choregraph fireworks to a Barbra Streisand song and, indeed, that’s what he’s opening with. Gary passionately expounded on this theme, showing the storyboards for each of the songs. He had produced a plan of the firing site and used this to plan out all the thematic sequences and transitions in each piece of music as well as the interplay of the firing ramps and the vertical progressions from ramp 5 at the front through ramp 3 & 4 and upwards to the shell-based firing ramps. His display design “book” was the thickest I’ve ever seen with hundreds and hundreds of pages of diagrams and notes! Gary told me he was in “lockdown mode” for a full month to complete the display design.
Gary told me he wanted to use all the company’s strengths in the show, these being the US-made products – he said 100% of the close proximity material on ramps 3, 4 and 5 are of Skyworks manufacture and about 70% of the shells, including all of the 8″, 10″ and 12″ calibres. His other stated company strength was that of their choreographic design capabilities, telling me that every effect used in a show has to be in the right place with their shows having no place for just “throwing up products in excess and at random”.
Gary said he wants to produce an awesome show for his very dedicated team, all of them being excited to compete in Montreal. He also wants the audience to feel united by the love theme and for them to feel how the music dictates the display and for them to get out of their seats and participate!
In terms of technical details, Western are using an Asian firing system calle Pyroseeking that was recently used in huge shows in Beijing and Dubai (some shows using over 1100 32-cue modules). This is an interesting firing system that uses broadband ethernet to connect the firing modules together and is designed to allow for very large displays. Western will be using 87 32-cue modules and have enlisted the help of Jamie Deye who is an expert in many different firing systems and is often seen at La Ronde. Western are also the first competitor this year to use the ramp 5 floating pontoons with a total of five firing positions (together with 11 positions on ramp 3 and several positions on ramp 4).
I asked Gary to tell me about their Skyworks product line and he told me they have some astounding colours in their broccade to colour shells as well as their coconut shells and lots of colour-changing comets in both their close proximity material as well as in shells. He mentioned the use of some 12″ colour comet shells where the comets change colour twice and burn for over 10 seconds. He said he wants to showcase high-quality American-made products during his display. For the material that’s not produced by Skyworks, Western are using products primarily from Vulcan (whom they have a manufacturing arrangement with in China) as well as Lidu and Sunny International. He told me that there are absolutely no Roman Candles in the display, preferring to use precision close proximity devices instead.
Gary also told me that he had worked on displays for the US-based Olympics held in Los Angeles in 1984 and Atlanta in 1996 but that their display in Montreal would be their largest of the year, larger than any of the 400 July 4th shows they put on this year.
The weather forecast is good for the weekend and I hope the audience reacts with as much enthusiasm and passion as Gary displayed in his interview!
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