I met with members of the Mirnovec team at the Marriott Chateau Champlain (the official hotel of the competition) as they had already finished their day at the firing ramps. Designer Nikola Koletic (23 years old) was there with his father, patron of the company, as well as Damir Belanic (25) making this one of the youngest teams ever to participate.
Founded in 1993, they are located fairly close to the capital, Zagreb, in the village of Mirnovec and shoot around 350 shows a year, with 40-50 of them being large displays. They have participated in many festivals in Europe, including Knokke Heist, Hanover, Blackpool, Malta as well as a large festival in their home country of Croatia, which will hold its 14th edition in Zagreb next June.
They told me they are especially pleased to be participating in the Montreal competition as Croatia has just joined the European Union, so it’s a double celebration. They also fire a large show on the Adriatic coast, this region being a popular holiday destination. Given the young age of the team, they were proud to note that the both the music and scripting only took a week each, though they used the 3-D visualiztion program ShowSim.
Back row: Steipan Zupancec, Franjo Koletic, Damir Belanic. Front row: Nikola Koeltic, Zdenko Stanec
The team will be firing the show with the Italian-made Pyrodigit system, using 60 modules of 14 cues and 15 modules of 90 cues for a total of around 2200. Given the recent issues with two of this year’s displays, we verified the team are very familiar with their firing system so that there will be no surprises at showtime.
As for products, they are using mainly Pirico (Italy) and Vulcan (China) together with some products from Scarpato and Vaccalcuzzo, both also Italian manufacturers. For fans of large calibre shells, there will be 25 200mm, 16 250mm and 14 300mm shells used in their display, as well as a lot of 1 shots on ramp 3, as well as flame projectors. The team were convinced this is a first in the competition, though we have not seen flame projectors used in-competition the Pyrovision display in 2008. Maybe the Croations are using a different type of effect? Since ramp 5 is not being used, there will be nautical shells used in the display.
The musical theme is an interpretation of Artificial Intelligence and is meant to display the interplay between humans and computers, with the computer in charge of the direction of the show as well as speaking to the audience. The designers stated they are looking forward to all parts of the show as each song is special and they are proud of the fact that they will be using very precise timing. To entice people to attend at La Ronde, the team noted that they are have the first usage of multimedia flame effects (though I’m not convinced about this), that they are the youngest team to participate and the first time entrants representing Croatia!
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