Jukebox Memories
Designed by Andrea Scarpato, PyroDigiT firing using 495 devices with 8727 cues. Firing system design by Filippo and Franceso Losi with PyroDigiT 2-D visualization
The Italian team, competing for the first time in Montreal withe their record-breaking highly anticipated display, were fortunate to have perfect weather for their setup as well as the evening of the display with light wind, pleasantly warm temperatures and low humidity once again making conditions ideal for both spectators and photographers alike.
It is hard to know where to start with this report. First of all, a record-breaking 8727 cues were used together with 10,084 pyrotechnic devices (where each shot of a candle counts as a device). This is a lot of product, but not a record breaker in itself. It is, however, definitely a record number of one-shot devices, with a count of about 7900 – the previous record being last year’s Atlas show with between 5000 and 6000.
The display design fairly straightforward with 21 positions on ramp 3 (10 of these on top of 3m posts) together with five pontoons for ramp 5 and two special “wheels”. Each “wheel” was composed of 20-slices of 30 one-shots, mounted on a crane 40m in the air. Next to these, two arcs of one-shot racks as well. Though these devices are not wheels in the pyrotechnic sense (as they don’t rotate), I will use the term “wheel” for this report. The PyroDigiT modular rack/firing module system allowed each position on ramps 3, 4 and 5 to be setup such that it could fire at pretty much any angle from almost horizontal to vertical. In the case of the 10 3m high posts, only horizontal firings were used. As well as all of these modular racks, there were some Roman candles and cakes used as well, together with flares and fountains (the latter being in groups arranged in arcs on ramp 5). Five firing positions were used for shells on ramp 2 and the usual five positions on ramp 1.
It was with this arsenal of equipment that enabled the team to fill the sky from top to bottom and from the extreme left to the extreme right, thus making excellent use of the site. Some of shells on ramps 1 and 2 were fired at angles enabling this sky-filling pattern. Shortly after the display began, the two wheels fired shots in a 360o pattern and rapid runs of shots flew across ramps 3 and 5. It was very quickly evident at the great precision of the timing of the shots and the great rapidity in which they could be fired. Good interplay was made between the low level effects and the shells above, though occasionally a bit more support would have been appreciated as there were a few times when only volleys of three shells were being fired. The low-level effects, though, more than made up for this with incredible sequences. Particularly memorable was the Hey Jude segment. This started out slowly with just flares and then fountains on ramp 5, but started to build. At its climax, fantastic opening fans of crackling gold comets started from two positions close to the centre and then expanded left and right across ramp 5, as huge volleys of silver rain shells filled the sky. As the drums rolled towards the end of the song, rapidly rotating shots fired from the two wheels, supported by the one shots in front. At that point in the display, I knew that this would almost certainly be a Gold Jupiter winner.
And so it continued for the rest of the display with fabulous sequences across the lower ramps, supported by good quality shells above. A bit disappointing that there were few traditional Italian effects shells, but the products used were excellent. The one-shots, of course, were just amazing. Interesting effects, vivid colours and perfectly equal amplitude. One problem with doing display with a lot of one-shots is that the display looks “untidy” if they don’t all rise to the same height or travel to the same distance. Not the case here – all were very equally matched and made for exquisite patterns in the sky.
The display setup was almost perfect. I didn’t notice any errors in the shells fired, and only a handful of setup errors in the one shots (a few comets in one module were reversed in angle and I think that one position may have had a few shots of the wrong colour). Given that there were almost 8000 shots, this is very impressive. Even more impressive is that everything fired – I didn’t notice any single failure of any device to shoot – this was remarkable and noted by many pyrotechnicians afterwards. Also very impressive was the flawless synchronization. This was particularly noticeable in the Frankie Goes to Hollywood Relax song, where dazzling bright photoflash was impeccably synchronized to the beats of the music. The short flash really makes this hard and it was done to perfection. For other one-shots, there are a range of possibilities as to when to synchronize to the music and, whilst consistent, I didn’t always agree with all of them.
The soundtrack was very good, but I found the narrative segments introducing each decade of music a little bit redundant and an interference with the soundtrack, given the feeling that it was choppily edited, whereas this was not the case and it was very well put together. Overall, I think there were too many up-tempo songs and I would have appreciated a few more calm and slower pieces to give a chance to catch a breath from the frenetic pace, as many pieces ended in a similar manner to Hey Jude.
No use was made of the lake as there were no nautical devices used, but the horizontal firing one-shots from the 3m poles filled this hole as they shot across the surface of the lake and towards the audience.
The finale was outstanding, building to a huge crescendo and ending with massive barrages of chest-thumping salute and fantastic sequences of arcs of gold comets and salutes below, traversing ramp 3 – reminiscent of the Pyrotechnico finale in 2008.
The team received the largest standing ovation I’ve seen in several years as the capacity audience jumped to their feet and cheered about the 33 1/2 minute display came to an end. The enthusiasm continued in the Salon des Artificiers afterwards with some people exclaiming that they would not want to compete in Montreal if Pyroemotions/PyroDigiT were on the same schedule!
I am sure this display will win the Gold Jupiter!
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