Good afternoon, guys,

Please use this thread to post your reviews/comments of the Czech Republic's display here.

Enjoy the performance, as well as the weather.

Trav.

Salut

Un spectacle ennuyant et tout simplement pas de calibre pour une compétition comme celle de Montréal. Quelques bons passages..mais le reste banal, sans imagination créative, sous utilisation des possibilité du site, des effets répétitifs à profusion bref mes amis ...cette firme sera difficile à déloger de la 8 ième place.
Bonne journée amis fan des feux.


Roger

I have posted a video of the Czech show.
http://www.burchcom.com/2011/index.html

For those who want to download the actual video file(s) here are the links:
http://www.burchcom.com/2011/china2011.flv
http://www.burchcom.com/2011/czech2011.flv

I kind of disagree. I thought it was a good show overall and better than last week's. Some of the effects were really impressive, and at times, the synchronization was very well done. The soundtrack was enjoyable and well suited for a fireworks display. All in all, it was more captivating than China's display. But I agree that at times, it lacked a bit of creativity.

And also, the finale was worse than China's. Actually, it really had no finale. Keeps getting worse with each passing year!

My rankings so far:

1. Czech Republic
2. China

Great effort by the Czech team!

Again, this week, I wasn't on La Ronde's site; I was in the Old Port. This time I've brought proper headphones to hear the soundtrack. So bear in mind that my comments don't take in consideration the fireworks launched on the Dolphins' lake. Despite that, I don't think it really altered the perceptible quality of their nice spectacle. I must admit, I had no real expectations and I was really happy with the overall show. The synchronicity was fair, great at some point. The choice and use of fireworks was well selected and very efficient. The soundtrack was good, not beyond that; The classics of classical music were well presented, the different styles (classical, jazz, electronica and Czech folkloric music) were also giving an appreciated variety that showed their great level of musical knowledge.

I think it was a misstep to use a classical singer for a rendition of jazz standard ("Summer Time"[img]http://montreal-fireworks.com/forum/img/smilies/wink.gif[/img].

A magical moment for me was the "Double life (gazers) fireworks" on the "Flower Duet" by Leo Delibes.

The overall performance was superb but not fantastic. I did enjoy the show and had a good time. Thanks to the Czech team for a brave display of pyromusicality.

Cheers,

Sebastian

Flash Barrandov SFX achieved a much better display than with their debute one in 2005. As some people wrote in this forum at the time, their first show was basically fireworks with music, without the relationship we expect between both components. This year, we had a true pyromusical show, all with classical music, a genre I would like to hear more often in the competition. (I believe that its rhythm is often perfect for fireworks, and is also more challenging because the designer really have to bring the audience in the show with the fireworks; he can’t rely solely on the music, like it’s often the case with more popular options.) The synchronization was flawless and the pyrotechnic really fitted with the music. I appreciated the use of crackling devices with some percussions at various times. With the 2005 performance in mind, we really have to highlight the improvement made by the Czech team on this side.

The quality of the material used is another strong point with this display. I believe that many people appreciated vividness of colours, especially various shades of bright blue and green. Flash Barrandov really gave a sense to the expression "painting the sky", with several shells, sky mines, horsetails, or Niagara falls (I’m sure that Paul will use more accurate terms) which slowly failed and burned into the sky. I was also surprised by the wideness of some sequences, made of comets launched with very low angles, which flew far on both sides of the firing area.

However, it was also a very conservative display with a simple design. Most segments were made of a small set of effects, launched following usual patterns or sequences. Beyond the rainbow segment (more colourful), the richness of colour was limited, as well as the range of pyrotechnic effects. I would expect a more efficient use of the firing site from a team which is not a recruit : no setup structures, no material launched from a fifth ramp and, more important, no nautical effects. People who attended a display at La Ronde for the first time or who watch one from time to time might not be annoyed with these weaknesses, but I am sure that most fans – and the jury – noted these problems.

And as I have already written in this forum, I believe that pyromusical is similar to figure skating or synchronized swimming : while there is a large room for freestyle, there are some compulsory figures. To build a crescendo at the end of the display and to bring the audience in a dramatic, strong finale is one of them. People have some expectations when they decide to attend a fireworks show and to experience a powerful moment is, for sure, one of the most important. You must leave your audience with a bang. Although some people might not have realized some weaknesses of the Czech display, I am sure that many of them thought : "What, it’s already over? No finale?"

For these reasons, and while Flash Barrandov did not have the technical failures experienced by Panda Fireworks, the Chinese team is above the Czech one in my ranking.

Overall, I nonetheless enjoyed this display which brought some classical music to the competition and exhibited good quality products. Thanks to better weather, the audience at La Ronde was larger – but still modest – than last week. Michel Lacroix was there and, this week, the Giant Wheel lights properly turned off with the countdown.

Fred

Bonjour,

J'ai vue le feux de la République Tchèque. Très ennuyant. Effet répétifif, surtout dans le Farfarella Pourpre, le Sauce et Gold Glitter. J'était surprit que dans leur gros stock, il répétait souvent les même mosaique.

Trop de pièces de qualité, je m'attendait à ce que la finale il ne mette pas un peu de chinois pour une belle poutine. Une simple salve pour la finale, j'était posté sur le Pont J-C et pas grand monde claquait des mains!

J'ai remarquer parcontre que les bombes dragon egg faisait beaucoup de *OH WOW! chez le public!

Reste que c'est un peu frustrant, ont s'attend a voir un feux de calibre international après de s'être tappée tout le traffic et etc... pour finalement en repartire déçus..

En espérant que Pyro2000 m'impressionne!

After a fairly wet June, weather patterns quickly shifted to more Summer-like standards to appropriately start off the month of July. In contrast to China’s performance, typical Summer weather was the backdrop for the Czech Republic display, with very warm evening temperatures of 25-26 C, high humidity, gentle winds from the South to SSW at roughly 9 km/h, and a generally partly cloudy sky of cumulus cloud clusters.

In general, this was a decent performance by the Czech Replublic. The display featured an extravagant opening piece (probably the most enticing piece of the entire display), and some high-quality products, including the farfalles, shells of silver strobes and the shells of crackling pistles. Synchronization, albeit simple, was nicely demonstrated, and the support between low and high altitudes was excellent, which created good symmetry and balance from all firing angles of the display, including from the left to right, and vice versa. The colors were not tremendously diverse in nature, but they were rich in appearance, most notably the beige. Although I had little understanding of the theme that was used for this display, after doing some research, I was able to somewhat comprehend the approach, including the justification behind the music selections, which, after realization, were all relevant and well suited the thematic framework. My personal favorite track was "Ode to Joy" (used for the finale), as it was greatly reminiscent of the concluding piece of the closing display in 2003. The opening music, "Tarantella", was also very enjoyable and went well with the fireworks in that segment.

This display, however, suffered heavily from redundancy under many respects and, therefore, lacked complexity. While the show offered some good balance between low to high level, I personally found that the firing scheme and overall design witnessed through multiple segments exhibited many similarities in appearance, particularly in the manner by which mid levels of the display would support high level activity - this often gave the impression that the fireworks did not always justify some of the key signatures of the soundtrack selections. This display also seemed to often appear monochromatic, especially towards mid way into the show and onwards - in particular, the beige, white and gold colors were excessively used, and this was the sort of repetition that showed the most. Certain effects were similarly used with high frequency, particularly the kamuros, horsetails, and the shells of go-getters. The lack of complexity was also reflected upon, as Fred stated previously, the general approach taken in representing the employed theme. That said, in addition to a repetitive firing scheme from one segment to another, the display offered little creativity, perhaps because there were few significant low level effects, or potentially because, like China, there was not too much interplay between effects. Synchronization was generally good, but there were some points where it was a little off, and there were a couple of moments of silence that took place while music was in progress (one example being near the beginning of the second segment). On a music-related note, I felt that, periodically, the transitions between segments were a little too abrupt in nature (at least for my tastes), particularly for the first third of the display.

With the approach taken, it is certainly understandable that most of the display would principally follow a slow pace, but, in my opinion, such an attempt can quickly lose the interest of many spectators. For myself, I had a difficult time being drawn into the display beyond the first two segments, mainly because of the overall pace thereafter. There were some fairly good sequences in between, but, unlike China, did not really provide that mesmerizing delivery, as the Chinese demonstrated, at times, in their display at low level, with the rapid sequences of gerbs, candles and nautical flares. As most have expressed so far, the finale was disappointing - I was readily awaiting something along the lines of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rueDFnCiTQ&feature=channel_video_title

Overall, this was absolutely not a bad attempt from the Czech Republic, as the display had generally good choreography and a tight connection with the associated theme. The product quality was also high, but there just was too much reliance on certain effects, colors and a similar firing scheme, making segments bare close resemblances in their execution. For now, I would put this display a little ahead of that of the Chinese, merely because of a more supportive thematic premise, better synchronization and recognizable symmetry, but with the lack of complexity seen in both displays, it might prove to be difficult to compete with the upcoming participants.

Other than that, expect July-like weather to remain dominant through most of the week, although severe weather is possible tomorrow (Wednesday).

Trav.

I'm thinking like Fred and Travis : the product was good (probably the best one can get), the colors, when used, were very good and pretty saturated and the soundtrack itself was enjoyable.

Yet, I felt like almost everyone that the pyromusical design was quite simple and appeared to draw heavily from italian style displays due to the amount of candles used throughout. I noticed this fact while watching my video, as I didn't feel there were this many candles from my position in the stands.

For my defense, though, two large SLRs were blocking my lower field of view

I also think that the soundtrack edit was too simple for a competition such as this one.

Unfortunately, this kind of criticism rose considerably since last year. I feel that maybe the participating companies don't take their participation in Montreal seriously enough to have their soundtrack edited seamlessly by a professional sound engineer... Note that this is a general comment, and not Czech Republic display-related.

One particular negative aspect was the background hissing of various tracks that would fade out along the music and put emphasis on the silence between the songs. I don't care that maybe some orchestra recordings were noisy, but it would have helped if the hissing was constant throughout the soundtrack to avoid creating this situation, where the "pure digital silence" would strike an unwelcome constrast and make the pauses stand out more.

Even though, this display was enjoyable throughout and I had a good time. I feel it was marginally superior to the chinese entry, with regards to the synchronization work and the technical design (the low roman candle angles outlined by Fred).

I tip my hat to Jaroslav Stolba for the general pace of the display, which allowed me to take my best batch of pictures in a long while. The excellent products also helped in this regard, and the technical design allowed us to fully appreciate the shells' evolution.

I feel that the horsetails above candles pictures will end up in my yearly best-of. I took it too late for my book Rêves Éveillés, as it would have been a strong contender to be printed in it.

Check it out for yourself on my website !

I also made a post-display interview with Jaroslav Stolba, available on YouTube. As the audio was better this time, I forego the subtitles. If some people require them to understand, just tell me and I'll see what I can do.

Finally, after a busy week, my review is up here: http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=388

Paul.

Finally, after a busy week, my review is up here: http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=388

Paul.

Review is based on Bob's video!

Before i start this review i'd like to say that i might be a bit biased as i really like the firing style of this team even prior to seeing their show

I thought that Flash Barrandov started their display in an anticlimatic manner as there appeared to be a mistake in the timing of their first shell of shells. This said early on the show it can be seen how well everything in the show is synchronized to the music and how clean the show is. That is one thing i really like about this show, nothing was really overdone, the amount of the shells fired in each segments are just the perfect amount to reflect the music choices. The synchronization of their show was one of the best aspects of this show since not only the lower effects were tightly synchronized but also most of their shells were very well synchronized except for the shell of shells at the beginnning. The overall coordination of the display also looked like a lot of thought was put on building the show. An example would be with the use of mines as tails to cylinder shells. Most of the time the team synchs the mine tail as well as the main break of the shell. I don't see this firing style used often as it takes a lot of knowledge of the products your using to be able to do this.

Another strong point of their display was the quality of the products used. Most of the products come from one of the best manufacturer of that certain type of effects such as the Cylinder shells (Vaccalluzzo), Comets (Ricasa), Candles (Pirofantasia), Spherical shells (San Tai) and the list goes on! That said i was disappointed that no use was madeof the lake! Given the arsenal of products that they have chosen to use for the show I'm sure that they could have sneaked in some nautical shells for some of the segment. An example would be nautical shells in the Rhapsody in Blue segment as they have done in Cannes. Another flaw in their display was that many of the one shot sequences where repeated but even when repeated, i felt that each time had a different effect.

I think that more variation with the tempo of their music would have been much more appreciated as most of the songs that they have chosen were pretty slow songs except for the song prior to their finale. But overall i thought that the song fitted well with each other. The finale was a really brave move for Flash Barrandov. For me it works because it showed how well controlled this display is and it also reflected the spot on synchronization of the show. Overall i think that this was a great modern take on a traditional pyromusical and this greatly showed how a pyromusical should be. I do not think that Flash Barrandov will be getting any jupiter but they have shown a pyromusical that is completely of their own style which is very good

Here's my grading for Flash Barrandov:
Effects: 9.5/10
Synchronization: 10/10
Music: 9/10
Technical Design: 8/10
Pyrotechnical/pyromusical Design: 8.5/10
overall: 45/50 (90%)

Ranking:
1. Czech Republic - Flash Barrandov
2. China - Panda Fireworks

Vander

To be on vacation is an opportunity to examine various things I didn't have time to look at as I was busy at work. So I realize, too late, that the Czech display was the 240th full display fired at La Ronde since the start of the competition in 1985 (this figure includes on- and off-competition 30-minute displays, so it doesn't include the short award shows displayed in 2009 and 2010).

Number 240 is not so relevant... but it means that the third display to be fired in 2012 will be the 250th one! I suppose there are very few competitions in the world with so many extravaganzas on their record. I would carefully select the contestant for this special show!

Fred