Please post your reviews of the Italian display here!

Trav.

We enjoyed a very good Italian extravaganza tonight, featuring Pirotecnica Morsani's signature products: studatas and countless other multibreak products which quickly paint the sky. Following their debut display in 2008, which focused on high-level effects, team Morsani catched that contestants to the Montreal competition are required to make the most of all available space and brought a huge amount of nautical and other low-level products for their second show in 2011. Tonight, I guessed that Italian designers had tried to replicate the same recipe, with minor changes. Similarities with the 2011 show were numerous: the theme was light (a striking departure from Weco opening performance) and clarified by a limited narrative, photoflash effect from the firing ramps dazzled the audience, and the pace of the show was intense, featuring several barrages of multibreak effects and nautical shells.

Once again, the lake was a busy pyrotechnic stage, with several nautical products: shells, flares, fountains, and rare mines shooting tourbillons (or serpents). The design of the show was broad, with some products bursting above ride areas on each side of the firing ramps. We enjoyed a loud and massive finale. I wonder whether the range of pyrotechnic products was as high as it was in 2011. That was clearly an issue with the 2008 show and, tonight, it seemed to me that a broader range of products would have helped to avoid some repetitions. Synchronization was excellent through the show and the pyros really fitted with the musics.

However, I feel that a critical ingredient was missing in the 2014 recipe. Whereas the 2011 soundtrack featured well-known musics (i.e.: Orff's O Fortuna, Vangelis' 1492, etc.), I would not be surprised whether the 2014 line-up was unknown to most people. For sure, that soundtrack has been carefully edited and the musics suited for fireworks. But it is more difficult to connect with the audience without some shared cultural references.

Two of the eight Pirotecnica Morsani's crew members were introduced to the audience as people in charge of the firing system. This show happened exactly one year after Vulcan's misfortune, so I hoped that no similar problem would occur tonight. It would have been a tragedy, at least for these two guys whose task seemed specifically related to that critical process! The show was flawlessly executed.

We were very lucky with the weather conditions. Trav's posts had alerted us about the wind issue, and velocity has fluctuated through the evening. Fortunately, it decreased just before 10pm... and resumed right after the display! The official ceremony has been augmented with a bunch of mines and shells, as Michel Lacroix emphasized that tonight show was the 267th in the competition history. (I suppose that the same thing will be done in forthcoming displays of this 30th edition, which is a nice touch.) There was a huge crowd tonight and the organizers have decided to delay the beginning of the show by a couple of minutes, in order to manage more efficiently late viewers, according to an announcement made at 10:01pm, as people were still coming to the grandstands.

NOTE TO LA RONDE CREW: For the second show in a row, the Grande Roue has not been lighted again once the display was over. It would be great to resume standard operation since the lighting of that ride has been, as far as I remember in the history of the event, a powerful and well-known cue to inform the audience outside La Ronde that the show has ended.

Fred

Salut

J'ai regardé ce feu sur le Pont jacques Cartier. Je n'ai rien manqué de l'action incluant l'activité sur le lac.

Il s'agit d'une très bonne prestation technique laquelle je crois aura plus aux très nombreux spectateurs . Toutefois rien à voir avec le spectacle formidable qu'une autre forme Italienne l'an dernier. D'ailleurs à ce sujet bien des gens pensent encore que ce sont toujours les mêmes firmes qui représentent les différents pays.

A vrai dire je ne suis pas embarqué dans ce voyage dans le temps proposé par Morsani:
Thème assez complexe , choix discutable de pièces musicales, éléments répétitifs au niveau de l'usage des pièces pyrotechnique..peu d'éléments créatifs , pas grand chose pour surprendre et ébahir le spectateur...peu d'éléments générant l'émotion bref un très bon spectacle je le souligne à nouveau sur le plan technique avec une belle finale dans le style très Italien.

Donc...le meilleur est à venir dans cette compétition.

Roger

P.S Note à Monsieur Poéti à propos de cette idée de déménager la compétition ailleurs.
Pour comprendre à quel point ce festival doit demeurer à la Ronde je vous invite à venir rencontrer ces très nombreuses petites familles sur le Pont dont plusieurs provienne de la Rive-Sur et probablement la même chose ailleurs autour du site. Ces gens-là n'ont pas les moyens de se payer un siège réservé et le Pont constitue une place de choix pour eux afin de ne rien manquer de l'action. Il y a aussi plein de petits bateaux et de très nombreuses personnes qui convergent vers les feux en provenance de la 10..la 132...
Une théâtre naturel et accessible pour tout le monde que le Pont et les rives du fleuve.

Here is the link for the 2014 videos.

http://www.burchcom.com/2014/index.html

I had some camera problems so the first 5 minutes of the Italy show is missing. Sorry about that.

To download your own copy, right click on this link and select "save target as" ... the file is 880 MB

http://www.burchcom.com/2014/2014italy.mp4 (available after 9:00 PM EST July 6)

Bob, I'll try to post my own video. I have the missing 5 minutes for those who might want to see them (although the display was a little slow to start in my opinion...)

That was a very interesting selection of products from Morsani and Yung Feng that was presented to us yesterday. We saw countless high-quality italian multibreak shells, blinding studatas, color-changing peonies, long burning strobing shells and impressive horsetails to multicolor comet that almost touched the ground.

However, like Roger, I did not became engaged with the theme. It was quite atmospheric, and I had difficulty matching the fired sequences with the topic that the narrative segments had introduced. The soundtrack was skillfully edited, but it did not evoke any particular emotion in my mind.

Also, I found that the use of the vertical space was lacking, as many sequences were based on the use of roman candles, then aerial shells, then some candles, then some shells... The shells were also fired very often in flights of three, which became repetitive.

Paul was right about the nautical shells : ramp 5 would have been seriously damaged (even more than ramp 3 last week with all the fires) by the powerful explosions. I witnessed flights of nauticals arcing quite high in the air before finally coming to rest and exploding in the lake. I reckon that it might have been a tactic to allow the shell to explode immediately after touching the water, as the height that these "nautical" shells reached was quite unusual and might have served to allow the normally long delay between the lift and bursting charges to burn as much as possible before going in the water.

Despite the high quality of the pyrotechnic material, I do not believe that this entry will allow Morsani to receive a Jupiter award this year.

Considering that we had a strong wind facing us, I was worried that long burning effects would fall on us while still burning, but this was not an issue, and the amount of debris that did fall on us was quite reasonable considering the meteorological conditions and the nature of typical italian shells. I saw a few shell casings fall in front of me, but they were seen and avoided easily by those that were under them. I still recall a particular display from Argentina in 2009 where we were drowned in remnants and were overflown by many flaming girandolas, but fortunately for us it was a lot less "involving" this week in the grandstands and I did not bring home any sulfur-smelling gift from the skies.

STL

A small compilation of the Italian display (and winds/spectators before and after the show) that I had wanted to share (footage was taken from Notre-Dame/De Lorimier):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkEQd9vn5XA

Be sure to increase the volume accordingly, especially for the conclusion!

Trav.

This was a great show by the Italian firm. I had a good view without any debris falling on me. It was captivating show and overall, left me satisfied. I personally liked the soundtrack and song selection... Although I'm having hard time hearing the music from Fort Edmonton. Not sure if they might have removed some speakers or did some changes. The viewing space has also been reduced (seems to get worse every year).

I would have preferred more creativity. Perhaps they could've added a special feature or something that would go along with the theme. The finale was excellent (!!!), but should been longer. All in all, very good show!

[ deleted by request ]

Summer-like weather persisted for a second display in a row, with temperatures as much as 23-24 C during the evening (23 C during the display), generally borderline low to moderate humidity and mostly clear skies. Mid-afternoon convective rains also took place over central and Eastern parts of the island, but skies quickly cleared thereafter. Winds were not as cooperative through much of the evening, however, but fortunately, as Fred mentioned in his posting above, suitable wind speeds took place during 10:00-10:30 p.m. period, although winds were blowing quickly towards the audience at La Ronde directly, especially towards central and right-hand sections of the grandstands. Wind speeds generally remained between the forecasted 23-27 km/h, with gusts frequently near 40 km/h, but these were most prevalent before and almost literally immediately following show time (as evidenced in my video above). At late 9:58 p.m., we were told by 105.7 (Rhythme) FM that the display was going to be delayed due to the winds (though the winds were not quite as menacing at the time). The display countdown was then announced just slightly before 10:05 p.m. Much like Fred, I, too, received a fright at the time when remembering what occurred with Hong Kong/China of 2013 exactly one year ago! The very large crowd (similar to during German display) waited anxiously.

This was, as expected, a very enjoyable and exciting display by the infamous Pirotecnia Morsani of Italy. The performance featured plenty of fast-paced segments, and some dazzling effects and colors, all of which were of high quality. Colors were particularly vividly introduced to open the “Birth of The Earth and Life” section of the display. There had also been numerous shell of shells, salutes/shells of salutes and multi-breaks during the display, and the myriad of nautical shells were simply spectacular and well enforced mid- to upper-level activity. Although the opening narrative did lead to a feeling of an anti-climax following the countdown, it was short and did not detract too much from the display/opening, and ensuing narration to introduce the following components of the show were sufficient in length. Synchronization was evident throughout, and the musical selections were enjoyable and well edited, many of which carried the correct emotional feel with them. The most emotional of the soundtracks, for me, was “Heart of Courage”, as it really provided that powerful feeling for the Era of Matter, and that the creations of life, as well as the very gradual development of our own intricate solar system/galaxy through geologic temporal scales, are slowly evolving (the soundtrack was commanding and even caused my imagination to soar in creatively visualizing this very delicate process). However, the soundtrack itself was not as greatly portrayed as compared to what Greece 2012 did with it! The transitions from one soundtrack to the next were also very effective and helped to better understand the evolution of matter, energy, and the creation of life on Earth.

In spite of the high degree of enjoyment that I experienced with this display, I must concur with those comments expressed by previous posters with respect to the thematic premise. Indeed, as much as I thoroughly enjoyed the performance, I did not quite grasp exactly how the fireworks themselves were unfolding the progressive evolution of the universe. There were some moments where the connection could be established (such as during the opening of the creation of life on Earth), but in many instances, it was more the musical selections that more effectively produced that essence of evolution. As a result, I sensed that the show lacked complexity and scope and tended to repeat certain effects a little too much (such as the shell of shells and multi-breaks – as much as I greatly love those effects!). Consequently, product diversity was somewhat conservative. As Enkil mentioned above, the show could have probably benefited from some creativity by introducing various other effects to more successfully deliver the theme and represent the already excellent diversity of chose soundtracks. For example, the use of girandolas, using structures, as well as utilizing more intricate firing angles could have generated periods for more vertical depth, and a more suitable atmosphere for some of the elements that comprised the theme. The finale was simply spectacular and breathtaking, but as Enkil also stated above, it was a little on the short side. Had the section immediately prior to the final barrage of deafening salutes and accompanying shells lasted for an additional 25-30 seconds and had a slightly more gradual crescendo, then it would have been truly memorable. Still, it was a satisfying finish to a very enjoyable display!

Trav.

Here is my report: http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=870

It was a very good display, but I thought their 2011 entry was better (as I felt more connected to the theme). The quality of the fireworks, though, was superb.

Paul.

Morsani's show looked average for the most part. Synchronization was present at times specially when they used stutatas. Their products does not compare to the italian shells used by italy for the past 2 years (vaccalluzzo and pyroemotions). Some roman candles stopped firing after 3-4 shots and the stars of some strobe shells did not ignite. I enjoyed their photoflashes and their color changing mines with colored flashes. I'm sure that the best is yet to come.

Looking forward to Caballer's return to montreal, hopefully they get to execute the show close to perfection.

Best Regards,
Vander

To be fair, Vander, Pyroemotions did not use any studatas at all! Different tradition in their part of Italy.

Paul