Please post your reviews/comments of the Italian display here!

Trav.

That was a good introduction display from the Italian entrant, performed during a comfortable, windy, summer night.

The 25-segment soundtrack was very interesting, with well-known musics presented as representative of various parts of the rock’n’roll history, each part being announced with short narratives which didn’t interrupt the flow of the display. I can only imagine how much work has been required to design the soundtrack. It seemed obvious to me that each segment had been carefully extracted from the original songs, so all these segments were inserted into a show which last close to 33 minutes. The mix between each song added to the soundtrack fluidity. The synchronization with the musics was also very good throughout the display.

Many pyrotechnic pieces were sophisticated, with many multi-break shells of various effects, as well as double-change colours shells of stars. A.P.E. Parente was also the first team, this year, to launch nautical effects (fountains, flares, and shells) on the Dolphin Lake. However, the richness of colours appeared somewhat limited to me. In addition to the green, white and red (from the Italian flag, which itself appeared from twinkling bombettes at the 20th minute of the show), white and blue were other predominating colours. A wider range of colours would have bring more diversity in this show.

I would point out the lack of diversity as the main weakness of the display. A wider range of colours and pyrotechnic effects would have been welcomed, as well as more diversity in firing patterns. We saw several chase sequences, repetitive shooting angles, etc. The design of many tableaux was not as complex as we see in other extravaganzas, featuring pyrotechnic effects at one level at a time instead of more sophisticated segments mixing multi-level activities, or designs which make the most of the firing area depth. This comment should not overshadow some more complex and intense segments, for example the one on the musics of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, one of the best parts of the show, with an accumulation of crackling and kamuros above low-level effects. Unfortunately, several moments of darkness occurred during the show, including one for 18 seconds on the Piece of My Heart song.

A.P.E. Parente did a good show, but for the reasons outlined above, I don’t think they are going to appear on the podium this year. To bring some perspective, I would add that many pyromusical designers have been inspired by the history of rock musics. While I was preparing to go to La Ronde, I decided to wear my Rock loves t-shirt of Pyrotecnico, the American entrant in 2008. In 2013, the unforgettable Juke Box of Pyroemotions & Pyrodigit from Italy was also based on that theme. Both were awarded the Gold Jupiter. But there design was much more sophisticated than what we saw last night. (For memories, a short video montage of Pyrotecnico's show I did in 2008, for PyroPlanet.com, a domain name owned by BC-based Bill Raynault at the time, is still available here.)

That was the second night without Michel Lacroix. This week, the organizers have appropriately stopped his pre-recorded post-show message, so the audience had time to applause the Italian team once he announced the end of the show, before his closing remarks.

If you want to download the video file, right click on this URL and "save target as"

http://www.burchcom.com/2015/italy.mp4

745 MB

I've brought my family for the last 7 years. My brother-in-law is a pyrotechnician so I have some working knowledge of the logistics of these displays - enough to respect the hard work, planning and execution. I'm heavy hearted to agree with comments. It was a good display. In any other competition, it might have been enough. But this is Montreal guys! You know, I'm always kind of wary of soundtracks which have a whole lot of songs. 25 tracks. It kind of smacks of not knowing which songs to scrap from the shortlist. If you can execute 25 tracks with excellence - pull a whole lot of different effects and choreography out of the bag - well you've got yourself a ticket to the podium right there. I wanted it to happen. I prayed for it. But it didn't happen. The cuts were so fast you couldn't get into the mood of the song (some only lasting 40 seconds before changing). The chasers were repetitive. Surely I wasn't the only one expecting some pretty amazing single ignition chasers in Wipeout? Considering this wasn't overly complex, there were quite a few unfortunate mis/ non-fires, and several blackouts. The commentary cut into valuable pyro-time. Pyroemotions showed how a commentary with a big tracklist can work. I've seen shows use Twist and Shout countless times and I really wanted to see something different. Montreal is about excellence and design ingenuity. A good show. A nice show. Not a Montreal podium show. The effects used were real nice but I didn't connect them with the songs they accompanied. Jubilee put a single ignition heart up and angel wings and a rainbow across the sky and that's for starters. Their effects connected with the songs which connected with the theme which connected with the people. I really really wanted to be connected to the Italian team display in the same way. I wanted the sky to erupt in celestial magnificence at the end of Stairway and I was left wanting when it didn't. Thunderstruck guitar intro - blinkers and some low level shells. The thought was there. The planning might have been. The design wasn't and I'm more than sorry for it.

With the greatest respect to Italy, I was sitting through each sequence wondering what team England would have done. Firing errors on their show yes, but oh man that was the best display I ever saw regardless. My wife was crying, the kids were screaming, my brother-in-law saw the video and wants to go work for them. So it's still England for me. Four more to go but you know what, I really really want those guys to win. Not because they were the underdogs but because everyone thought they were boy did we get it wrong. To come in as first timers and be given first firing day and pull that out of the box - I mean come on. The theme couldn't be more apt for the times and we came away feeling like we were part of something special and unique and that we got go share something that connected us with every person there. Definitely a message that we want our kids to uphold. It wasn't about gay or straight or black or white. It was about everyone equally and diversely. Blew my heart up to the heavens and back so much better than Stairway did last night.[i][/i]

I agree with the general assessment that the Italy show was quite good but not a Jupiter winner. During that long dark segment during 'Piece of my Heart' I was starting to think "Oh no - not again...." But I want to say that I found the 'Stairways to Heaven" segment stunningly beautiful and dramatic.

I liked the cleaner style of firing by Parente. It could have been a great show, however the quality of the products were not really that good, the colors are not bright and looked more like cheaper chinese stars. Since they said they were using 80% italian products, I was expecting brighter colors and more complex italian effects. A lot of the products were repeated throughout the show, specially the small roman candles that fires a lot of stars and each time they were used, they were almost all the same firing pattern. It seems they also had problems with the timings of the products they are using which is a surprising mistake that they made specially competing at this level.

Too bad they were not able to pull off their plan and it looked like they used no floating platforms at all nor any special structures.

Best Regards,
Vander

My report: http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=1030

Jubilee are clearly ahead at this point in the competition.

Paul.

My first online review... A lot less detailed than my post-show analysis as jury.

Disclosure: I missed England's show. This is the first show that I've missed in a few years now.

I thought this was a decent show, but it definitely wasn't flawless.

With my favourite show of all time being Italy's Jukebox Memories in 2013 and with 1Pyro8's excellent quality video (https://vimeo.com/82110225), I know that show quite well. This show immediately brought back memories of it. They followed the same approach.
-Start with a big display
-Intro to theme
-Lots of songs
-Narrations and then more songs
-"We've now reached the end of our journey" speech
-Finale

Even the voice of the narrator sounded the same...

That said, Italy in 2013 did a significantly better job. That show was basically flawless to me.

I thought this show was enjoyable, but it was repetitive (as others have said). There were too many moments where there were no shells at all. As well, there were clearly areas where some shells weren't firing. Likewise, I found the choice of shells with respect to the music to be unclear in many places, especially when they weren't properly using the lower half of the "stage". I also found the sound editing to be slightly sloppy at times. 25 songs is very challenging and if you want to do that, you have to get it perfectly.

That said, I found the synchronization to be excellent and some of the shells to be particularly nice. I particularly liked the multi-break shells and those with different colours in it. I also applaud any team that uses nautical shells, since many teams seem to forget how to maximize the lake. (That said, I would have liked a bit more than *just* nautical shells at that moment.)

Overall, a decent attempt. Looking forward to Wednesday (and particularly Hong Kong, China / Vulcan's return).

The warmest temperatures, so far, for this fireworks season made an appearance for the Italian debutante team, with late-evening temperatures of 25 C and high humidity. It was also rather windy/gusty (from the SW/WSW), sometimes so forceful during the 8:35-10:06 p.m. period, in particular, when gusts were close to 40 km/h (much as they were throughout most of the afternoon previously). Fortunately, sustained speeds and gusts were low enough to allow the display to be fired safely. Skies remained mostly clear, with a few clouds.

This was a good effort by the Italian team. The display was largely entertaining with its sequences, the choice of music to go along with the fireworks was mostly enjoyable and relevant, and the theme of “Pyro Rock’ n’ Roll” was clearly evident throughout the display. Some of the more memorable moments of the show were during “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “Twist and Shout”, and we thoroughly enjoyed the sequences of salutes, shell-of-shells and multi-breaks! Some of the nautical effects, namely the brief appearance of the nautical shells, were a welcomed addition, and synchronization was good.

I do generally agree with everyone’s comments above, however. My principal criticism with this show was notably redundancy, and, thus, the lack of complexity and depth. Using such a theme is often quite challenging since the nature of it can obviously be very demanding (especially at Montreal’s competition), but if represented effectively, the delivery can be extremely successful, as we have seen in the (recent) past. This display, unfortunately, fell a little short of expectations and did not creatively correspond to its theme, as much as the theme was conveyed with clarity through mostly the music. I was personally hoping to see the team take advantage of more diversified firing angles to emphasize the subtleties of some of the soundtrack (I was awaiting this in particularly “Wipe Out”), as well as make use of a much larger variety of effects to capture key elements of certain songs to truly define them in depth altogether. In one instance, flares were fairly common to introduce segments. As a result, the display had a tendency to be more so concentrated towards the center of the firing site, and many sections lacked representation through the pyrotechnics, as compared to the English display. While synchronization was generally good throughout the show, it felt like it was leaning sometimes more on the simplistic side, though this may have been that many of the effects were repeated excessively to frame several segments. Color selection was similarly more reserved, and I got the impression that the show, overall, had a somewhat monochromatic appearance to it, with beige being most dominant of the selection, followed by reds and blues. Product quality was decent, but somehow some of the colors and/or effects did not appear as vibrant.

Soundtrack was carefully selected, but because of the numerous amount of songs employed, some were present for only a very short time (in sharp contrast with the more lengthy songs heard in the English display!) and this, therefore, made it difficult to really enjoy and get into some of the more popular tracks. This also eliminated the chance for more subtle variations in rhythm and pace from one segment to another. The fluidity of the show was also somewhat disrupted by the occasional periods of darkness.

As for the finale, I was actually expecting a little more from it. It began quite convincingly with the correct pace, buildup and color, but it ended much too abruptly! A more enticing opening would have also been welcomed, but the narration heard to introduce certain sections was not overly distracting.

Altogether, this was, again, a very good effort from team Italy. There were actually many enjoyable moments in the display, but I personally felt that with more attempts at note-tight synchronization, a wider color and product selection, this surely would have been a truly magnificent display with a more tenacious design.

Trav.

Unfortunately for the Italian team, I think we have a pretty strong consensus, here, on this one.

Paul is absolutely right to remind everyone the case of Pirotecnia Morsani, whose 2008 performance also lacked of diversity, especially with a strong focus on high-level effects. They really understood what was missing to their show and, when they came back three years later, their performance was amazing and rewarded with a Gold Jupiter!

Fred