Hello everyone,

Please post your reviews/comments of the German display here.

Cheers,

Trav.

I attended the 2nd IP show in the Montreal International Fireworks Competition (but reportedly the 11th one for designer Joachim Berner) with a mix of feelings. On one side, I had excellent souvenirs of some famous “piano-style” segments made by J. Berner with Ipon in 1997 and 1998, and his own IP in 2007. On the other side, he also crafted a certain number of displays which have not delivered to me the memories which might last for many years. I still had mixed feelings after the show, which I found good but was much more appreciated by other viewers I discussed with.

In certain ways, I would say that IP did a show within the same artistic orientation than Vaccalluzzo, the Italien entrant, about 10 days ago. Both were very traditional in their pyromusical and technical design. Indeed, IP had a 10-segment soundtrack mostly made of classical musics, which was not edited with the same care than the Polish one. I could’t really find a theme – even less a storyline – to this display, but the style of musics helped for the cohesion. The soundtrack allowed for many variations with the pace of the show. It started very strongly as the sky was filled by multi-break shells launched before the end of the countdown. In many other parts, the pace was very slow and, at a such point, maybe more attractive for people who like to quietly contemplate fireworks. For me, the contrast with the exhilarating show performed by Surex a couple of days ago was striking. Finally, the finale was loud, but very short. People sat next to me can say that I am typically very reactive when it comes to the finale, but I didn’t feel a similar crescendo this time.

It quickly became obvious that the show was going to be extremely well-synchronized. As I looked back at my video, I can realize how accurate it was, including with multiple effects coming from multi-break shells.

While IP used the four permanent ramps, I would not say that they made the most of the site. First, in a couple of segments, fireworks burst in high altitude without any “supportive” effects below. The interplay of pyrotechnic effects simultaneously fired at different elevations sometimes creates very complex and fascinating segments, but it was not often the case here. Second, the setup also featured many nautical products, but almost all of them (fountains and mines) appeared into a single tableau (J.-S. Bach). Third, the team unfortunately experienced some sort of issues on the right side of the firing area (some pyro crew members were still on the ramps and inside the floating control room up to 9:50pm or so, I guess they knew that something would go wrong with some positions).

I have been surprised to not have a full segment of fireworks note-synchronized on piano musics (or another percussion instrument). I thought that the line-up of about 15 firing positions on the second ramp was designed for a such pattern. It has been successful in some previous shows made by J. Berner and I believe it would have been a good addition to the show. We saw a couple of sequences of that kind on the Yiruma’s music of River Flows in You, as small bunches of stars were vertically launched in synchronization with the percussion, but it was just one variant of a more diversified segment.

While the synchronization was extremely good, I would say that pyromusical design and the quality of the soundtrack were similar to the Italian show. However, the technical design and the quality of pieces were, in my opinion, slightly better for Vaccalluzzo. It is likely that we could not fully appreciate the quality of these pyrotechnic products (especially the shade of some colours and their brightness) because some accumulation of smoke. For all these reasons, here is my personal ranking so far.

1. Surex (Poland)
2. Vaccalluzzo (Italy)
3. IP (Germany)

That being said, I heard many different rankings from long-time viewers, some prefering the Italian and German performances over the Polish one. So I am not sure there is a consensus so far. The way to the podium is certainly open for the last three contestants of the competition coming up over the next 10 days.

Fred

My report - http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=1318 - a good display but it didn't quite meet my expectations (and the smoke didn't help either).

Paul.

My video from Rue Notre-Dame

https://youtu.be/dht46AO31aE

Warm and very humid conditions were present for the German display. The enhanced humidity by the late-afternoon to evening period was due to heavy rainfall from a weakening thunderstorm that originated to the NW of the West Island. This created a humidex of about 32 C, with a base temperature of 24 C. Light WNW winds were also pushing the rapidly developing smoke very gently towards the central and left-hand sections of the La Ronde audience.

This was a very enjoyable display from beginning to end. Indeed, we observed many barrages of large overhead shells throughout the show, and there were numerous rounds of shells of shells and multi-breaks, with the display beginning forcefully with a sequence of these (which is always a great way to begin a display after the countdown). Furthermore, there was extensive use of shells of salutes, creating many active segments, much to the somewhat small audience’s delight. The quality of the products used was excellent, and we were able to appreciate the richness of the colors from Notre-Dame Street because of the nature of the wind direction, although the very high humidity and near-saturated air quickly drowned away the colors. The drooping effects, including the silver horsetails, shells of glittering stars and falling leaves actually worked quite well during the slower-paced segments, as did the silver and red photoflashes. One of the more memorable segments was that involving the piano, where we were able to enjoy an intricate series of low-level sequences of one-shot angled mines and candles.

Some criticisms that I had for the display, however, were related to the overall pyromusical design of the show. While the theme appeared relevant, given the selection of music that had been employed to represent it, I felt that the representation of the music was often very generally portrayed through the pyrotechnics. As much as I enjoyed the display’s noisy and vibrating nature, I was hoping to also see more attempts at precise/tight synchronization, as what had been exemplified during the aforementioned piano segment, given the elements surrounding the theme and music. Instead, the firing and burst patterns of the shells were frequently similar in rhythm and did not always bring out the music thoroughly as I previously envisioned. The choice of effects was also conserved, and this further limited the overall complexity of the display. Finally, I thought that there were too few soundtrack - using too few can be a bold choice, as could the use of numerous songs. As such, it is important to be able to strike some kind of balance. In the case of fewer songs, the danger is that firing patterns can become monotonous because each song would usually endure for an extended period of time. Here, it would have been interesting to introduce at least a few other selections that could potentially offer more opportunity for enhanced choreography and increased diversification. The finale was good, but I found it rather short. This may be that it was broken down into individual pieces, as opposed to being combined into one continuous part.

Given these criticisms, this certainly does not take away from the enjoyment of the display. I personally love energetic, fast-paced, loud, and vibrating displays such as this (composed of large shells, shells of shells, multi-breaks, photoflashes, shells of salutes, etc.), so I, and many others, was thoroughly entertained. That said, due to the overall simplistic design of the display, it may be difficult for it to be awarded with a Jupiter award this year.

Trav.

My video of the display can be found using the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0bOl4W-gcc

jbbank,

Very nice video!

Trav.