Hello everyone,

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

Trav.

For the audience at La Ronde, a clear sky with an actual crescent moon was the perfect backdrop for this good show of the Parente Fireworks Group on the theme “One Step – Moon Dream.” Following a very humid week and rainfall on Saturday morning, the air was finally dry, and a Northern wind blew the smoke away from the audience in the grandstands, as forecast by Trav in this forum.

From my ride in the ferris wheel, I felt that we were going to enjoy a traditional display with few special effects. There was nothing on the 4th ramp. There was a fifth ramp, made of eight pontoons in a V-shape. However, I didn’t spot any mortars oriented to launch nautical products. Low-angle mortars made this display especially wide, with many pyrotechnic effects flying over areas on both sides of the firing ramps. The firing pattern was somewhat repetitive. For instance, in as many as 8 musical segments in this show, products have been shot from a series of 10 to 12 firing positions, each angled in a such way that the whole series formed a large fan. That was too repetitive for me. So the technical design could have been improved.

The theme of the show was mostly reflected with the composition of the soundtrack, and a short narrative, instead of a more complex storyline. The soundtrack was made of 11 segments. Some of them could have benefited of more editing, especially to shorten a couple of songs which were a bit too long, in my opinion. The first segment, on “Clair de Lune”, included some shells in the shape of a crescent moon and all the fireworks were white, creating a sort of lunar atmosphere. Generally speaking, the pace of the fireworks followed the rhythm of the musics. That was especially true on “Don’t stop me now” (heard for a second show in a row), which was especially intense. However, in some other segments, I found strange to fire large shells on serene musics (e.g., “Shallow”).

The quality of the products was good, with many studatas, cylindrical and multibreak shells. In one of the initial parts of the show, note-synchronized bright strobes were blinding! While some pieces had color changes, the richness of colour appeared somewhat limited in this show. The “Clair de Lune” segment was not the one and only to be all white, it was also the case for most of “Send Me An Angel.”

The synchronization was very good. The finale was a bit short.

Parente Fireworks has not experienced major technical problems during this show, but a fire began around 10:20pm on the far left pontoon on the 5th ramp, causing the burst of some remaining products on that position. Before the show itself, a minor problem caused the interruption of Michel Lacroix’s pre-recorded speech, for a couple of seconds. I also thought that a problem occured during the display with the soundsystem, as I had the feeling to hear a different soundtrack in the background. However, someone told me that it was a characteristics of one of the songs.

On July 20, the Canadian entrant will present its show on the same theme (with the title “A First Walk on the Moon”). It will be a rare opportunity to compare how two designers visit the same theme.

Fred’s personal ranking so far :

1. Hanwha Corporation (South Korea)
2. Parente Fireworks Group (Italy)

***

Grupo Luso Pirotecnia is next. This Portuguese team is known for its creativity and “Luso” does not perform standard displays. We are already aware of the theme “Stay tuned,” which is related to broadcasting, and La Ronde has also indicated in its brochure and website that some sort of floating structure will play a role. I heard tonight other features of this show, so “stay tuned” for the next Paul’s interview to be published. It shall be very exciting!

My report (sorry it's rather late): http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=1523

A pleasant evening was present for the Italian display, though perceptibly a little cool at times due to the breezy Northerly winds. Nevertheless, a temperature of 23 C graced the evening under low humidity, and skies were mostly clear (some distant clusters of cirrus), allowing the moon to (appropriately) appear for this display.

This was an interesting show by the Italian team in the sense that it had large potential with its assigned theme. I previously envisioned this display to have many sequences that would directly or indirectly reflect upon discovery and space exploration, so I was quite excited to see what could come out of this performance!

The display began rather serenely, but it quickly came to life as its opening evolved. Over time, it became increasingly obvious that the thematic connection was being realized with the selected soundtrack. I was quite thrilled with the organization of the display from one segment to the next, and musical transitions usually made sense. Later in the display, I did feel more emotionally tied to it, and the vibrancy exploited by some of the sequences during the show’s final 33% was rather captivating. This is especially true with the shell-of-shells and multi-breaks during this time, along with exquisite farfalles! The product quality was also excellent, and I particularly loved the scope of the show along low-level, for the left-right extent was quite wide (amplified by the wind and firing angles).

That being said, unfortunately, I felt that the complexity and general design of this display were lacking. This is likely due to an often familiar pace observed throughout much of the show, notably over the first 22 minutes. I further found the firing angles used to be quite repetitive, as we had frequently seen the wide arching/rainbow pattern emerge at low-level. In addition, many segments tended to conclude with drooping effects (horsetails), and redundant firing patterns gave the impression that many segments were similar in their design, despite different soundtrack. I suspect that this affected the efficiency of more distinct transitions, as well as, in the end, compromising the complexity of the display. Color selection also felt more reserved in this display, and I was hoping to see at least a few note-tight sequences to exude representation of key elements that realistically engendered the theme. Therefore, I felt that the thematic connection was typically stronger with the music than with the pyrotechnics themselves. At a couple of moments, too, such as during the opening and towards the mid-section of the display, some brief periods of asymmetry could be seen as comets fired at only one side each time. There was also a firing area on a platform that struggled to come to life over the course of most of the second half of the display. Finally, I, too, would have liked to see more periods of excitement to represent the theme, and I was similarly hoping for more of an engaging ramp five made to take advantage of certain aspects of not only the theme, but also for some of the soundtrack. For the finale, it began quite well, but as pointed out above, it was too short. When the music commenced for the finale, my thoughts immediately turned to the gorgeous Panzera 2003 finale, and so I was expecting something similar (or better, of course)!

Overall, this was an enjoyable display, but I was just expecting a more complex design, more interesting firing angles and a richer coloring scheme. Perhaps my expectations were a little too high, but there was still seemingly plenty of room to showcase a more diversified approach to explore such an interesting thematic framework!

Trav