Hello everyone,

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

Trav.

Perfect summer weather conditions, a moderate crowd and, on my personal side, extremely noisy and somewhat disturbing viewers right behind me were the backdrop of this excellent show by the American entrant, Atlas Pyrovision, competing for the 4th time in Montreal. This 31-minute extravangaza on the Spirit of the Jungle theme was presented the eve of Disney’s live-action remake of The Lion King debut. The setup of this show featured a “tower” of 9 firing positions hanging above the 2nd firing ramp, with several circular slices of one-shot pieces at the top, something very similar to what the Swedish entrant Göteborgs FyrverkeriFabrik used in 2016.

Let’s begin with this tower, which foreshadowed a more elaborated fireworks design than what we saw. As soon as the 2nd segment of the show on Welcome to the Jungle, the tower came into life with asymmetric patterns of diagonally-shot mines, which were later interpreted as fishes by someone I talked with. “Rotating” mines created three “moving” lines synchronized with the Baby Elephant Walk. Then, stars and comets were shot in subsequent segments, at time following circular, horizontally, or more fuzzy sequences. Generally speaking, the devices shot from this structure were too small, too short, and sometimes lost in abundant segments filled with larger products. I am sure the American crew put a lot of efforts in this tower but, unfortunately, it underdelivered and had nothing to do with the “vertical ramp” displayed by Göteborgs FyrverkeriFabrik in 2016. The technical design also suffered of some other limitations, with nothing fired from the 4th ramp, very few nautical products (only two carpets of nautical flares on Black Panther and Spirit of Africa), and a limited use of the 5th ramp (the sequences of meteor-headed comets on Trashin’ The Camp were spectacular, though). However, it was certainly the largest display so far this season : the show had a strong density of products and high altitude. It was likely the most enjoyable show so far this year for the outsiders who watched the show from a distance.

The soundtrack included 18 segments, according to the listing released by La Ronde, beginning and ending with different versions of “Welcome to the Jungle.” Given the fact that musics from popular movies as “The Lion King” and “The Jungle Book” do not constitute a bold choice, I appreciated that many of them were different interpretations than those from original soundtracks. I wonder to what extent some fans of these films were disappointed not to hear the specific versions they had in mind. However, to me it sounded as a good balance between popularity and originality. The transitions from one song to another were well-done, except maybe with the one following Circle of Life, which was somewhat abrupt.

The pyromusical design was excellent and the synchronization with the musics was almost perfect. In contrast with the 2012 opening, no anti-climactic introduction this time. The show began with fast sequences of flashes from one side to the other side of the firing area, and large – presumably 300mm – shells above. The audience cheered the beginning of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, as angled red and green stars were alternatively shot 32 times from 11 firing positions, synchronized with the 16 occurrences of the “A-weema-weh” lyrics. It became even more vocal when hearts were created by six sequences of vertically launched red stars, along with the “heart” word from the Phil Collins’ You’ll Be in My Heart refrain (in the same way than various shapes have been created over the past years, including this year 5-4-3-2-1 in the Portuguese show). Furthermore, I suspect the designers had ideas for other effects which worked more or less. For example, they may have wanted to create a “piano” sequence with pairs of vertical comets note-synchronized with Baby Elephant Walk, but it was a little vague. At the beginning of Trashin’ The Camp from Tarzan, I detected a desire to achieve some sort of more theatrical sequences with some effects close to the ground, including volleys of tourbillons, but I didn’t really catch the purpose. Some serene segments appeared as well, like Trust in Me where we saw silent multi-break shells of “ghost” orange comets. The finale mostly occurred on the penultimate song of the listing, Bola Viva from the movie Rio. It dramatically began with a huge number of multicolour shells (maybe studatas?) which filled the sky very quickly, along with many crossettes and, towards the end, loud salutes and volleys of whistles. An ultimate sequence of mines erupting from the 3rd ramp and fans of the same from the 5th ramp seemed to appear once the soundtrack was over, but I suspect that a very short segment of the 18th music listed on the soundtrack featuring the sound of some animals played at that moment, but I am not sure and it didn’t last more than two or three seconds, if any.

Atlas Pyrovision used a good number of large shells in this show. The large shells with pistils which sequentially changed of colours, at the very beginning of the show, were among my favorite. A wide range of products has been displayed in this extravaganza, including many with changes of colours. This does not equal the quality of Hanwha’s arsenal, but it was excellent. A couple of asymmetric patterns appeared and, at one point, some bombettes were launched so far to the right side that they seemingly burst in the Catapulte attraction area. Another time, a large shell seemed to explode in the centre of the 1st or 2nd ramp. But these problems were minor and didn’t detract attention very much.

At this stage of the competition, it becomes more difficult to rank the displays and I don’t feel a lot of consensus among fireworks aficionados. Personally, I give an advantage to the Portuguese team which made bolder choices and had a more complex and details-oriented concept. However, I guess that Atlas Pyrovision is currently #1 for a good number of jury members.

Fred’s personal ranking so far :

1. Grupo Luso Pirotecnia (Portugal)
2. Atlas Pyrovision (United States)
3. Hanwha Corporation (South Korea)
4. Parente Fireworks Group (Italy)


***

I am struck to hear so many people still talking about the Philippines show, which occurred almost one year ago (next Sunday being the anniversary date). In my review in this forum, I qualified Dragon Fireworks’ performance as an outstanding one, and the very fact that many people still talk about it one year after is a good evidence of its extraordinary nature. But outstanding performances don’t occur each year. I am afraid that it is the standard currently used by many to assess subsequent displays and this attitude may lead to some lack of enthusiasm. It is obvious that its effect won’t last forever, but I still feel this from many people.

Fred

My review: http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=1566

Very suitable weather conditions prevailed for the evening of the American display. The late-evening temperature, including during display time, was about 24-25 C, and the humidity was moderate under mostly clear skies (some distant high-level cirrus). Isolated thunderstorms also managed to develop during the early- to mid-afternoon period, especially immediately NE of the island, and just West of the West Island. Fortunately, these did not affect the firing site! The winds were in the form of Northeasterlies (at 12-16 km/h), and so the smoke was moving at a reasonable pace to the left of the La Ronde audience, and away at the same time. However, as specified in the weather thread, this meant that the smoke would push towards those on the bridge closest to the river and Notre-Dame Street. Indeed, throughout much of the display, especially the latter half, those portions of the bridge were engulfed in smoke, although the smoke was not particularly thick, owing to lower humidity levels. Those stationed there, thus, likely experienced very poor viewing for this display. For the same reason, it was a good decision to move farther NE on Notre-Dame Street for viewing, away from the bridge, to avoid smoke interception.

This was a thoroughly enjoyed display by the American team! As promised by the thematic framework of this display, we were presented with a mixture of largely familiar jungle- and savannah-related music, adding to the July-like feel already present for the evening! The songs were quite entertaining and were organized quite well in the order in which they were presented. The display also had a fairly wide appearance (although not quite as much as the Italian show), and there were numerous large-calibre shells, to everyone’s delight. The repeated heart shapes that emerged from the center during “You’ll Be in My Heart” really dazzled the audience, especially during the first two attempts. This was really reminiscent of Switzerland’s display, in 2016! The finale was rather intense and lasted for precisely 90 seconds, although it felt longer due to the faux finale just prior! It would have been nice, though, if the pace increased after the shells of salutes, as opposed to slowing down, but at least there was still activity during this slowing!

While the display was certainly enjoyable, there were some notably negative aspects that I wanted to outline. In general, I found a fair portion of the performance to rely on a rather rudimentary firing style to represent signature aspects that characterized the selected soundtrack. This was a little disappointing, as the music often exuded so much passion, and so there was plenty of room for more elaborate representation! Like in the South Korean display, there were some segments here that also left us with the impression of cliff-hangers towards their termination. For example, at the end of the “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” segment, it ended merely with very little as the music faded and prepared to transition to the following piece. Other segments similarly concluded with a small number of horsetails (horsetails and drooping effects, in general, becoming quite common this year as choice-effects, near-similar to 2008!). As a big fan of the original Lion King (I practically know the entire movie by heart), I personally preferred the original “Circle of Life”, by Elton John, to be present, as it seemingly had more of a commanding feel to it as compared to this rendition. However, this still worked quite well with the associated segment, and I loved how the shells really burst sequentially to reinforce some of the soundtrack elements. I further was engaged with the “stampede chase” segment from the Lion King, but I still felt like the pyrotechnics were not always doing it justice in really bringing out the background of the soundtrack. There simply needed to be more of a careful mix between all altitudes, as well as a better selection of effects for depiction. In other cases, the segment being portrayed would conversely have a very convincing opening piece, but then it would begin to fall flat as it went on. It might have also been beneficial to reduce slightly the length of some of the soundtrack to potentially evoke a more tenacious emotional feel from one segment to the other. As a result, while the thematic connection with the display was good, it was more obvious through the music.

With respect to the central tower, it also was interesting in its intended role. However, for me, it did not seem to add a great deal of substance to the display. Again, during the “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” segment, its sequences, while visually appealing in some of the patterns unleashed, were not necessarily always stealing the spotlight, as compared to what was seen in the South Korean display with its tower implementation. Still, I would have preferred seeing more its use at other points of the show. Finally, the color diversity was additionally a little more reserved in this display, and the product variety was similarly limited – in this case, it would probably have been more beneficial to increase the arsenal of effects to add substance to some of the segments.

Overall, this was a fantastic display, and it was one of the most enjoyable for me because of the frequent high-altitude activity observed relative to the other displays so far this year. That said, I was still hoping for a more complex technical and pyromusical design, as the soundtrack and, thus, thematic representation was lacking. Definitely a contender for a Jupiter award, though this would depend on the next and final two entrants.

Trav.