The Four Seasons
Designed by Michael Bohonos, PyroDigital firing with 235 16-cue modules as well as an extra 17 16-cue MagicFire modules, PyroStudios wireless system on ramp 5 and ISO-boost signal conditioning ~3200 cues with ShowDirector scripting.
The Canadian team were fortunate to have perfect weather for their setup as well as the evening of the display with light wind, pleasantly warm temperatures and low humidity making conditions ideal for both spectators and photographers alike.
The display began with music from Disney and featured glittering horsetails. This short introductory segment set the scene for viewing the four seasons from the eyes of children and Michael’s own daughter provided the narrative episodes in French. Beginning with Spring, the display proper began very colourfully, representing the reawakening of the natural world at this time of year. Fountain setpieces on ramp 3 represented flowers and these lead into a segment which featured a very special effect: barrages of MagicFire-equipped colourful skymines formed perfect rainbows in the sky for a total of three times, exactly on-cue with the music. The Spring segment closed out with a theme of bright yellow magnesium spider shells and the same in comet fans below, representing the sunshine in
Walking On Sunshine by Katrina & The Waves. This was well done, though I was a bit surprised by a departure to purple shells here, before a return to yellow.
Leading from Spring to Summer another narrative segment with Michael’s daughter and then waving comet shells to represent Surfin’ USA by the Beach Boys. I found that a few more low-level effects beyond some glittering comets might have been more effective here – for example, a run of angled blue mines could have represented a crashing wave (recalling Grupo Luso in 2002 where I first saw this effect used). The Splish Splash segment was particularly well done with comets skipping across the lake and some great nautical barrages. The highlight of the entire display, though, was Thunderstruck by AC/DC. This was a very powerful segment with fantastic barrages of shells and salutes, and perfectly timed concussion mortars at all the appropriate moments. The dazzling photoflash one-shots were simply stunning too – some people mentioned they were too bright! To my mind, this would have been the perfect finale piece.
The start of Autumn saw set pieces light up in the shape of a red maple leaf and green oak leaf as well as a white goose. Great comet angles and fantastic falling leaf shells were really well done here. Bright blue nautical flares and a huge Niagara Falls were also greatly appreciated by the audience. Some really creative firing angles were used too – with thick gold comets reflecting perfectly across the still Lac des Dauphins during the November Rain piece. On negative point, though, was the use of bright white falling strobe cakes with much dimmer charcoal shells above – these being virtually invisible due to the bright white below.
The Winter season also began with strobes to the iconic Gilles Vigneault song, Mon Pays. Then a return to photoflash in the next song, but this time in dazzling green. Very wide firing patterns were used, especially for the horsetail shells and comet runs below. The finale was mainly of coconut peony shells in red and green with massive fans of salute cakes below, bringing the display to a close to a standing ovation from the audience.
This was an excellent display from the Canadian team, with very good use of the space of the site, both horizontally and vertically. Definitely a much stronger performance than their 2008 debut. Unfortunately, there were a few errors in the setup with the wrong shells in the wrong place a couple of times and some incorrect angles on some of the comets. There was a bit of repetition in the effects used, but the display was pretty diverse and the dazzling photo-flash one-shots were outstanding, as was the use of concussion mortars in Thunderstruck. I would have liked to see some more exciting use of one-shots, particularly in this piece where a faster pace would have been more effective than the patterns used, but these are minor criticisms. Same for using dim charcoal shells with bright effects below. To be honest, I don’t see the value in using large calibre (up to 12″ in this case) charcoal shells at the Montreal site as there is too much background light for these to be fully appreciated. The sound track was well done and effectively represented the theme. At the moment, a strong contender for a Jupiter, along with Croatia and Spain, followed closely behind by England and the USA. Both the Spanish and the Croatian displays were very “clean” in their firing do the Canadians may lose a couple of points here.