Hi Mylene,

I don't know anyone, anywhere else in the world, who would actually talk about the displays using words so harsh like mediocre... or people that would spit on a Montreal's show.

Do you refer to the closing show or the other ones ? Yes, I think it's normal for us to have some expectations, because we are now used to have a high quality display presented before our eyes. If the show fails to impress us, I do not understand why we should not express our deception, even using words like "mediocre" and such, as long as they are used in a constructive context (like in a throughout review, not a simple random message like
"The show was mediocre.

- Me" .

Im sorry, but being a pyro now, i guess i can't think the same way you do, knowing the efforts everybody put into their Montreal display. I feel bad for the teams who might be reading those comments...

Let's not forget that a fireworks display is a form of art in itself. I think it may even compare to movies and other forms of entertainment. When I pay to go see a movie, I don't care how much months or years the actors and the team worked on it; I am interested on what is presented on the silver screen. If it's boring, should I refrain from saying I was bored and the movie was, excuse me, mediocre ? It's the same thing for a CD. Sometimes a band work hard on it for years, but the critics and/or the public don't like it. C'est la vie.

Yet, as a musician myself, I can appreciate what amount of work has been put into a recording. That doesn't prevent me for expressing my dislike if a good band shatters my expectations by releasing a dud.

I always thought i was so lucky to be able to enjoy this event in my city, and i am astonished to see most of you tend to forget that privilege, but complain finales are not long enough. I'm personally sooo tired of the salutes. (...) You should all get your 'coeur d'enfant' (kid's heart ?) back. Fast.

Don't liking big and long finales show that you indeed have a "coeur d'enfant" ? I do know that my younger cousins like when all hell breaks loose during a finale. The apocalyptic feeling can be similar to a ride in a roller coaster : although your safety is never threatened, you feel like you are in danger when all those bombs and salutes explode just in front of you. Then, when everything stops and the ferris wheel lights up, the peaceful feeling that submerge you can't be described (or at least I wouldn't be able to).

I also noticed that the level of enthusiasm of the public in La Ronde follows the intensity of a show. There is in fact a perceptible increase of euphoria during the louder segments. Still, not everyone there is as "expert" as the forum members may be.


In the end, everything boils down to your personal feeling about the show. If you like big fat finales, you may not like a quieter show, and the artistic-inclined may dislike the first and love the latter. This might explain why Portugal's show did not win last year, even though everyone here wished they do; the popular jury liked something else.

It may be unfair, but ain't l'International a competition ?

STL

Je crois qu'il est nettement excessif et injuste de dire que la saison 2009 fut l'une des moins intéressantes et que seulement une poignée de spectacles ont été "enjoyable". Mais cela semble être principalement l'opinion d'un seul participant à ce forum. Il a droit d'avoir et d'exprimer son opinion, mais je ne crois pas qu'elle est représentative du point de vue de la plupart des participants à ce forum. La saison m'a semblé excitante, la course étant de toute évidence bien serrée. Tous les feux en compétition ont été de bonnes performances, bien que celui de l'Afrique du Sud ait été un peu plus faible, à mon avis. Pensons aux symboliques exprimées par Pains. Au rythme endiablé de certaines séquences d'Igual, alors que le bateau traversait les tempêtes. Les séquences formidables du spectacle chinois. Et j'en passe!

Le délai inhabituel entre le dernier feu en compétition et la remise des prix (deux semaines au lieu de 3 ou 4 jours) a amenuisé tout momentum. Certains participants se sont peut-être promis d'exposer leurs préférences et prédictions plus tardivement, puis sont passés à autre chose.

Et vous deux, Paul et Mylène, quelles sont vos préférences et vos prédictions?

Fred

Je suis d'accord Fred,

C'est juste que je trouve qu'ils auraient pu mettre beaucoup plus d'efforts dans leurs affichages, de très beaux effets comme je l'ai mentionné. Mais les choix de la musique aurait dû être plus correctement choisie. Je trouve États-Unis avaient le meilleur choix de musique, leurs délais entre les séquences ne dura pas longtemps et sommes revenus sur une autre chanson. Où que l'Espagne et certains de l'Australie, nous avons attendu environ 10 secondes, mais ne me lancez pas sur les 25 minutes d'attente le Canada avait, il ya deux ans, comme le temps qu'il fallait, c'était un grand déploiement. La narration de l'Espagne était très long, alors que j'étais sur la rue Notre-Dame, pas seulement moi mais le public derrière moi et à côté de moi étaient en attente de quelque chose à se déclencher. A mes yeux, c'est mon opinion, et beaucoup ne peuvent exprimer ce qu'ils souhaitent et préfèrent entendre. Cette année a été de ne pas bon, aussi beau que les couleurs et parfois la musique et des finales étaient. Je suis sûr qu'ils auraient pu faire un peu mieux. Mais ces trois que j'avais écrit ci-dessus sont ceux que je suis coller avec!

C'est vrai, Paul et Mylène n'ont pas dit une chose depuis Que faites-vous les gars attendez? Allez-vous porter le t-shirt Royale Paul? Hehe

Pat

I will post my rankings tomorrow. I still need to give some more thought. It's especially difficult this year as the variance between the displays was lower than other years - plus the added complication of my knowing five of the competitors quite well together with conducting the interviews and understanding in more detail what each team was trying to achieve. It's hard to separate all these facts from the displays that I witnessed in person - plus the added complication of the weather and my general state of mind. I'm glad I'm not on the jury!

As for which T-shirt to wear, I have two which I could wear and I feel would be correct for at least one of the winners. As for my personal preference, for those who saw me last Saturday, I was already wearing that shirt

Paul.

As for my personal preference, for those who saw me last Saturday, I was already wearing that shirt

I wasn't at La Ronde. But just to give hope to team Royal would suffice! I wonder if Canada will be your first choice. You also predicted the winner 2004 and wore your Weco t-shirt from what I remember!

Pat

You also predicted the winner 2004 and wore your Weco t-shirt from what I remember!
You remember well Maybe I should wear that shirt on Saturday

Paul.

You remember well. Maybe I should wear that shirt on Saturday

I wonder if anyone would look at you saying: "What's Weco?" or even "Weco didn't perform this year." I used to read some posts a while back in summer/spring of 2007. I'd wear an IPON shirt if I could. But I don't got their shirt.

Pat

By the way, Paul, you changed the biglol emoticon and gave it a new encryption? it's now : D. Odd....I love this emoticon!

Do you refer to the closing show or the other ones ?
I refer to the whole season.

Don't liking big and long finales show that you indeed have a "coeur d'enfant" ?
No, those were 2 separate sentences.

You're absolutely right, it is a competition. And yes, it is all about emotion. I've always claim this very high. But i just can't call a show a piece of crap.

Lights bursting in the sky is just magical for me. It can be weaker than their rivals, yes, but still never crap... I love those nights. Even last saturday.

My apologies, i guess i was just tired to hear it wasnt enough this, or enough that...
But eh, that's my opinion

My own predictions or feelings should I say regarding this whole season will also be up on my blog tomorrow. (friday)

Good nite !

This thread certainly had gone crazy... I share the same feelings with mylene .... I think the problem is that a pyromusical has so many details to look at such as soundtrack, overall quality of the display, symetry, finale, synchronization, design, colors, quality of products, theme, and more..... there's just so many that one is usually stuck on just 1 of it, and forgets about everything else. What seperates it from a movie is that a fireworks show is a live show. When there's mistakes you can't have a cut and another take to perfect it. When you see 1 perfect show, chances are you'll never see the same again even from the same firm . It's also a shame how everyone forgets how dangerous fireworks are.. I think this alone is enough to think about what goes on beyond what you see in a display . As everyone else said it still boils down to what you feel during the display ... It's one of those moments where if you close your eyes you missed half of your life already xDD.... Hopefully there won't be disappointments in the result this year..

As for the show of concept fiatlux, I thought that it was very artistic and the products i can't really say that they got cheap ones as i saw a lot of iguals... but i would say that their choice of effects was the one that failed them.. They were scared to use colors instead of a lot of charcoals and golds, they could have used silver or colored strobe comets for instance ... This said i thought that the show was on par with the rest of the shows

Vander

I've thought long and hard about what to write for my predictions and evaluations. I went to all sorts of technical lengths to evaluate things like the synchronization (and even played with the delay between the audio and video to determine how accurate it was) but, at the end of the day, the evaluation is about the overall personal feeling. I don't have to follow the evaluation grid the jury uses plus I have the luxury of being able to re-watch all of the displays and hence evaluate them all at the same time, rather than when they actually happened.

There are some interesting statistics on how the Jupiter awards may be correlated with when a display is held (these were sent to my by someone in the industry):

---
In the last 13 (normal) years there have been 39 places (ie 1st, 2nd or 3rd) awarded at La Ronde


Out of those 1st place has been taken out by the company that

a. Went Last = 4 times
b. Second Last = 4 times
c. Third Last = 2 times

The companies that competed as one of the last 3 in the comp achieved a place in the top 3 on 20 occasion out of 39 possible or a 51.28% chance of winner a place

Out of those 1st place has been taken out by the company that

a. Went First = 0 times
b. Second = 1 times
c. Third = 1 times

The companies that competed as one of the first 3 in the comp achieved a place in the top 3 on 7 occasion out of 39 possible or 17.94%

Those in the middle archived a place in the top 3 , 12 times out of 39 possible or 30.79%

---

Of course, it could be that the organizers set the schedule such that the "better" displays are towards the end - these well known companies act as an attraction to the park during the peak tourist season so it makes sense to have them in July rather than June. There have been comments in this forum many times that the competition starts to "heat up" in the second half. That's the problem with stats: you can use them to prove anything.

Now for my personal choices. After a lot of thought these are:

#1 Pyromagic Productions
#2 Royal Pyrotechnie
#3 Pains

My prediction for the jury is harder to arrive at but I think it will look like this:

#1 Melrose
#2 Royal Pyrotechnie
#3 Pyromagic Productions

There's a good chance the #3 could be either Fuegos Artificiales Jupiter or Pirotechnia Igual. I don't think the unconventional finale of Pains will appeal to the Jury at large, plus they competed early in the season.

If there is to be a surprise, I think it would be that Melrose are not in the jury's choice and that Fireworks For Africa would replace them (having the advantage of going last, perfect weather and a very colourful display). There's also a chance that the jury will put Royal Pyrotechnie ahead of Melrose, but I suspect Melrose's soundtrack may have been more popular than Royal's.

As for synchronization, all the displays were well synchronized since they were all computer fired. In terms of how well the synchronization looked, I think Fuegos Artificiales Jupiter were head and shoulders above everyone else. Their comets, gerbs, mines and one-shots were fired at just the right time to look like they were on-cue, plus their studatas had both breaks synchronized to the soundtrack. Igual were also good but some of the others were not so good - they had fast moving sequences, but only the starting and ending shots were actually cued to the music. Fuegos Artificiales Jupiter were also the most creative in their use of synchronization to give the feeling of dance steps. Don't get me wrong, everyone else was synchronized, but just didn't have quite the right feeling. Note that I'm being very critical here! If any of the teams want to talk to me afterwards, I can point out how many milliseconds of compensation I had to apply to the audio/video delay to make things look right!

I'm not going to comment about the music tracks save to say that it really makes a difference having someone with musical knowledge perform the edits and transitions between pieces. Some were really rough (and I don't have to point these out). I do have to make a prediction about the special Jupiter for the soundtrack.

My personal favorite overall was Pyromagic Productions as it surprised me by not being stereotypical. However, I predict the Jupiter will go to Royal Pyrotechnie since they had by far the best produced soundtrack from a technical point of view. There's a chance that the Jupiter will go to Igual as their soundtrack was the most innovative in supporting their theme through the use of different sound effects. My favorite "finale" piece was Pains' post-finale piece "My Immortal" by Evanescence. But music is such a personal choice.

All will be revealed tomorrow. It's been a few years since my predictions were correct and in the correct order!

Paul.

Paul,

Ces statistiques sont similaires à celles que j'ai édictées dans ce forum à quelques occasions et qui prennent en considération les firmes ayant obtenu l'une des trois premières positions lors de toutes les éditions du concours depuis l'instauration d'un jury populaire (1992-2008). Sur ces 17 éditions, 1 des 17 premiers feux en compétition (6%) a été récompensé d'un Jupiter. À l'opposé, 11 des 17 derniers feux (65%) ont été couronnés d'un Jupiter. Si nous considérons les trois premiers feux en compétition lors de chaque saison, nous obtenons alors 10 gagnants sur 51 feux (20%). Parmi les trois derniers feux en compétition chaque année, 28 sur 51 (55%) ont reçu un Jupiter. (Aux fins de ces calculs, afin de standardiser l'analyse, les 3 finalistes de l'édition spéciale 2004 sont considérés comme des gagnants, même si seul un Jupiter platine était remis.)

Cette situation peut être expliquée par deux théories: l'une économique, l'autre psychologique. La théorie économique, comme tu le disais, consiste à positionner les firmes les plus prometteuses vers la fin du calendrier alors que les auditoires les plus importants sont attendus. Cette théorie est pratiquement impossible à vérifier auprès des organisateurs, car cela impliquerait qu'ils expriment des "préférences" parmi les participants, ce qu'ils ne peuvent évidemment admettre publiquement. D'autres facteurs influencent la construction du calendrier (les autres engagements des compétiteurs) mais je suis certain que les organisateurs ont néanmoins une certaine marge de manoeuvre. La théorie psychologique, elle, est simplement qu'un effet de récence amène les gens à surévaluer la qualité d'un feu qui vient d'être vu par rapport aux feux antérieurs. Je crois que c'est principalement cette dernière théorie qui a le plus grand pouvoir explicatif.

Nous pourrons mettre ces statistiques à jour demain.

Fred

Hi Paul,

I wouldn't rule out England/UK from securing a spot on the podium even though they had participated early. Remember that the team also was set to present as the second entrant in 2007 (funny enough, on the same date, as I recall) and still won the gold that year. Though I feel they weren't quite as successful this year in their overall presentation, I think they certainly have a standing chance for third place, if China isn't there, as reflected as my alternative preference for the bronze in my personal choice for the winners above. And yes, I also felt that the non-traditional finale may have had some impact.

Good analysis, by the way. Seems we have a similar choice for the winners with respect to the mindset of the jury, just 1st and 2nd in a different order.

Trav.

Though I feel they weren't quite as successful this year in their overall presentation, I think they certainly have a standing chance for third place, if China isn't there, as reflected as my alternative preference for the bronze in my personal choice for the winners above. And yes, I also felt that the non-traditional finale may have had some impact.


Of course not Trav. It sucks though, in 2007 they really brought many people including I to our feet and cheering during the finale. And that was an intense finale, it was pretty much similar to USA's except they achieved this finale in less amounts of shells and for a longer period of time. I was very impressed in 2007, but this year, I don't know if they'll cut the cake.. However, no matter what, I stilll go for Canada, they haven't won a Jupiter since Royal in 2003. So I think after 6 years, we deserve another

Pat

Bonjour Mylène,

"I don't know anyone, anywhere else in the world, who would actually talk about the displays using words so harsh like mediocre..."

Je me devais de répondre à vos commentaires d'hier, étant donné que je suis un de ceux (ou le seul) qui a écrit que le spectacle de Fiatlux était médiocre. Ce spectacle avait pour but de clore la 25ème édition de la Compétition Internationale des Feux de Montréal, une compétition qui a maintenant une excellente réputation à travers la planète. Le spectacle de Fiatlux avait aussi le devoir de rendre hommage au Cirque du Soleil pour sa 25ème année d'existence, une entreprise québécoise qui est, elle aussi, considérée partout dans le monde comme un symbole d'excellence.

La définition du mot "médiocre" dans le dictionnaire, est la suivante: "Qui est en-dessous de la moyenne, qui est sans éclat...". Après avoir assisté au feu présenté par Fiatlux samedi dernier, je peux vous assurer que le terme "médiocre" était très approprié et je l'ai utilisé parce qu'il décrit très bien ce que le spectacle laissait transpirer. Je peux m'imaginer des touristes qui étaient de passage à Montréal ce soir-là et qui assistaient pour la première fois à un feu d'artifice de notre compétition internationale.....sachant que l'on "tentait" de rendre hommage à la fois au Cirque du Soleil et au 25ème anniversaire des Feux de Montréal!!! Ouf ! Je peux m'imaginer leurs réactions! La firme avait aussi un public à soulever, surtout ceux qui ont déboursé une somme d'argent pour assister à ce spectacle du site de la Ronde! Fiatlux n'a pas livré la marchandise. On s'est contenté "d'étirer le caramel" pour 45 minutes avec des feux qui auraient pu facilement être lancés en 15 minutes.

"I always thought i was so lucky to be able to enjoy this event in my city, and i am astonished to see most of you tend to forget that privilege..."

J'ai répété à maintes reprises dans ce forum (et d'autres l'ont fait aussi), et ce au cours des années, comment chanceux nous sommes de recevoir cette compétition.


"I'm personally sooo tired of the salutes. (ouuuuuu, i can hear guns clicking....)"

Non, tu as parfaitement droit à tes opinions, à tes goûts! Moi, je les adore, ces Salutes!

"I feel bad for the teams who might be reading those comments..."

Moi, au contraire, j'espère qu'ils les lisent, nos commentaires! La grande majorité de ceux-cis sont positifs, ce qui encouragent les firmes qui ont bien travaillé! Les commentaires qui sont moins "tendres", peuvent apporter un certain virage vers quelque chose de mieux pour les firmes qui sont ouvertes d'esprit et qui sont capables de ne pas réagir comme une "victime" face à nos commentaires (je suis persuadé que toutes les firmes sans exception, réagissent positivement à nos commentaires, quels qu'ils soient).

Sur ce, je vous souhaite à vous Mylène, ainsi qu'à tous les membres de ce forum, une belle fin de semaine et une agréable soirée pendant le feu de demain!

Pierre

Salutes lover,
No. I was not talking about your comments on the Fiatlux show.

Paul,
did we hang out too much during those La Ronde evening ? We think quite the same... My thoughts on the season are right here.

Enjoy the results all !!!