Hello everyone,

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

Trav.

The 2019 edition of this competition offers a rare case of two companies performing on the same theme. As I wrote early in this forum, Parente Fireworks did a good show on July 6 with its display entitled One Step – Moon Dream. Tonight, I would say that BEM Feux d’artifice achieved a very good performance with A First Walk on the Moon. The Canadian show was scheduled the very night of the 50th anniversary of this event, astronaut Neil Armstrong having put his feet on our Moon on July 20, 1969 at 10:56pm Eastern Time.

This theme could have been revisited with different artistic concepts. One could have been based on a detailed storyline, to tell the story of the Moon walk through the pyromusical art. This is certainly an artistic orientation we could have expected from, for example, a French contestant (Lacroix-Ruggieri, JCO, Brézac, etc.), Luso or Weco. When the 2019 program has been released, I thought that BEM would have chosen this path, which had allowed them to win a Bronze Jupiter in 2005 with Au pied du courant on the Québec history. A second orientation could have been based on a soundtrack inspired by the spatial endeavour itself. To a certain extent, that was the choice of Parente Fireworks whose musics line-up included some songs (but not all) related to the theme. BEM has favored a third path, explained in an interview published by Mylène Salvas on her blog. The idea was to portray the spirit which led to the Moon walk, with a sample of songs from the 1960s to reflect the values underpinning the American spatial program.

So the soundtrack included 12 songs, all from the 1960s. Only David Bowie’s Space Oddity, also heard in Parente Fireworks show, was clearly related to the spatial adventure. (Interestingly, it has been released at the start of Apollo 11 mission, and also performed by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield a couple of years ago aboard the International Space Station!) Excerpts of John F. Kennedy’s speeches about the Moon endeavour reflected the spirit BEM desired to portray. Such political pieces obviously excited the political scientist who posts this review, but I also felt they help to glue the whole things together. Other excerpts inserted on the soundtrack included the countdown to the launch of Apollo 11, conversations between the astronauts and people presumably based in Houston, as well as Neil Armstrong’s famous statement. Unfortunately, some of these excerpts were difficult to hear because they were mixed with musics and loud pyrotechnic effects, including the Armstrong’s one which occurred at the same time than a “mini-finale” towards the end of Space Oddity. That being said, this way to proceed was less anti-climactic than Albert Millaire’s or Raymond Bouchard’s extended narratives in the 2005 and 2011 BEM shows.

The display was very enjoyable and I think the pyromusical and technical designs were at their best on Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky. With a conversation between the astronauts in the background, white strobes appeared on the 3rd ramp with red flares on the 2nd ramp behind, horsetails above, followed by white comets erupting across the ramps, as the strobes and flares continued. This setting emphasized the deep of the firing area and created an interesting atmosphere. That being said, the pyromusical design was mostly a series of tableaux often made of diverses types of shells, supported by a variety of comets or mines below. Also, this 31-minute extravaganza featured several “mini-finales.” I would say that one or two “mini-finales” (or one “faux-finale” with the penultimate segment) are typically nice. But I counted about half a dozen of segments which ended with a significant gain of pyromusical intensity. This is a lot and a such design increases expectations for the actual finale, which then needs to outshine all of them. Unfortunately, I don’t think it was the case. So overall, I felt a certain lack of texture to distinguish each tableau.

I suspect this weakness may be partly explained by the non use of neither the fourth ramp, nor the fifth ramp, as well as very limited nautical products and no other special structure of any type. On Space Oddity, wonderful nautical fountains were launched on the water and, after a couple of seconds, they were propelled into comets. But we didn’t see anything else on the lake. The technical design criterion, which encompasses the density of the show and the use of all available space, is worth 30% of the evaluation grid. Fortunately, the density of the show was not a problem here. The Canadian team experienced some challenges with one (or a couple of) firing position on the right side of the third ramp, causing some asymmetries. However, I would say the problem was not serious enough to call Houston...

I thought that BEM used interesting products, with a wide range of colours, a couple with one colour change. I found interesting some shells which burst into small bunches of stars, various Z-cake shooting bombettes or comets, as well as serpents which flew and burst into small “sky mines” (during California Dreamin’) and the aforementioned nautical fountains. We saw a certain number of studatas (shells of shells). I was surprised not to spot any girandola, and no product to illustrate the countdown to the launch of the shuttle. Synchronization was generally very good.

I began this comment with an overview of various artistic orientations which could have been followed to explore this fabulous theme. I personally favour the first, more elaborated path. This is a pyromusical competition and I truly believe that pyromusical art can be an amazing way to tell a story. This personal taste contributes to explain why the Portuguese show is currently my first choice. However, I discussed tonight with 7 or 8 fireworks aficionados who had been at La Ronde for all shows this year and I asked for their respective ranking. It was amazing how heterogeneous the answers were. For instance, the Canadian show was #1 for one of them, and #5 for another. So far, it appears there is no consensus this year...

Fred’s personal ranking so far :

1. Grupo Luso Pirotecnia (Portugal)
2. Atlas Pyrovision (United States)
3. Hanwha Corporation (South Korea)
4. BEM Feux d’artifice (Canada)
5. Parente Fireworks Group (Italy)

***

LOST IN TRANSLATION. Shapeshifter is the theme chosen by Howard & Sons for its upcoming show. I don’t know who has “translated” the title in French, but Les feux sous toutes leurs formes does not sound to reflect the original. The edition of Robert & Collins on my bookshelf does not offer a translation, however some websites use Métamorphe (e.g., Wikipédia, but the entry suffers of a lack of sources).

I am afraid the meaning of the Australian theme may have been lost in the translation.

Fred

My report: http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=1600

Paul.

The warmest and most humid evening so far this competition was present for July 20th, and for the Canadian display. The late-evening temperature was very close to 30 C, but with the very high humidity, it felt closer to 38-39 C. For the second time this year for a display day, severe thunderstorm watches were eventually released by the mid-afternoon, and newly-developing thunderstorms began affecting the Western and Eastern ends of the island during the late-afternoon, as well as mostly over East Laval. A severe thunderstorm warning was also issued for the Mirabel-St-Jerome area. Thankfully, the watch was withdrawn by early-evening, and the distribution of thunderstorms began to decline. The winds were also fairly light, blowing the smoke to the right of the La Ronde audience, but higher altitude smoke was moving towards right-hand sections (partly central sections) of this audience.

This was an interesting display in the context that it attempted to celebrate and portray a very important and revolutionary moment in space exploration and discovery that had occurred practically precisely 50 years ago on this very day/evening. The Canadian team appropriately selected a range of soundtrack from the 1960s to capture the feeling of that time and used a fair range of effects to represent the theme. We observed some enjoyable sequences along notably low-level to highlight some of the soundtrack – these attempts were especially showcased during the final third of the display. The soundtrack was also carefully mixed to allow for a variety of emotions to be felt, despite some of the transitions appearing a little rushed. The display was further among the most entertaining this year, keeping the skies frequently active with volleys of shells bursting in large groups. Due to this activity, and as had already been mentioned, there were a series of faux finales that really kept the audience engaged with the display! The range of colors selected was also fairly large, and product quality was mostly excellent.

My primary criticism is directed at the overall basic design of this display. As much as I adored the multiple faux finales, this did create some repetition from one segment to the next, causing segments to appear similar in structure when this should have probably been more distinct variety given the nature of the soundtrack. Similarly, I thought that the arsenal of effects could have been larger to represent the soundtrack, rather than using mostly large groups of shells – for example, it would have been interesting to use more rocket-like effects at some point to highlight the space mission. For that reason, at some points, it was not always so clear how the pyrotechnics were representing the soundtrack and, therefore, the thematic premise. This was a similar point that I had elaborated on, as well, for the American display, and, really, most displays this year. On a similar note, there were moments where the music could have been better elaborated to substantially bring the selection to life, overall – in some instances, it made sense to use additional low-level effects (and perhaps explore other firing positions) to effectively capture some of the sequences that had defined the soundtrack. Finally, as others had stated previously, because of the large number of faux/mini finales, it became more important that the real finale would have to be substantially grander in order to successfully eclipse those previous smaller “finales”. Unfortunately, this was not the case here. This was similarly a concern for the Philippines display last year, but because that finale was so incredibly massive, it evidently overshadowed the numerous smaller finales that characterized that display, which kept the show successfully proportional and fresh – and many of the segments were so intense before the finale in that display that it was seemingly very difficult to create an actual finale that could oversee the rest.

Overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyed display, mostly because of the large number of shells used and, for principally that reason, led to many briefly-sustained intense moments. However, I suspect that this also compromised a larger amount of creativity that potentially could have been achieved with an explorative theme such as this.

Trav.