Country participant: France
Company: Féérie
Date of presentation: July 21st, 2007
For the first time since the presentation of Spain, France was blessed with excellent weather and a return to more seasonal and Summer-like conditions for the entire day supplied by a beautiful build up of high pressure system creating a ridge in the jet stream. We stayed constant at 22 Celsius along with small amounts of humidity and the expected light Northwest wind, which ended up being a little lighter at 7-10 km/h. The stage was set and the weather was cooperating for this promising performance from the French team of Féérie and their associated theme of "Romeo and Juliet", which hoped to captivate this very large audience with a wide variety of emotion.
The display started off with a dazzling illumination of a large rose structure with the top piece in the shape of a heart. Not long after, mines were rapidly being fired from my left to the right with bright red stars along with some shells at the top. Following this through the performance, we have seen blue shells of swirls "@", shells of serpents and screaming serpents, extensive candles with brilliant colored stars (like the "Smarties" variety), weeping willows, quite a few areas where swirls burst into salutes, occasional large shells of white (reminded me a bit of Sweden 2005), many kamuros, shells of sparkles (pink and white), and then my personal favorites: the integral shells of multi-breakers. I also want to point out a piece early in the show where there was an attempt to make a very artistic rainbow consisting of candles that spread out nicely in the typical rainbow pattern to set up the overall effect. Shells of red were then fired above these candles back and forth in a semi-circle fashion carefully following the outline of the candles. Also, the red shells were backed up with small kamuros at the same time doing the same pattern as the reds faded away. I thought this was very cute and perfectly crafted.
Low level effects included bright white flares and moments of the wonderful red flares. We also saw fountains of gold glitters at the bottom from the left to the right on ramp 1 extending several feet in the air. Similarly, there was an appearance of some spinning wheels on the vertical with white sparks on the same ramp. There was also a structure way to my left near the Ferris wheel that I could not make out clearly (seemed to be obscured by either a tree or by smoke), but it seemed to be spinning, though with a different effect unrelated to the other spinners I described (the spinner itself was a much more elevated). Of course, we have vividly seen many variations of mines and candles. The mines sometimes consisted of salutes or crackling stars as they were fired and often times, we have seen the integration of the candles with the mines as well. The candles themelves were usually very graceful and elongated because they extended very accordingly from the left and right in the sky at low to mid level. Finally, as mentioned, we saw the rose structure at the opening segment and we also were treated with a heart structure much later in the show which seemed to be situated on ramp 4. This small ring structure that the heart was associated with also briefly gave off some bright flares (much like the idea of the Portuguese and English ring) of yellow, blue and red in combination as the red heart shape slowly faded away before hand.
Synchronization was fairly well done and much of the effects, particularly with respect to the sequencing of the firing patterns, were quite admirable at times as well. There were a couple of spots where I noticed that some connections were off, particularly when that advertisement of "Loto-Quebec" came on and fireworks resumed (unless there was music playing in the background at the same time
). Other than this, there were some noticeable spots. The choice of music could have been better, but I enjoyed some of the soundtrack used anyway. A lot of the soundtrack, however, especially near the beginning, felt rather similar in nature between rhythm and feeling, which gave me the impression of redundancy. Also, as previously stated last night, that Hip Hop-like soundtrack was personally not a good choice for this sort of display, not to mention with the flow of the other music that was used in the show altogether! That particular selection was not enjoyable either.
The design of the show was actually very well done and nicely constructed; I found the show to be very interestingly balanced from left to right, which I thought was one of the strongest points of the performance. This was most prevalent at mid levels with the candles, mines and shells that extended nicely to the left all the way to the right in perfect harmony. The rainbow simulation from low to mid level is another perfect example of this balance and sequence. However, the only problem was that there was not a variety in speed within the firing scheme itself; a lot of the patterns were essentially quite similar by the way they were executed, which also led to repetition under these circumstances. There was also not a huge range of product, especially when compared to other displays we've seen already, such as China. The colors were vibrant and in good mixture most of the time, but again there was not a big selection. Needless to say, there were some nice choices, especially with the bright stars from central candles. Also, there were some nice deep purple stars seen later on in the show, too, in conjunction with others as well.
The finale was a little disappointing, especially after what we saw with Canada, by comparison. I actually was expecting the faux finale to be presented in the way it was with tons of gold glitters in the typical massive umbrella. However, when this concluded, another set of kamuros were being fired rapidly making me believe that this was also going to be the real deal, just a bigger version of the faux finale! Luckily, as Enkil said, that was not the case. The real finale quickly started off and builded intensely with some VERY loud crackling pistils and quite a bit of salutes with a continuing pace of larger shells of green and red directly above. The entire pattern continued for a few seconds longer with a lot of strength, but surprisingly came to quick close with some final sequences of salutes and shells. Darn! If that had only continued for a good while longer, then that certainly would have been something! The actual finale did not last anymore than 15 seconds, but the thing is that it started off so well, but ended much too quickly!
Trav's personal rankings:
-Synchronization: 9/10-This was a very nicely synchronized display, but moreso with the coordination of the effects used.
-Design: 8/10-The show was very nicely concocted, but a lot of the firing pattterns were a little too repetitive in nature, which lost the advantage of having effective transitions for demonstrating the various conflicting emotions. The colors were generally good, but not in huge variety compared to other performances. The quality of the products was reasonable, but again the products were not hugely diverse. However, this display really made a good impression when using low to mid levels of sky.
-Creativity/Originality/Concept: 8/10-Let's face it, the theme was not totatlly original, especially considering that it has been considered and attempted before in the past, or at least the idea, so to speak. However, the show was still cleverly delivered through this theme and thus was still quite enjoyable. The creativity in my mind was moderate, but I personally loved some of the effects used, especially that rose in the opening, not to mention the rainbow construction as well witnessed earlier in the show.
-Choice of music: 7.5/10-Overall, the music choice was not totally impressive to me, but at least some of them made it enjoyable. However, a lot of them were remarkably similar and one of the tracks simply did not fit the display.
-Finale/Overal appreciation: 7.5/10-I was hoping for a much bigger ending to conclude this sort of display, especially since everyone's expectations after Canada's finale, as I would imagine, would naturally be quite high. Nevertheless, the finale was close to average and still had some power to it, but it's duration was simply well below our standards!
-Overall: 8/10
^^^
Again, I'll probably have to adjust scores later on to accurately compare the participants, but this should still serve as an idea of where I stand with each display in terms of rank. *These are also my personal rankings based on my viewpoints via De Lorimier and Notre-Dame streets. Notice also that I've incorporated a "design" criterion to the scoring, which considers the colors and other aspects as well.
This was a reasonable display and I personally still found it enjoyable to some extent. A lot of the color mixtures were actually very well chosen and, like I've commented on other displays, had good contrasts. The show, however, was a little less than I expected mainly because, besides the finale, the theme was not as well enforced as it could have been, considering that this is a rather complex theme to work with in its entirety. The theme itself had also been done before. However, the key factor to consider was the way this show was implemented around this hackneyed theme; the show was quite distinguishable from the performance of Australia in 2003, for example, and thus can be deemed unique. The narration also was relatively fair and didn't take much away from the enjoyment of the performance, compared to Canada's show. The problem again, though moderately creative, was that there was not enough to support the theme efficiently, especially the way Australia, for the sake of argument, did there's in that year. The colors themselves were in good variety, but often times were too deeply concentrated at certain points, especially in the penultimate piece. Similarly with the effects, there wasn't too much of a variety and many of the patterns of firing were in close resemblance.
Despite all that said, the show was still very well executed and there are some very interesting parts that definitely should not be denounced. The rainbow segment with the candles and assisted mid level shells, as I explained, was very nicely done. Also, the way this display was designed took full advantage from the left and right in a very wide fashion at low to mid levels of sky, essentially remaining balanced and rarely losing momentum. The show was also admirably artistic in a lot of sense and a lot was demonstrated in support of that. Though the theme was already implemented before, the team ideally promoted a good approach towards this it, even though it did not have the ample enforcement to be further successful. The finale, however, was not totally fitting and could have been so much more powerful, especially in the way it had already started. Overall, it is to my belief that the main problem with this display is that it lacked sufficient vibrance and variety among color, firing and music to mingle with the performance. The other disappointment was the relative absence of dramatic transitions at at consistent pace. Other than these careful considerations, everything else was very well successful.
A strong effort from the French team and the show was still an enjoyable one, especially as a birthday treat.
Though I still have England as my #1 choice (still contemplating with Canada and the U.S), I do believe that France also has a chance of making it on the podium.
Our final entrant is next: Germany!
Trav.
