Wouhou !!! Vitor Machado came to visit my blog !!!
Thank you Paul and Fred for sharing my address as I have this weird feeling it has something to do with it...

He said :

'Dear Milene,

I would like to felicitate you for your blog.
We liked very much to read your passionate remark about our show.
Thank you for you comments.

Best Regards,


Vitor Machado
Luso Pirotecnia'

Isn't this too cool !?!

That's very cool!! It was such a fabulous display I want my report to do it justice - I just haven't had time to get it completed yet (big deadline at work this week which has to take priority sadly). I will post it when I can. So just a note to all the team at Grupo Luso - my report is coming soon - don't worry, it is a good one. The only thing I can say that I didn't like were the dim charcoal comet candles that fired at the start of the finale - they were almost invisible against the bright colour shells above! And that's all I can really think of as a negative - though a transition to a cold colour in the finale would have been fun, though Atlas did this in 2003 (which caused the audience to gasp).

That's it for now,

Paul.

Well ladies and gentleman, that's a display!

The finale was so loud and full of nice shells. It was certainly breathtaking!

My ranking:

1.Portugal
2.Hanwha
3.Italy
4.France
Oh btw, i posted a video of France and Portugal. Check MarzapanSRL on Youtube.

Pat

The only thing I can say that I didn't like were the dim charcoal comet candles that fired at the start of the finale - they were almost invisible against the bright colour shells above!

Actually, when I watched your entire video two days ago and got up to that point, I, too, noticed that they were nearly inconspicuous when contrasted with the first barrages of bright shells that introduced the finale - it was the same kind of idea when viewing from Notre-Dame as well.

As for the color choice of those comet candles, it would have been grand if they had used those seen from the segment of "Be Our Guest" or "Mission Impossible"!

Look forward to the report.

Trav.

I posted on PyroPlanet the report on Luso's display a couple of days ago. Now, I just add a kind of feature story about Mélanie Cagnon, a member of Luso's crew.

Fred

Fred, that's an interesting article, thanks for sharing the link. Perhaps I should put a button in the side menu which will bring up all the pyroplanet.com Montreal reports.

Paul.

Maybe, you should also add the American display's website http://www.rockloves.com/
hehe.

Finally my report is up as are all the photos.

I can't link in the sites for each company. The links at the left are related to the reporting of the competition so it made sense to include Mylene's since she is doing such a great job of covering the competition in French - especially now that we no longer have George Lamon's reports.

Paul.

Paul, thank you for your nice comment and for the addition of a link to PyroPlanet reports on the Montreal competition. I believe that it is important to do some cross-ads, as I always conclude my reports with a link to this website and, now, to Mylene's blog.

I just read your Portuguese report, watching the video at the same time. It was worth to take more time doing the report, it really does justice to the show (as well as a written report can do). I especially like your emphasize on how well transitions from one part to the next were designed, and on the audience behavior: the guy who was sat on your left has a smile as he did read the Ghostbusters segment!

Carefully reading report and watching video always bring me some questions regarding the specific vocabulary to use in order to describe rightly what happen. Having more time to devote to our passion, it would be interesting to produce a comprehensive classification of the pyrotechnic effects. I know several glossary on the web, but no one is comprehensive enough to do justice to the wide range of effects displayed in Montreal...

Fred

I really do also enjoy reading Paul's reports as they are informative and pretty much touches on everything seen in each segment of a performance. The writing style is also quite admirable to me because it reconstructs the entire display, just in written form.

I've become familiar with a great deal of the effects and am getting better at identifying them quickly once I see them (I'm also capable of memorizing a great deal of things at once, too - quite a valuable asset) - this is particularly why when I'm referring to a particular part to support the main point(s) in my reports, I tend to now describe what I saw more in detail by referring to the specific effects that were involved in whatever segment, as well as acknowledging a segment in how it was constructed and how this reflected upon the selected thematic framework in a peculiar way. I actually find this a lot of fun when writing in this way, and I find that it makes one write more creatively and fluidly, which is something I love doing in my work.

Speaking of reports, Paul, I noticed that you're still missing reviews for both the Australian and Canadian displays of 2006. Not to rush them, but it sort of makes the 2006 schedule look "incomplete". Of course, I still look forward to reading those as well, despite being almost two years later.

Edit: Heh....And it looks like the rains and storms spared the fireworks display at Sherbrooke tonight, although heavy rains are closing in! It's raining cats and dogs over here, though, as I write this, and these bands are again heading East.

Trav.