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

Cheers,

Trav.

This show was interesting. It tried to do a lot and a lot happened that needs to be "judged".

First off, the show very clearly had an innovative and ambitious soundtrack. They get a lot of respect for this.

However, I found this show struggled to live up to its "hype". The shell density was honestly quite poor during many parts of the show. Likewise, many segments quickly became repetitive.

One notable highlights was the Teletubbies "HELLO" segment. I wonder if anyone captured that on photo.

The DJ segment was strange at best. I found it somewhat distracting, even more so that the DJ (who nobody could see all that well) was being filmed. There was one point where shells were firing with no music playing at all. At other times, the synchronization seemed to be "too good" for something being done ad hoc.

Overall, a decent show that probably was a bit too ambitious.

My rankings (I've seen all shows, but didn't post reviews on the first 2):

1) South Korea
2) Portugal
3) Italy

The DJ segment was strange at best. I found it somewhat distracting, even more so that the DJ (who nobody could see all that well) was being filmed. There was one point where shells were firing with no music playing at all. At other times, the synchronization seemed to be "too good" for something being done ad hoc.

It's impossible to do an ad-hoc display really unless triggers are used for the one-shots (which Luso has done with drummers) - for shell's it impossible due to the pre-fire time. All the soundtrack has timecode so I'm 99.9% sure the music was not being "performed" by the DJ live - like many performances, it was a an act.

I didn't understand the connection to the theme at first, but Vitor pointed out the soundtrack had the music from the Conan O'Brien show ... and so the music at the end was the equivalent of the musical guests you get on these late-night TV shows. It made much more sense after that!

This was a typical and professionally executed Luso display. It managed to capture my interest throughout the show. I think there's a difference between being too repetitive in a "creative" way or when trying to achieve an emotional effect, and being repetitive due to lack of creativity. Luso is quite good at making repetitive segments without losing interest. The theme was fun and unique. The last segment also didn't make any sense for me, but it was done brilliantly.

My rankings so far:

1. Portugal
2. South Korea
3. Italy

(For quicker reading, a summary of this review appears in the last paragraph.)

This Portuguese team is known for its creativity and “Luso” does not perform standard displays. I ended my previous review with this post-scriptum and, indeed, it applies pretty well to the excellent show made by Grupo Luso Pirotecnia. This extravaganza, which lasted 33 minutes 25 seconds, really went outside the frame, to a such extent that it took me a good amount of time to process everything I saw and to make my mind about this 5th display of the Portuguese team. With previous Luso’s performances in mind, rumours about the content of this show – not all accurate – and my own fantasies with the theme of television, I had a lot of expectations to take into consideration with the assessment of this performance.

Let’s start with the theme and the soundtrack. As far as I can remember, we never saw a pyromusical show about television in this competition. (The closest I can remember is Radio Days by Weco from Germany, winner of the Silver Jupiter in 1997.) Firstly, it was a bold choice. The television landscape, both internationally and locally, is so fragmented - and it is even more true with the online streaming services - that it is certainly challenging to come out with a soundtrack likely to raise enthusiasm and to emotionnally connect with everyone. I knew and was excited by some of them, whereas I heard enthusiastic reactions from people sat close to me with themes I didn’t know at all. At the end, I suppose that all people knew some of these musics.

Secondly, and certainly to bypass this “fragmentation problem,” the Portuguese entrant has organized its show along the macro-structure of television genres and daily schedules, which sounds familiar to most people. It was sometimes (too?) subtle, but very ingenious. The released listing for the soundtrack – unfortunately not available on La Ronde website, in contrast with previous years, but released before each show in this forum – distinguished genres : children, retro, space & fiction, documentary, quiz, comedy, drama. The display started with some channel surfing, when we briefly heard a reference to one of the oldest type of television programs in Canada: hockey games (“...et c’est le but!”). Then, we were introduced to this fireworks show like we are to a late night television program (“En direct des studios La Ronde, Montréal, Québec, Grupo Luso Pirotecnia présente Restez à l’écoute. Ce soir, nos invités...”), the speaker announcing the aforementioned genres as well as “musical guest” DJ Hools. The display even included a reference to news programs. With the theme of BBC World News in background, the section on space & fiction was introduced by another speaker: “Au Téléjournal ce soir, plusieurs témoins confirment avoir vu des tracés de couleurs dans le ciel de Montréal, ravivant ainsi la thèse d’une vie extraterrestre.”

Thirdly, the soundtrack was beautifully done. It shall be a strong contender for the Best Soundtrack Award. Not less than 30 television themes appeared on the listing released by La Ronde. I am sure that an amazing amount of time was spent to research, to select and to arrange all of them, as well as the transitions in between. This figure does not include various additions, like the short segments heard during the channel surfing, the previously quoted news brief, and a series of musics arranged and remixed by DJ Hools, who appeared on a floating stage 27 minutes after the beginning of the show. Some segments could have been shorten (in particular the 1min45sec part on The Love Boat and the 2-minute one on Blue Planet), but this is maybe a personal taste.

Fourthly, and this is my only reservation about the concept and the soundtrack, the theme appeared less obvious towards the end of the display, especially during the 6-minute segment with the DJ’s performance. As he posted above, Paul gleaned the explanation that it was an evocation of the musical performance at the end of a typical late-night show. A remixed theme of Game of Thrones opened that segment. However, I took part in a couple of discussions after the show where we wondered to what extent the DJ’s musics were actually drawn from television. A later Google search allowed me to find that song Should I Stay or Should I Go has been used in a Netflix series, and I also suspect the “I can’t hear you” excerpt was from a cartoon, so I assume they all were. But I also believe the connection with the television theme became too subtle at this moment. It could have helped to clarify to distinguish these remixes in the listing. Furthermore, whereas Grupo Luso Pirotecnia ended its 2008 show on movie themes with the typical “THE END” letters, closing this “television program” similarly, for instance with the copyright sign and the year of production - ©2019 –, which appear at the end of the credit titles, would have helped to encapsulate the whole performance into the concept. It is likely that many people perceived the DJ performance – and the movement of the cameraman around him – as a distraction. (And the distraction was even more true when spots lit the stage too early, during 45 seconds, before being extinguished.)

The technical design alongside this elaborate scenario was also particular. Luso is well-known for the use of special structures and devices in its shows. It is one of its signatures. Whereas many competitors use pontoons as a fifth ramp, a ring – reportedly with a diameter of 18 meters and 24 firing positions – was assembled and it floated in the centre of the lake. It allowed for more continuous sequences (of fountains, gerbs, mines, etc.) then a set of pontoons. All four regular firing ramps were used. However, there were few (or none) nautical products. (Once, fireworks similar to nautical shells burst, but I believe they were mines.) Some firing patterns – especially “rainbow” sequences, as well as these lateral sequences where low-angled effects begin at one end of the third ramp, with increasing angles and reaching a vertical angle and the other end of the ramp – were somewhat repetitive.

This sophisticated scenario and the aforementioned setup were the base of an excellent pyromusical design. Numbers 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 were shot vertically with stars for a countdown. Letters, including “HELLO”, made of stars were shot, towards the audience, from tubes arranged on racks similarly to those seen in 2016 with Ricasa and 2018 with SteyrFire, on the themes of Teletubbies and A-Team. Very fast sequences of flashes caused reactions from some viewers around me at the beginning of Knight Rider. Girandolas flew on the musics of The X Files. The atmosphere created during the 2-minute Blue Planet documentary segment was interesting, with blue flares on the 3rd and 4th ramps, blue sky mines, flights of blue rockets, and waves made by sequences of angled mines terminated with blue stars, which reminded me the similar wave pattern displayed in the debut show of Luso in 2002. A dramatic change of atmosphere, from suspense to enjoyment, was also created when a contestant to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire gave his “final answer” and it turned out to be the correct one, celebrated with a barrage of electric comets! This extravaganza was brought to a close with Luso’s signature finale, mostly made of a succession of barrages of peonies, each barrage having its own colour. This year, these barrages were augmented with other effects, such as bunches of stars (from candles?), comets, and whistles shot at a lower level.

The synchronization of the fireworks with the musics was almost perfect. Several times, they were synchronized on every notes, or other sounding effects. That was very enjoyable on The Addams Family theme, with sets of synchronized mines and flashes on each half of the 3rd ramp. The only lack of synchronization I noticed was during the drama section, when several cakes of green and red stars continued to shoot their content from the ring once the music was over. This overlap was extremely short, just enough to allow to hear the crackling!

The blue rockets fired during the Blue Planet segment are rare. (If a remember correctly, Lacroix-Ruggieri used such rockets several times, but we rarely see them in Montreal.) Generally speaking, colours were extremely vivid in this show. However, we saw few or no product with changes of colours during this display, and the shells didn’t produce effects as sophisticated as in other displays, especially the South Korean one. On “The Love Boat”, a couple of blue stars erratically composed red heart-shaped shells. Shells of crackling photoflashes were maybe a bit repetitive.

To summarize, that was an excellent show, with a bold and original concept, delivered through a beautifully done soundtrack and a complex pyromusical design, and very well synchronized. The show suffered slightly of some repetitions and the concept was somewhat less effective towards the end of the display. Right after it, I didn’t know exactly what to say as the extravaganza was extremely different than other shows, so it was harder to compare. It reminds me Jacques Couturier (JCO)’s performance inspired by the world of circus in 2015. I hadn’t fully appreciated this French show until I read a comprehensive review by STL in this forum. I think this creative Portuguese show is of the same nature. At the time, the jury awarded a Silver Jupiter to JCO. This show is probably a contender for a Jupiter, too, but it depends to what extent jury members could catch some subtleties. We definitely have to “stay tuned!”

Fred’s personal ranking so far :

1. Grupo Luso Pirotecnia (Portugal)
2. Hanwha Corporation (South Korea)
3. Parente Fireworks Group (Italy)

***

As Vangelis’ concluding musics played, the wind direction changed and the grandstands were enveloped by smoke. The show ended at the right time!

Fred

I havent yet posted a single review for this competition season. None of the previous contestants went beyond my expectations. I will probably write a review later with my thoughts about the displays.

Displays like last night lusos are the reason Im coming to Montreal. It wasnt a perfect display from my point of view and I dont think its gold material, which is a pitty since I think Luso deserves a gold jupiter considering their history in this competition. Apart from that it was a good display, where hard work in terms of design and creativity was obvious most of the display.

As it happened in the Italian display the first half of it was flawless. The kids music segment was probably the highlight of the show. The letters with mines were amazing, its funny cause they were much clearer than in the steyrfire show althought the structure for the letters was provided by them. The numbers using comets were also super clear, and the teletubbies “tail” were fine too, not as clearer but the design was more complex. I really appreciate this kind of design, trying to recreate not only what music is saying or the music flow but the context of the music. Same thing happened during the breaking bad segment with the blue horsetails (as blue as the methanphetamine in the serie) or during the documentary segment recreating the waves. Subtle, but clever. The rockets did a very good job too, I really liked the effect.

Overall this led to an interesting display, but weak in some parts.

My first criticism is about the lack of medium to big shells. I was the whole display worring about if their were having any technical problem with ramp 2. We saw a lot of medium to small effects, too much go getter and horsetail shells and too little peonies and medium to big shells. The display was too focused on mid to low level. Giving sometimes an empty feeling which is not good. In some segments that lack of shells was well compensated by the interesting design in ramp 3 but other times it was just too plain.

My other criticism is about the dj segment, I have to agree here with @ryguy2008. In terms of theme design it was totally unnecesary although he was playing mostly tv series soundtracks. I think people just didnt get it. Suddenly it was like a 2008 EDM party giving me a very cringe moment. I didnt like the fact the theme was so well done and feeling the dj was ruining it. Also the fact that the show could have been shorter but more intense if the dj appearence wasnt there. The show was almost 34 minutes. I would have cutted the entire segment and let flow to to great finale with Bella Ciao after the drama segment. But well, CHOICES.

Overall this was a good display, interesting and where hard work in terms of design was obvious all the time which is a good think and the reason I love this competition. To me its by far the first in the podium without doubt, but I wouldnt say its gold material.

Oh, and this is my personal ranking:

1) Luso

2)Parente

3) Hanwha

Hello, This is my rankings so far:

1. Portugal
2. South Korea
3. Italy

I recently had conversations with two forum members who brought some details to my attention, which deserve the following addenda to my review posted above!

The display started with some channel surfing, when we briefly heard a reference to one of the oldest type of television programs in Canada: hockey games (“...et c’est le but!”).

First, my quote from the soundtrack was not accurate. Mylène wrote me that speaker Pierre Houde actually said "...et le but!" In a country where hockey is so important, this deviation matters!

This extravaganza was brought to a close with Luso’s signature finale, mostly made of a succession of barrages of peonies, each barrage having its own colour. This year, these barrages were augmented with other effects, such as bunches of stars (from candles?), comets, and whistles shot at a lower level.

Secondly, Vander has catched an interesting detail in Luso's signature finale this year. In previous Luso's shows in Montreal, the change of colours from one barrage of peonies to the next barrage happened simultaneously across the scene. This time, each change appeared gradually, from left to right between two barrages, then from right to left between the next ones, and so on. These gradual changes between red peonies, orange peonies, shells of white comets, green peonies, red peonies, and golden kamuros were perfectly ordered!

Thanks to both of these forum members. This community is pretty amazing!

Fred

Practically perfect weather conditions were present for this highly anticipated display. Indeed, a temperature of 28 C was present during display time, along with borderline moderate-high humidity, creating a humidex of 32 C. Skies were largely clear, with residual patches of high-level cirrus that were later accompanied by a layer of cumulus shortly after the display. Winds were predominantly in the form of light South-Southeast, at 9-13 km/h. This allowed the smoke to travel gently clear to the right of the La Ronde audience (clear to the left for those on Notre-Dame Street, although moving towards far left-hand sections of Notre-Dame Street). The show did not feature a large number of fast-paced segments, which allowed the smoke to clear sufficiently, as well. Following the end of the display, though, a large plume of smoke could be seen hovering over NE Notre-Dame Street!

This was a very enjoyable and quite original display by the well-renowned Grupo Luso of Portugal! The level of precision and detail achieved in this display was definitely the highest so far this year, and it will likely remain as at least one of the most distinct for this season.

I must state that the concept of this display was rather interesting. Prior to being introduced to the outline of this show’s thematic premise, however, I became increasingly intrigued by the plans of representing it. Some of these details were revealed in Paul’s interview, and it was curious to see how strong the execution would be during the display. As the show unfolded, I, indeed, became immersed into it, as we quickly were taken through a series of familiar television opening themes that some of us grew up with! I was especially happy with the selection used to explore the theme, as well as the arrangement of music – in a sense, the block structuring of the display, and the music used to represent each of these blocks, was reminiscent of some previous displays (such as Italy 2013) in the sense that we were on a journey through time, except with television.

Throughout the show, we enjoyed a fairly diverse set of effects used to represent the soundtrack. The audience was frequently in awe with burst of shells, and, as always, it was fun to see people so deeply captivated by the heart-shaped shells. My personal favorites were the sequences of photoflashes (among my favorite effects, in general), when they became more forceful and noisy as they emerged in greater number before reaching a climax. The low-level support was often well established with higher-level activity, and symmetry was retained, considering the often wide left-right extent of the display along low-level. I later watched some of the videos to better appreciate the numbers “5” through “1” created by the colored-stars at low-level at the beginning of the display that initiated a mini-countdown! Similarly, the “HELLO” letters that later emerged were simply stunning, especially in terms of the clarity achieved! This did remind me a little of the “THE END” that lit up at the end of their 2008 show, but this was actually being spelt out during the show , like Sweden 2010’s “YMCA”! The colors were clear and often in a suitable mix, and product quality was fabulous. The finale was the best so far this year, using the traditional multi-color style that has become so signature of this team. Perhaps just a few more volleys of salutes towards the end would have made this even more terrific, but this takes nothing away from the already well-organized finale! At first, when the display continued after 10:30 p.m., I thought that Grupo Luso was perhaps going to do something completely different this year for their conclusion, as there was no longer much time to achieve the traditional finale. However, it quickly came to life, and the display finished just a little after 10:33 p.m., as Fred noted above!

My criticisms are generally few, but, I think, are significant enough to elaborate upon. In particular, like ryguy2008 stated above, I found the display to fall a little short of expectations. In particular, while the quality of products used was excellent, their diversity seemed more limited. This is especially true when compared to their previous displays, especially that of 2008. Like their 2012 display, I found that the drooping effects were somewhat overused in this performance, notably as we ventured into the second half. This did leave me with the feeling of simplicity and some monotony. There were a fair number of segments during the latter half of the display, too, that might have benefitted from additional effects other than just horsetails or go-getters to better bring to life the music that was used. Also, during the first half of the show, I got the feeling that the transitions were a little too fast from one piece to another. This may be that the songs used were rather short in duration and were numerous. I, therefore, would have liked some songs (such as “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”) to play out for a little longer to be (potentially) better represented before these segued to the next piece. This was not so much of an issue for me during the second half, as the songs tended to last longer, but it did give a sense of imbalance between the first and second half. While certainly present in the show, I was hoping to see more note-tight sequences in the display, a little like the “Be Our Guest” segment so glamorously crafted in their 2008 show. With respect to the DJ, I found this to be an interesting angle, but I did not quite understand the relevance of this as much. On that note, there sometimes was more of a disconnect with the theme during parts of the second half of the show. There were also a few moments where the music stopped and fireworks were active – this was most notable during the end of the “volcanic eruption” of color at low-level during the penultimate piece. Over the course of the introductions for the DJ, a part of it that I personally was not fond of was “Winter is coming” – this is not a criticism, though! Finally, I did not feel too emotionally drawn to this display, but this is most likely because of its general approach and design. Still, I did feel some nostalgia early in the show!

Overall, this was a very enjoyable display that featured many surprises, especially along low-level. There were several parts that would catch the audience off-guard in thrilling ways. The colored stars at the beginning of the display to form a sequence of numbers for a countdown were well executed (following a slow commencing before this), and it was interesting to see how everything came to life so vividly thereafter. While the display appeared less complex than I had previously envisioned, it was still thoroughly enjoyed, and the classic Grupo Luso color-transition ending was simply stunning! This display is definitely a contender for a Jupiter award this year (possibly the Soundtrack Award, too).

Trav.

My report (finally!) http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=1562