Roger,

your comments are, as always, insightful and well made. I agree that a larger jury is less susceptible to the normal human frailty than a smaller one. Recall in the past that the jury was composed of 25 people. In those days, I don't recall any controversy over the result. That said, in those days we didn't have competitions which were as close as the one fought last year.

For the music of the German display, I must admit I was surprised when I finally realized that part of the theme from O Canada was playing! I also read in George Lamon's report that there were themes also taken from Alouette (which I recognized from childhood French lessons back in England) and Gens du Pays which I only realized afterwards. It must be a challenge for a composer in the heartland of Europe to come up with an original piece of music which incorporates sufficient threads of familiarity for the local audience. I very much like "Je reviendrai à Montréal" by Robert Charlebois and, in fact, incorporated this into a pyromusical proposal for Canada Day. In the end, the display that was fired was not pyromusical but I certainly had some fun choosing the music and scripting parts of it for the proposal.

You can be assured that if (actually when) I design another display, I will inform all members of this forum so they can attend and write their critiques! I can tell you that the actuality of firing a display is a lot of work and far from glamourous - though, as the old saying in pyro circles goes "he who hath once smelled the smoke, is ne'er againfree" [hath=has, ne'er=never] - a sentiment I'm very much in agreement with!

Best regards,

Paul.

Enkil,

if I may be permitted to speak for Roger, I think he is saying that Weco took a great risk with that massive waterfall. If the wind was in the wrong direction or it had failed to fire properly (as these things are wont to do) then it would have really put a dead spot in their display. They also took a great risk using a live orchestra - imagine how it would have been if it was raining! The final result, though, really illustrates that risk-taking is an essential part of being successful.

Paul.

That's very true.

If it did rain...what would've happened!? Imagine something like that! They really took a big risk, especially with the weather! Sometimes you just can't trust it! For their sake, I'm glad everything went well! Out of all the years I've been attending the competition, that is by far the most biggest chance ever attempted! What are the chances of having the proper wind speeds, let alone right direction, no rain, assuming the humidity contributing to smoke build up! That's a big risk, indeed! Did they take these into consideration before they were to plan such a display?

Trav.

but r firms allowed to use these type of effects if they have already used in the past? and would be considered as an ok thing to do or bad (for the judges)

Of course they are! There's only so many effects which can be done with fireworks and to exclude ones which have been used before wouldn't make any sense. As for the judges, most years the jury is composed of new people so they may not have even seen something from the past re-used. The main danger with re-using ideas is that they can become cliched. We saw this in the past couple of years with people using very fast comet chase sequences. These can work very well if properly integrated with the music, but often-times they were, in my opinion, over-done and not really related to the music.

As always, these are just my opinions

Paul.

Hi Everyone,

I really enjoyed the last display of this year's competition, even though the smoke covered a portion of the fireworks. I was standing on the bridge, above Île Sainte-Hélène, very close to La Ronde, so I think that the view was relatively good, judging by what I heard from a friend who was standing on Notre-Dame street in Montreal who said she missed most of the display due to the smoke. In the first 10 minutes, the smoke was quite bad, but as time went by, it seemed to get a bit better....specially for the finale, where the cloud of smoke seemed to get higher, clearing the sky somewhat. Anyway, I will post my comments later, but I wanted to let you know that I took a clip of the finale with my digital camera, and it turned out pretty nice.

Pierre

Really!

That's great! Well, like your friend said, we really were unfortunate to miss a great display gobbled up in smoke on Notre-Dame and other adjacent streets!

Even the finale was less than it should've been, especially the way the smoke spoiled it!

Trav.

I just noticed... the three teams nominated for the Platinum Jupiter were also the three who competed last: China, France and Germany.

... Ok that's all I had to say.

Now that you mention it, you're right! It never occured to me!

BTW, did you hear what one of the guys said about Caballer's display on the radio? He said that he was in "the patates!" I guess you can tell what that means! Enkil had told me this. I actually heard their disscussion about what they thought of them! They say it was out of this world, especially that thunderous and continuing finale! Of course, this is in terms of excitement, despite all that happened to them. It was truly exciting! A display I can never forget. I was the most exciting this year, once again, in terms of excitement. Did anybody hear this on radio on 107.3?

Regards,

Trav.