China
Sunny International
August 2nd, 2008
Forever Love // À la vie, à l'amour

Hey everybody!
I've just came back from LaRonde and I wanted to know what you think about the fireworks today! I was REALLY happy that it wasn't raining earlier ,but it wasn't windy enough to push over all the smoke cause by the fireworks . NOT AT ALL! I just looked at MétéoMedia for the "speed" of the wind and it's : NULS. Anyway! I'll post my complete review on the next days.

Comment and rate fairly.
AnnoyingKiid

CHINA'S FINALE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUvLwZYT0DE

I also will not be writing my full review tonight - I think I still need time to let it sink in (and also get some rest).

Suffice to say - for now - that Sunny offered us a display that was truly beautiful and, for those of us who have seen their work before, would recognize it as theirs almost instantly.

I believe that Sunny International's tendencies when designing displays guided them away from the best way of presenting their theme... then again, I might change my mind on that one. The display was what I expected from Sunny, but not what I expected considering the "Butterfly Lovers" Chinese Legend.

Also, as AnnoyingKiid mentioned (and Roger experienced at "Les Grands Feux Loto-Quebec" in Quebec) the wind in La Belle Province was not kind to any displays this evening. The last 10 minutes or so in Montreal were partially spoiled by heavy smoke buildup that just lingered.

Nearing the start of the Beijing 2008 Olympiad we have heard a lot in the news about the pollution in China... seems like the Chinese can't get away from it no matter where they go.

Tyler

It's fortunate that we didn't have any rains tonight, though I was expecting, as mentioned in the weather thread, smoke accumulations to build up to some extent as the winds would be fairly light in nature, but what I was not expecting was such a dense fog of smoke during and after the show (which clouded almost the entire city of Montreal). I was anticipating the winds to be a little more occasionally breezy - their absence led to very poor visibility during the fireworks, and from our vantage point there were times where virtually nothing could be seen (particularly the last 17 minutes) but a giant cloud of smoke with flashes coming out of it, like lightning. The winds were clocked at a mere 6 km/h from the North-Northeast, but I was waiting for a minimum of 10 km/h (although this wouldn't have done much anyway). The problem was dense humidity and a very moist airmass, and with so light of winds, the situation is analogous to a heavy thunderstorm taking place during the fireworks.

However, just briefly on the display itself, from most of what we saw, I really appreciated some of the sequencing attempts at times from low level with the mines and candles right on cue with the music. I personally thought that many segments were very well done, and it seems that the narration ended up working more and less well with the show, and I personally thought that team China did a good job to convey their story, and therefore their theme, through the fireworks. The quality of the products was fantastic, but I noticed that some of the firing patterns with shells at mid level, at least the points that were partially to nearly fully visible, were a little too redundant. I loved the cakes seen on and off through the show, as were some of those large shells - these were quite deafening! The finale was alright, but though it was brief, it was powerful, especially when it came to making noise!

I'll have more details later today, but I'd like to take the time to watch Paul's video to catch on parts that were inconspicuous to us(assuming of course that things weren't obscured at the same level from La Ronde). I did take some footage of the finale and parts leading up to it - it was pointless due to the smoke, but I did it anyway for the heck of it. I think you folks at La Ronde had better luck than we did due to the wind direction(s).

And it's raining furiously right now in the West Island, as was the last couple of hours on and off. We're lucky that this didn't add in to the already messed up smokey skies during the fireworks!

Trav.

Bonjour tout le monde,

Hier soir, j'ai été très déçu par la performance de la Chine, le dernier participant de la compétition. Il y a une expression qui dit: "LE DERNIER MAIS NON LE MOINDRE". Dans ce cas-ci, l'expression ne s'applique pas! Un spectacle qui manquait d'originalité, d'intensité et qui n'a pas su éveiller mes émotions. La finale fût de très courte durée et s'est terminée juste au moment où je ne faisais que commencer à ressentir ma toute première excitation de la soirée!

L'accumulation de fumée a dû empêcher plusieurs de bien voir le spectacle, dépendant de leur emplacement, mais le vent venait parfois à bout de la chasser (en tous cas, à l'endroit où je me trouvais sur le pont, ce n'était pas trop pire si on prend en considération que la fumée était très épaisse à certains moments).

Avant de présenter ma liste des feux dans l'ordre de ma préférence, je devrai regarder en entier, les feux du Portugal et des USA (pour savoir qui sera mon premier choix) ainsi que les feux de la France et de la Chine (pour savoir qui prendra la dernière place)......la mémoire étant une faculté qui oublie!

À plus tard

Pierre

I just uploaded the video - the sound is a bit distorted unfortunately. The smoke wasn't too bad at La Ronde, but there were times when it detracted from the very enjoyable display from the Chinese team. They managed to achieve shooting a comet through a heart shell!

Paul.

I have a feeling that a lot of people left La Ronde at around 8pm, because of a heavy rainfall, which I didn't witness, unfortunately . I saw people soaking wet and leaving en mass at Jean Drapeau park. During the display, I say about half of the audience was missing. Therefore, the lineups for rides were much shorter this time.

Does anyone know what caused the little blackout during the speech (by the consul, I think). I'm really curious to know lol. Aside the rides, I also noticed that the lampposts at Fort Edmonton went off, and the Condor stopped functioning at the top (I think). I heard that it affected the Monster, too. Before the little blackout, when I was on the Dragon, for the first time, we did the entire ride in complete darkness! None of the effects or lights were working, except for the music! I'm not sure if this was somehow related to the blackout, maybe not. But I hope in the future, I will occasionally be able to ride the Dragon in complete darkness again!

Despite the smoke accumulation, which wasn't so bad, Sunny's display was really good. They had some excellent effects and huge shells. The lower level effects were the best. The size of the display was excellent. I very much enjoyed those bright and tall (Sunny like) cakes/candles.

It's hard to rate this display if you compare it to other ones. To me, it looked a lot more like a Sunny display. I know the theme was about a love story, but I didn't really see any connection between the display and the theme. It was just OK, but like I said, it felt more like a Sunny display, in a weird way. I saw some of those kewl cubes again and those lower level hearts, which looked different, but they were bigger and better, in my opinion!

For the most part, the songs were enjoyable, even though the song selection was odd. Perhaps, it would've been a bit more appropriate (and appreciated) if all the love songs were in Chinese for this Chinese theme story. I don't understand why some of the songs were too short because some of the segments felt incomplete. Synchronization was pretty good at certain moments.

Personally, it's a bit difficult for me to follow a story with narrations, during a fireworks show. Also, there is no need to launch big effects during narrations. They were somewhat distracting from listening the short narrations. For example, a few small red ball-like lights (whatever you call them!) on ramp 3 are good enough for me.

All in all, to me, it was a very good Sunny display with some parts better than others. The finale was way too short, and thus, it was disappointing and felt incomplete. I know, an intense finale may not always fit with a certain theme, but what can I say, I want my finales to be powerful and long!

My official 2008 rankings- rated from La Ronde:

1. Portugal (Gold Jupiter)
2. United States (Silver Jupiter)
3. Canada (Bronze Jupiter)
4. China
5. Australia
6. South Korea
7. Italy
8. France
9. Austria

A special award goes to:

- United States for the use of their special (and awesome) structures.
- Portugal for the quality of their pieces and the vividness of the colors.
- Austria for their interesting and original theme.
- Italy, Portugal and United States for having the best and most powerful finales this year.

Country participant: China
Company: Sunny International
Date of presentation: August 2nd, 2008

Threatening weather, though fairly pleasant overall, was the story behind most of the day for the first display ever fired in August, with isolated heavy thunderstorms (one or two of which hit the metropolitan area hard earlier in the day) and steady convective rainfall. Despite the line clusters of strong storms in close proximity to the island coming in easily from the South near the time of presentation, we were left with partly cloudy skies along with very tranquil winds and dense humidity, which was a combination that didn’t bode too well during this particular display for those of us on the banks of the St-Lawrence West of the fireworks site due to variable winds coming from between the expected N-NE directions (the fireworks site facing East). Interestingly, about 20-30 minutes before the display as well, a brief power failure had taken place inside the park and on top the bridge going passed the castle structure – we did see some of the rides come to a halt as well, some of which were already airborne. Although this did lead to concerns for the display (and of course for people’s safety inside the park), it didn’t take too long before everything went on and was once again active. In any case, despite these multiple little threats, including the weather, Sunny International was set to anxiously present their display titled “Forever Love” after a very beautiful and stunningly artistic performance concocted in 2004.

This was a very well designed and enjoyable display in seeing that many of the pieces were beautifully executed from one point to the next in such exquisite rhythm and pace while using the essential emotions that were involved as part of a cohesive thematic premise. The performance itself had a very traditional and artistic feel to it, so it was conducive to creating a very different and fictitious atmosphere (a little like South Korea but distinguishingly employed, of course) that was not felt as much during this competition. The quality of the products, particularly some of the candles, was fairly good, and the choice of music was appropriate along with some entertaining tracks (as well as some possessing a traditional feel to them) that obviously worked well with this sort of approach. The sequencing attempts were also something worthy to point out throughout the show in being clearly followed closely by the various mines and candles near or at the bottom areas in perfect harmony with the various music choices – things were often so delicately on cue. The diversity of the effects were fair, including mines of screaming serpents, shells of strobes, small farfalles and go-getters, graceful candles, shells of hearts (at one point ring heart shells) and nautical flares and strobes, and a good set of cakes and Z-cakes. Synchronization was very good and especially entertaining with the Z-cakes and again the mine/candle sequences. Colors were decent and in a satisfactory mix.

My criticisms revolve mostly around the way some of the segments were devised. For one thing, many of the pieces from time to time had some fairly similar firing patterns near mid level, and had therefore led to a bit of redundancy in this sense. The effects used were appropriately chosen for many of the segments to reflect upon the key components that made up the involving soundtrack to represent them, while illustrating everything is an emotionally symbolic perspective, but some of them, most notably the shells fired at times lacked variation, and so I felt that the diversity of the effects were not significantly variable as compared to other performances we’ve seen. Also, although synchronization was very well done, I noticed that numerous segments would either have some brief silent moments in between relative to the faster paced soundtrack involved, momentarily breaking up the rhythm at those particular points, and sometimes not always doing the music justice. The music was, like I said, fortifying, but some felt a little awkward to deliver the appropriate emotions. Moreover, perhaps one or two of the soundtrack were comparably short in nature as compared to other choices – I didn’t really understand the purpose behind this. On a similar note, I found some of the segments didn’t really conclude with a significantly delivered finish since many of them ended so abruptly instead finishing with a more “enthusiastic” conclusion during some of the more epic pieces. The narration, despite the initial dubious feelings associated with its presence, worked rather well with the performance in introducing the more critical, or pivotal points of the story, always keeping the audience on track as to where the display was heading when things started to reach more transitional points. However, I felt that whatever was being fired during the actual narration was not appropriate. The storyline itself was good, but I wasn’t always really grasping the different emotions that were attempting to be portrayed through the fireworks themselves, ultimately leaving me at times in a baffled state, although it is certainly true that they were well evoked at some points more than others – I personally thought that the segment that was one of the most successful in doing this was during “Exodus”. The finale was noisy and piercingly loud, although much too brief. It was, however, enjoyable because both the final and penultimate parts offered such amazing sequencing at low level.

Despite the negative points, this was most certainly a very enjoyable display and offered some of the best sequences this season. It’s a real pity that many of us had suffered with so much dense smoke due to so light of winds throughout many points of the display and thus many spectators could not appreciate such an otherwise enjoyable performance – easily for about 60% of the display was almost completely obscured by smoke, especially the last 10-13 minutes. I was extremely grateful once again for Paul’s full video so that I could catch up on those parts that I clearly couldn’t see or vaguely distinguish.

Trav’s personal scorings (for fun):

-Pyrotechnic components: 8/10
-Synchronization: 9/10
-Soundtrack: 8.5/10
-Technical design: 8/10
-Pyromusical concept: 8.5/10

-Overall: 8.4/10---------->Nice!

(Scores will be adjusted before the closing ceremony--------------->which is right about now).

Now it is time to give our personal rankings…Who will take home the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Jupiters? Make your choices carefully!

~Trav.~

The display was quite well made. Nice pieces that I thought was fabulous. I quite enjoyed the beginning and loved the finale. It was very well in length. It wasn't quick like Australia's. I think China might not have any Jupiter this year.

My rankings:

1.Portugal (Gold Jupiter)
2.U.S.A (Silver Jupiter)
3.Canada (Bronze Jupiter)
4.Australia
5.China
6.South Korea
7.Italy
8.France
9.Austria

Bien que les prix remportés par Sunny International remontent à 1992 et 1993, les attentes étaient néanmoins élevées pour ce spectacle puisque la firme était l'une des trois finalistes pour le Jupiter platine en 2004.

Dès le départ, l'équipe chinoise n'a pas lésiné pour que nous comprenions bien l'histoire d'amour que l'on voulait nous raconter: les spectateurs présents dans les gradins de La Ronde ont reçu une feuille imprimée recto-verso présentant, pour chaque segment, le titre musical, les principales pièces pyrotechniques utilisées et les couleurs prédominantes, en plus d'une transcription de la narration et de diverses photos. Une tactique que d'autres firmes devraient imiter: cela permet d'informer les spectateurs et compense l'absence d'un véritable programme imprimé comme on en retrouve au théâtre ou au concert. Et plutôt que d'être distribué à la hâte dans les gradins, quelques minutes avant le spectacle comme ce fut le cas hier, un tel document pourrait être remis à chaque spectateur lorsque celui-ci franchit les tourniquets de la Place du Canada. Prochains participants: prévoyez un budget pour l'imprimerie!

Concernant le feu, on ne peut pas lui reprocher une absence de thématique, celle-ci étant assez évidente. De même, au plan de la conception technique, les artificiers de Sunny ont utilisé toutes les rampes de lancement et quelques pièces nautiques (bombes, fontaines rotatives). Le contenu de la bande sonore était intéressant: un savant dosage de musiques asiatiques et classiques, une narration soignée et une insertion appropriée de deux extraits d'Édith Piaf (qui n'apparaissaient pas dans la liste des musiques publiée par La Ronde).

Cependant, le feu me semblait inégal sur quelques aspects. Premièrement, l'harmonisation entre le rythme du feu et celui de la musique n'était pas toujours idéale. Par exemple, au 10e tableau sur "Butterfly lovers", nous avons assisté à un barrage soudain de bombes nautiques alors que le rythme de la musique invitait à plus de délicatesse. Un peu avant, au début de la musique "Exodus", les éventails dynamiques de comètes météorites n'allaient pas avec les notes de la musique. De la même façon, la narration était parfois accompagnée d'un grand déploiement de pièces pyrotechniques (ex.: une séquence de comètes très hautes pendant la narration suivant le 2e tableau) alors que des pièces plus petites (fusées éclairantes, stroboscopes, fontaines...) auraient été plus appropriées.

Deuxièmement, la synchronisation n'était pas toujours bien recherchée. Non pas qu'il y ait eu des problèmes à cet égard, mais elle aurait pu être améliorée dans certains tableaux. La pièce de percussions (avant-dernier tableau) aurait été une belle occasion de présenter des séquences synchronisées sur chaque note, comme ce fut le cas, par ailleurs, sur la musique de Vivaldi, l'un des beaux moments de ce feu à mon avis.

Par contre, cette pièce de Vivaldi s'est terminée un peu simplement, en diminuant progressivement le volume de la musique. C'est là une troisième lacune: la qualité de la bande sonore aurait pu être rehaussée avec de meilleures transitions.

Enfin, au plan pyrotechnique, le matériel pyrotechnique aurait pu être un peu plus diversifié et davantage mis en valeur. Ainsi, les diverses pièces produisant des nuages d'abeilles étaient beaucoup trop nombreuses. Si elles étaient tout à fait appropriées à la musique de "Flight of the Bumble Bee", elles étaient trop répétitives, présentes dans de nombreux tableaux. À l'opposé, d'autres éléments de l'arsenal chinois auraient dû être davantage mis en évidence, comme leurs célèbres bombes produisant une forme cubique, qui ont été mêlées vers la fin du spectacle dans un barrage comprenant aussi des anneaux entrelacées et d'autres formes difficiles à identifier...

En dépit de ces critiques, le feu de Sunny était très agréable à regarder et il m'a fait vivre d'excellents moments.

Fred

P.S.: My report, photos and video are now available on PyroPlanet.

Il y a une expression qui dit: "LE DERNIER MAIS NON LE MOINDRE".

Thank god I entitled my article with this expression, talking about the firm and not the firework !

Pictures are
up !

It was a love-in Saturday night at La Ronde.

Sunny International undertook the difficult task of presenting a display with a narrative theme. It all sounded promising enough; at the very least, something different from the competition that would be uniquely and distinctively Sunny. They certainly delivered on that promise.

There was a good variety of high quality product used and, as opposed to what Trav and Fred observed, I did not feel as though anything felt repetitive - in discussion with Enkil, him and I both strongly agreed on this point. Though admittedly, some effects were used numerous times in different segments (bumblebee clouds to take Fred's example), it seemed as though each effect would only play a dominant role once and then, if seen again, would serve to accentuate other effects and had a secondary, supportive function. Personally, no effect felt overused.

Another strong point in Sunny's display, perhaps the most intriguing for me, was their use of contrast. Fred said that he felt as though there were points where the fireworks were not in harmony with the music. I agree. I think it was a very thought out idea on Sunny's part to do this though. The legend of the Butterfly Lovers, to my understanding, finds it characters in states of repression and having mixed feelings. In the 10th segment that Fred mentioned, where the nautical bombs went off to the delicate-sounding "Butterfly Lovers" score by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang, beautifully represented that mixed feelings sensation. In a tale where a woman pretends to be a male; takes a vow of brotherhood with the man she falls in love with; the man finds out the truth once she is forced to leave; she is forced into an arranged marriage and in the process breaks her heart and that of her lover; he dies and she kills herself at his graveside during her wedding procession - could this tale be properly represented in a pyromusical without somehow echoing these feelings of opposition? I think Sunny International did a remarkable job in this regard.

My main criticisms would be that, at times, I felt lost along the way of this story despite the fact that I researched it beforehand. It may have needed more narration. However, I did not know about the handouts given to those seated in the audience and that just might negate my first criticism. Secondly, nobody here, thus far, has expressed their feelings that the fireworks accompanying the narration was a good idea - I agree and found it to be slightly distracting. I really did like the short Édith Piaf extracts, but, whether my brain just wasn't able to think in french at the time, or the fact that the words were hard to make out in song, it left me kind of confused. I understood them to be loving, poetic pieces that served as sort of soliloquy from the characters to avoid more narration (kind of like France did last year with character dialogue interspersed into the display) - it was good, I just wish I understood more than one out of every four words. The only other fault I can think of would be the occasional pregnant pause which took away from the mood I think they were trying to build for the display and to tell their story.

Needless to say, I am going to have a hard time putting together my final rankings

Tyler

Sunny International nous à bel et bien montré ce qu'elle pouvait faire, samedi dernier.

Dès le début, S.I. a bien capté notre attention en donnant un début de spectacle éclatant. La questions est: A-t-elle reussi à garder notre attention jusqu'à la fin? Je vais devoir paraitre un peu injuste en disant; Non. Il y avait des bouts ou je ne portais plus attention au spectacle, souvent à cause des répétitions. Heureusement, avec une telle réputation, on ne s'arrête pas là!

Le thème était traité clairement avec la narration, la trame sonore et les feux d'artifices. Quiconque qui n'avait pas compris qu'il s'agissait d'une histoire d'amour ne doit pas avoir écouter la trame sonore ! Côté originalité, je trouve que c'était un excellent choix étant donné qu'elle se distingue des thèmes des autres concurents, cette année.

La synchronisation était excellente pour la majorité du spectacle. La trame sonore "matchait" parfaitement avec les feux, et ce, sur divers points.
1. Trame sonore qui était propice au thème.
2. Trame sonore qui était appropriée aux divers moments de l'histoires. Par exemple, lorsque nous avons vu les deux amants s'envoler après leurs morts, on ne pouvait pas s'attendre à un bout de spectacle joyeux ou éclatant! En effet, S.I. nous avait fait vivre un moment de ''paix'' ou de ''tristesse'' je dirais.
3. Pièces pyrotechniques qui variaient selon la vitesse de la musique. (EXCELLENT)
Enfin, un savant mélange de classiques orientaux et occidentaux.

Malheureusement, les pièces pyrotechnique n'étaient pas très variées mais, nous devons reconnaitre l'utilisation de certaines pièces pyrotechniques qui étaient absentes chez les autres concurents. Pour l'utilisation de l'écran noir... j'étais un peu decu. Je trouvais qu'il y avait souvent de la symétrie et que les feux n'étaient pas bien répartis. Mais bon, nous devons reconnaitre que le vent était absent tout comme la pluie cette soirée-là!

Finalement, j'hésite encore si la Chine se classe dans mon Top3 pour les Jupiters. S.I. nous a vraiment fait voir un spectacle emotionel, original et bien pensée cette soirée-là. Et ce, nous devons bien le reconnaitre!

AnnoyingKiid.

I thought that this display was really nice.. It was similar to sunny's display in 2004.. Through out the display there were many bee effects.. The synchronization of the display was really nice and i really liked the cakes they used in the display, i thought some of them weren't cakes because they were synched properly!

The display showed really good emotions which was very important cause of their theme.. They used fireworks sounds nicely also!

Sometimes i find it distracting when some cakes lights up during a narration period..... The products used were really great! Even though there was a lot of smoke, some of the shells and candles can still be seen... which is good.

My favorite part of the show was the segment that that started with the whistles and the butterfly lovers (i thought that this song was really nice). Sometimes there's black sky in the show but this really didn't distract from the amazing display presented by sunny...

Vander