Please post your reviews of the Australian display here!

Trav.

My footage can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGw1MnWolE

Trav.

We were delighted tonight with one more excellent display, the ultimate entrant of this 30th edition. Indeed, we saw a demonstration of power by the Australian team. There was a lot of stuff on the main firing ramps (1 & 2) and the performance was more aerial than with other displays, so I am sure that people outside La Ronde found Foti International more enjoyable than other ones where proximity, low-level effects have been more prominent. The opening segment was itself a vibrant tableau, beginning dramatically on the music of Romeo & Juliette ( "O Verona" ), which would be more common as a finale than an introduction! Several segments of this show were very powerful, so that the actual finale paled in comparison, the contrast with previous segments being less striking than usually.

The five firing ramps were used by Foti International, but the surface of water remained pretty quiet. There was a great thick carpet of nautical fountains, but no other water effects were shown (it is likely the less nautical show this year, but it should be reminded that Pyroemotions & Pyrodigit won the Gold Jupiter without nautical products in 2013). The show was dense. On the music of "Scott & Fran's Paso", we saw two massive flights of whistling comets from the second ramp. I counted more than 160 of them on a picture I took from the Ferris Wheel (whose operators had some challenges tonight with the number of riders and the loading process).

While the show was not as sophisticated as the French one, it had a good level of complexity, with regular sequences featuring a great mix of effects and colours among low- and high-levels products. There was several fast sequences of fans and mines. The Moulin Rouge segment was as intense as a finale, with crossing mines and barrages of shells after barrages of shells with other fast sequences of mines on the musics of "Crazy in Love" and "Fire in the Sky". We also enjoyed a good range of pyrotechnic products, including rare cylindrical shells and laser comets (which have been seen in the Canadian display). The anticipated animal-shape shells were not very obvious to my eyes. Even on video, the effects do not appear very well-done.

The theme, that is, Baz Lurhmann's movies, provided various sorts of musics, some of them being known from the audience and engaging. It was a light, not intrusive theme, more "easy" than the French one. The soundtrack followed this theme. I wonder whether Foti should have improved the soundtrack, as they favoured short interruptions between most segments instead of mixing them. That choice may have elicited more applauses from the audience during this display than in other ones.

The synchronization was very good and flawless through the show, with some note-synchronized segments. The audience became vocal during "Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps", where laser comets and gerbs were synchronized with the very serene ending. The show didn't suffer of any obvious problem or dark time, despite a fire which erupted on the left side of the firing area.

This was Foti's 5th display in Montreal. Following its debut performance in 1996, the team won the Silver Jupiter in 2001 and the Bronze one in 2006. As we are going to make our predictions soon, it may be interesting to note that when it has won, Foti was the ultimate contestant to present its extravaganza. In opposition, they were scheduled in the middle of the line-up in 1996 and 2009.

That was the 180th show I attended on-site, at La Ronde. It was also the 272th in the competition history, so I reached the symbolic threshold of 66%. Even with this record, I am happy to not be on the jury as I would have experienced a tough time to properly assess the Australian performance. With four displays which were excellent in my opinion, I suspect that the competition is tighter this year than in previous years. It may also be more difficult to predict which teams are going to be on the podium, and the specific position of each of them. I will share my ranking and predictions soon.

Fred

Here is the link for the 2014 videos.

http://www.burchcom.com/2014/index.html

To download your own copy, right click on this link and select "save target as" ... the file is 1 GB

http://www.burchcom.com/2014/2014australia.mp4

Foti presented a very good display set to the music of Baz Lurhmann movies.

Like Fred outlined, the opening segment was very powerful and the thematic connection to the Romeo+Juliet movie was made very clear by the use of different colors in the left and right parts of the sky to represent the two feuding families. There were also two crossing orange and green comets used during the "A pair of star crossed" part of the lyrics to further highlight the theme.

The now infamous laser comets appeared during the third segment, set to "Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps". Although these effects are quite spectacular, I found that they were used more effectively by Royal/FSC team on ramp #5, as the proximity made the effect much more spectacular, than by Foti on ramp #3, because they appeared smaller and thus the synchronized extinction effect was not as impressive.

The range of products displayed was as good as chinese shells can be, but although Foti has worked successfully to produce european-like colors in their chinese factory, the gold shells were dimmer than spanish or italian ones and were therefore less impressive.

Due to the relative low cost of chinese shells, the designer could use very powerful segments of mid-caliber (5" and 6" ) shells very often in the display. The breaks of some shells were loud enough to evoke a finale feeling at numerous times, but it's true that their proper finale seemed to lack intensity as a result because of the numerous "false finales" that had occured before and had set the intensity bar very high.

Yet, I found that quantity was traded too often for quality during these intense segments, as low cost shells of all colors (peonies, etc.) would be used to fill the sky instead of showcasing a lesser amount of more expensive and interesting shells.

Speaking of which, I observed the same double-effect ghost shells and nautical fountains as during Brézac's entry, so although Dominique Brézac would not name his suppliers, I have a strong feeling that the new Foti factory in China did supply some products used in the French display !

Also, I felt that the italian roots of the Foti family were demonstrated at numerous times during the display, with great use being made of roman candles and chains of shells on delays. The new chinese venture was also made clear with the use of cake slices of all types, including very effective gold mine fans that filled ramp #3 with a relatively small amount of launch positions being used at that time.

The whistling rockets/girandolas were also very effective, but I still wonder about the real nature of these effects. After all, judging from Fred's set-up pictures, they appeared to be shaped like regular girandolas, but ascended very quickly and left a trail that reminded me of rockets.

There were a few technical mistakes, like a lone blue peony shell being launched during a blue falling leaves segment (to be followed by a lone falling leaf during a peony segment), but it wasn't too bad considering the large amount of pyrotechnic material on ramps #1-#2. Fortunately, a fire on the left of ramp #3 that seemed to threaten the leftmost firing station by growing very rapidly during the first minutes self-extinguished without further intervention. A single shot did came out unexpectedly on ramp #3 at the end of the display and a small fire broke out also on ramp #3, but that was it.

This display was good enough in my mind to net Foti a Bronze Jupiter, but it wasn't ambitious enough on the technical aspect to displace Royal/FSC and Brézac from the two highest positions on the podium.

STL

Excellent show by the Australian team. Pure brilliance and professionalism! I really enjoyed it from start to finish, typically Australian! The synchronization was almost flawless, and the soundtrack was good enough. I'm not too sure about the theme, but there some very interesting and cleverly done segments.

The finale was really good, but should have been a bit longer. We had some really good finales this year!

My official 2014 rankings:

1. Canada
2. Australia
3. Spain
4. USA
5. France
6. Italy

Salut

Foti a présente un grand spectacle à la hauteur de sa réputation.
Je suis certain que les spectateurs ont apprécié ce feu d'artifice très intense avec un arsenal de qualité, beaucoup de grosses bombes , luminosité et amplitude A-1.

Fallait qu'il en soit ainsi pour les artificiers afin de rivaliser avec la présentation de Royal et FST.

La trame sonore ...je l'ai trouvé ordinaire , pas très accrocheuse.
Les figures comme les coeurs et autres...plusieurs mal déployées dans le ciel.
Enchaînements parfois laborieux entre les différents segments .
Très belle finale très sonore à l'image de tout le spectacle.
J'ai apprécié mais après la prestation je me suis dit que ce ne serait pas un feu facile à juger .

En conclusion...j'ai passé là aussi une très bonne soirée.

Roger

That was a good show from Foti. It was better than their last 2 shows since it was cleaner and there was less cakes. The products were ok, the strobes were very nice specially the strobe mines that comes with the single row fans. Some of their single shots and single rows were not as precise as single shots should be resulting to some delay when a wall of mines are attempted. Even when they fire 3 or 5 single row cakes, sometimes one of them would appear later than the others. Things like this should not happen; specially in a show for montreal. I really enjoyed the first sequence of mines that appeared to be going around. They could have used it more during the show.

Overall, it was a pretty good show and should score high for people who watched for the amount of shells. Their soundtrack was pretty familiar, that could help them get a higher rank in the podium than spain or france.

Best Regards,
Vander

A fairly warm Summer's evening gave way to a temperature of 22 C in the metropolitan area, borderline moderate-high humidity, and generally light winds of 11-14 km/h (occasional gusts of 21-24 km/h) from the SSW to SW, although the winds had been breezier during the hours leading up to the display. This caused the smoke to pass relatively quickly towards the right of the audience of La Ronde, but there had been some periods of smoke buildup to the far right along low-level, causing the display to sometimes appear murky there. Light showers, however, had been developing in close proximity to the island of Montreal during the show and just after the display came to a close (becoming more widespread towards 1:15 a.m.), and isolated thunderstorms were in development nearby during the mid-afternoon, as evidenced in the following radar imageries and photograph. Many spectators had appropriately brought umbrellas, just in case.

Late-evening convective showers (just after display time):

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b132/Rain12/July26th20141.jpg

Mid-afternoon isolated thunderstorms:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b132/Rain12/July26th2014.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b132/Rain12/July26th2014-1.jpg

What an exciting and vehement display by Team Australia. As noted during Paul’s interview, the designers’ objective was to “create an enjoyable and interesting display for the audience…”. I can safely say that this goal was more than achieved, as I do not believe that I have heard so many rounds of strong roars of approval for any display so far this year! Most assuredly, there was so much action (really, a series of faux finales) and intensity throughout this show that I was very often left stunned. Much of the show was so focused at mid- to high-level that, as Fred stated above, much the people outside La Ronde frequently felt a great deal of satisfaction. Indeed, the pyromusical design of the display was very engaging and allowed for some great transitions in rhythm and pace, creating different moods through most of the show. Since the display was mostly fast-paced, the small breaks between segments were, to me, actually beneficial. Product quality was high (making all competitors this year exhibiting vastly high-quality products), and the rich selection of colors and symmetry of the shells, in particular, further exemplified the quality, although, as Simon pointed out, I, too, thought that the gold colors tended to fade rather quickly, appearing a little dim. The low-level sequences were likely the most defining aspect of the display (some of the most memorable were present to open the show), and the angled mines from left to right and right to left were a reminder of some of those firing patterns seen during Italy 2013. As a result, I thought that synchronization was largely well done and was sometimes executed creatively (again, mostly during the rapid low-level sequences), and the selected music was mostly enjoyable and appropriate. The low-level effects also, for me, made up for the lack of nautical devices. Synchronization was nicely demonstrated through the use of the laser comets during “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps”, although I agree that it was more effective during the Canadian show. The most memorable section for me, though, as others have already described above, was when that series of white whistling/screaming comets (or rockets?) dramatically emerged from the central part of the firing site, both to open and conclude the segment of “Scott & Fran’s Paso”. This was very, very captivating, more so with respect to the echoing noise that had been generated! Finally, because most of the show was more concentrated at higher levels of sky, unlike the American team, the vertical depth of the display was often not compromised, as the Australian team effectively made use of low-level supporting effects while amplifying the width of the show and usually leaving no void skies. As such, the symmetry of the display was generally sustained efficiently.

As successful as this performance was, however, I thought the theme, although well represented, somehow lacked substance for a more complex design. This led to a more simplistic thematic connection, even though the thematic representation through the pyrotechnics was apparent. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the display (many of you probably know that I am most pleased with fast-paced and intense shows), the firing sequences, notably at mid- to high-level, became a little repetitive from one segment to the other, which reduced the creativity aspect somewhat when representing the elements of the different soundtrack. The transitions in pace, again, were effective, but I thought that the use of horsetails became a touch too common for the more serene sections. Synchronization was also, as mentioned, excellent, but there had been points where the music stopped and the fireworks kept going - I counted three segments where fireworks continued as the music came to a close, including the finale. A few technical errors also occurred when the odd large shell of blue stars and outlying horsetail emerged, although these were very minor. The finale was decent, but, as Simon also pointed out, the danger of having such a large and intense display is that the finale needs to be proportionally more intense/enduring in order to really be convincing and, subsequently, have a lasting appeal, or else it will just become eclipsed by earlier (more) intense sequences rather than overseeing the display, in its entirety, like it should. Consequently, while the finale began at an enticing pace, it was on the short side and lacked crescendo. Their 2006 finale was quite stunning!

All that said, this display certainly faces high chances to collect an award this year, especially after producing a very appealing display for the final entrant of the competition! Thank you, Foti’s International Fireworks, for crafting such an exquisite and vitalizing display!

Trav.

My report - another excellent display - http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=973

Certain of a Jupiter, but I think Royal/FSC will beat them and take the Gold, with Foti taking Silver.

Paul.