Oregon City High School
Last night (Oct 26) I helped out at another shoot by Homeland Fireworks (last shoot with them here). This one was for the Oregon City High School homecoming football game. I personally have no interest in football and don't really even know the rules, the only football game I've ever watched was my own high school homecoming game, and it wasn't my choice to go. We lost!
Getting to this shoot was very last minute, I heard something rather vague two days before, but didn't get a chance to find out any details until the morning of the show, so I was lucky to be able to make it on such short notice!
Anyway, people seemed to care about this game, as it was well attended. I got there half an hour late because I didn't really know where it was and then got stuck behind their little parade, then drove around trying to find an alternate way into the shoot area that didn't exist. Everything was set up by the time I got there and I felt kind of stupid for that, but oh well.
The shoot site was pretty small, across from the home team side of the field in a soccer field/grass area. The show consisted of about 250 2.5" shells, opening with mines, then matched pairs, triples, quads and the finale of 5 shell chains. The first part was hand fired and the finale stuff was all efired.
I didn't actually get to light anything this time because somebody else already had that job and I was late anyway, so I was just general help. During the national anthem we lit some salutes at the end, then were prepared to light some more if the home team got a touchdown. The main show was supposed to last 2-3 minutes and was fired during halftime. We started the show with a group of four mines and Pat (the lead) was back at the firing board and fired a few volleys when things slowed down a little handfiring. Things got slightly mixed up (none of it was my fault!) and a couple things were supposed to be reloaded didn't get done, so the guy hand firing (I forgot his name, sorry!) ran back and got them, then forgot part of the last rack of shells. Pat started the finale (which probably had 2/3 of all the shells in the show) a little early, but it looked good. The hand fired racks were various effects shells and the finale was fans of red white and blue shells and salutes, then mixed shells and lots more salutes. I think out of 250 shells over 100 were salutes! It made a lot of noise and everyone liked it as far as we could tell. One shell didn't fire because it was paired with another and the quickmatch of the first shell separated it so it did not ignite, but everything else worked. We fired a few more shells for a touchdown in the second half and at the end of the game fired the remaining shells. The team lost 14-30something, but we didn't want to have to take any product home!
Clip 1 - Salutes during the national anthem.
Getting to this shoot was very last minute, I heard something rather vague two days before, but didn't get a chance to find out any details until the morning of the show, so I was lucky to be able to make it on such short notice!
Anyway, people seemed to care about this game, as it was well attended. I got there half an hour late because I didn't really know where it was and then got stuck behind their little parade, then drove around trying to find an alternate way into the shoot area that didn't exist. Everything was set up by the time I got there and I felt kind of stupid for that, but oh well.
I didn't actually get to light anything this time because somebody else already had that job and I was late anyway, so I was just general help. During the national anthem we lit some salutes at the end, then were prepared to light some more if the home team got a touchdown. The main show was supposed to last 2-3 minutes and was fired during halftime. We started the show with a group of four mines and Pat (the lead) was back at the firing board and fired a few volleys when things slowed down a little handfiring. Things got slightly mixed up (none of it was my fault!) and a couple things were supposed to be reloaded didn't get done, so the guy hand firing (I forgot his name, sorry!) ran back and got them, then forgot part of the last rack of shells. Pat started the finale (which probably had 2/3 of all the shells in the show) a little early, but it looked good. The hand fired racks were various effects shells and the finale was fans of red white and blue shells and salutes, then mixed shells and lots more salutes. I think out of 250 shells over 100 were salutes! It made a lot of noise and everyone liked it as far as we could tell. One shell didn't fire because it was paired with another and the quickmatch of the first shell separated it so it did not ignite, but everything else worked. We fired a few more shells for a touchdown in the second half and at the end of the game fired the remaining shells. The team lost 14-30something, but we didn't want to have to take any product home!
Clip 1 - Salutes during the national anthem.
Clip 2 - Part of the show body.
Clip 3 - Part of the finale.
Clip 4 - Remaining shells at the end of the game.
So that was it. Nothing fancy and I didn't get to shoot this time, but I still had fun and will hopefully do another shoot with these guys soon because they are a lot of fun. Also, I didn't have to drive very far this time!
