Sumner bridge lighting - Nov 23
The day after Thanksgiving I did another shoot with Wolverine in Sumner, WA for their annual bridge lighting celebration. They have done it for many years, but this was the first time with fireworks. The fireworks weren't the main focus, so they wanted a short 5-6 minute show as soon as the lights went on and with the budget that meant we could keep up a good pace. Too often people want a show twice as long as their budget can really support, and it gets boring, which was happily not the case here.
Left - The bridge before dark, it had lights strung all along it and actually looked pretty nice once it was lit up.
We fired from two positions, one close to the bridge and a second further back in line with the first one. On the right is the closer position. The show had a fairly even mix of 1.4G and 1.3G (maybe a bit more on the 1.3G side). The largest shells were 2.5" plus some 3" and 4" mines, the rest were cakes and 1.75" 1.3G shells. There were six or seven 1.3G cakes such as whistling serpents, salutes, crossettes, and some various shell effects. The show also had a lot of salutes! Most of the 2.5" shells were salutes, plus one of the big salute cakes and three dozen little 25 shot Oriental Thunder salute cakes. Wolverine has a lot of those getting old in the magazines and wants to use them up...
Left - Overview of the larger second position. This one had a few 1.4G cakes, most of the 1.3G cakes and shells.
Left - Closer view of the second position with shells and cakes behind them. We fired the little Oriental Thunder salute cakes in groups of 12, which made a lot of noise and was kind of fun. One of Wolverine's Dreamweaver cakes was in this show, which has a really cool effect.
My brother and his girlfriend came down to watch the show and hang out. We didn't have a lot of warning when we were actually starting, so we were chatting off to the side when things started and I had to run off to grab my camera. This also meant I didn't have time to get my ear plugs, which would have been nice... With all the salutes several car alarms went off as soon as the show started, which is always a little funny. I'm not a big salute fan so I felt there were too many, but I know a lot of people (including much of the general public watching) likes them. It wasn't as carefully designed as the last few Wolverine shows I've helped on, but it was still pretty good and I'm sure the crowd enjoyed it, especially the stuff at the closer position, which must have looked huge from where they were watching!
Clip 1 - 1.3G crossette cake and 1.4G Falling Water Chutes in the distance at the other position. Forgive the narration, I was chatting with my brother most of the show as we watched...
We fired from two positions, one close to the bridge and a second further back in line with the first one. On the right is the closer position. The show had a fairly even mix of 1.4G and 1.3G (maybe a bit more on the 1.3G side). The largest shells were 2.5" plus some 3" and 4" mines, the rest were cakes and 1.75" 1.3G shells. There were six or seven 1.3G cakes such as whistling serpents, salutes, crossettes, and some various shell effects. The show also had a lot of salutes! Most of the 2.5" shells were salutes, plus one of the big salute cakes and three dozen little 25 shot Oriental Thunder salute cakes. Wolverine has a lot of those getting old in the magazines and wants to use them up...
Left - Closer view of the second position with shells and cakes behind them. We fired the little Oriental Thunder salute cakes in groups of 12, which made a lot of noise and was kind of fun. One of Wolverine's Dreamweaver cakes was in this show, which has a really cool effect.
My brother and his girlfriend came down to watch the show and hang out. We didn't have a lot of warning when we were actually starting, so we were chatting off to the side when things started and I had to run off to grab my camera. This also meant I didn't have time to get my ear plugs, which would have been nice... With all the salutes several car alarms went off as soon as the show started, which is always a little funny. I'm not a big salute fan so I felt there were too many, but I know a lot of people (including much of the general public watching) likes them. It wasn't as carefully designed as the last few Wolverine shows I've helped on, but it was still pretty good and I'm sure the crowd enjoyed it, especially the stuff at the closer position, which must have looked huge from where they were watching!
Clip 1 - 1.3G crossette cake and 1.4G Falling Water Chutes in the distance at the other position. Forgive the narration, I was chatting with my brother most of the show as we watched...
Clip 2 - Twelve Oriental Thunders at each position. They have a nice mix of colors going up!
Clip 3 - 1.3G Dreamweaver cake plus some salutes. Also a few 1.4G Blue Pearl with Gold Strobe cakes visible at the end.
Clip 4 - Various stuff...the nice tails are from some little 1.3G cakes that look like 1.4G 200g. The breaks are nothing much, but the tails are great.
Clip 5 - Various 1.3G shells and a whistling serpent cake. This was pretty close to the finale (a salute cake) which I didn't get on video.
So, that was the show. Short, loud and sweet! It gets dark nice and early, so we started shooting at 5pm and were done with cleanup just after 6pm, which was great. Wolverine is doing a show on New Years but I'm busy then, so I don't know what my next shoot will be...but hopefully I don't have to wait too long!
