Amn't’s blog

John's Birthday show 10-10-09

nobody@vox.com(Amn't) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:46:31 -0700

What happens with a former fireworks display company owner has a birthday? A huge show of course!

I got a phone call a couple weeks ago from John asking if I'd help on a show for his birthday. I hadn't had any smoke in a while so I would have done it anyway, but when he told me they would be shooting 12" nothing would keep me away.

John1

The show had about 2,500 shells, including several 12" shells and a gold section several minutes long. There were probably 25 people helping set up that morning, the racks and sandboxes were done in previous days. The shells were all ematched and marked ahead of time, with tubes marked with corresponding numbers, so setup went fairly smoothly and efficiently. All we had to do that day was drop the shells in the right tube and wire everything up, so after about four and a half hours we were almost done. I had been hoping to get a picture of myself holding a 12" shell because there probably won't be many chances for that in the future, but they had already been dropped the previous day.

John2

There were plenty of pyros there and I had some work to do back home, so I left once things were mostly set up and returned about 45 minutes before showtime (7:30, it sure gets dark early now, a nice change from summer as long as weather cooperates). This time I got to just sit back in my chair and watch the show, without doing any post-show work.

The show was efired with a nailboard and was a lot of fun. It wasn't tightly scripted, but there was some good variety, big salutes, great big shells, nice false finales and a huge finale. The several minutes of gold was a little repetitive and went a little long in my opinion, but was still pretty cool. The show lasted over 30 minutes, which is probably the longest show I've seen and things were always happening.

(Video links at bottom of post)

John3

John4

Video direct links- Part 1 (97MB) and Part 2 (107MB)

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Bothell shoot 8-28-09

nobody@vox.com(Amn't) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:24:28 -0700

Another super late post, I suck at blogging, etc etc. I'll keep this short.

This was a show with Wolverine for Bothell River Days, shot at the high school sports field. The show was 95% 1.4G, with a bunch of 1.75" salutes mixed in (Andy designed this show, so of course there were lots of salutes!). We had a lot of ematching to do, including XO shells, and ended up a lot more than were actually scripted. The one thing I was excited about was two of the old Swimming Pearls in the show, but one of them didn't fire! It was still great to see the old classic... The show was pretty good (similar to the Fircrest show below), but the music got all screwed up. The plan was for the guy in the sports booth to play the music the same time we started the firing script, but he messed up and the music was way off. Next time we'll bring our own speakers so we don't have to rely on others...

Lots of ematched XO shells:

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One of the main cake positions:

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Run! it's the fuzz!

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Overall site:

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I got video, but it isn't really worth posting. It looks pretty much like the Fircrest show but with messed up music...

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Fircrest Fun Days 8-8-09

nobody@vox.com(Amn't) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:42:26 -0700

If you look at the date on the last post, you can see I've been pretty lazy about blogging recently, even with a couple shows to post. I've had a lot of other stuff going on that hasn't left much room for pyro and now the season is pretty much over! Hopefully I find a few chances to light some stuff soon and get back in the groove.

Anyway, here is a show that happened more than a month ago and I'm just now posting... I'll just make this a quick one without too many comments just to get it done. This was the second of two shows Wolverine West did at Fircrest this summer, though I didn't make it to the first. The show was almost all 1.4G except for a bunch of 1.75" salutes and other similar small 1.3G items, as well as the same mines used in the Covington show. Here are a few pictures of the setup (click to embiggen):

Picture 1 - Lots of cakes to ematch!
Picture 2 - Lots of salutes and other shells.
Picture 3 - One of two mirrored cake positions.
Picture 4 - Center cake position.
Picture 5 - Overall setup with the event in the background.

The show was chaotic but fun, I'll just skip right to the video (direct links):

Part 1 and Part 2

Next late post coming soon about the show I helped with in Bothell...

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Ephrata 100th Anniversary 6-19-09

nobody@vox.com(Amn't) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:37:40 -0700

Ephrataww

On Friday I helped Wolverine on a small show in Ephrata, WA, a town I've never been to before out in the middle of the state.

I only took one real picture, so here it is... Left to right we have Phil, Rod and Dan setting things up.

The show was for the town's 100th anniversary, in combination with a Walk For Life cancer research fundraiser. The audience was at the track while we were setting up in the baseball fields a distance away, so while it was a fairly small show, it was almost all 1.3G unlike most other shows Wolverine does for this budget range. Rod was worried about 1.4G items getting enough height, so other than four Screaming Meemie 500g cakes, everything else was 3" shells and 1.3G cakes.

The 1.3G cakes used were all new ones that hadn't been shot in the US yet, so we didn't know the exact timing on them. As a result, Rod decided to manually efire the show so that the next item could be started when the previous one ended. They wanted a longer show, so it wasn't real exciting in terms of design. Basically it was all from one position, with single 3" shells one at a time, then a 1.3G cake, then more shells, repeating and speeding up a bit at the end with a few finale chains at the end. This is obviously different from the shows Wolverine usually does, and Rod called it a "[company name not given for tact]-style show."

Setup was done by 4pm or so, but showtime wasn't until 11:20pm, so we had a LOT of time to kill. I'm glad I brought a book! The show was originally scheduled to start at 11:45pm and have the finale go at midnight to mark the very beginning of the 100th anniversary date, but we were happy it was moved up a little. This also meant that the show could be sped up a little so it would be more exciting because we didn't have to end at an exact time. The mayor was giving a speech (that we could not hear from our location) and the lights going out at the end was supposed to be the cue to start shooting, but the light guy accidentally turned them off early and we started the show in the middle of his speech! He was apparently a good sport about it and didn't mind not having to read the whole speech.

The show was enjoyable if unremarkable. It was interesting to see the wide range of performance among the 3" shells of several different brands. I don' t know which were which, but some had larger full breaks, while others didn't look much better (and some were worse) than a good 1.4G shell. The new 1.3G cakes were all very nice, especially some of the high shot count fan cakes.

I used Rod's camera to get video, so I didn't get anything on my own camera. I might eventually get a copy from him, but it could be a while...

Next up is July 4th! I'll be helping on the Hederson Bay show again, so that should be a lot of fun. I don't know what the show is like this year, but I'll be helping drop product on the 3rd and hopefully poking around Firecracker Alley a little bit while I'm there...

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Renn Fayre 2009 Fireworks [Updated with high quality video at bottom]

nobody@vox.com(Amn't) — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:25:37 -0700

I've been posting about it pretty much since the smoke cleared from the Renn Fayre 2008 fireworks, and on Saturday May 2nd, I finally shot the 2009 show. It didn't quite live up to my high hopes because of weather-related problems, a couple scripting issues, and the fact that it wasn't the dramatic change of last year, but looking back at it, I'm fairly happy overall and the crowd seemed to enjoy it.

Short background for the various people reading this: Renn Fayre is the end of classes party at Reed College in Portland, OR. I graduated last year, and got them to put me in charge of the show, working with Wolverine West Fireworks. This year I came back as an alum to do it again and hope to keep doing it every year they'll have me back.

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[This is a very long post, so if you just want the video, skip to the bottom. I've spent so much time working on this show that there is a lot to get out, even if I don't expect anyone else to read this or care. The next section will be setup, then a bit on music, then a breakdown of the show by sections.]

Setup

The basic show was pretty similar to last year. It was e-fired to music (more on the the music later) on the same field, with five positions spaced 40' apart. Last year included a few small 1.3G (professional class for non-pyros reading this) items, but this year was entirely 1.4G, meaning every firework in the show could be purchased at a fireworks stand in Washington (but not Oregon!). I'm continually impressed by the quality of 1.4G, even after everything I've shot. At the right distance and with a well designed show, good 1.4G looks just as good as some of the professional products.

We had the setup better organized than last year, and got on the field shortly after noon to get to work, which was great. We had a good crew of eight or nine people and I can't thank them enough for the hard work of putting to show together.

Above - Blue skies for the moment, with a huge pile of fireworks ready to be laid out and hooked up.

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There was light rain in the forecast for much of the day, so we did our best to be prepared. Every item was wrapped in carpet film to try and keep water out, the cakes can then fire right through the plastic.

Right - Cakes at one position wrapped.

Wrapping each item was a very valuable precaution, but took a long time. Each item was already marked with a cue and ematched, which helped speed things up, but many of the ematches were short ones that needed to have their lead wires extended to reach the rails, which also added time to the setup.

We had light drizzle on and off, but later in the afternoon the sky got much darker and we got hit with some of the hardest rain I've seen in a long time. On top of that were wind and lightning, which struck and took down a tree about 200' from where we were working. All we could do was hope that the fireworks already out survived, and that the light plastic tarp covering all the fireworks that we hadn't wrapped yet stayed on. A couple guys got in the trailer, the rest of us lowered the tent and held the corners to keep it from blowing away and exposing more fireworks, all while getting soaked from the rain coming in sideways.

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Left - Heavy rain, guys hiding in the trailer and product under the plastic sheet. Luckily we had the fire extinguishers.

The rain eventually stopped and the sky started to clear up, but we had lost a lot of time at this point. Combined with worries about how well things survived the rain, I was getting worried that we wouldn't get everything finished in time. I worked as fast as I could to get the rest of the shells and mines ready to be loaded into the racks, then had to go check the rails to see if we at least had something plugged into each cue, and found several things to fix.

Rf2k9-04

By 8pm we had most of the fireworks set out, but still hadn't set up the audio or done continuity tests to make sure all the electrical systems were all connected and working. The cakes and individually cued shells and mines were almost all in place, so I ran around trying to get all the fountains for the finale buildup plugged in. I also had almost 80 shells for the last cue of the finale that still needed to be quickmatched and loaded into racks, by this point it was almost 9pm and obvious it was too late to get them loaded. We confirmed that all the modules were connected, but ran out of time before we could really check that every item was properly connected.

I was very stressed out at this point, but it was now too late to do anything about it (even to hit the beer garden for a few minutes to try and relax), so I just joined the crowd and hoped for the best.

At least the rain stopped a couple hours before showtime and I got a couple nice rainbow pictures before it got dark...

The Music

Last year, the music in the show was all from the band Explosions in the Sky. I wanted to do something different from the usual classic rock/pop that is used in most fireworks shows, and always felt their music would work well for fireworks. They are all instrumental, which I felt would help keep the fireworks as the focus, rather than worrying too much about the lyrics or meaning of the songs.

I tried to do something similar this year, making the soundtrack entirely from songs by Sigur Ros. Their music is similarly grand but also has some playfulness to it, especially on the last two albums. The lyrics are all in Icelandic or their made-up "Hopelandic," so it didn't distract from the fireworks and instruments. While I love ( ) and their other older stuff, every song but one was from their two most recent albums, Takk... and Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. I was tempted to throw in something more obscure to show the cool kids that I'm not a n00b, but songs like Dánarfregnir og jarðarfarir (or if you want to get super hardcore, Fjöll í austri fagurblá) don't really fit a fireworks show.

Rf2k9-05

The final soundtrack (edited sections of each song):

1. Takk... (Takk...) 30 seconds of the atmospheric intro track to signal the start of the show.

2. Gobbledigook (Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust) Nearly the whole song, I was hoping to match mines to the start and the whole song is just a lot of fun.

3. Inní mér syngur vitleysingur (Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust) Another fun song with some great tempo changes.

4. Hoppípolla (Takk...) My relative pop-culture isolation meant I didn't realize this song has probably been a bit overplayed (I had never seen the trailer for Slumdog Millionaire) until after I was done scripting, but the lyrics and video of the song are great for Renn Fayre. Even if you don't know it that well, it is a beautiful song and works well for a slower section (like the image above from the show).

5. Sæglópur (Takk...) A more dramatic and intense song, with some nice tempo changes.

6. Olsen Olsen (Ágætis byrjun) A late addition when I made the show longer in response to an unexpectedly large budget, a nice break from the intensity of Sæglópur.

7. Festival (Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust) The fast end of this song was used and intended to be a false finale.

8. Glósóli (Takk...) The real finale music. Like "A Poor Man's Memory" from the finale last year, this song has a slow repetitive build followed by a huge crescendo, perfect for a finale. Using this references the intro of the show, on the album this song immediately follows it, providing some form of resolution. The music video is also very cool and fits well with Renn Fayre.

The Show

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Direct link to cue sheet here: PDF file

The rain and lack of time to check everything meant that we had a 10-20% failure rate, which was unfortunate. In most cases it wasn't a huge deal, but other times it lead to some black sky, which is the nightmare of all pyros.

If you know the product you can follow along with the cue sheet and video linked below, but for the comments on each section, I will be refering to the time on the videos, not the cue sheet. I mention specific parts and items that worked well, but a lot of it is noting what didn't work, so there are lots of gory details.

1. Takk... - A nice way to get attention and all three fountains worked, with some nice silver sparks and decent height.

2. Gobbledigook - A mistake right away, the mines were supposed to be timed to match the opening guitar chords of the song, and they were all a couple seconds early. This happened on pretty much every mine in the show, which was incredibly frustrating because they were supposed to be my most accurately timed effect of the whole show. I think I screwed up when I translated the script I wrote from Excel into the fireworks script program... Just Light It (UP) is a great cake, but only two of three fired. Next up was supposed to be two 4 Tons of Fun #3 (UP), but they didn't fire, leading to a lot of black sky. As you can hear in the video, I was rather aggravated. At least the pair of shells broke right on cue (1:04) From here I was convinced everything was ruined, and had a hard time enjoying the things that did go right, so that was kind of a bummer. Razzle Dazzle (UP, starts about 1:39) was great, I wish I used more of them. Two of four Golden Willows at 2:30 didn't fire, but it still looked pretty good and the XO1 crackling willow shells at 2:38 were great. All three Killer in the Mist (UP) fired and are amazing for a 200g cake, but a High and Mighty (UP) that wasn't supposed to be here also started firing, so while everything else ended on cue (including a nice five shell volley of XO2s), that cake kept going long past the music.

3. Inní mér syngur vitleysingur - Only two of three Flying Fish with Zoom Power (WW) fired at the start of this song, but it still looked great. The mines at 4:49 were supposed to go a couple seconds later after the pause and right when the music picks up again, but it still looked fantastic and everything ended pretty much on cue.

4. Hoppípolla - The Blue Tie with Brocade Mine (WW) at the start of this section were supposed to be angled in V's, but I forgot with all my running around. Falling Water Chutes (WW) is a very elegant cake, though only two of three fired at 6:08. The timing at 6:53 worked perfectly, but the intended drama didn't quite work out when only one of three H2O (WW) fired at 7:02. 7:26 was supposed to be two PPS-8 (UP), but I couldn't get them, so this bit was a little repetitive. Almost every shell in the next part fired, and the XO1's looked great as usual. The two Gold Diggin Blonde (UP) were nice, but had a much longer duration than I had scripted, and went over the song. The three 3" Brocade Willows had nice large breaks with good hang time.

Rf2k9-07

5. Sæglópur - The mines at the start of this song were early like the others, they were supposed to go on the piano chords. Three Eye of the Storm (UP) were supposed to fire at the same time, and while only two went, they still looked fantastic. Following that (0:29) was supposed to be three Red White and Bluetiful (UP), but only one fired. It is still pretty impressive by itself, so it wasn't the end of the world. Only one of two Catalyst (RR) fired at 0:50, which was disspointing because I bought two specifically for the show months ago, but it was covered up well by the 200g cakes. The mines in the next section were of course off, with one missing. Only two of three Pow Bam fired after that, but the breaks on that cake are great, so it still looked good. All three Thug fired, with the crackle getting a good response as usual. One of the Yin Yang at 2:14 stopped firing at one row and the third High and Mighty is missing because it fired earlier in the show, but the end of the song looked pretty good and ended on time.

6. Olsen Olsen - Vendetta (GG) is a pretty nice little cake, and the crackle shells at 3:23 broke right on cue, which was great. The popcorn crackle breaks in Curtain Call (BP) starting at 3:40 were absolutely massive and surprised even me (the size, not the effect!), as well as getting a big reaction from the audience. The cakes following Curtian Call were two Pro Blue and one Pro Red (Bigs), but one blue didn't fire and the other one didn't fire the last few shots.

7. Festival - Here you can see why Gimmie Shimmy (WW) is one of my favorite cakes, with great glitter, timing and firing pattern. One of my 4 Tons of Fun cakes was the wrong one (the labels are very similar), but it wasn't a problem and the Pyro Gumbo (PP) added some nice hard breaks. This was intended as a false finale, but wasn't really much bigger than some other sections earlier in the show, so I guess I didn't plan that very well and the false finale last year was probably more impressive.

8. Glósóli - The building to the finale was supposed to be an expanding triangle of fountains, while I didn't get them all set up in time, it still sort of worked. The mines went early as usual, but everything else started on cue. The breaks from BMF (Bigs) were huge and a nice addition I picked up. Three New Dimension (GB) and five Pow Bam added lots of big breaks to the end, but I feel like I didn't have enough intensity or a fast enough pace towards the end, I could have used another case of 500g and one or two more cases of 200g at the very end. If I had time to fuse in the finale barrage shells (30 WC Super Mag w/Tail and 48 UP Mega Pyro) it would have made a big difference, so it was dissapointing that they didn't make it in. I was happy to see that pretty much everything ended right on cue.

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So that was the show in text form, which is always fascinating... I was stressed out from a long day of work and getting soaked, so the first few problems really frustrated me and colored my view of the whole show. Going back and watching the video, I'm a lot happier with how things turned out overall, especially given the difficult circumstances. Hopefully next year I'll have a chance to get more things right. After all, I ordered some fireworks several months ago that I plan on using for Renn Fayre 2010!

You can stop skipping the rest of this post, the video is finally here

The videos can also be found in my PyroU gallery.

Part 1 (direct link 55MB .avi)
Part 2 (direct link 50MB .avi)

Thank you to my wife for getting the video. I should also have a higher quality video (all one shot! a tripod!) in a month or so.

Update: A higher quality video of the show can be found here.

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Northwest Pyro demo - April 18

nobody@vox.com(Amn't) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:45:20 -0700

I was going to do a longer post, but it has already been a couple days and time is short! So the short version is Steve and associates are wholesaling for Hales this year, and shot a demo at the Muckleshoot Casino. PyroU folks were invited to help out and good times were had.

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We had something like ten PyroU guys show up, which made for quite a crew. I'm not sure what time other people got there, but a lot of the work was already done when I arrived around 5:30pm. Demo cakes were laid out and racks were being fused to demo shells. Up front were some fountains, candles and other small items.

Left - Fusing racks with slow visco for the demo. Shells shot in the demo included Area 51 and Redline from Pyro Predator (both great) and Gladiator from Golden Bear (great colors and effects, but not marked!)

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Right - Lots of cakes set out to demo. There were around 20 200g cakes, hald a dozen shell kits and two dozen 500g cakes.

Favorite 200g cakes from the demo:
1. Pyro Gumbo (Pyro Predator) - Huge breaks and big spread, sort of like a fanned Matrix Pyro. I have two of these in my show coming up.
2. I Love USA (Golden Bear) - Fanned red white and blue peonies, crackle finale. Good color and spread.
3. Hit and Run (Golden Bear) - Crackle mines and whistles to peony with crackle. Long duration (maybe a little slow) and nice size breaks. The breaks are sort of like a mini Global Dominance.

Nwpyro09demo03

Left - Setting up the finale, with four rows of quick viscoed cakes, mostly 200g with a few 500g in there. Ending in maybe 100 shells of various kinds.

Favorite 500g cakes from the demo:
1. Global Dominance (Pyro Predator) - I've seen this cake before and have ordered a rewrap I hope is just as good. Huge breaks, massive crackle finale.
2. Fire in the Hole (Shotgun) - Layered mines to a variety of fanned effects. Very nice.
3. Super Stunt (Winda) - Some of the biggest breaks of the night.

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Right - Inside the tent, where each item was set up to check out. If you retail, shelf-appeal is important! There were also lots of cupcakes, which was pretty sweet.

Demo items were shot once it was close to dark, starting with the little stuff like fountains and candles. I got video of almost every cake and shell, so check out my PyroU gallery for those.

The finale (video below) was awesome, way better than I was expecting. The eight Fireworks Fiestas at the start helped a lot, and it is hard to go wrong with that many cakes of almost any kind shot in about two minutes. When the shells started you certainly noticed, though I wish more of the racks were angled (glad I had my rack to contritbute and fuse).

After the official demo ended, we had a few things people brought to shoot. I brought Wolverine XO1 and XO2 shells to see them one at a time before my own show, and a 200g Golden Willows for the same reason. Chris shot several different types of shells like Golden One and Zillionaire, which were excellent.

It was great to see so many PyroU guys, along with a lot of fantastic product. A very nice way to start the season!

Northwest Pyro Demo finale

Direct link to the file here (15MB). Check my PyroU gallery for videos of most cakes shot...

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Lakewood Boys & Girls Club - Dec 10th

nobody@vox.com(Amn't) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:09:56 -0800

Yesterday was another Wolverine show, although this time I was just there was a spectator because I had an appointment early that day and couldn't help with setup, then had to be back in Seattle soon after the show ended, so no cleanup either. It was pretty nice to just show up and watch though!

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I'm not entirely clear on the occasion, but it had something to do with the local Boys & Girls club, Shriners, and Christmas. Apparently they've been trying to make a show happen for several years and it finally got off the ground, so that is cool. The show was landed by John, another guy that works with Wolverine, who also designed the show (I think he designed the Fife show I was at last year). The usual Wolverine shows are good, but this was a nice chance to see one done a little differently. Along with the usual Wolverine 1.4G products there were also some items by Brothers, World Class, and Black Cat.

I got there an hour before the show started and it was already dark, so the work was done and I couldn't see that much, especially because the cakes were all protected by plastic bags because of the risk of rain. The worst we had while I was there was heavy mist, which wasn't bad, but could have been a problem if they weren't prepared for it. As a result, I only got a few pictures and they don't show much...

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Instead of the FireOne, this show was shot by John with his nailboard, so it wasn't nearly as tightly scripted as usual. If it was raining John planned on shooting the show much faster, so this system gave things a bit more flexibility, though obviously less precision, as the cue sheet above shows.

The show itself was good and very well received by the crowd (not that it is hard to please a bunch of kids with fireworks). The opener was a big wheel that unfortunately didn't spin, but still looked pretty cool. That was followed by over a minute of fountains, which was a bit too slow for me (and the crowd, I cut most of it from the video below). Then it was pretty much craziness for the rest of the show. It was a bit of a sky-puke at times, but still looked good and had a lot of nice stuff in it. Spreading things out in a front would have looked a lot better, but there wasn't space to do it. There was also a small waterfall, which was pretty cool, I hadn't seen one in person before.

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Left - I think this was the only 1.3G cake in the show, and it certainly stood out!

Direct links to video: Part 1, Part 2.

So that was that. Good times were had, and it was nice to just relax and watch the show without doing anything! I'm not sure when my next show will be, I have plans for New Years, but there is apparently a show in late January in Oregon I might try and get to.

In other news, I've been getting a few spam comments to posts in Russian, which is kind of annoying and weird. I have been pretty quick about erasing them, but that is what is going on if you see anything. I thought about just disabling comments since almost nobody comments anyway, but I'll leave it open just in case...

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Sumner Bridge Lighting 2008 - November 28

nobody@vox.com(Amn't) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:03:01 -0800

For the second year in a row I helped on a Wolverine show in Sumner as part of their winter holiday kickoff. Overall it was pretty similar to last year, although I enjoyed the fireworks more this time (I got salute overload last year).

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The weather last year was great, but November in Washington can be pretty wet, so we were prepared for rain. Every cake was wrapped in carpet protection tape, which I had read about but hadn't seen used before. The tape is wide and sticky on one side, so it is easy to wrap cakes and cover tubes, making them nearly waterproof. Because it is pretty thin plastic, you can fire right through it. Luckily it didn't rain beyond a tiny mist for a short time, but it was good to have and is a very useful trick.

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The site was the same as last year, with two firing positions. One closer to the bridge and one on the other side of the library. The product used was 35+ 500g cakes, 24 200g cakes, 24 "baby B" cakes, three large 1.3G cakes, and some shells, mines and comets at each position. I liked that there were far fewer salutes this time, although there were certainly some noisy moments.

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At most points in the show, the same items fired from eaach position, often pairs of 500g cakes or groups of three 200g cakes. The large 1.3G cakes were at the further position for obvious safety reasons, so during those cakes, 500g 1.4G cakes were used at the position near the bridge.

The show was limited to only 5 minutes because they didn't want to block the road for too long, but because we fired from two locations the product was split and kept the whole thing from being a sky puke. There were a couple items I particularly wanted to watch for; Pow Bam, Nine, and Swimming Pearls. I wanted to compare the break size and effects between the two nine-shot cakes to help plan my own shows. I haven't seen Pow Bam shot in a while, and last time I helped on a show where a Nine was used there were too many other things going to pick out the breaks. Swimming Pearls is the version from the new factory that didn't swim (oops, the factory screwed up!), so I wanted to see what it did.

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(Far right - Continuity testing. The firing system was located between the two positions.)

(Right - Other position with bridge in the background.)

The nice thing about shooting this time of year is that it gets dark early, so showtime was 5pm! The show was very nice overall, with a few hiccups. There was some unintentional dark sky at one point (possibly from making a mistake on a cake duration) and two cakes didn't fire, one of which was the Pow Bam I was looking for, so that plan was foiled. The visco leader ignited but the first lift charge didn't go for whatever reason. I was watching at the position further from the bridge because it was a better spot to get video and I could also see the large 1.3G display cakes, though you could see the other position firing the whole time because it was in line with where I watched from. The colors in Swimming Pearls were fantastic, although it certainly didn't swim! (which is why they aren't selling on the consumer market). I might want it to fire a little faster, but I have high hopes for what it could be if the factory gets it right. I do sort of miss the nice long tails on the old version though...

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Anyway, it was a good show and we were done with cleanup by 6pm, which was pretty awesome.

Direct link to video here (32MB .wmv)

Next up is a show in Lakewood on Dec 10th. I have an appointment that day so I don't think I'll make it to setup, but I'm hoping to at least get there in time to watch the show.

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Little shoot at Stilly's - Nov 15th

nobody@vox.com(Amn't) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:55:25 -0800

A few of us WA guys on PyroU threw around the idea of a casual little get-together a few weeks ago and were able to make something happen on Saturday.

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We had maybe five PyroU guys plus a few friends, so it was a nice little crowd, though far from a full group shoot. I arrived with my brother and a couple friends around 5pm as it was almost dark and started looking through the store for a few things. I had brought about half my stash, but wanted to try a few things they carried and suppor them since they give us a nice place to shoot.

Frank was there, friendly and helpful as usual. I bought two Big Fireworks 500g cakes, Wide Angle and Airstrike, two Great Grizzly cakes marked as "360 gram", What's Up Dog and Vendetta, and Texas Gunslinger (Red Rhino) and Twinkling Web (Forward). While still in the store I missed a bunch of shells, they didn't wait for us! I hurriedly finished up inside and got over to the field in time to see some Critical Acclaim mines.

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Minigroupnov15-03

PyroU member cdbtx/Chuck was testing out the efire system he was building, and had it connected mostly to Wolverine products. I didn't get any video of it because I've seen those items plenty of times, but he fired a few groups of cakes that looked pretty nice, as well as three cremoras I wasn't quick enough with my camera to catch.

Minigroupnov15-04

Chris/seuss1973 had a few cakes to test out as well, some of which were pretty good (Evil Eyes) and some were a little lame (something with Terror in the name). A bit unexpectedly I had the largest pile of stuff to shoot that night, so I had plenty of fun lighting some of my items and having my brother and friend light a few.

[Videos of most cakes shot are in my PyroU gallery, I assume just about everyone reading this is registered there, so I'll only embed a couple highlights for the lazy.]

I was very happy with most of what I shot. Bada Bing was kind of weak but I had low expectations for that one anyway. After seeing a video that looked good, I was rather disappointed by What's Up Dog, but really liked Vendetta (both GG). Seeing a properly functioning Dahlias & Bouquets was nice, it appears the one I shot at the reception was fused wrong as well as not fiing the last row, the mines do all fire before the first shell volley. The effects on Heavy Metal are a little different from the last time I shot it, but it still looks great. I really liked both Airstrike (nice effects and spread) and Wide Angle (still frame above). Here are a couple videos, everything can be found in my gallery.

Dahlias and Bouquets (Wolverine)

Heavy Metal (Pyro King)

Wide Angle (Big Fireworks)

The weather was perfect (well a little more wind to blow smoke away would be nice) and my new torch worked perfectly! We got done by 7pm and left to begin planning the next time we could get together and shoot!

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Better late than never

nobody@vox.com(Amn't) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:14:31 -0700

My wife just found an image recently uploaded on facebook from my 2008 Renn Fayre fireworks show back in May, so I figured I'd throw it up here just because it looks pretty cool. I'm not 100% sure, but it appears to be three 200g Evil Clown with another break that might be from Gamma Glow. Always a little tricky to tell on these long exposure shots. Anyway, thanks for whoever got the picture... In other "better late that never" news, I've given up on ever getting a higher quality video of the show from the student that filmed it...

Rf2k8still

Not much else going on for me at the moment, no upcoming shows and I don't know the next time I'll get to shoot anything. I still have a lot of stuff that didn't get shot at my reception show, maybe I'll take a stash picture when I rearrange things.

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