FIREWORKS DISPLAY - SHOW PRODUCTION
There is a lot involved in producing a coherent, meaningful, and artistic fireworks show, Some believe that more is more, but this is not always the case. While thinking about what fireworks to use and where and when they will be used in your show, keep in mind that the simplest ideas are often the most successful and beautiful. This may be hard to believe or understand at first, but this phenomenon is very true for other forms of "tasteful endeavours" such as music, dance, art and architecture. The catch is how you develop and produce the simple idea in a way such that you generate an ordered, complex, intriguing, meaningful and disciplined strategy from it (Note: there is a big difference between ‘idea’ and ‘strategy.’)*A good analogy is to think of your fireworks as musical notes. Certain notes work together to create chords. Chords are then used in progression to organize musical implication. There are good chord progressions and there are bad ones. The most beautiful progressions are often the most simple, but you wouldn’t know it at first unless you have a very analytical ear. Great music is, at heart, nothing more than a series of simple chord progressions.
*The following definitions were taken from Dictionary.com as they most relevantly apply to the discourse of this document: Strategy - a plan of action intended to accomplish a specific goal. Idea – something, such as a thought or conception, that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity. With this, it is cogent to assert that, upon the fundaments of the aforementioned definitions, an idea operates generatively within the mind only; independent of intention and inherently generalized, while a strategy operates as a manifestation of an idea and can only intend to generate a specific outcome or set thereof. For example, ‘overlapping spaces’ is an idea, whereas overlapping spaces organized in a way such that a sequence and hierarchy are established is a strategy.
Intention & Perception:
Delving a little deeper for the moment, it is extremely important to evaluate your intentions and how they are perceived by the audience. Some of us are looking for specific reactions from the audience at certain points throughout the show -such as surprise after a mine front, excitement during a barrage of z-cakes, awe/wonder during a brocade sequence, calmness during a falling leaves sequence, intensity/climax during and at the end of a finale, etc.The fundamental problem is that fireworks, especially display fireworks, are inherently powerful enough in their own right to convey all the typical reactions that we as designers attempt to plan, but do so without any formal organization or artistic logic.
And so the question becomes: how does one get his audience to truly comprehend and appreciate (perceive) his creative intentions, and thereby avoid the commonplace perception of “littering the sky with colourful bombs.”
It follows that the primary method in debunking this issue is to target specific emotions in a precise and creative manner and bring them out to their fullest extent, so as to trigger an appreciative and prescribed perception, rather than just an easy, purely emotional reaction.
Essentially, you want the audience to “get it,” and you will know when they really do, because you planned it that way. It is much more of an accomplishment to see and hear your audience applaud when you planned for them to applaud, gasp when you planned for them to gasp, smile and hug each other when you planned for them to smile and hug each other, cheer wildly when you planned for them to cheer wildly, etc., than it is to watch them sporadically utter ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs,’ and applaud generically following the grand finale. In the same way, it is much more of an accomplishment knowing that your efforts were for something deeper than the intrinsic qualities of pyrotechnic devices—that a successful act of communication took place.
This is no easy task, as it requires an understanding of fundamental psychology, acute show-making skills, meticulous planning, and sophisticated technology. However, it can be done and is definitely a goal worth working toward.
Maybe all this seems obvious, but it is just here to remind you that you really need to think about the implications of type, firing pace, colour scheme, colour intensity, volume (loudness), timbre (character of the sound a given firework makes), and spacing, in any fireworks device(s) or sequence(s) you plan to use in your show.
If you take nothing else from this segment, take the fact that just because you love an effect or a sequence on paper or in reality, does not necessarily mean that your audience has the capacity at that point in time to truly appreciate what you are doing, or the mind to ever share that specific love with you.
Build & Rhythm:
The idea of the “build-up” is the most fundamental in any sort of entertainment formula—it is absolutely critical to recognize this. Whether it is a steady build throughout a sequence, a sudden build at the very end, or some repetitive interplay between, every sequence should have some sort of build to it. The show, at large, should also have a build to it. Essentially, build should be used to setup highs in order to contrast the lows. The best shows strategize build-up multidimensionally— meaning they build in not only time, but in effect, sound, quantity, space, arrangement and colour
Rhythm comes into play here as a necessary agent in build. This means that rhythm, or the pace of firing, allows one to articulate the build. Think about all the sounds resulting from the discharge of the devices you are firing, most importantly the lift and the break sounds, but also any sort of time delayed effects like crossettes, or any special effects like whistles, hummers, bees, crackle, etc. Rhythm is a very powerful underlying idea that will drive the show, just as a drum beat drives a song. With fireworks, think abstractly. Set up simple patterns of sound and repeat them, then “change the beat” to differentiate a new sequence—again, it works the same way in music.
Firework Sequencing:
This is another fundamental aspect of producing a successful show. A show should be a series of differentiable main sequences, within which may exist any number of sub-sequences. Good sequencing gives the audience a very clear idea of pace, structure, and organization in your display. It is usually a healthy practice to pause between each main sequence.
Differentiation & Scale:
One of the lesser thought-about, yet undeniably influential ideas to consider, is the cooperation of differentiation and scale. Imagine a show is 20 minutes long--now imagine that show is all 12inch peony shells, even the five minute finale. It is more than likely, if you have any taste at all, that you will either be very bored or very annoyed at the end of that show. The reason is because the show lacked differentiation and scale. To keep your audience interested and impressed, you need to exhibit a scheme of effect sizes, colours and spacings that interplay creatively and dynamically. Discipline is key; one should seek to avoid at all costs, the drag of repetitious homogeneity, but do so without “puking the sky.”
Theme:
Giving each sequence a theme establishes a sense of unity and coherence that both you and your audience will appreciate. This has much to do with the art of differentiation. Essentially, make it easy for people to tell the difference between your pyrotechnic sequences. Themes should be kept fairly simple and should be organized with consideration to the effect, colour, sound, size and height of the fireworks you are firing in a given sequence. Complicated combinations and over-varied effects make for a very confusing theme, because your audience is only capable of perceiving and interpreting a limited number of visual occurrences at one time. For example, usually more than three constant and simultaneously occurring effects in each sequence will tend to make your show look like an unorganised mess. Theme is a necessarily affected agent in the Simplicity Theory.
Spacing:
A critical issue in any show, spacing adds a whole new dimension. Where items are fired in relation to each other gives you the ability to single-out, combine, compliment, celebrate or reinforce certain items. Think of spacing as a 2-dimensional construct in the case of producing a fireworks show—that is, vertical and horizontal spacing in the sky.
Vertical spacing involves the use of varying effect levels.
--for our purposes, the word level means the general height range at which a given firework will break within. There are low, mid and high level effects--
Horizontal spacing involves the distance between items that are breaking and how their positions in the sky relate to each other as they perform.