Planning to Enter the Dominator Virtual Choreography Contest?

Here is a useful resource guide to designing a Fireworks Pyromusical.  See example videos at the end of the article!

Dominator’s Virtual Chorography Contest is a once in a lifetime opportunity.   This contest gives you the chance to design a true world class Pyro-Musical.   All you need to do is supply the show simulation and we will take care of all the rest, including all the cost of the product, crew, and set-up.  

You will be given full recognition as the show designer and you are welcome to attend the PGI and participate in setting up and shooting your masterpiece.   Who knows, perhaps the notoriety may further your pyrotechnic career if you are already in the business, or if you are dreaming of a life in fireworks, this just might be the calling card you need to break into the business!

All of this is made possible by close cooperation between Dominator Fireworks, who is the main sponsor of the contest and will supply all of the product, as well as Finale Fireworks whose software makes the simulation possible, and Advanced Technique Fireworks who will donate the computer firing equipment.    

A panel of fireworks professionals will choose the winning show.   There are really two styles of pyro-musical.   First is the “commercial approach”.   Generally, large pyro-musicals must appeal to a wide range of audience members and therefore will try to have a large variety of popular music to appeal to many different people, however they must take budget into consideration and the show must be profitable.  These displays can be a huge commercial success, but sometimes are not considered truly artistic by fireworks professionals.  The second style is the all out competition show.  L'International des Feux Loto-Québec (The Montréal International Fireworks Competition) is the world’s premier fireworks competition.   Here the best fireworks companies in each country are invited to represent their country and the winner is presented with the coveted Gold Jupiter.  Our contest winning show will be shot as a feature exhibition at the 2010 Pyrotechnics Guild International convention.   The PGI is the world’s premier fireworks enthusiast organization.   We encourage you to design a show worthy of a Gold Jupiter!!

Here are a few tips that the judging panel suggests to help you produce a winning entry:

Show Length and Pace:

- Variety is important, but variety for the sake of variety is not good.   If you have several good effects that work well with your style, use them.  Don’t mediocre routines just for the sake of a longer show or more variety.

- Fireworks, like theater, require drama.  Drama is created by contrasts between extremes.  Even fireworks can become boring if the same intensity is maintained for too long.  Therefore, fireworks must have periods of silence to offset noise, must have soft sections to offset bright sections, slow sections to offset fast sections, etc.

- Think of a fireworks display as a rollercoaster.  The traditional anticipation of the long climb offset by the thrill of the drop is identical to a soft slow section building up to an intense finale.  The show should have several rises and dips, but not too many as even a rollercoaster would get boring if it were too long.   For our contest, we are setting the time limit to 10 minutes.  Do not feel you need a full ten minutes.  Shorter shows can still be the winner.

Music Selection and Music Track Creation:

- There are two choices for the music score.  One is to use the full duration of only one or two songs.  This is a workable approach if the right music is chosen.  A good example might be “Circle of Life” from the Lion King.  This song provides plenty of its own ups and downs.  Another option is to use only 1-2 minutes from several different songs. This makes matching the music to the fireworks easier, but you must be very careful to transition from one tune to the other effectively.

- To make the musical track, we suggest several different software packages.  The non-professional versions of some should be available for download for free.  One such program is Cool Edit.   Roxio is also good but not free.

-  Sound systems vary in quality; audience can be in many locations, ect.  Therefore, we recommend that you choose music that is not too dependent on vocals. With the best fireworks,  music you can see the music if you close your eyes.

- These are general themes that work well with fireworks:

• Patriotic songs such as I'm Proud to be an American, the National Anthem etc.  Here you would use Red/White/Blue fireworks, fountains, waterfalls, etc.
• Fun Songs such as Ghostbusters, Pink Panther, Limbo Song, Hot, Hot, Hot, etc.  Here you can use some special motion effects such as go-getters, fish, serpents, etc.
• Slow Dramatic Songs such as Phantom of the Opera, 2001 Space Oddesy, etc.  Large, long duration shells work well with these sections.
• Fast High Energy Songs such as those by Queen , Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, or other hard rock.  Fast zipper cakes, mines, salutes.
• Theme Songs such as Purple Rain (purple falling leaves), Yellow by Coldpaly (yellow effects), Somewhere Over the Rainbow (rainbow shells), Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (strobe shells).
• Songs that feature timing to the beat, such as a slow drum beat or individual piano notes.  This is great for computerized firing of comets, mines and other short duration effects.   An example is Wizards of Winter by Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

With over 1,000 ques and 30 firing positions, we encourage you to make the best use of tight timing with the music.  Mines and comets can be timed to the second and therefore can really make a deep impression of matching the music very well.

Closing suggestions & Wrap-up:

• Consider smoke when designing the show.  Often evening brings high humidity and low winds, the worst combination for smoke. Therefore, do not carpet bomb or shoot many low level effects at once.  Design your show with enough slow spots to allow smoke to clear out.

• Consider a dramatic start for your show.  Your audience will be most attentive at the beginning and end of the show, so use tightly synchronized zero lift time effects (e.g. comets, mines, and indoor fountains and airbursts.).

• Use lots of angled mortars.  Try creative effects like several mine cakes mounted into a V shape stand.   Wagon Wheel style racks that make a curving fan of shots, etc. 

• Perhaps the most important rule is avoid “stepping on” shells with long durations – let them develop fully and let your audience appreciate he effect.  The use of Finale Simulation software allows easy avoidance of this common mistake.

• Use different effects to lead the audiences eyes to where you want them. For example, use waterfall shells to take their eyes to the ground.  Then use ground effects.

• Slow and silent are the secrets to a good display. Only when you have silence, can noise be appreciated.  Do not saturate with prolonged intensity.  To much of anything and it becomes boring. 

Here are some examples of some really well choregraphed displays:

Pyro-Musical Montreal_Spain_02.mpg

Pyro-Musical Montreal_Spain_04.mpg

Pyro-Musical 2003_Italy_rainbow.mpg

The following display is the first attempt at a pyro musical.  It was fired by CoachTimmyJ of the PyroU community.   Many of the items used are Dominator Products.  The show scrip and videos are as follows:

Pyro-Musical_Part_1

Pyro-Musical_Part_2

 Part 1

“Ladies and Gentlemen” by Saliva

:00-:10 Red Comets extracted from Dominator’s 1.4 Pro Modular Comet Fans
:10-:19 Big Fireworks We Own the Night
:21-:54 (2) Big Fireworks Apocolypse Now
:34-:42 (5) Forward Pyramid (matched both first and last shots from each cake to speed timing)
:55-:57 (9) Single Shots from Apocolypse Now spaced about 30’ apart
:58-1:08 2” Dominator salutes
1:10-1:26 (4) Glorious Blitzkreig
1:10-1:22 (8) shots from each of (3) United Pyro Shock It To Me
1:22-1:53 (1) case of Atom Splitter I made into a zipper cake (should have timed it faster though)
1:34-1:50 (3) Dominator Braggin’ Rights
1:55-1:58 (9) Single Shots of Braggin’ Rights spread about 30’ apart
1:58-2:10 2” Dominator Salutes
2:16-2:20 Red Comets from Dominator (again a few comets didn’t go)
2:21-2:32 (6) Reloadable Girandolas made from Millers (I think they were Forward, but not sure)
2:34-2:56 (1) Glorious High Stepper (was supposed to be two, but really didn’t matter as this is the biggest piece of crap I’ve ever bought in my life, had two Dominator Rip, Rock, and Roll in my trailer and didn’t make the last minute sub. Blew it)
2:45-3:03 (3) Big Fireworks Steal the Show
3:03-3:22 2” Dominator Salutes
3:10-3:26 (3) Big Fireworks Steal the Show
3:26 more Dominator Red Comets

“Second Chance” by Shinedown

3:44-3:54 (4) Single Rows from Cannon Crazy Commander
3:57-end of part one (1) Brothers Sky High (should have been two, but one didn’t fire)

Part 2

:00-:35 (1) Brothers Sky High
:06-:17 (3) sections of Big Fireworks Emotional Distress. Each section was ½ cake
:36-:59 (2) Cannon Cyborg Duel (each row matched individually)
:59-1:02 (3) Single Shots from Dominators Monster Strobe
1:05-1:43 (3) Brothers Gameplay (was supposed to be 4) 1:44-2:08 (2) Big Fireworks Solar Explosion (first choice was United Pyro Unforgettable, but it was unavailable)
2:04-2:31 (3) Dominator Rip the Sky
2:15-2:28 (20) World Class Critical Acclaim mines
2:34-3:17 (8) Dominator Patriotic Dominance (the one cake which seems to run long actually didn’t there was a cue switch so instead of the 3 shot finale firing, the first 7 shots started, it’s a long story lol)

“Ecstasy of Gold” by Metallica

All the comets during the first part of the song were taken from the Dominator Pro Modular Gold Comet Fans

3:25-3:48 (2) Fireplug H2O broken apart and spread among the stations firing single rows to get the most I could out of the only two I had
3:49-4:06 (8) Glorious Waterfall
4:06-4:11 (10) single shots from xxx
4:14-4:34 (3) Dominator It’s All Mine, Get Your Own
4:14-4:45 (5) xxx
4:29-4:44 (5) Dominator Gold Storm
4:45-end (75) 3” YF Gold Willows, (36) 4” YFGW, (30) 5” YFGW, (5) YF Nikishi Kamura Niagra Falls, (3) 8” YFNKNF, and (10) 3” YF Gold Glittering Comets

The End

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