Aboard the Barge at the Celebration of Light

Friday, 07. 30. 2010  –  Featured, News and Features

Matt Chambers

Today, on a whim, The Dependent decided to cobble together a news piece about the Celebration of Light. A few phone calls and a long distance minute later and we were in touch with Maude Furtado, General Manager of the Montreal-based fireworks company Groupe Fiatlux-Ampleman and executive producer of the Celebration of Light in Vancouver. Furtado was kind enough to give us a tour of the barge and explain the logistics of putting on a world class fireworks show.

“The first step in building any pyro-musical show is the soundtrack,” she explains, stepping through a narrow alley sided by sandboxes and mortar tubes.

“The designer then imagines what type of effect will go with each moment of the music,” she continues. “Then they need to find the products and the different calibres, and based on the listing time and the pre-firing time they program it into the computer. Each effect has a specific duration and listing time; it needs to be taken into consideration when programming the show to make sure the effect will fire at the right point in the music.”

The Celebration of Light is controlled by a computerized firing system. The turn of a key and the flip of a switch and the entire twenty-five minute display ensues. According to Furtado, it takes a team of fifteen people three days to set up each show - hence the Wednesday, Saturday schedule.

After every show, a cleanup crew disassembles the configuration, stores the mortar mounts and rakes the sandboxes flat. The next group then comes in, and with the help of the local crew, begins positioning their firing mounts in the sand. They work based upon what Furtado describes as “an international language of fireworks”. Back in the warehouse, firing positions are assigned addresses and the addresses are then marked on each explosive. Each address is assigned a time code and the plan is circulated to the assembly crew.

During the show however, both the music and the time code are beamed to the barge via wireless signal from the beach.

Apart from this, the operation is remarkably low-tech for its size and magnitude- the pre-show warning shells are actually controlled by a small kitchen knife attached to a battery.
The entire display is overseen by a small, two-person crew operating within a cramped control room, and, with visibility limited to a thin window crisscrossed by metal wire, the show is monitored entirely by sound.

“From the sound and the vibrations, we know if it’s going well or not,” Furtado explains. “If there’s an explosion inside the mortars it’s a very different sound and feeling.”

Furtado speaks of fireworks with the kind of passion most people reserve for their children.

“We measure fireworks in millimetres,” she explains. “The biggest allowed in Canada are 300mm. At this show they’ll have 250mm, which are quite big.”

When asked about her favourite pyrotechnic effect, Furtado is adamant: the Flying Saucer.
“Somebody told me today that they look like jellyfish - they go slowly up in the air and then they come down and then go back up. You don’t see them on many occasions and I think they’re a real crowd pleaser.”

For Benoit Berthelet, lead designer for the tribute to China this Saturday, there are no favourites - they’re all the best. Casually smoking a cigarette mere metres away from a swinging metal door that is all that separates him from $200,000 worth of pyrotechnics, he explains that he sees fireworks displays as pure artistic expression: “I work like a painter,” he grins, “what you have in your stockroom is what you can use.”

Berthelet got into the fireworks business after graduating from theatre school and working on an assembly crew at a Montreal fireworks festival. “I was hit by a spark,” he explains, pinching at the sleeve of his shirt, “and from there I was hooked.”

When asked what people should be looking for at tomorrow night’s show, Berthelet responded:

“We’re going to work on four levels: the water, low, medium, high… and super high.”

Asked who her favourite so far has been, Maude was diplomatic: “they all have something special. It’s like explaining the difference from one painting to another - saying it in words is not easy. The Mexican show was very powerful - a lot of aerial shells were painting the sky quite well; the Spanish was more subtle and perhaps a little more artistic; the American show was that Fourth of July show you could expect from an American team, and of course the soundtrack gives the first impression and the choice of music sets the mood…”

Tags: Celebration of Light, fireworks, Groupe Fiatlux-Ampleman, Maude Furtado