Jay_
05-20-2018, 01:00 AM
Over the week I put together a 2:15 pyro musical with just 18 cues as well as 12 from a Chinese system so I could get a feel for how everything worked. We had some weather today and I had decided that we would not shoot until the last minute and I changed my mind as the skies cleared. Knowing that everything would be wet at my shoot site, I thought that it would be a prime opportunity to shoot without having to worry about catching the whole world on fire.
So get everything loaded quickly and head out. Its a 20 mile trip to my shoot site and we didn't leave until about 7:20.
Arrive at shoot site around 8pm and unload everything. Start connecting wires about 8:15
Get wiring done up to cue 16, sparse sprinkles turn into a downpour.
Rush to get the final cues hooked up, and then wire up a few on Chinese system while the downpour continues.
Test continuity....looks good on all 18 cobra cues. Place empty plastic tub over cobra module. Noting to cover Chinese cues with.
Quickly throw stuff in back of truck that has to be loaded before firing. While loading Cue 1 goes off on Chinese system. Its a canister shell and luckily nobody is in the way of it. I guess the rain got to it.
Drive truck down and park. We are too close to the fireworks for a good view...but I get Bluetooth speaker out while wife gets video camera out.
Still pouring rain..
Scramble to get Bluetooth speaker connected to phone. Phone says its connected so its time to initialize everything and get ready to hit button 1 on my control.
Hit button 1 and start song together. Phone not synced to speaker...getting sound only from phone...script running.
Scream obscenities, throw phone on ground in a rage (soft ground..phone uninjured)
Script firing on remote but nothing is happening.
Still pouring rain.
Stop script on remote. Its not firing.
After trying several different things, walk up to module. Discover that module is still in test mode :).
Put module in arm mode. At this point the rain is so heavy my fireworks are just getting soaked and I am doubting that any of them will fire.
Start script again, didn't bother with the music this time. Just want to get some good video footage and see how my timing is.
Lost continuity on 3 cues. Just so happens that the cues that I lost were the body of my show and made up over a minute of my 2:15 show.
Perfect fuse on mortar rack must be soaked. My quickmatch went off, but it just sparked a couple of times and never burned. Dead mortar rack.
So at least I got some video right? I came home to view the video, and what video that we did get of fireworks is obstructed by a big raindrop on the lens of the camera. You can see what is going on, but any event that took place in the middle of the shot is completely blurry.
In the end I had 4 (out of 7) cakes, 2 mortar racks, 4 62mm shells, and 1 comet that didn't fire.
Fail.
Anyway...that's my day. How was yours?
So get everything loaded quickly and head out. Its a 20 mile trip to my shoot site and we didn't leave until about 7:20.
Arrive at shoot site around 8pm and unload everything. Start connecting wires about 8:15
Get wiring done up to cue 16, sparse sprinkles turn into a downpour.
Rush to get the final cues hooked up, and then wire up a few on Chinese system while the downpour continues.
Test continuity....looks good on all 18 cobra cues. Place empty plastic tub over cobra module. Noting to cover Chinese cues with.
Quickly throw stuff in back of truck that has to be loaded before firing. While loading Cue 1 goes off on Chinese system. Its a canister shell and luckily nobody is in the way of it. I guess the rain got to it.
Drive truck down and park. We are too close to the fireworks for a good view...but I get Bluetooth speaker out while wife gets video camera out.
Still pouring rain..
Scramble to get Bluetooth speaker connected to phone. Phone says its connected so its time to initialize everything and get ready to hit button 1 on my control.
Hit button 1 and start song together. Phone not synced to speaker...getting sound only from phone...script running.
Scream obscenities, throw phone on ground in a rage (soft ground..phone uninjured)
Script firing on remote but nothing is happening.
Still pouring rain.
Stop script on remote. Its not firing.
After trying several different things, walk up to module. Discover that module is still in test mode :).
Put module in arm mode. At this point the rain is so heavy my fireworks are just getting soaked and I am doubting that any of them will fire.
Start script again, didn't bother with the music this time. Just want to get some good video footage and see how my timing is.
Lost continuity on 3 cues. Just so happens that the cues that I lost were the body of my show and made up over a minute of my 2:15 show.
Perfect fuse on mortar rack must be soaked. My quickmatch went off, but it just sparked a couple of times and never burned. Dead mortar rack.
So at least I got some video right? I came home to view the video, and what video that we did get of fireworks is obstructed by a big raindrop on the lens of the camera. You can see what is going on, but any event that took place in the middle of the shot is completely blurry.
In the end I had 4 (out of 7) cakes, 2 mortar racks, 4 62mm shells, and 1 comet that didn't fire.
Fail.
Anyway...that's my day. How was yours?