2024 Show

[PyroFL]

Highlight Reel this year.

This year we mixed it up with a new look and feel to our show which I hope you enjoy.

Being in central Florida after a very bad storm the humidity was so high we had to keep cleaning our lens and we had 2 drones fall out of the sky from the humidity overwhelming 2 out of 3.

This year show will be limited to our highlight reel as we had to keep cleaning our ground cameras and landing our drones to wipe the lens off.

Setup:

Cobra Firing System, 3 72M, 2 36M, 12 18M, 36 Slats, 4 Fire Machines, 8 LED PAR lights, 7 NUKES

Product:

1.4 & 1.4PRO
148 Cakes, 482 Single Shots, 42 Slice, 9 MOAB


Enjoy

https://youtu.be/3QD9PLcQXXw?si=0n9HkUuKdS5cwM7h

[Birdman]

Great show. Too bad you didn't get the video you wanted but hey....weather could have created worse issues.

[PyroFL]

Oh it did … LOL

Water logged Tampa Rick 18M. Thankfully it’s working again!!

Shorted the module out and our NUKEs didn’t go off.

We came back the next night after it baked in the sun all day to test it and blow off the NUKEs

All in all super happy with it

Didn’t think everyone was looking to see me cleaning the lens off in the middle of the show at the end of each song so I cut that part out.

[PyroFL]

Side note

If your editor asked you to put the center camera on wide

Don’t do it!! Looks like things are a mile away. Same camera position as last year and it doesn’t even look like the same shoot site.

Lesson learned

[Birdman]

Funny...I told my wife to use the landscape mode this year. Yes it certainly makes the fireworks look smaller then they are but I found it much better overall. A lot has to do with positioning and equipment so what works best is really going to depend on circumstances. One thing I've learned is you can't judge a show by a video. For example, the use of drones, while they make for great cinematography, no one is experiencing the show from that angle. Or how a long show full of fast hard hitting pyro may not hold my attention for the entire video, I would probably be fully engaged the whole time in person. I had friends join us for this years show that have only seen my videos. They both admitted how much more impressive it was in in person. They both went back and watched my previous videos with a whole new appreciation of what those shows must have been like in person. But you also can't underestimate the power of video editing. I always try my best to keep these things in mind whenever I watch a video.

[Jay_]

Spectacular to say the least!

Dmx effects at 2:37 and 3:45 were really cool, liked them a lot.

Your single effect work was fantastic. Loved the amount of detail and the choreography.

It’s always a bummer when things don’t hit as expected, but like you guys have told me..you are the only one that knows that it didn’t go like you told it to.

You certainly have scripting skills, and that was a great display of what you can do.

Great show!

[PyroFL]

Jay I Was thinking about you a couple days ago when I was picking out my 2025 music and editing.

Next year is 80-90 rock with the opening song “Let the Body’s Hit the Floor”

It’s going to be a hard hitting fast pace show.

The trick is going to find a balance to not over do it and hope I don’t get smoked out.

With the test level of DMX this year I know I can push it even more. Have a vision just not sure it’s going to work … time will tell

[Jay_]

Jay I Was thinking about you a couple days ago when I was picking out my 2025 music and editing.

Next year is 80-90 rock with the opening song “Let the Body’s Hit the Floor”

It’s going to be a hard hitting fast pace show.

There you go!! Bodies will be a great opening with plenty of opportunities to go big with single effects and hard hitting cakes. Will get everyone fired up in a hurry!



The trick is going to find a balance to not over do it and hope I don’t get smoked out.

Man I know exactly what you mean. Such a fine line between too much in the air (or too much going on) and too little. I have had the dial twisted both ways. As close as I have ever come to getting it right was in 2020, but even that show was tilted toward too much at many times. My 2021 was too far the other way with too little, and then turned the dial too far up on the 2022 show as I was afraid of not having enough up in the air so I way put stuff on top of stuff in the script and I felt like it ended up being pretty sloppy. My other few pyromusicals were pretty much disasters due to the lessons that I had yet to learn, so I wont even speak to them.

I do wish you luck on it, you certainly have the scripting skills and attention to detail to make it happen.



With the test level of DMX this year I know I can push it even more. Have a vision just not sure it’s going to work … time will tell

I'm excited to see what you come up with. I really liked how clean it was in this show, and it just looked fantastic.
What kind of lights/devices are you using for DMX?

[PyroFL]

Next year will be amazing if I can pull off what’s in my head and I’ve already started, it will be DMX heavy being 80-90 Rock.

Think upside down stage, the truss is the ground. I have 16 PAR lights but may need 24.

I have some other ideas too but when I brought it up to the land owner he said “your brother told me you were crazy” and laughed and walked away. So I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Am thinking I’ll also hold off telling him about the helicopters I have planned for next year.

It will be more a pyro musical production next year then what most do with a pyro musical.

As for the DMX, I tried a lot of PAR lights that wouldn’t brake the bank and ended up with the B35 U’King LED 15w lights. WARNING there way overkill for what I need. When I first got them I was shooting them 700’ across a lake and it was perfect. At 300’ there blinding and have to adjust them so they’re audience friendly.

The fire machines Ed turn me on to, don’t go cheap and get the Moka brand for your needs. I have the H-E02 that we put on post 7’ in the air.

For the moving head lights, you can’t see them in the show very well at all. We use them for our haunted house and I was just testing to see how they would work for the show at the last moment.

In short they didn’t work and I will have to upgrade them for the 4th/haunted house now.

Our motto:

Go Big or Go Bigger

[PyroFL]

I see now why quite a few of our MJG didn’t go off.

Cobra put out a Bulletin that if you had any of the following they had problems.

They will replace them if you have any bad ones. Too bad most of my boxes are now in the trash like most of us.

The problem batches:

2023.09.25
2023.09.26
2023.09.27
2023.09.28
2023.09.29
2023.10.02
2023.10.03
2023.10.04
2023.10.10

I had a case of the 09.28 so we will see what happens.

[topshelfpyro]

Nicely done! I do have some envy of you guys with large shoot sites! I have 90' width. Looking forward to getting back to pyromusicals next year. Not the work but the end result. lol. FYI 25 gals of gas @115' is quite hot (90' wide wall of fire). The audience said "they knew it was coming and it still startled them" some said "I had to look away" but they didn't think it was "too hot" LOL

This is the second issue MJG has had with faulty ignitors, makes me a little wary of buying multiple cases now.

[PyroFL]

We have the same. Board to board is 95’ on center. The only reason it looks more is we’re shooting over both property lines into ponds with both neighbors permission. If not our hard angles would have to be no more then 30 degrees to stay within the property lines.

I would really like to have a 200’ wide shoot site to give me a lot more to do, but am happy with what we have it makes me work a little harder to get the look am going for.

I don’t mind the extra work to do a pyro musical, being a northern in Florida when it’s 98 out with 95% humidity with a Heat index of over 110 is what kills me. We now start in the dark before the sun comes up and done by 11am.

Glad to hear you’re going to do a pyro musical next year again. I don’t think our fans would let us not do one anymore they expect it!

The MJG thing, this is the 2nd time I’ve been burned by them.

Something I’ve notice watching YouTube is a lot of pro shows it looks like they use the China orange wire ones. I’ve thought about switching but can’t find any longer ones.

MJG really needs to be better about product control. 2 times in 5 years Isn’t a very good statistic.

[topshelfpyro]

Oh wow, haha it looks like you have 200'+.

Yea, North GA isn't much better in July. I had to stay under a shelter this year even with sunscreen I felt like I was on fire about noon and all I was doing was plugging in. I sat everything out the day before, might start 2 days before next year if the cue count is like usual (800+). I bag everything no matter what so setting out early isn't really an issue.

True! I skipped 2023 completely, this year was no music and less than 200 cues but still about 15 min and was ok.

Yea, i'm still using initiators from 2021 but i'm down to my last case. I'll have to buy more for 2025.

On pro shows they are probably using actual J-tek ignitors, cheaper but you have to have a 54 to purchase. The chinese ones i've seen are cheaper but 5+ cases direct from MJG are about $0.90 each with quick plugs for the 10' which is all I use now.

[PyroFL]

My video editor requested we use the gopros on wide so it didn’t cut off the fireworks.

We tried it and I don’t like the look at all. We will be going back to normal next year and just moving the camera’s back 30-40 feet and calling it good.

You do what we do as for setup.

The day before for us is setup audio, DMX, posts in the ground and test fire machines and lights.

Then we place all our pallets out for the next morning to set all our fireworks on. Being on swamp land everything has to be off the ground.

We could honestly use another day for setup. We have 3 more pyros asking to join next year who have experience so that should help a lot with 14 guys on the field but one extra day would help a lot. We always seem to be running around until the last moment.

[topshelfpyro]

14 guys on the field......I can only wish. LOL The most i've had is 7 but for the most part everything is matched in advance

[esgrillo]

Very well done! Nice detail on your single shots for sure!

[PyroFL]

Thanks Ed means a lot!

Each year we get better and better.