FIREWORKS FESTIVAL
Making a big bang
Brad Dezotell is the technical director of this year’s Nutrien Fireworks Festival in Saskatoon, which starts Friday. He’s not the designer for this year’s show, but he has won design awards in shows all around the world and runs Fireworks Spectaculars in Calgary. He talked to the Starphoenix about what goes into making a great fireworks show.
Q What’s the first step in designing a display?
A The site and the music go kind of hand-in-hand. The site tells the designer what they can do ... there could be limitations there ... and hand-in-hand with that, of course, is selecting the music. The underlying theme of every show is what music you have.
Q How much pre-planning goes into a show?
A Two or three weeks ago they would have finalized the design ... once the show gets here, we just need to install the show correctly and we let the firing system do the work for us, which is a computer-controlled firing system that can shoot to an accuracy of one-thirtieth of one second. There is essentially nothing a designer can put into it that it can’t do.
Q How do you determine the kind of fireworks being used?
A Every single calibre of shell has a different (safety) distance; those are mandated by the Canadian government. So the distances are the same coastto-coast, which we’re lucky in that because we can show up to any municipality and everyone is working from the same book ... basically, every extra 20 or 30 metres you have you can jump up a calibre. So this particular show, we have about 130 to 140 metres of safety distance, and the largest calibre we are shooting is fourinch shells.
Q What do different types of fireworks determine about the show?
A A four-inch shell literally is four inches in diameter ... each inch of calibre of shell travels approximately 100 feet in the sky, so a four-inch shell will go 400 feet into the sky.
Knowing your effects is the key to a great firework design ... the reality is, matching the energy of fireworks, sometimes matching the colour of the fireworks, and generally the feeling of the music, is really the difference between your average designer and maybe someone who is above that level.
Q Why does the design process matter to a show?
A We, at the end of the day, are in the entertainment industry. And it’s one of the largest forms of entertainment out there. There is almost no other entertainment medium in the world that entertains virtually every single age group ... the reality is, people generally love fireworks. And that’s the energy I love about putting on a fireworks show.