2015 1.4g Lake Show (Pyromusical Fired from Rafts!)

[bozie8823]

Hey gang,
We lit up the lake again this year! Last year we shot the 1.4g Pyromusical at the beginning of the show (which wound up being a bit...anti climactic...as everything seemed pretty dull thereafter) This year we gave the musical it it's rightful place at the show's conclusion. Overall show length is just shy of 45 minutes from kick-off to finale wrap up. The Pyromusical is JUST shy of 4 minutes in length. The same amount of money was spent on both show segments!

The video below showcases the end of the body segment (fake finale), the intro to the pyromusical, the musical itself, and the 100 shot Excal finale.

Just like last year. 3 rafts (12x10, 6x8, and a 6x6), 2 boards on the center raft (3 cobra modules), 1 board on each side position (2 modules on each side raft). All product secured to boards...all boards secured to rafts...each raft anchored on every corner (12 anchors in total) to prevent spinning/free floating, or movement due to momentum. The lake itself is apporox 1000ft long x 490ft wide. The largest shells shot from any raft were 2" dominator 1.4g pro 1 shots.

The complete 1.4g show will be posted in segments here in the weeks to come.

Thanks for watching! Enjoy! :cool:

Hope everyone had safe and happy 4th's!

-boZie


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp2J8N2PhHo

[ras1986]

Dude. Wow. Sick. Bad ass. AWESOME INSPIRING!!!! SWEET!!! Excellent job dude. My jaw dropped. If you saw the pyromusical that Scott smith did with all spirit of 76 product for halloween...... just as good imo. For 1.4.... i think 1.4 pyromusical would be harder than 1.3. What did you spend? How many modules?

[bozie8823]

Hey Thanks a million Ras! Very kind words...very much appreciated! :) The design process (in FINALE) took me about a month. The bulk load of the work is ALWAYS in creating the cake simulations and making sure you're timings as good as it can be considering the unpredictable nature of 1.4...Once things are laid out you wind up tweaking and making changes as time goes on (last change/tweak was made @ 2am the morning of July 4th.)

I shoot 1.3g with my regional club, and you're definitely correct in assuming working with 1.4g product provides challenges in and of it's own. Biggest of which being (and always foremost in your mind as the show's actually shooting) the unpredictable nature of 1.4 and it's manufacturing. Perfect example's in the Vegas Lights trio that fires @ 4:47. The cake on platform 2 (leftmost platform in the video) was fuzed differently when manufactured (row to row than the other two). I noticed when reaming the ematch ports the week prior that one of the cakes had a different color fuse from the other two...so I can't say I didn't foresee it. You can fix it easily enough by removing the time fuse in between each row and porting each row individually (then you'll be dead on as far as ignition time goes, but this segment in this condition is an exercise in space conservation with only a whopping 204sqft of total real estate to place product as well as modules...so there's a limitation on EVERYTHING...space, cues...you name it, there's not enough of it to pull things off the way "you'd want to" ya'know. (Easily remedied right...just have to spend about $800 on building bigger rafts lol) Here's an example of what the boards look like put together and on the rafts...

Board Real Estate Woes
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7 modules in total used in the pyromusical segment. 3 on the center raft, and 2 on each side raft. The entire segment (including the cost of the Firewire Initiators totaled about $1900). Take those out of the mix and price out just the product and it was more like $1700.

Thanks again for the kind words man!
boZie

[Northern Sky]

It's funny that people that don't shoot to music think that their hand fired uncoordinated "shows" are better than something like that. It blows my mind on a regular basis.

Just because there is a bigger budget, larger shells and more product doesn't equal better.

I guess, if you don't know you don't know.

Ignorance is bliss.

[chriskrc]

Awesome show bozie, awesome show.

[bozie8823]

It's funny that people that don't shoot to music think that their hand fired uncoordinated "shows" are better than something like that. It blows my mind on a regular basis.

Just because there is a bigger budget, larger shells and more product doesn't equal better.

I guess, if you don't know you don't know.

Ignorance is bliss.

Haha, it's all to taste ya'know...take my old man for example. For 35 years he's spent a little over $1k annually on this show. He takes his product out to the dock and hand fires his 1.4 (one or two cakes at a time)...and every year it draws a crowd. (to the tune of well over a thousand people, and they all love it.) They shot to the same music track for 28 of those 35 years. I finally got them to make a few changes last year with the maiden voyage of my pyromusical. In complete honesty, It works out great that he just thunders thorugh his stuff a couple at a time...it gives the show a really nice body section (to the tune of about 30 minutes in length) although the musical's a mere 4 minutes or so...it's still an awesome way to end the evening.

[bozie8823]

Awesome show bozie, awesome show.

Thanks Chris!

[BluegrassPyro1]

Loved it man. Great show and definitely gave me some ideas for next year. You have any video of the setup? Would love to see how you put it all together

[bozie8823]

Loved it man. Great show and definitely gave me some ideas for next year. You have any video of the setup? Would love to see how you put it all together

Thanks KY. (you're just south of me man...I shoot with the OPAG boys :))

Didn't take any video, do have misc photos taken throughout the day.
The two smaller rafts loaded & ready to anchor, prepping the large center raft for it's load. (2 sheets of 4x8 ply)
755

My comet racks w/slats (built to the width of each raft)
756

One of the boards being laid out
757

The Dock (Show body firing position->Not part of the pyromusical)
758

Raft Board cache, all laid out in the days prior to the 4th...nothing matched until we were on-site day of.
759

Aerial shot of the rafts anchored (TinyPic hosted...too big for upload I'm guessing?)
http://i60.tinypic.com/wrgd9y.jpg

[Kepplec]

Perfect shooting spot it looks like... Would love to have a shoot site like that here.. I have to keep my show somewhat smaller because im in a neighborhood...

[bozie8823]

Perfect shooting spot it looks like... Would love to have a shoot site like that here.. I have to keep my show somewhat smaller because im in a neighborhood...

Yeah, Grandpa done good (God rest his soul)...while I'm sure he didn't have consumer fireworks in mind when he built the property on the lake so many years ago, my dad (his son) & I are sure glad he did :) Anchor the rafts dead center and your fallout zone is a perfect fit. It's almost like the lake was made for 1.4 fireworks :) The relative size of the lake makes consumer fireworks look...well...big.

[displayfireworks1]

Great post with video and pictures. You did a great job on this. I think the audience for this is going to get bigger every year. As far as I can tell it appears to be all 1.4 items. It would be great to end that finale with some fast salute cakes to put that extra wow in it. I am amazed and what people are doing with these firing systems and software.

[Zenith]

Wow bozie what an incredible spot on show. You definitely put a lot of heart and soul into the production along with great products. Excellent job!!!!

[bozie8823]

Great post with video and pictures. You did a great job on this. I think the audience for this is going to get bigger every year. As far as I can tell it appears to be all 1.4 items. It would be great to end that finale with some fast salute cakes to put that extra wow in it. I am amazed and what people are doing with these firing systems and software.

Hey thanks Dave, yeah. It's all 1.4. And you're correct in assuming the crowd's growing. Last year's the first year we did the pyromusical segment. Year on year (for the last 20+ years) there's been close to 1k people in attendance around the lake. This year I'm almost certain we had closer to 1,500. After the show there was a line of vehicles backed up around the length of the lake. (It feels great to see that...if you don't feel like a rock star during the show, seeing the traffic jam you're work caused after the show brings on a "feel good" moment.

I completely agree with you in regard to the salutes...some boom at the end of the finale would really sweeten the show's finale.

In reference to the firing system, I've thanked Scott over at Cobra MORE than once for pursuing his dreams/ambitions. Simply put...had that guy not done what he loves to do...I'd not be able to do what I love to do. And I'm more than thankful/greatful for all his work on the COBRA system.

[bozie8823]

Wow bozie what an incredible spot on show. You definitely put a lot of heart and soul into the production along with great products. Excellent job!!!!

Thanks a lot Zenith! WFBoom's got some quality items. The last couple years they've been fantastic to deal with. It pains me to say that due to a snafu I had in regard to service this year I may be looking elsewhere for the segment's product next year.