Axe Elf Lives and Learns

[AxeElf]

I won't whine too much, but a lot of things seemed to go wrong this year--some obviously, and others that only I noticed--but I was kind of disappointed with this year's effort on Saturday night. Now that I've had a chance to review the video, restore the soundtrack, and edit in a couple of corrections, I'm more able to appreciate what went well, as much as what went wrong.

But man, when the focal point of your penultimate song (4 Mardi Gras Parades fused to one cue on 4 second delays) fails to ignite, it hurts inside...

Anyway, for better or worse, this was my show, commentary included (I hope I can link to Google Drive here)...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/132qAfnkJpW8fjLr-hY69SSizks6yLnxE/view?usp=sharing

[Jay_]

Looked good to me brother, nice Job! What were the zipper cakes at the beginning of little pink houses? They looked good

[Mattp]

AHHH... everyone here knows the feeling.. dont beat yourself up... if you didnt put that commentary in the video... no one would even notice your issues..except you..overall you had a great show.. loved the soundtrack too!!

[AxeElf]

What were the zipper cakes at the beginning of little pink houses?

That was a pair of Golden Peacocks, by Winda.

They were actually supposed to be a part of the cacophony of sight and sound that was to be the end of "California Queen," but when the 4 Mardi Gras Parades didn't go off, I panicked and thought I was hitting the button for the next cue, which SHOULD have been the Golden Peacocks, but I actually hit the wrong button and set off a pair of "Just Hanging" cakes that were supposed to be a part of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" at the end. So then I hit the Golden Peacocks at the start of "Pink Houses" instead.

So really, other than the 10 seconds or so of black sky when the song says "FIRE!", everything else about that "California Queen" situation kind of worked itself out well. The beginning of "Pink Houses" was a lot more visually stunning than was planned--it was supposed to be just a single cake kind of slow and paced with the opening of the song--but the two "Golden Peacocks" made it more of an attention-getter. The two "Just Hangings" that filled in for the Mardi Gras Parades were just the right length to end when "Pink Houses" began (you can just see the last shot or two at the beginning of "Pink Houses"), and although the first chorus of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" ended up being a little lighter on diamonds than I had hoped because of the two early fires of "Just Hanging," it still came off as kind of a building effect through the song, so I was ok with that, too.

Coulda been worse, coulda been better.


AHHH... everyone here knows the feeling.. dont beat yourself up... if you didnt put that commentary in the video... no one would even notice your issues..except you..overall you had a great show.. loved the soundtrack too!!

Thanks on the soundtrack. I'm coming to appreciate the good things in the show illuminated by the light of hindsight--and even the happy accidents as noted above--but in the moment, it felt like a disaster.

[AxeElf]

By the way, dunno if anyone noticed, but this may be the only show you see this year that used ZERO mortars/artillery shells. I find them to be kind of a pain in the butt and pretty labor-intensive to get a single break, by the time you build racks, buy tubes, fuse every single shell, tape down all the fuse to prevent sparking, etc. Just give me a nice 16 shot cake like "Patriotism" and you can keep your 12 tube racks of mortars.

[PyroGyro]

Don't beat yourself up too much, it was a really good show and I really liked some of the sequences you had going on in the songs. It takes balls to go for a 27 minute pyromusical. Btw, I totally screwed up the open of my most recent show by hitting the step button before the open sequence was done. Ruined what could've been a perfect open. https://youtu.be/UHGNG2kwcC4?t=11 at 44 seconds I pressed the step button which then shot that slice and the red strobe cake, before the crackling and red flares were done. MF!!!!!

[PyroGyro]

.............

[AxeElf]

It takes balls to go for a 27 minute pyromusical.

Thanks. I was hoping to do more, but after a few tumultuous on-again, off-again months of deciding whether or not we were even going to HAVE fireworks this year, this is what I could throw together by myself (no help!) in 10 days--and it damn near killed me.


Btw, I totally screwed up the open of my most recent show by hitting the step button before the open sequence was done. Ruined what could've been a perfect open. https://youtu.be/UHGNG2kwcC4?t=11 at 44 seconds I pressed the step button which then shot that slice and the red strobe cake, before the crackling and red flares were done. MF!!!!!

Heh; yeah, it did kind of get lost in there. But having too much product in the sky isn't as bad as having no product in the sky. I can live with the former; the latter is more of a facepalm.

[N.E. Pyrotechnics]

Very nicely done. Although it isn't anywhere near the duration or scale of your show, I decided to leave the cans out of our July 4 shoot. This was only the second show that we have put together. There were three different 2" ball shell cakes in this shoot, but I did miss both the visual and audible impact that the cans bring to a show.

Awesome show, very nice!

[Birdman]

It was really good. You fired that show without a script? If that really is the case you did an amazing job!

[AxeElf]

It was really good. You fired that show without a script? If that really is the case you did an amazing job!

I had a cue list, if that's what you mean by a "script," and I pressed the buttons at the prescribed times in the cue list--but I didn't have any scripting software or anything.

So thanks... I think my strength is choreography, but I don't have the resources to get into a Cobra with an audiobox and poking cakes or firing individual comets or anything. If I did I'd be dangerous, 'cause I think I do a pretty good job of getting 1.4 consumer cakes to go along with a soundtrack already.

Seems like even more impressive is the fact that I did it all with talon initiators--everyone on here seems to think you can't do a pyromusical without using instant-fire initiators, and that talons will fail half the time. Well, here's proof to the contrary.

[AxeElf]

Parenthetically, if you don't have time for the full half hour video, here's a 13 minute highlight reel...


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sotCxNMRRDL6oBssvDXjdrrgQkQQfOX2/view?usp=sharing