City’s Archangel Fireworks earns third world title

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This article was published 14/08/2009 (6098 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It took nine months to plan, three days to assemble and just 25 minutes to go up in smoke.

The brilliant pyro musical that lit up the sky over Quebec City on Aug. 8 also earned Archangel Fireworks another world championship title — their third in as many years.

The Winnipeg company’s Diamonds are Forever display — 2,400 colour combustibles bursting over the picturesque Montmorency Falls to a soundtrack featuring the likes of Marilyn Monroe, The Beatles and Elton John — won the prestigious Solstice Loto-Quebec grand prize. Archangel’s team of Shawn Frosst, Danny McDowell, Sean Morris and Kelly Guille outshone crews from South Africa, England, Italy and Spain in the 14th annual competition. This was the first year a Manitoba company was invited to represent Canada.

Archangel’s pyrotechnicians were 2007 and 2008 grand champions at the HSBC Celebration of Light in Vancouver. Shooting a show over a waterfall was a lot more challenging, says Guille, the lead designer.

"In Vancouver, we basically have a flat spit of land out in the ocean. In Quebec, we were shooting from four different positions which, from an audience perspective, pretty much framed the falls," says Guille, a 17-year pyrotechnician who owns Archangel Fireworks.

Use of the falls and natural surroundings was among the criteria used by the five judges to crown the winner. Crews were also rated on synchronicity, use of colour and creativity.

Archangel’s 25-minute show was "100 per cent choreographed," Guille says.

"The whole process is based on the music you start out with," he says, admitting that the tunes were a departure from Archangel’s typically more traditional playlist. "I like to be ground-breaking."

The show opened with Diamonds are Forever with Shirley Bassey, synchronized to white, strobing stars that cascaded to the base of the falls. There were also multiple renditions of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend (Marilyn Monroe, Nicole Kidman) and Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds (The Beatles, U2, and Elton John). Kanye West’s Diamonds from Sierra Leone provided a dramatic finale.

More than 2,400 shells, multi-shot cakes and Roman candles were shot skyward during the display. That’s about 10 times the scope of what Winnipeggers are used to seeing and hearing at The Forks on Canada Day, Guille said.

It was all automated — as in "you basically push a button" to activate the 919 "pulses" that ignite the fireworks. "There’s no hand-lighting with a show of this calibre," Guille says.

carolin.vesely@freepress.mb.ca