How Red, White and BOOM! is designed
CAMBRIA COUNTY, Pennsylvania (WCMH) – Downtown will soon be filled with hundreds of thousands of people hoping for an unforgettable fireworks show, and show designers said the 20-minute show you'll see easily takes hundreds of hours to produce.
“It’ll be busy, it’ll be soft when it needs to be soft, and it’ll be boom when it needs to be boom, then everything in between," said Ralph Piacquadio, who has worked Red, White and BOOM! more than 15 times; this will be David Hunter’s tenth show. Both men designed this year’s event.
“This gives us our chance to put the art behind it, to put our touch on it," Hunter said.
Radio station WNCI built the soundtrack, and Piacquadio and Hunter listened to it. They bounced ideas off each other to decide what fireworks will look and sound best with each point in the music. They showed NBC4 the computer program they use to put it all together. They said it comes down to having vast knowledge of fireworks and precise timing. There are two times for every firework.
“There's actually two times, the time you’re lifting it and the time it’s exploding," Hunter said.
Just as manufacturing fireworks can take a lot of time, so can show designing.
“Sometimes we spend two hours of designing on one minute of program, but that's OK; coffee up and away we go," Piacquadio said.
The file they made is put on a special device. It communicates with another piece of technology which is connected to the fireworks. Hunter and Piacquadio said its then in the computers’ hands come showtime.
"Then the program, the computers take over and from that point, we monitor,” Hunter said. “Our job becomes monitor. We go along for the ride. Make sure everything is performing and behaving as it should and we watch the show the same as everybody else. A little bit more [stress], yes. Our favorite part of the show tends to be the finale because we know we’ve made it.”
The designers said as they watch this year's show, they'll be taking notes and thinking of ideas for next year's event.