Knallende Kleuren

Knallende Kleuren
VPRO Noorderlicht / 25 min / 28-12-1999
Ieder jaar komen in augustus vuurwerk enthousiasten vanuit heel Amerika en daarbuiten samen op de bijeenkomst van de PGI (Pyrotechnics Guild International). Het is een week van vriendschap, competitie en natuurlijk elke avond overweldigend vuurwerk. Op deze bijeenkomsten tonen vuurwerk amateurs na een jaar voorbereiding hun nieuwste vondsten. De PGI conventie vormt de wieg van innovaties aan vuurwerk.

tekst van de uitzending:

VPRO NOORDERLICHT – TRANSCRIPT
AFLEVERING ‘KNALLENDE KLEUREN’
UITZENDING 28 DEC 1999
DOOR JOS WASSINK

LEADER NOORDERLICHT

ONTSTEKING FLITSKRUID

DR. CLIVE JENNINGS-WHITE
CHEMICUS, SALT LAKE CITY
That’s a green flash powder that was published by John Steinberg, the president of the Pyrotechnics Guild International. And the way it works is it has Barium nitrate as the principle component and that, the barium, provides the green colour, and the nitrate part provides the oxygen for the combustion.

VUURWERK MET TITEL: KNALLENDE KLEUREN

DR. CLIVE JENNINGS-WHITE
I remember when I was a small child I was always transfixed when looking at fireworks and they seemed to be the ultimate magic. They make time stand still. And to be able to find out about this magic and create it, to have a partnership with nature in producing fire is just such an enthralling entrancing thing to do.

IN KELDERLAB: MIXEN EN BOUWEN SPUITERS

CLIVE (OFFSCREEN):
Fireworks are basically an art that has a large amount of scientific technical know-how that goes into it. So for example, if one knows about the different combinations of chemical elements that produce various effects, that’s an essential prerequisite in order to design new kinds of fireworks.
Over the years one acquires gradually more knowledge in the scientific aspects and also the craftsmanship and technical aspects of making fireworks and so one gradually acquires more skill and makes more complex devices and really there’s no end to what one can do. One’s only limited by one’s imagination.

AFSTEKEN SPROEIERS

IN DE KELDER BIJ CHEMICALIENKAST
This shell contains pretty much all the chemicals that will be used in making fireworks. By themselves they’re essentially inert. You could take a blowtorch to almost any of them and nothing would happen. It’s when you mix them together in various conditions, that you’re able to produce these different coloured fires or different kinds of sparks.

GROTE SPROEIER OP COMPETITIE; PRIJZENKAST

CLIVE TOONT EEN VUURWERKWIEL:
This is the required wheel component of the ground display competition. It requires you to have a wheel as part of that competition.
Each of these little tubes is lighted. These are called lances and they contain a coloured fire in this case they’re magenta and as the wheel spins, these lances are arranged in a spiral, so it will produce the impression of an ever expanding spiral as it spins.

LADEN AUTO EN RIJDEN

CLIVE OFFSCREEN:
One of the ways I like to develop my techniques in fireworks is to participate in the Pyrotechnics Guild International’s competitions. I find that by talking to the other competitors, there’s both a huge sense of camaraderie and those are the people who will share their secrets and give you new ideas and designs and further your own expertise.

WIJD BERGSHOT LANDSCHAP UTAH

PGI VUURWERK VELDJE

DR. ARTHUR R. TILFORD,
JURYLID PGI, ZINGT:

Yo ho, yo ho, a pyro’s life for me.
We kindle and char, inflame and ignite,
Light up, me Pyro’s, yo ho.
We fire up the goodies, we’re really a fright,
Light up, me Pyro’s, yo ho.

With sulfur and charcoal and Nitre we mix
Then ram the mess in a tube,
Slap on a stick and garnish the nose,
And prime up the ens with a fuse!

Y ho, yo ho, a pyro’s life for me.

LANGE RIJ OPGETOGEN MENSEN WACHT

DR JOHN STEINBERG,
VOORZITTER PGI:
The Pyrotechnics Guild International is an organisation that tries to provide a home for people who like fireworks in any aspect. Some of us enjoy purchasing consumer fireworks, some enjoy doing fireworks shows, there are very talented artists her who make fireworks. Whatever someone’s interest is in fireworks, we try to create an environment where all of us can come together and entertain each other and enjoy all the magic that can be created through pyrotechnic artistry.

CLIVE BEZOEKT INSCHRIJVINGSBUREAU

DR JOHN STEINBERG VERVOLGT:
We here at the PGI, our members have developed things like strobing stars, the stars that blink on-and-off, and very fine blue colours, effects based on ammonium perchlorate that first saw their genesis in the pyrotechnist hobbyist community and these types of things are developed experimentally and if applicable, stable and safe are then used in the commercial world.

BOM-INCIDENT

ROBERT WESTFALL, TEXAS:
The difference between a rocket and a bomb is a split second. It’s just a matter of timing. If you’re doing it right, the fuel is very hot, it’s very common when you start with these to have them explode. Especially when you’re working up a new rocket engine. If you’re doing things right actually they will explode. And the trick is to tune down your performance to get a mix that is right on the rugged edge. You want to get the very best performance without actually blowing up. It’s like a race car engine. If you’re not running right on the edge, and risk to blow up your engine, you’re not gonna win. And that’s what’s involved here.

TOONT RAKET:

Whereas it went in easily, it comes out fairly hard.
Here we go. And that’s one of the rockets that I’m gonna compete with tonight. You see this is the top of the rocket and we’ll go directly into the effect we’re going to do from here and this is the engine side.

ROBERT WESTFALL LANCEERT RAKET
I didn’t hear much delay in the sound, it didn’t get that high. I’ve got to make enough altitude because this is a very hangy effect. If I hit the ground, I loose points, so I’ve got to get high enough so that my effect doesn’t come back to the ground but I’ve got to keep it low enough so that the judges can see it. That’s the idea in this particular design.

INTRO MARKT

CLIVE JKENNINGS-WHITE VERTELT WAT-IE ZOEKT:
Well, I want some of the basic chemicals. Potassium nitrate is the one I use the most and some Potassium perchlorite and charcoal is the most common fuel. So those are the ones I run out of all the time, so that’s the thing I want to to get. But I want to to look at everything cause you never know what you might find as an unusual item. Like this course magnesium, you don’t often see something like that. So, you know, you never know what You might find to produce some interesting effect that you don’t often see.

DIALOOG MET VERKOPER:
– Chinese gourmet mmhh. You can see..
– Tjis is real close to the Swedish.
– Cool. I gues I’ll take these.
Do you have any airflow charcoal?

BIJ VRACHTWAGEN WORDEN MELKPOEDER BOMMEN GEMAAKT:
DIALOOGJE:
– I’ve never even seen this before.
– What is it?
– It’s cream war, makes a huge fireball.
– Is is milk powder?
– Yes. The black powder fluffs it up and then it just takes off. It’s just like a grain explosion, you know, does a really nice job, you’ll be impressed.

VOLG FRANK COLLUCCIO,
LEGION FIREWORKS, NY
These are some of the shells I’m gonna shoot from centre. There’ll be one shell from here and then two from the outside and then three from the outside.
These are very large cylinder shells and they need steel to contain them, to give them a good lift. You wanna them to come out of the gun, of the mortar.

FRANK TOONT ZWARE BOM:
This is 11-timed salute. There’s all flash in here that’s why we need them to come out of steel, we lift it very high because there’s eleven timed reports and you need airspace and air time.

FRANK PAKT EEN ANDERE:
This is an eight inch charcoal crossette, it’s gonna break out with seventy five tailed stars and at the end of their burn time, they’re gonna break and make seventy five more little tails and it just fills the sky.

OPBOUW GROUNDDISPLAY

CLIVE TIJDENS OPBOUW GROUND DISPLAY
OFFSCREEN: My principle skills and interests in fireworks are perhaps in the production of colours and in the use of those colours in ground display in particular where I like the freedom of imagining how things will be put together.

I think I would describe myself as a minimalist in fireworks.

I don’t really go for the very large kind of fireworks or things that are very complex. I like to see what I can do with the barest amount of materials.

CLIVE ON-SCREEN:
Not many people compete in these ground displays I think one of the reasons is that I got here early in the morning to set this up and I’m still working here at seven-thirty. So, it’s been ten hours of work so far to set it up and I’m almost finished, but there’s no other category of competition that is even remotely this amount of work.

INTRO SHELL WORKSHOP

ROLF HALVERSON, WISCONSIN:
We started by rolling the stars yesterday and they’re the colour you see in the sky, the little it of colour moving are called stars This would probably be red -it’s either red or green- and then it’s a glitter on the outside so when the shells breaks it’ll leave a glitter trail and then turn to the colour at the end.
You would start with your shell halves one layer of stars in the shell half and then you put the break charge in the middle, which is a flash composition, it’s a higher energy it will make the shell break bigger in the air. And then we use methalyne chloride to soften up the plastic and actually weld the halves together. And then the lift charge is put on the bottom and when the shell is loaded in the gun, you light the fuse, that lights the lift charge on the bottom which in turn sends the shell out of the tube and lights a time fuse and then it burns through to the inside and lights that break charge. And that breaks the shell open, lights the stars and sends the stars out.

CLIVE OVER GROUND DISPLAY
The ground display is a very traditional English kind of display. Generally in the United States or Southern Europe you see a much more fast paced display with a lot of noise and mostly things in the air.
With the traditional kind of techniques, I like to put something new in that nobody would have seen before.

FRANK COLLUCCIO TOONT OPBOUW VUURWERK:
This is the finale, you see a right side, a centre and a left side again. The right side and the left side are gonna burn at the same time, but they’re gonna have their airspace is different so that it saturates the sky.
They start out three inch, go to four inch, five inch, six inch and eight inch salutes. Very noisy. It should go for about a minute. These people like noise, so do I.

CLIVE OVER GROUND DISPLAY:
So I’m gonna start up the electrical firing with the pole over there which has some fountains and some little wheels on it and it’s kind of an elegant design and as soon as that’s over there’ll be a little punctuation mark of a blue strobe mine that will suddenly go off, that’s a more sort of violent effect. And then back to a more graceful effect of this wheel and then following the wheel will be a large set piece which is to me the most exciting piece of the whole display.

FRANK COLLUCCIO OVER FINALE:
And then when they’re all done, I’ll hit the last three salutes and that’ll be the end of the show. And hopefully it’ll be 26 minutes and 20 seconds. Ha-ha.

ARENA LOOPT VOL
AVOND VALT

IMPRESSIE GROUND DISPLAY
CLIVE JENNINGS-WHITE

TOM ARCHER,
JURYLID PGI:
Ground display, well obviously Clive was the only entrance tonight, but the standard was very very high. He had a slight problem with his flower wheel. BOEM BOEM…

ONDERBREKING DOOR VUURWERK

TOM ARCHER VERVOLGT:
The flower wheel was slow to get going but once it did got going, was very good. I think he got a very high score on that, even though he was the only competitor he will get a very good score on that. I’ve no doubt he’s gonna take home a trophy.

IMPRESSIE FINALE SHOW

CLIVE KIJKT NAAR VUURWERK

AFTITELING OVER FINALE
VPRO NOORDERLICHT – TITELS
AFL. ‘KNALLENDE KLEUREN’
UITZENDING 28 dec 1999
DOOR JOS WASSINK

TITELS

03:08 – 03:16 KNALLENDE
KLEUREN

03:30 – 03:37 RB Dr Clive Jennings White
Salt Lake City

07:50 – 07:57 RM Dr. Arthur R. Tilford
jurylid PGI

08:32 – 08:39 RB Dr John Steinberg
voorzitter PGI

11:09 – 11:16 RB Robert Westfall
Texas

13:06 – 13:13 RB Dr Clive Jennings White
Salt Lake City

15:13 – 15:19 LB Frank Colluccio
Legion Fireworks, NY

17:50 – 17:56 RB Dr Clive Jennings White
Salt Lake City

18:26 – 18:32 RB Rolf Halverson
Wisconsin

20:54 – 21:00 RB Frank Colluccio
Legion Fireworks, NY

23:43 – 23:50 RB Tom Archer
jurylid PGI

25:05 ROLTITEL

SAMENSTELLING & REGIE Jos Wassink

CAMERA Willem Heshusius

GELUID Charles Kersten

MONTAGE Jac Verheul
MIXAGE Jack Bol
KLEURCORRECTIE ……………….
LEADER Bob Takes
REDACTIE Hansje van Etten
Hilbert Kamphuisen
Harriet Leget
Simon Rozendaal
Karin Schagen
Annemiek Smit
Marjan Tjaden
Jacqueline de Vree
Jos Wassink
Ger Wieberdink

MMV bestuur en leden van het
Pyrotechnic Guild International
Rutger Webb, TNO
Dolf Haank

PRODUCTIE Madeleine Somer
Karin Spiegel
EINDREDACTIE Rob van Hattum
copyright VPRO 1999

English version —>