fireworks

It hasn't been announced yet, but we're ready to declare a winner in the 2008 HSBC Celebration of Light.

From where we were sitting, the show put on Wednesday night by China was downright incredible. Your humble author was scared for his life on a few occasions during their 25 minute show; surely a mark of a truly entertaining fireworks display. When the votes are tallied, it will come as no surprise to us when China takes the win. 

Don't let all this chatter convince you, though. Check out the highlights of the footage from Wednesday night below, and then wander over to the Strutta game to cast your vote for your fave.

The first installments of our 2008 HSBC Celebration of Light videos are now live, featuring Team Canada and Team USA. Check out a 5 min chunk of highlights from their performances below, then feel free to mosey on over to our game and vote for your fave.

Team Canada - August 23 2008 from Jordan Behan on Vimeo.

Team USA - August 26, 2008 from Jordan Behan on Vimeo.

It's a long story how this came to be, so I'll boil it down to the >140 character version: We asked, they agreed, and the rest is history.

And so it was that last night, yours truly ventured into the masses of people crowding the beaches of the West End, trusty light-weight HD video camera and tripod in tow (with thanks to Warren Frey for the loan of the hi-def equipment), to shoot what will be the official video production of all four nights of the HSBC Celebration of Light. Which, if you're keeping score at home, is the "World's Largest" off-shore fireworks competition.

My contact, Zirka, was extremely accomodating and secured me a prime spot on the roof of the English Bay public bathhouse. I'm happy with the footage I shot on the first night featuring Team Canada; their "Attack" theme was very original and certainly kept people's attention. Apologies for not making some of that footage available already, but it is currently trapped in the post production workflow, and will emerge in all of its fully-edited glory soon. 

Now, to the question you have all been waiting for: Yes, the performances of all three competing countries (this year featuring Canada, the US and China) will be made available on Strutta.com, and you may cast your votes on which show you enjoyed the most. For good measure, we'll go ahead and include the Grand Finale as well, which features all three countries and an additional 8 minutes of artistic explosivity brought to you by BC150. This year, the voting on Strutta will be purely for sport, but I don't mind saying publicly that I hope our software will drive the "People's Choice" award next year, with text and web voting, Facebook widgets and the works (We'll be sure and get the performances uploaded as close to live as possible if this is the case). 

No sense waiting to see my footage (which is hardly a substitute for seeing it live anyway) when you can still get yer booty to any of the great vantage points in the city for any of the remaining performances. 

*image of 2007 COL fireworks above by my good mate Rob Masefield, who has photographed fireworks on three continents, and offers an excellent tutorial on shooting fireworks with a Digital SLR camera here.   

Manitoba's Archangel Fireworks will represent Canada on July 23rd as the HSBC Celebration of Light ignites with a Godzilla-themed pryotechnic display in Vancouver's English Bay, where Strutta will be on hand as the official videographers of the competition.

Come by and check out the firework displays, then watch them afterwards on Strutta to decide which one you think is the best. Canada's entry will be followed up by the US display on July 26th, China on July 30th, with the finale on the 2nd of August.