S4E15: Tom BetGeorge - Magical Light Shows

In the Season 4 Finale - Tom BetGeorge shares how a passion for music and holiday light shows turned into a globally recognized creative business. The episode explores entrepreneurship, innovation, AI, and the mindset needed to stay ahead in a fast-changing creative world. 

He also discusses the role of AI and emerging tech in the future of creative work and why adaptability is essential for long-term success. Along the way, he shares personal insights into entrepreneurship, viral growth, and the realities of scaling creative ideas.

“You either adapt or get left behind.”  🔥 Full episode available now.

This season is sponsored by muuxBRD!  More Matches, Less Time muuxBRD.com!!

Check out fireTEK Firing Systems, the official firing system of Pyro Unleashed.  https://firetekfiringsystem.com/

PGI is back for another season with us.  To become a member go to PGI.org

Proud to support and get support from Winda Fireworks and T-Sky Fireworks!!  Ask you local wholesaler for Winda and T-Sky products this season.

linktr: https://linktr.ee/pyrounleashedpodcast

Transcript

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SPEAKER_06 2:15

Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

Season finale. Season finale.

SPEAKER_06 2:21

We've got to go and we've been teasing here.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

Yeah, we've been promising a really good closing, closing episode. And uh we want to thank Tom for coming on. Uh looking forward to this conversation and seeing what all we can talk about. Um so uh I guess let's just jump right into it. Tom, uh we know who you are. Yeah. You want to give us a little bit of insight about who you are and what you do, and uh and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Sure. Uh my name is Tom Betjorge. I'm the founder of a company called Magical Light Shows. We specialize in theme park shows, businesses, commercial installs, and residential shows as well as well. Um we do a lot of pixel animations, uh, we work with Pyro, we work um with drones. Um I would say our our company is mainly threefold. We do um residential programming, we do commercial uh drone and uh light show operations, and then we also do uh just commercial um experiences for like theme parks, businesses, and and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Okay, awesome, awesome. And how did you get into into doing all this? Drugs.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

No, I got into this because I used to be a music director for conservatory, and um I uh yeah, back back in a million years ago, two lifetimes ago, I did like music for film and television, and so I learned orchestration, composing, and you know, uh my main instrument is piano, but I have to play most of them because of what I do. I saw light shows on the internet that were coordinated to music, and I'm like, oh, that looks interesting. I want to try that. And then it um within 48 hours, I think it was on Good Morning America, and then every year since then it has continued to go viral. So what has happened over time is does a company say, Hey, can you come do that for us? Um do this for our theme park, can you come do this for our business? Can you come, you know, uh just basically create what you've done for your house uh at our location? I'm like, yeah, I guess. And then it took off into be um it's kind of a fun career, so I decided to go all in into it. So I I would say it started as a I started doing live shows in 2013, it started as a job in 2015, and then maybe around 2016 I went full time.

SPEAKER_06 4:36

Wow, wow. Wow. That's awesome. So on on average, how many light shows are you guys setting up each year?

SPEAKER_03 4:43

That's a great question. Um I mean we because we we don't specialize necessarily in the installation of it. We we do a lot of consulting, a lot of design. Um so I I'm making up the numbers, um, but I think they're accurate. Okay, I would probably say we do about 30 installations a year, and then about 12,000 houses use our programming. Oh wow, okay, wow, but we don't go to those houses, of course. Yeah, but they just kind of go and we don't do custom for clarification, we absolutely do not do 12,000 custom shows. Yeah, but uh 12,000 customers um buy our programming on the internet and then they just automate it, and they just take our programming and adapt it themselves.

SPEAKER_06 5:24

Okay. That's cool, that's really cool. Yeah, I mean I mean at what point in all this did you realize that you know the Christmas light shows were gonna be more than just a hobby and it was gonna be you know your full-time career at that point?

SPEAKER_03 5:36

My first my first job. My first job I realized um, I mean, I obviously when you do things for passion, you don't do it for money, but um even my first job compared to my monthly income was like, hey, I'm making like three months income in a in a couple weeks. So it was it was, you know, I mean it was like, whoa, wait a second, like can I do more of this, right? So um and I I started getting more into it, and yeah, before at first I used it to supplement the income and then became bigger than the income, and then more hours I threw at it. So yeah, it literally had the very first job like, oh, this is something. Um now here we are with AI making us wonder are we all any of us gonna have jobs in about enough?

SPEAKER_04 6:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 6:18

Yeah, I mean so obviously obviously I was leaning into AI a little bit. I mean, are you guys leveraging AI more and more into your software and stuff like that? And how is that driving the change of this whole entire design process?

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Yeah, you know, we have to. I mean, it's it's either we have to or be left behind, right? So it's um we I won't share everything we're doing with AI, not because we're hiding it, but it's more like uh we just don't want people copying uh certain moves that we do.

SPEAKER_05 6:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

But I I can happily say that we use AI in 50% of everything we do. Um there's obviously a lot of stuff that is still manually programmed. And I would say most of programming is, you know, but we're using AI as tools, but when it comes to solutions and when it comes to issues and troubleshooting, I mean it's often our go-to. Um and then we're trying to implement it more and more as becoming part of our workflow because we figure if we don't, other people are going to. Um and then they'll get what we're doing faster. Um, we do find that the best programming is still done 100% by us. Yeah. Um, but AI can help get us on track faster and then get us closer, and then we can use that. Um, like uh we do projection mapping um as well, in addition to what I listed earlier, and right now I'm working on a projection mapping project. I don't know if it's NDA or not, so I won't go into details about it. I can't remember. Um, but we are using AI to do a lot of our masking for us instead of masking it um you know manually, AI is doing the masking. So we're like, hey, here's a mask implement on this video, and then instead of having to do everything through video software, we're getting halfway there just through AI.

SPEAKER_06 7:59

Wow. Yeah. Really it really overall speeding up that process of getting some for you guys and helping out there. Yeah, that's absolutely some some cool stuff there.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Yeah, AI has not thankfully replaced any of our jobs, but it just is that's each of us are using AI.

SPEAKER_04 8:15

That's exactly what I was gonna ask. Is it is it taking away jobs, or do you do you think it's taking the same amount of time or the same amount of manpower to make it happen?

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Right, I think it's making us more impactful and more effective with our time. That's and that's why I hope you know to see the whole world in in general as much as possible, right? We're not just trying to um at least in our world, right? Like, obviously, I can't speak the same for every position in the world. I mean, we know a lot of jobs will be going away, but for the ones that stay, we're just trying to make it more effective. So, like, why I mean AI did my taxes last year. Like, I have all I had a stack of receipts and all the stuff to go through and all these Excel sheets. I I literally gave AI all my credit card statements, all my bank statements, um, and I said, Hey, can you categorize it? And it it did it in like what you know what would probably have taken me weeks and just minutes. And then I went through and made sure it was all all right and correct, you know what I mean. Um but like it's then I can spend more time doing uh the creative stuff. AI is not funny, and what I mean by that is like um it's terrible at humor. We do a lot of humor, like it doesn't have that nuance yet. Yeah, yeah, it has some new like it has some that's like, hey, that's that's that's funny, but we need to modify it, right? It doesn't it's not really great at that, but um but it can it can you know I'll I'll ask it something simple like you know write me you know 20 jokes based off this concept and then I'll I'll narrow one concept and take that now, modify this in 20 different ways, and then it still won't be right, but then I'll I'll be able to combine it with something that I'm thinking all of a sudden we got like hey, this is the gem line, and we'll add this into our narration or we'll add this into whatever we're working on. Um we even use it for like social media, like you know, stuff like that. So like we're making a joke. So um like right now we're making a um an ad. It's not really an ad, I would say it's more like is this a video that works as an ad? Um it's it's one of those experiences where like uh so a lot of times people think what we do are UFOs, and UFOs are big in the news right now, so we're gonna we're gonna say something along the lines of like you know, Magical Life shows accidentally causing alien sighting since 2015.

SPEAKER_04 10:29

Yeah. That's funny. So yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:35

Yeah. So obviously, I I think a lot of people know you from obviously from from the whole viral videos of your house and the lighting, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. How how did that come apart? That just organically happened, or at what point did that kind of blow up and become what it is?

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Yeah, it was it was the very first video, and that's it. The videos were the organic part, and then the business. Well, actually, everything was organic. We don't really um advertise, advertise, right? We just make our our home videos usually. We do commercial videos too, but there's this charm about home videos. Um so when I first put my first video up, it's like um people just say, you know, look at this crazy person, right? And it it it it's it's catchy because they have that charm of just being someone's house, right?

SPEAKER_06 11:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

Um and it doesn't have the same charm if if it's this commercial building, it doesn't have the same charm if it's like a stage, right? Or if it's a nightclub. Because it's to be expected a little bit, but when you have it at a house, like look at this guy gone nuts, right? But then so that becomes this organic sharing thing. But then people say, wait a second, there's there's obviously clear skill in there. It's not just it's not just all for funsies. Someone there understands music and they're and they're coordinating it precisely, and then they they see past it, right? Because if yeah, if I make an ad, it's gonna get suppressed like crazy. But it was from the very beginning, it wasn't meant to be an ad. It was meant to be like, oh, let me share this what we're working on, right? Watch it when I say we, at first it was just Tom. It was Tom for like two years. Let me share what I'm just working on, and then I added someone, then we added someone else, and then that way um I'm I'm basically I call myself the creative director of the company, so I'm still involved in all the creative aspects, but I try not to like I'm I'm not the first person who responds to emails. I'm not the f I'm not the first person who responds to orders and that sort of stuff. Like we have a few staff members who handle that, and I handle the creative direction and I handle the final say on sequences, programming, and that sort of stuff. But I'm um talent uh attracts talent, and that's in black that I'm talented, but I would say that when people see something cool, they want to be a part of it. So um it started with just me, but now I'm surrounded by people who are also really, really gifted in uh in what they do who are just awesome. So, like um, you know, like I I have Matt Phipps, who I'm working with right now on a drone show. And well, he does all of our drone show programming. He does he already knew 3D software, so um he does all that for us, and then I'm surrounded by Steve Petrussi, who is just he was by the way, all of our programmers are musicians. Um that was kind of like uh critical to the uh to the thing. Because if you if you when you hear music, you you can appreciate it, and when you appreciate it, um you you can actually acknowledge what's going on in the music much more precisely. So um, you know, Matt, Matt's been a musician all his life, Steve's been a musician, he was a band director or a music teacher, band teacher. Um we poached him and he uh he works full-time for us. He's like he basically runs the company, right? And then we have Larson, both I think uh Larson's parents were like professional musicians. Like we like I go down the list, and you know, um everyone who does the uh musical part of the programming has a musical background. Um so it's it's it's it's it's pretty cool. So that that's why I think also what we do, it's it spreads so much because even though people can't vocalize why it works, why it's creating an impact, it's it's but the heart of it is because we're literally acknowledging what's happening in the music versus a symbolic acknowledgement. It's not like, oh, when I see this, I have this emotion, so therefore we're just making this emotion. Like, no, we're actually literally acknowledging what's happening in the music, and because of that, an emotional reaction is happening. It's basically the inverse of what I used to do. So when I used to write music for film and television, the music told you how to feel about what you see. And then we actually inverted that relationship where when we listen to music, it's like the lights, the fireworks, the fire, the drones are actually acknowledging what the music is doing.

SPEAKER_04 14:33

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Long answer to a short question. No, that's that's good.

SPEAKER_04 14:39

You started to bring up some other questions, like you know, your music background in in lighting, like how much do you feel? I mean, obviously you've you feel very strongly that it impacts it in in a great way. Uh same thing with you know with how you're implementing you know the drones and and say fireworks, like that has to just uh create a much more impactful uh segment in your show. And I know talking to you at a little bit at Western Winter Blast, um you know, we talked about how um you like to accent with fireworks as opposed to use fireworks. Right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

I mean, okay, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna state the obvious fireworks are literally explosive, right? Yep, yep. It's very difficult to peek past fireworks other than maybe an accidental firework explosion or fire, like right? Like there's it doesn't get bigger. So like um I know like since we do drone shows too, people some people in the industry are like, oh, it's one of those people who think drone shows are replacing fireworks. Like, no way. No, no, sometimes they have to. Um, but not but not because I want that, right? Yeah. Um I I don't know if I don't think no, I don't think this there's no reason why this would be an NDA. Yeah, it's not an NDA. So right now, um, I'm also this morning I was working on a drone show for you are you familiar with the Palisades? Yeah, um, and if you're just in case for those people who are not familiar, Palisades is the the area in Los Angeles that was one of the areas that burned down um recently in in uh actually I think it was Arson Sally that started it. It was either Arson or PGE, one of those two. Um but um when the uh when the fires happened, um obviously like fireworks is not a good place for the Palisades right now for multiple reasons. One, it's very sensitive to fire because of what just happened, and two, you have all these fields, right? It's even more prone to to burn right now than other times. So like uh they can't do fireworks, so we're doing a drone show for them. Um, but no, I mean if I had the choice, you could peak all the way. So I was talking to someone, and you may are you may know him as well. Um his name is Linden, and he does fireworks. It's ironic because we're working together on I live in the town of Linden, and he does not, but we're working on a fire push of Jonah and fireworks show where um fireworks are peaking. Although it's funny because I live in Linden, his name is Linden, but we're working on the Linden Fireworks show, and everyone I say, hey, if it's the Linden show, or uh I'm working with Linden, they think I'm top of the city, but not on top of the person. Um it gets really, really confusing. Um this is not important, but I'm gonna tell you, anyways, when I was uh in high school, my foot, not my football, uh my uh high school running coach, his name was Dr. Foot. Um he was a foot doctor, and he literally had one foot. Do you think I'm making it up, but it was all real? So doing the Linen fireworks show, but we're no we're peaking with the fireworks, where we're building up with a drone show and we're ending with uh fireworks. It's just nothing bigger. So I'm a huge fan of what we can do to incorporate because you know, fireworks don't do some things really well, and I'll just I'll just say it as it is. And now some people might dis disagree with me, but it's difficult to have soft firework. Like there's I mean, there's comets and there's certain things you can do, right? But you can only get so dim, you can only get so subtle, right? That's it's harder to have right. It's easy to have the big explosives up. It's really easy, like these fireworks excel um in big moments. It doesn't excel with like uh the really softest stuff. I mean, sometimes you know you might have fireworks slowly falling, like waterfall is happening, but it it starts with some type of like fireworks, some type of charge, some type of sound. Sometimes it's it's very difficult to have 100% silent with nothing too bright just in, right? And that's where pixels really can steal the show. Um maybe not steal the show, they can maybe word that differently, they can do it uh more gracefully, right? Yeah. And then drones, I mean, drones like they can create an image. I mean, like so when you want to create something literal in the sky, I mean, what can beat that, right? And you can you have the giant canvas in the sky. Um, so when you combine the two, or even three, when you add pixels or other, you know, other other aspects, then I feel like you can have a more emotional journey, a more impactful experience. So I do not believe drones are replacing fireworks in one instance like this 4th of July, yeah, it's going to replace in the sense where they they're unwilling to do fireworks, as it would be it would be a wrong timing to have for fireworks. But I think the dream is always when you combine all aspects of technology to make something that no individual thing can do by itself. Um, drones by themselves sometimes are boring. And they're boring in between images, especially, unless you have a lot of drones. But sometimes uh like you have this image, well, now you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting. Online, drone shows are always sped up, almost always, right? Firework shows are never sped up. I mean, like, why would you do that, right? Um fireworks, like you're watching it is all in all of its glory. Whereas drone shows are often like, okay, let me speed up the between stuff. All right, oh, that's cool, let me speed up the in-between stuff. Yeah, yeah. You know, same with pixel stuff. You would never speed up pixel stuff. Um, but you know, but when you combine all the technologies, that's what we find. It's just it it's it's impossible to be.

SPEAKER_06 19:58

Yeah.

unknown 19:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:00

You either little buffering image, right? Between drones between drone drone drone images, right? Drones are transitioned, you have a little buffering image, like the next scene's buffering.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

Yeah, exactly, right. Yeah, exactly. So I mean what we can do, but it takes way more programming, is when the drones morph, like in a very specific way, right? Where they take something, they take this, and they move, and then it becomes something cool, right? So like one of the things that we have for our Fourth July show is we have this, ironically, we have a uh rocket going up that you know, that bursts. Um I mean a firework rocket. Um and then like uh and while it's while it's going in motion, there's drones you can't see getting ready for the uh for the shell to explode. So like it's it's like rockets going up, and then then the rocket disappears and the shell explodes, right? So that takes a lot of work because you're morphing what it, you know, what the other ones are doing in a very specific shape. You so you can pull it off, and of course, if you have lots of drones and lots of but you know, crazy budget amounts, you can have you know one thing appear, then something else appear while these are getting set up, something else appears. It's just it's just that detail called money. Yeah, money and time. It's fine.

SPEAKER_06 21:16

Always make more money, always make more money.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yeah, yeah, and drones unfortunately are quite expensive. And yeah, similar to I mean, I am you know with fireworks, it's the insurance is it's crazy. I just paid my insurance bill, I think, this morning or yesterday or last night. So it's still very fresh on my mind. Uh, you know, hey, we just paid our insurance bill, let's put these things to use because we're paying for it whether or not we're using it. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

Absolutely. So, what is what is the design process uh, you know, say for your your house now? I mean, obviously you have a team working for you that they're doing a lot of the work for you, but what does that look like, you know, all the way from music selection to execution?

SPEAKER_03 21:55

Um that's a voted question. Yeah, no, it's it's okay. So and I'm I'm gonna reward your question a little bit. It's like it's not like what they were doing for me. Like, I think one of the cool things about us is even though it it's under my name, Tom by George, a lot versus magical light shows, it's us, it's always been a team, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:10

For sure.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Um, so it's not like it's not what they're doing for me, it's like what we're doing for each other, right? Like it's a great relationship where everyone is representing what they do. The reason why we share it as Tom by George on social media, because if it's shared by set magical light shows, all the algorithms suppress it and it loses its charm because it thinks, oh, this is a company. So yeah, even though it is a company, we're almost we're purposely putting it on a per personal account because look at this crazy guy, or look at these crazy people, versus look at what this production company is making. Like it loses its charm. So um, but that being said, um, the design process is you know, we we we start with what we're trying to do, and then we use the technology to get where we want to go. And what I mean by that is a lot of people start with, hey, we have these fireworks, where are we gonna use it? Hey, if we have this prop, how are we gonna use it? Like, and I think it's backwards thinking. You start with what show you're trying to you know create, and then you say, what technology do we need to make this? So we start with the theme andor the songs. Once we have that in place, we decide what props we're gonna need, what fireworks, what kind of elements, what kind of technology. Um the very first year I used fireworks in audio shows was because the song kept on getting bigger. It was a song called Noel, and it kept on getting bigger and bigger. It's like multiple key changes. And I'm like, we've done everything we can do at this point. We need explosions to make it. So we added fireworks. We need something in the sky. How can we make it bigger, right? So we we literally just we gotta we gotta ignite the atmosphere at this point. So that's what we did, right? We just started adding, and it wasn't a ton of fireworks, so it was only like you know, probably a grand in fireworks, but like it just added so much depth to like so we could have another peak. So we we had pixels, and then we had more pixels, then we had beams, and like we we needed it for another key change, but then we lit it up and we started adding comments, right? And then for the big finale, we added our shells. Um, but I don't like I don't like cakes. I gotta tell you, I I'm an I'm not a massive fan of cakes that I can't eat. Um and it's because like the timing, I mean some yeah, exactly. Control like so. I mean they have some, don't get me wrong, there's some I'm not I'm not opposed to having a row of fireworks go off. Um, but but when you have a cake that's just like good luck, I hope it works out. I mean we use them, and honestly, I think the number one reason why we use them this past year is because we ran out of mortars. Like, and we we need these mortars, we can't, you know, it's like all right, this cake will get us close, and we could just, you know, we don't need the mortars for them, right? Um, but otherwise, we got more mortars. I will always choose the single fires and the more precise uh shots. Um and I don't know why why I even brought that up, but yeah, we might have a cake at the end, just you know, because like just something big. But if I had the choice, we'll do a single fire every time. I know when speaking of Dan Haynes, we brought up before, um Dan is our uh our our firework guy, right? Um so um I work with him with doing the finale stuff. Like he he knows fireworks better than anyone I know. He'll say, here's here's what we need. I'm like I'm like here's the colors we need, here's the type of effect we need. He says, Oh, you want this. And right, cool. And then he'll make the finale thing, and then I'll go in there and fine-tune it because he's like, oh my god, like this is too much. Let me do it, let me do it. You know, because he's never done so many individual shots in his life on anything. Because um what he would, you know, what normally a firework person would probably just use, like, hey, like we're just gonna put a cake here, we're gonna have like a sweep, another sweep, another sweep, another sweep. Yeah, and instead of doing the sweeps, I did each one, each of the fireworks kind, because I just wanted it to be literal. Um, and I think that's that's what separates I think our company, what we do, is because when people want something really precise, um like when we're working like an EDM artist or something for like a festival or something, it can't be close. It can't be like, oh, it's yeah, I mean it's it's if there's this crazy synth effect, then you're off by even a tenth of a second, it doesn't line up. It's just like it's it's murder, right? It's for that it becomes what I I would call a conscious connection versus a subconscious connection. When you when you watch something and it's barely off, your brain says, Oh, I see what they're doing. They're timing this with the timing of that. And it's not as an emotional experience. You're like, oh, I see, I can appreciate what they're doing. When it's timed perfectly, however, the brain stops analyzing it on a conscious level and actually takes it in more on a subconscious level, yeah, where they're like, they're not even analyzing, they're like, whoa, the the the fireworks is the source of the music. You know, it's it's so perfectly timed that they stop thinking about what they're experiencing and they just experience it.

SPEAKER_05 26:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:53

Um, and that becomes a much more, much more emotional experience. And people can't vocalize that, they can't understand what what it is about the psychology. Like, I don't know why this one moved me so much more. It's because the timing, once you get so close, the brain considers them one and the same. When I teach courses on this, I often reference things like uh just how sensitive your ears are, right? So you have two ears, and if someone were to walk around me, you know, right now my eyes were closed, I wouldn't know where they are, which is mind-boggling when you think about what's happening in the science of it, because the brain is deciphering when one ear hears it earlier than another ear and the reflections, and it can actually determine exactly where they are in the room, even though that's happening at one six hundredth of a second for us to localize sound. So, in other words, our brain can hear the difference at the speed of sound when something comes from this side versus this side. That sensitivity is how fast we have to make it match for the brain to say, hey, this is one in the same, versus, oh, I see what you did there. You're trying to make the firework match that peak of the music, versus it literally matched, I'm not even thinking about it, I'm just being blown away by what I'm watching.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

Right, right. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 28:01

So obviously you talk about that time and stuff like that. Yeah, how how much of a challenge has that been to get those fireworks timed? Because fireworks are all different, right? Like you can shoot the same effect multiple times, you get different timings, right? So, what are you guys doing to help maybe uh with some of those timing differences to make those precisions? Are there different things you're doing, different testing you're doing?

SPEAKER_03 28:22

Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, like uh the in my experience, the lower the firework, the more precise it's gonna be. Obviously, comments and stuff like that, they're gonna be instantly fired, right? There's there's no delay. I mean, or if the delay or if there's a difference, it's negligible.

SPEAKER_05 28:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

Um, but when it comes to a shell, I'm very careful on how we're programming that, right? Like it's it's I don't like to use shells. I I use them at the big ending moments and stuff like that. Um, I use the aerial shells probably way less than anyone just because yeah, you you you're calling it, right? The time, like how the heck do you time it? You can get it close and you pray to God that it's gonna be where you want. And and you know, um, I I was complaining to Dan on like can we get can we get the manufacturers of the fireworks to have a sh a smaller tolerance? You know, and like you know, I mean obviously exactly how much charge, how much they put in there, you know, and how well they build that firework is going to reduce that tolerance. I mean, how you know how how precise. Now, you know, obviously you may be obviously the wrong word. Then you have people like Disney who um will say, hey, when it gets to this height, it's going to automatically um yeah ignite. Um because it's it's actually altitude-based. Uh, you know what I mean? Um, and they are using uh what's it called? Pneumatics to launch the fireworks, right? There's different ways of pulling it off. But obviously, that was also partly because you know there's too much smoke. Um and they did it, they couldn't have all that smoke in there, so using pneumatics to get rid of that whole charge thing, right? Um so we don't have pneumatics over here, and we're not throwing them out manually. Um I use shells minimally and in places where it's it if it if it's not as precise, it won't be as big of a deal. Um also um stating the obvious, one of the challenges of fireworks are when the uh when the boom happens and when you see it are two different times. Yeah, and that can also make it very complex, right? So I tend to not like um just just focusing on sound. Um I try to try to focus on when you know um and I I like silent fireworks as much as possible, unless it's at the very, very, very end, right? And then you can you know use your tributes and you can use you know all your uh all your stuff that makes all the big noise when it's like this almost chaos of a peak, right? Um so for example, I remember one time on one of those 80s mixes we had uh Welcome to the Jungle where the drummers just went crazy, right? Well, you can get away with anything there. You can light a cage, you can, you know, it and it doesn't make a difference when the shells are going off. It's gonna feel like it fits. And even the more chaos, the more it works. But anything that has to be well timed, it's just not gonna be a shell. It's gonna be a comet, it's gonna be a mine, it's gonna be something that we know is gonna fire within you know one tenth to one hundredth of a second of precision. When we program our pixels, we do all of our pixel programming to uh one hundredth of a frame. Okay. Um, which is also a challenge of ours because often what links us is time code running at 30 frames per second. So even though the you know the time code is accurate, um, and even though like you know, finale, you might be programming your fireworks, it might be a thousandth of a second. But the problem is your time code is still limited to um a thirtieth of a second, at least of what we're using right, it it we've actually had to compensate. So, like, so for example, let's say we have a la this is this is real, okay? This is what happened. Like we have lasers that come on, and when laser comes on, and then the time, so even if you're even if everything was precisely programmed to a thousandth of a second, but the time goes 30th, we know that in a 30th of a second, we might have a laser come on, then a firework come on, then a pixel come on, and you'll actually see three different start times because what's linking them is something not as precise. So, what we'll do is we'll fade it. So we instead of having pixels suddenly come on, instead of the laser coming on, we'll actually start it from being dimmed at zero and opening up the light so it's a soft fade. So that way when it all it's more accepting for your eye because now it's like it's turning on gracefully. Even this is within a 30th of a second. That uh because when we had it all precise, lasers come on immediately. Um, pixels come on immediately, it looks like it's off, even though I'm like, what's going on? We we know we did this right. We we we you know we all use the same time code. When we play them all individually, it's perfect. We realize it's because the time code is limited to a 30th of a frame precision. We that's how we act, that's how we deal with it also. We make the pixels and the beams and the lasers dim on instead of turning on instantly.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Interesting. Oh yeah, never mind.

SPEAKER_06 33:04

Yeah, I never never really thought about that. Yeah, when you're scripting and the and using time code differences and how that can affect the timing a little bit. Yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 33:11

Yeah, we're the only people we know who does timing like this. So we'll we'll also um in addition to what finale recommends, we will actually record a couple of shells and a couple of comments, a couple mines before um the show. Yeah, yeah. And we will we will time at what point does it appear to the audience? And we'll use our video. And then let's say, for example, it takes seven frames for a mine to appear above the building that everyone's looking at. We will then take all the mines and move them um back seven frames, so by the time they appear to the audience is when you see them. So if there's any any building, any trees in the way, we actually record it. Um and then we take all the different kinds of now. Shells won't really matter as much, right? Because shells will be so high by the time they go. So I misspoke when I said we don't do that with shells, but we do it with mines, comments, anything that's going to be it needs it's already starting with the time, you know what I mean? And we want to make sure that by the time you see it, so we'll actually record it and we'll use our uh our lap, we'll pull up Finals Got Pro, Adobe Premiere, we'll count how many frames and we'll rewind it. Um that way.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

Yeah, because I never would have thought about like you know, you are shooting behind something, like your house, right? So you do have to account for that delay. That's that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

And then to really screw it up, then we take a drone and we record from the sky, and now the drone is showing it start early.

SPEAKER_05 34:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

So we have to choose what camera angle based on what's happening. Because if we go to a drone shot when it's starting to fire, you're gonna think we started early, but on the ground. So sometimes we even go in between, it's a whole mess. Um, so like we we we sit here, we have like we literally will have a meeting about what do we do? How do we solve this? Because if we want the drone, if we want the drone to be on, we have to have it um start you know at this moment, but then it's gonna feel wrong from the in the from the launch on the ground.

SPEAKER_05 35:13

Yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 35:14

This is the kind of stuff that stresses us out.

SPEAKER_06 35:20

On your Christmas show on your house every year, how many Christmas lights are you guys using out there? All of them. I mean all of them.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

Um I real rough number, 100,000.

SPEAKER_06 35:33

Okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 35:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:34

And all all of us pixel pixel based based lighting, everything, everything. Yeah, all pixel-based.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

Um that's real rough though. So I I I would not use that like uh in court, you know what I mean? But like a real rough number. Sometimes every once in a while we'll go in there, we'll go to X lights, we'll count the channels, we'll split, you know, divide it by three or whatever, and forgot the math, you know, because I might be way off on it, but like it's a lot. Um $100 might be on the high side, but it's like it's not like it's 10,000, it's nowhere at night like this. Way, way high. Um, but we keep on adding stuff, we don't even bother counting. We just figure like what let's go add this, we'll add this. Um we're nowhere, no, we're nowhere near our network limits-ish. Um what determines like we we have to we we're limited on how many pixels we can have per port. Like um, we can run up to 333 pixels per port, whereas some people go higher than that because we want to maintain our frame rates at 100 um frames per second. And then even though the camera can't capture that, we found when you go to that frame depth um when animation streaks across, it literally starts to look like magic versus lights coming on at stages when you upgrade that frame rate. It's like, oh, you don't need that, the eye can't see it, it absolutely can't see it. Um a lot of people misquote um what there's been studies done of what the brain can consciously be aware of, and what that meant was like, yeah, if you if I was watching a movie and 60 frames per second was happening, and in those 60 frames, 60 unrelated images happened. No, my brain couldn't retain that, but you absolutely can see the difference and the quality of the motion, your brain can see way more than that, and people misunderstand that to be like, oh, you're comprehending 60 different images versus being able to appreciate the smoothness of the 60 frames, you know. Um they did that a lot a long time ago with like advertising movie theaters, right? Where like, hey, one thirtieth of a frame would be a picture of a coke and it would it would show you know water coming down the side of the cup and they would show an image of popcorn, but they would do it so fast your brain couldn't like did I just see that? And I don't know, your brain even necessarily it just looked like a glitch, but your brain on a subconscious level said, kind of thirsty. I don't know why. I kind of want popcorn, I don't know why. And that was a subconscious, they went so fast on purpose that your brain wouldn't perceive what was happening. But yeah, when you have one image or you have one thing, it's instead of it looking like I'm watching a light show, it literally looks like magic is moving across the house. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:01

Now, what what advice would you give somebody who wants to try and take on synchronizing lights and doing displays like this?

SPEAKER_03 38:09

Don't. No, it it's actually it it would be the opposite of what we do. And the reason why I say that is um because of what we do and because of customers we are now aiming at, we often go bigger, right? But bigger does not mean more impactful, and it's often what happens is instead of spending more time on what people have, they think they need more props, they think they need more fireworks, they think they need more lasers, they think they need more pixels. And the truth is usually far from that. Um usually I think we should start with something really small and see what you can do with something very, very simple. You don't need a lot. I'm I ironically, I am a minimalist. I don't like things overlapping. Um it doesn't feel that way because we have crazy technologies. But even with our technologies, if you look at how much stuff overlaps, it's very little to none on actually overlapping effects because I don't want lasers on top of pixels, on top of beams, on top of fireworks. Uh you'll see there's moments where they're all used. Um, I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but we've had um corporate clients or even bands and other people use us where we would go to concerts and we're like, man, this could be so much more better if they just turned some stuff off. Don't use all your technology at once. Showcase one technology at a time. Then sometimes two, then maybe sometimes three, but darkness is your friend. Um darkness, my old friend. Um, but like it's and without darkness, there's no contrast to the light. Without silence, there's no contrast to the music, there's no contrast to the noise. So the more darkness, the more silence you have, the more impactful your show will be. And it doesn't work for social media as well, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it in person. Because, like, in the first two seconds, if we don't you know get someone excited about what they see, they're gonna just swipe, right? That's a different dynamic than what we do in person. So if we have a uh audience captive, we're gonna do something very, very different. They're gonna appreciate it, but it won't translate to social media. But that's not so that's that's not necessarily the goal. So one of the things that we have to go back back and forth with hey, this this song is for social media. Hey, this is for people here, and for the ones that are really, really powerful and in person, they don't do well in social media. Yeah, but for the ones that are really, really uh good on social media, it's because in in two seconds we got what made we blew their mind.

unknown 40:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:33

Um, and then wow, this is amazing, this is amazing, amazing. And then still swipe seven seconds later. That's what that was life-changing swipe. You know, like it's a different beast online. So I would say for anyone starting, start small. Don't actually think you need a lot. You really don't. You need like one controller and some lights. You know what I mean? And then light, a firework very end. You know, you don't need all you don't need all this uh extra stuff that we do. You build your way into it once you feel like for the most part you've you got to a point where um it would it would be better to have more props than to spend more time on it. There's that point of diminishing returns where like yes, you could make it better, but it would be actually more impactful if we just introduced a new technology. So when that becomes the truth, that's when you buy something else. But until you're at that moment, if you have one strip of lights and you're underutilizing it, don't buy more. Just utilize what you got first. And then you feel like I've got everything I can reasonably get out of it, where it would just be make more sense to have a second strip of lights. Then get your second strip of lights. Um, I do think less is more 100%.

SPEAKER_07 41:39

Fire tech firing system. Built for control, build to perform. Congress signal, total control, lightweight, compact, ready to go. This is fire tech.

SPEAKER_06 42:00

I mean, and and you can, I mean, we I know for like the fireworks world, right? We can we can take a lot from that in that you know sometimes the slowness and darkness, and when you're in person, a slower fireworks show is more impactful in person, right? If you have the right music to go with it versus Yeah, well I'm watching a fireworks show online and there is some slow moments. I do that would be more tendency to just to skip on and move on because it is not entertaining. So it is that difference of where you're trying to bridge that gap between what's for in person versus what's for at social media, and you have to do two different kind of mediums in those cases. And yeah, totally how that kind of crosses over in the fireworks.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

Typically, the number one thing I do in my job right now is delete things, and I'm not I'm not kidding. Sometimes I piss off my team because I'll work forever on this project. I'm like, that's amazing, let's delete it. Um because it's when you look at the big picture, it's more emotional when lesson going on. That like, for example, that's a really cool effect. I want to save it for this moment, so then we'll delete all the times up to that moment. Um, one of the things that we do in our company, I don't know how other people do it, but from the very beginning of uh, or if it's not at the beginning, it's early in this stage, is a better way of describing it. Um, sometimes in the very beginning, though. When we're sequencing a song, we literally just create like this online Google like Excel sheet, and we will say, this is this sound is going to be acknowledged by lasers. Don't worry about it being used by any other technology. This is gonna be done by the fireworks, don't do it. This is gonna be done by water fountains, don't do it. This is gonna be done with water founders and projection. Projection and water fountains need to do this. And that way I don't have team members wasting their time as much. Like, so we'll have like, okay, then if it if they want to experiment with a added fountain, it wasn't in the script, but what do you think? And like, oh, that's really cool, let's keep it, or like that's really cool, doesn't fit, let's use that effect in a different sequence. Um, so we'll go ahead and um by the way, my apologies. My monitor is changing colors. I just realized what's that green coming from? It's like this, yeah, the apple, the apple screen screensaver. Um so um We'll plan it out. So which technology is going to acknowledge what? So we don't overlap, and that way the sequence becomes more powerful. Um when I watch firework shows, honestly, um, I I get I'm just like, oh my gosh, they have they have too many fireworks going on. That only works for a moment when you have something grand for 10 minutes straight, it actually loses its impact. You're you're and honestly just blowing through money at that point. You don't need it.

SPEAKER_04 44:31

No, I was just saying that's where the idea of like um yeah, you can you have to have these crazy impactful moments, but if you have the whole show as a crazy impactful moment, then it's not very impactful because it's you know you're just overdoing it. So you have to at least have your lackluster moments, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

I don't recommend most drummers doing a firework show because drummers usually have two dynamics loud and louder. I wait. I used to be a um a judge for the I don't know if they still do it, but the guitar center used to have a drum-off competition across the country, and I was one of their judges. And the big joke is you know, drummers you often don't have dynamics, right? Now a good drummer will have dynamics, so I say it all in jest, but with fireworks the same thing can happen where you just have like I remember why I won't throw anyone on the bus. I was watching a show where it was amazing, but it was amazing for too long. So it lost, and I'm like thinking honestly, like it you're you're not wowing people anymore. It's more like this, yeah, wow, wow, wow, cool. And then you like lose you lose the effectiveness of it, honestly, and it sometimes would be draw people in. Um when I conducted orchestras, one of the first things um I would work with on our orchestras was like you want people as much as possible to be on the front of their chair, not the back of the chair. You want to draw them in to like not and then at the end or a certain moment you can draw them back, blow them away, but you can't blow them away before they're just you know falling asleep. Eventually they're just like, okay, right? But in fact, what you want to be, you draw them near like what's happening, you know. Yeah, yeah. So um, I used to do classroom management with our uh um schools, and um one of the ways when when the class is out of control, I actually got quieter. The quieter you talk, they actually listen. Um teachers often think, oh, I have to get louder for the kids to hear me. Like I actually gotta slow down it gets softer. It's the same thing with programming, same thing with music, right? So um if I want to draw you in, all I have to do is space out what I say, just a little bit. And then it and then it like it pulls you in a little bit, right? If I talk really fast, it just comes up like I'm gonna this is nonsense, nonsense. But if I slow down, now you're interested in what I have to say. And there's that breaking point also where if I go too long, you just want to punch me in the face. Right? Like there's this, okay, I mean, that's just pissing me off, right? Um I I I usually answer when people call me and say, Hi, this is Tom, one of my biggest frustrations is when they don't answer right away and they say, Hi, is Tom there? After I said, I'm like, you know, I I can't do that, I can't do this. So uh like I literally just said this is Tom. You're not even listening to what I say, and then it took you five seconds to to acknowledge, I'm like, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god. So it annoys you, right? So it's finding that timing of like how much draws you in versus not crossing that threshold of just pissing you off waiting, or making you bored and making people take out their cell phones scrolling while they're watching a freaking firework show. That's costing thousands of dollars. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:42

Do you think constraints? No, no, good. No, good. No, answer both at the same time. Okay, perfect. Do you think constraints actually improve creativity then?

SPEAKER_03 47:53

It makes it easier for most people. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the problems with creatives is they think they have the whole world at their fingertips. And one of the easiest things to do is to say, what is this not? Well, this is a fourth July, for example, the Fourth of July fireworks show, right? So I'm not gonna do um these effects. And, you know, this is the 4th of July, so I'm gonna rely a little bit more heavy on red, white, and blue, and not, you know, green and yellow, nonstop, whatever. Like, so you start saying, What is this not, and before you know it, you create a box. And now when you create a box, it's easier to be creative. When you have the whole world at your fingertips, it's some people don't even know where to begin. So I would say, yes, it's easier to start with constraints. Build a box, create a show for that box, and then have an expectation to be within the box, and that way when the box is set, then you can break the expectation, and that was creates emotional impact. So when the brain understands what's going on, so we're like, what's it when we're doing sequencing fireworks and we have this expectation and then we're fulfilling the expectation? Cool, cool, cool. Then all of a sudden, when you have a pattern, but then you break the pattern, it has more impact. When you have no patterns, there's no impact. Because then it's all chaos after chaos. So your brain never gets to even expect something. You can't really expect chaos. Um, but when you expect something, once the expectation is there, you know, if I go bum, bum bum bum bum bum, and I don't hit that last note and I make you want the note, there's an expectation. But if you don't recognize a melody and I just go bum and I have no nothing but previous to it, there's no expectation, there's no impact. But if I go bum, bada bum bum bum bum, and I waited a little bit longer, there was an anticipation, the delay of the of the resolution, and the delay of the resolution draw you forward out of your chair because you're waiting for it. So creating constraints absolutely does help your creativity. Also, creating expectations helps because without expectations, there's no breaking of expectations, which means you'll never really have a big impact.

SPEAKER_06 49:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:54

Very interesting.

SPEAKER_06 49:56

Kind of like along the lines of the music stuff here and Little More, maybe I'll personal for you, is are there any artists or composers who have really heavily influenced your styles and the type of music that you gravitate towards?

SPEAKER_03 50:07

Um, yeah, but it won't mean a lot to a lot of people. So, like, for example, I love Stravinsky, and most people will not even know who that is. Um, but you know, if you're you know if you're into classical music at all, um if you watch Fantasia, there is the dinosaur one, if you will, in Fantasia. That was Stravinsky Right of Spring. That's very impactful to me. I love John Williams. Everything about John Williams is great. But John Williams uses Stravinsky in his composition. John Williams uses Trykovsky in his composition. So John Williams is brilliant, but he got his stuff from other stuff too, right? So um, like Star Wars, a lot of it's from Right of Spring. Absolutely. And then juxtaposition of like uh, you know, harmonies on you know that don't belong inside of chords. That's what John Williams would do all the time. Like, you know, here's this ba-ba bum ba-da-bum ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba-bum. But the reason why that sounds so cool is because he's superimposing a chord under it that actually doesn't match what's going on inside of the music. Um, I don't I don't think uh I think I have noise uh canceling headphones, otherwise I'd play for you on piano. I have a piano underneath my fingers right here. So um my studio is right here, but underneath my studio is a piano. Um when I say piano, I mean a piano keyboard, and I actually play when I'm programming. Oh I can see what's going on and actually time it. So um I have it right here, but you won't be able to hear it because the noise cancellation cancels it out. Um but it's so yeah, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, um, big impacts. Uh who else is there? Um a little bit of Beethoven, but um yeah, I would say if there was one, it would be just yeah, Travinsky was. Oh, and I loved WC, like big time WC. Oh my gosh, the colors that that are made are phenomenal. Um and then speaking of Fantasia, Fantasia was one of my most impactful movies as a kid because in the very beginning it goes, and it started with that song, and it actually had basically what we do, right? It's like starting with the music, and you're taking these images and these colors matching to the music. I think that's why I do what I do. Um is because that that created an impact in my life. And as a kid, that was the first song I learned on organ was Takata and Fugue and D minor, um, which was uh by uh Bach. Um and um learning that, you know, it's opened up my mind and it and and and how you can have you know your your melody, your counter melody and different colors of of how chords affect your affect your brain and how how different shapes and things come to your mind. Um and because that whenever I uh teach and even when I go up the crew, and we don't start with like don't start with what you have, start with what's in your mind and try to get what's in your mind into the tools of what you have versus how can I what I have this tool, what can I do with this tool? No, start with what's in your mind, how can I get my tools to emulate what's already happening in my mind.

SPEAKER_06 52:47

Yeah, yeah. And I I guess that probably leads into I guess the whole mindset when you're when you're doing these live shows, is you're you're are you approaching that from like you're conducting an orchestra kind of a essentially kind of a viewpoint?

SPEAKER_03 52:59

Absolutely. Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, but it's not so much that it's I'm could because I'm conducting it. I mean, yeah, in a way, it because it's also semantics, right? I understand the emotion of what you're talking about, but like it's also the composition of the piece too, right? The composition as well as conducting. The conducting is more of the timing and the emotion, and the composition is like you know, the whole foundation of the piece from the from the get-go, right? Um if the music isn't right or if the lights aren't right, you don't matter how well I conduct, it's not gonna work. But having the right elements, the right color is you know, like you know, how you combine instruments is how you get a color, right? So how you would how you combine lights and technologies is like the uh the the visual um counterpart to that, right? So like yeah, how you combine lighting is like it creates this color, you know. Like if you have like just white beams and complete darkness, that's definitely one emotion versus red. Well, red, you know, like there's their psychology of colors, right? So it's not all not colors are not all equal, right? Our our our brain perceives them as different, partly because of how the light actually reflects into the real world and partly because how culture has affected us, right? We associate red with love, right? Why do we associate red with love? Well, there's actually some you know, like uh science behind some of the stuff that happened first, and then you know, we also we associate with with blood, right? Blood and heart, and you know, there's there's certain things, but with blue and right. Um, psychology, like in when you when you see the colors blue and green, well, you consider that to be peaceful. Part of that might be because of the actual wavelength. Part of that is because of culture of what you see, right? You know what I mean? When you think of blue, you might think of the ocean. When you think of green, you might think of green pastures, and we think of peace, right? Where red, most people don't think of peace, right? So like colors themselves have these psychological components in understanding the psychological components of each color when you program. And then on top of that, even on fireworks, a whole other science is colors literally burn differently. Yes, you know, like a whole other freaking game. And then you have the challenge of like, yeah, it looks good in person, but how do you get to look at on video? Because red often gets washed out, blue looks like white. You know what I mean? Like it's it's a whole oh my gosh, like, yeah. So I sorry, I'm going from tangent to tangent, right? This is how my brain works or doesn't work for more clarity. So even the dog degrees, so I I'm with you. All right, absolutely. We're all with you.

SPEAKER_04 55:18

So, how how different is it uh performing you know, lights with live music compared to performing like a visual experience?

SPEAKER_03 55:25

Well, lights with live music is difficult because um the musicians can change, right? So when we do anything with live music, we use click tracks, if you're familiar. Um that way the conductor or whoever is, you know, or whoever the musicians are are are timing it because obviously musicians are going to make it more sloppy than a pre-recorded event. Um, so we might not we in a live music situation, we're not gonna get so hey, this has to happen exactly on this exact moment. If it's barely off, it won't work because it's musicians, right? So they there's going to be some uh possibilities of getting it off. So um we're more going to create more scenic stuff versus precise hits, or if there's gonna be like I said, we're gonna use fades. Um, I would use fades a lot when it comes to lighting in the live live music world versus when it's pre-recorded, we can have everything down to one one hundredth of a second. Um but then we get complications of how far the audience is, so by the time they hear it versus by the time they see it, like, oh, you know what I mean? So like it's another issue, right too. So we try to soften the edges of our lighting with you know um fades um just to compensate so most people have a better experience. But online, of course, we can get it to one camera angle and make sure the music is matching from that camera angle and not have to worry about different places in the audience of that same emotional impact.

SPEAKER_06 56:47

Yeah. And we've kind of touched on this a little bit, yeah. Like how has the social media aspect of all this impacted the way that you do the shows or you you record the shows or put the shows out?

SPEAKER_03 56:59

We we we usually record for two different reasons, and we're aware like some of these songs will do well on social media and some of them won't. Some of these songs will be like, hey, once you found what we did and you went to our YouTube channel, watched the show in its entirety, maybe a theme park would be able to maybe the theme park gets their attention through one of our social media shorts, but it's not necessarily too artsy, but then they watch our full YouTube show and then they appreciate the art. So we we do both simultaneously. This is gonna grab them on online and this is what's gonna hook our our clients. Um so it we we have to do both. So social media is our almost only source, but by far our number one source of business. And I hate social media. So this week I've used social media on my phone zero. So I'm very intentional with it. I go online on my computer because it will hook you and it'll steal your life, and I'd rather be more intentional with my time. Um, and I feel like when you're on your phone, they they literally use the camera on your phone to analyze your movements and to to keep you addicted, feeding you, you know, based on what you see. On a desktop, it's easier to not get as addicted, so I can be very intentional. So I appreciate social media because social media is why our business probably exists the way it does, but if I can control it, I won't be on it. Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 58:25

What uh what content has performed well that has completely surprised you over the years?

SPEAKER_03 58:30

Um I I'm no longer surprised because I expect the stupidity of what I'm about to tell you. We will spend 200 hours on something and get a low view count, even though it was emotionally crazy, right? But then we'll like for example, my most popular video, and I'll see mine because this was this was Tom. I woke up and I was like, wouldn't that be cool if I did that song Satisfaction? And I did three, four hours of programming in the morning. And then I recorded that in a single drone take going towards my house and pulling out during the rain. I'm just running well, WTF. I'll record, I'll do it anyways, right? And I uploaded the video and it's got like 150 to 200 million views. Wow. And that was me by myself in a few hours' work. I'm like, WTF, why do I do what I do? So now obviously there's reasons why it worked, and but there's a lot of really cool aspects of it. But the funny thing is that we know is what we spend just a very short amount of time might be our biggest video ever, and what we might be, but this is why, like I said, but but but you'll but that didn't have like that wasn't a 20-minute show, that was like a 15-20-second clip, right? Um but but our our theme parts will appreciate our clients will appreciate that we when we put all that you know the 200 hours into something bigger, but it's it's it's a whole experience. But the the shocking thing initially the first time I was like, man, what the hell? I just I I spent a few hours and it it beat out everything I did. And and obviously social media is not the goal though. So the goal is to make cool things, and the and social media helps create the awareness of it. But the goal is not how can we get a viral video necessarily? Because then if you get too much about that, in addition to the psychology of what happens to you as a person, you really mess with your head. It's not a healthy um place to be in. Like, oh, this didn't get this many views. Um, this video sucks. I suck. I should get a new career. Like you really mess with you real fast. So instead, you have to be like, okay, why'd this work well? Why'd this not work well? Let's do this. Um, we want to make sure we don't sacrifice our values in the process. We're not going to sell out like um I know I can get a lot more views if I do things like um in with humor that I'm I'm opposed to doing because of morals or quality. So as long as the quality is good and the morals are to a high to the highest standard, I'm okay with doing other fun things. But if it comes to like, hey, this content has swearing, even though it'd be freaking hilarious, I won't do it. Or this content is like it's like it's it's it's you know, it's it's tacky or it's in inappropriate, we won't do it, even if we know it would get views. Yeah. Um, so I won't do that kind of stuff. So um yeah, I hope that answers. I mean, it's again it's answering multiple questions at once. Yeah, some questions you didn't care to ask.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:20

No, that's all right. No, it's it is funny though, kind of backtracking to things you didn't think would be as impactful. Like I was talking to a buddy of mine and he does a little firework show in his backyard. And he's like, I spent eight months designing this firework show. It might not have been eight months, I can't remember, but right, yeah, not non-stop, probably at work.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:36

Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:38

Yeah. So you're doing all this work to figure out you know, create a pyramusical in your backyard. And he's like, the day of I decide I'm gonna put a fireball in there. He's like, they've never seen it. He's like, I did all this work, and at the end I hit this fireball, and he's like, My family would not stop talking about the fireball. And he's like, I literally could have just scrapped all these months of work and just did a fireball, and you guys would have been happy. It's funny to say, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:03

But at the same time, if you started with a fireball, everything else would be like non-peaky and non-interesting. But it was bleeding into it that made the impact, right? So, of course, yeah, they're gonna talk about the finale more than the soft part because that's what brains can acknowledge. They're not gonna vocalize, I love how the emotion took me from here to there. They're gonna acknowledge the ending. Um, I just watched Stranger Things two nights ago, finally, and watched the finale, and now of course I'm thinking about the ending. Like, how'd you like the ending? Um, how'd you like the last minute or whatever, right? That's because that's that's that's just how we are. Like, and if you and if you didn't end with a peak and you ended with a trail off, it would actually lose the energy. So I also lead worship at my church. So under the same uh psychological uh mindset, if we have too many songs, people will leave church not wanting to continue singing. If we want them wanting a little bit more, when they go home, they might put on the radio, they might listen to more Christian music, and then instead of you don't want to burn them out, you don't you don't want to like overwhelm us by like, hey, that's enough. I'm over it. See you next Sunday. It's more like this was part of the journey, and then when you leave, you're like, I you know, I want to keep on listening to music. And that's that's when I think we're serving our community because we're we're keeping their relationships going versus if we overdo it, and if the movie just kept on dragging, like I think it was one of the Lord of the Rings, where like I remember Lord of the Rings ends, it blacks out, and then it comes back and it blacks out, and it comes back. I'm like, how many endings are there? There's like seven endings for this movie. I thought it was over. And like, you know, don't get me wrong, Lord of the Rings is phenomenal, right? But I was just kind of like, is it over yet? Um I feel like it could be a family guy clip or something, right? Where you think it's the end, then it's not over.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:56

You kind of mentioned that briefly, the whole burnout thing. Yeah. So I mean, how do you stay inspired and prevent that burnout from producing all these large-scale shows and work?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:07

We do what's exciting to us, and the moment's not exciting, we start steering away from it. So if it's boring and it's tedious, we just say no to those jobs.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:17

So if it's new and exciting, that's the bad thing about what we do too, since we tend to do new and exciting things, we get stressed because we keep on adding something. It's not like, okay, we're comfortable, we know this technology. We keep on saying, what if we did this? And then that if is what stresses us all out. So we keep us on our toes and finding the right amount of if, right? If I overdo the if, I'm gonna piss everybody off and they'll quit. But if I have enough, that like that would be rad, you know what I mean? So um, let's try that. So so just having the right amount of rad. So um I slowly over the years I get better at the planning. It's hard to plan something exciting eight months from now. It's easy to wouldn't be cool if we did this today. So, like, I I I'm getting better at learning how to plan because I also I have two I have two different personality types. This is um not me, I mean uh in our in our teams, all teams do, right? All successful companies have multiple personalities. Not just it's not just flexible people, it's also you have your bricklayers, right? If you're people who are good with doing last second changes, all you have, well, you have no one to do the work. And if you have only bricklayers, you have nothing exciting, right? So you need a combination of people who are like willing to do all the work that it takes to get there, but also mixing just an amount of enough creative people who's like gonna try crazy stuff, but you can't be crazy after crazy after crazy. There's we'll never get anything done. And we'll we'll never we'll just be in planning stages forever with no uh execution.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:39

Yeah. Yeah. What uh what project are you most proud of emotionally, not just technically?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:46

Uh hopefully it's always our last show, and in this case it was. So our last Christmas show. Yeah. Um it was awesome. I mean, it was awesome. I mean, there's there's aspects I have from previous shows that were just like that was so cool. You know what I mean? There's There's moments where like we didn't necessarily beat it, but as a full journey of a show, like I think we're just getting better and better at utilizing technology the best that the best that we can. Sometimes you get things that like screw you over, like weather that can you know complicated like how you know, like you know, weather calls your hand. One of the things that's suck about fireworks is when we do fireworks in California, um, everything's like highly permitted, right? So we can't say, hey, we're gonna light fireworks on one of these days during this month because then we'd have to have a permit for every single day. And then we just have to have the fire department on standby every single day, right? We can't do that, right? So we have to pick a day or two and pray the weather's decent because we're filming that day regardless. Um and sometimes it it helps us and sometimes it really hurts us. So um, but I think we've we've done good, um, we've done well with making our shows a better utilization of technology um while still not getting boring. So the irony of our company is people expect us to break expectations, and that's a very ironic statement. So um, so in order in order for us to exceed expectations, we have to exceed the exceeded expectation.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:19

So it's like we have to go, you know, like they think that we're there, so they're expecting us to be here, so in order to break an expectation, we have to be here, which is like so. I usually have a couple of cards in my back pocket on purpose. I don't give a I don't show my whole hand. If I show my whole hand, what are we freaking doing next year?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:37

This year we're covered. I know what we're doing, it's gonna be great. Awesome. Um, I think next year we'll have to just pack up and go. We're running out. I mean, short of real, you know, um holograms, it's gonna be it's gonna be rough. All right.

unknown 1:07:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:56

This kind of leads into that kind of our our last kind of segment here, but it's kind of kind of the future and the vision of where you're this is kind of going. Yeah. Where do you think this technology, this entertainment medium, is heading in the future of the next decade or even further?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:09

I think we're going to go more digital, more AI, more non-real world experience, followed by the desire to go back to real world experience. I think what's going to happen is more people are going to buy headsets for a little while with virtual reality, and you can go anywhere in the world with a headset. Um, and then people are going to find that's not what they want because we're I think we're gonna go too far into technology and then back away from technology. And I think that's that's kind of gonna be the nature of it. So we're getting to a point where computers are doing everything for us, right? So what's gonna happen is computers gonna create a real world for you. You know what I mean? And you can, you know, games will become much more surreal and and put you know, you can put, like I said, you can put on virtual reality headsets and you can even interact with things around you that might be physical, right? Um, and then people will miss the the physical thing. So I think we're gonna get crazy technology integrated. I think AI is is mixing more and more into the real world, right? And we're still right now you see AI that's hilarious, right? But it's it's it's not the same as something real. So um I think AI is gonna go too far. Yeah, yeah. And it's gonna get really blurry on what's AI and what's not, and then we're gonna back off and go back into what's real, and then using AI and using computers and technologies to support. But things that are real and tangible being the foundation of everything we experience. And of course, you'll have people who'll be lost to technology, who just like they don't care, they're like lost in real world, right? We thought it was bad enough when Game Boys came back came out, right? And and now like cell phone addiction is real and it's it's it's huge. Um, it's gonna get worse because of AI. Um, and then I think for a lot of people they'll be like, wait a second, this is too much. I'm I'm gonna get away from this, and then we'll use technology more thoughtfully. Um and some people will be lost in technology, and I don't know what percentage of people will be like, you know what? I I I I want to go hiking at Yosemite. And I don't want to bring technology with me other than like some type of device for safety.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:18

Um, and I think that's that's where we're gonna go. So I think it's gonna get more blurry. AI is gonna mix more and more, and it's gonna take over, it's gonna make shows more incredible, it's gonna make shows become it'd be cool if I I I'll appreciate that the real world experiences, right? I don't think fireworks will ever go away in any in any capacity. Yeah. Um but I think a lot of I think we might even use some port integration with augmented reality as well. Right, where you're wearing glasses and you're using AI and you're using uh tools around you, so maybe a show becomes better using augmented reality, and then um I think we'll go back and forth, like you know, we'll we'll overswing and then we'll swing back the other way, and then we'll swing back, we'll probably get more dialed into where the feature is. So unfortunately, I think we're gonna head to too much technology, get burnt out, and then come a little bit back to more of what's real.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:11

What emerging technologies are exciting you the most, like creative, creatively? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:17

Well, I'm I'm excited about how programming can be actually automated more to do things faster. Um, you know, like movie making is gonna be completely different. Yeah. I mean, now you can literally have you know you can, you know, and and movie making gets integrated with, you know, video projection, it gets integrated with LED stuff, it gets you know, fireworks will be boy, we'll be able to do cooler things too, right? So like we're gonna get things like hyperreal um that's going to save budgets, which allows people with not uh a hundred million dollar budget to create a really cool experience, right? Um because AI is gonna make it way cheaper to create experiences. Um I'm excited about that. I I I love drones right now. Um we're we're spending a lot of time with drone technology, but drones are just part of the picture, right? So like I don't try like how how can we integrate drones? Drones are round because I can set up drones very fast in a in a new location, where I can't set up a pixel show really fast. I can set up projectors relatively fast in a new location, but I need darkness to dial it in. I have to set the night before at minimum, right? Pixels I have to set up the week before. Um drones I can set up the day of. Um so that's why drones are great because we can go to a stadium and set up in the afternoon for a show three hours later. Um can't do that with other kind of technologies, right? So but I I do love drones in that in that aspect because we can create it anywhere, relatively speaking, that you know, uh airspace allows. Um and if we get enough drones, um one of the things that we're doing, I and I think we're doing it better than anyone I've ever seen, and we haven't even released videos what we're working on, um, is making drones as precise as our pixel shows. Um so it's pretty freaking rad. What we're having issues with is learning all the different buffers and all the different um audio issues that that happen, right? If when you're watching something in the sky, well, we're gonna the audience takes a big area, so how do we make sure that everyone in the audience hears the right sound at the exact right time? And if it's using radio and what you know, and having to counter for all the all the all the different delays that happen in various technologies. So um one of my our one of our teammates has actually um created an app using AI that syncs it all together and compensates for all the different software programs that are used to make the timing become precise again.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:39

Interesting.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:40

Uh what what what legacy do you hope all this work leaves behind in the future?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:48

Um I think one day we'll look back and just watch these emotional experiences, just like watching movies. Sometimes uh I'll watch all shows and be like, oh, I forgot about that. And it's just like watching it's it's watching an emotional journey that you created. When it's kind of like the same reason why people write in diaries or in journals. When you write it down, you have it forever and then you release it. So when you do something once and you don't record it, um you have that memory, but it's not the same. But when you have a a good recording of what you've done, you can revisit it, and it's also you can like let it go. And you can it's it's it's good psychologically, it's great for your emotions, it's also great because you can re-watch it and re-experience it, share it with your kids, share it with your kids' kids, and be like, look at this old stupid technology we used to do. I'm just kidding. But like uh, but look, you know, it's it's it's but but at the same time, sometimes I'll watch an old show, I'll be like, wow, that was actually really, really cool. Um so I think the recording aspect is really, really important to me, and because of that, it creates a legacy that you can re-watch it. And then also I I hope to one day let it all go and then just never do it again and just do something else. Um I'm also inspired by doing different things, and I just love slowing down and just going to um I am a person of faith, just you know what God created in the world and gardening and just enjoying time with my son, my wife, family, um, and just like I said, just the ri the real world stuff. Um I mean, don't get me wrong, pixels, fireworks are all real. Um, but just also just what's literally natural in this in this planet is amazing that some of them will never be able to beat.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:27

Yeah, absolutely. Uh yeah. This is good. This is fun. All right. This was a lot. I thought I missed.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:34

Yeah. Do you feel like you got the content and uh enough to uh edit it down to a seven-second clip? Hey, my name's Tom Mike George. Well, that's all we have time for this week. We'll see you next week when we introduce somebody else.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:49

That's that's not we've just been awesome. Yeah, longer than I anticipated. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:54

I'm looking forward to it too. I think I think it was a good video. There's a lot of thoughts that I have that stuff that I know I want to record into a video of ours one day, because I teach this kind of stuff all the time, but it's just time to, you know, edit down this video. So it's it's easier for you to do it because you can do it objectively. For me, I'll never edit it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:13

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SPEAKER_06 1:17:08

So we're gonna end here with kind of a little rapid fire, our final five questions. So uh normally we have fireworks-related questions, so we're gonna switch it up a little bit this week and we're gonna maybe add in some different ones, but uh subits are still relevant. Um kind of the very first question what is a bucket a list event you have not attended?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:28

Oh, that's a great question. Um, I want to go to um what's it called? It's it's it's I think I believe it's in Europe. It's one of the uh EDM concerts. Um like not Tomorrowland. Oh my gosh. It's but uh my apology won't have the same impact. I'll email you later. It's one of the uh EDM festivals. I'm not I don't do drugs, I don't do loud music, you know what I mean. I'll I'll literally wear my ear ear protection, but um just seeing what they do is is so freaking cool. I I actually like what we do more, but they have this the scale that you know I can't do on my budget. Um I'm able to go to Disney Productions and that sort of stuff, but I think that'd be rad. I also would like to go to Burning Man and also not do drugs, not do anything weird that happens out there. Um you know what I mean? And then this is I'm gonna say one more bucket list, which is kind of a lame bucket list, but I want to go to IAPA. So Iappa, if you're familiar, is uh is a theme park uh trade show, but it's in our busiest time of year. It's in November. We don't have time to go. Oh yeah. I really want to go and experience all the cool stuff, but I'm always flying from site to site during that time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:41

Yeah, I I I'm I'm a Tomorrowland attendee. We we would have we we we've gone to the winter one a couple times, so oh nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:47

So it's just hello. It's rad, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:50

Yeah. All right, question two. What is the favorite show that you have you you have put together?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:57

The last one. And I'm not saying that I would say that always, but like our last one was fantastic.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:02

Yeah, yeah.

unknown 1:19:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:05

Yeah. All right. Question three, we're gonna mix it up a little bit. Um, if you were to do if you weren't doing this professionally, what would you be doing different else?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:14

Music. It's always music. It's always connected to music. So before I was doing just music, I'm doing music with lighting, I would go back just 100% music. So you can't pull me away from a piano. I mean, if you know, like it's I'll always play piano as long as my body allows me to do so.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:30

That's yeah. That's that. All right, number four. What is your favorite effect? This could be a firework effect, it could be a pixel effect. Like, what's the what's your favorite effect in in the design process?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:41

Liquid sky. And that's where we take a little bit of fog and we take lasers, we span a laser to an effect that you see the cloud going through the laser, it's freaking phenomenal. Yeah, it doesn't look real. It's like it just it's like you're looking at it, you're like, I can't believe this is really happening in front of my eyes. Right? No other effect I've ever done. It's like, even though you understand what's happening, you're like, is that actually happening? Am I seeing that? It's so cool.

unknown 1:20:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:05

And our last question, the most challenging one, does pineapple belong on pizza?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:12

Yeah. I mean, it's not for me, it's not. It's just like sometimes you just kind of want it. Like I like it's yeah, I have no problem with it. I've I've I've definitely had pizza with pineapple. I thought was really good. And there's been days I wouldn't want it. But yeah, absolutely. Whatever you want on it. I mean, I wouldn't pour raw milk on pizza, but there's a lot of things you can do. Like, hey, why not experiment? So some people like it, and that's that's that's basically ties into what we're talking about, right? Like, not everything we do is for us. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:43

Yep, yep. All right, that was it, man. That's cool. It's been a fun season. Yeah, it's been great.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:48

Well, thanks, thanks for having me. And uh sorry that it took so long to get me. Like uh I had to lock the door, turn off my phone. So yeah, it's it's um so typically I I did some math. I usually get take about 17 calls per hour. Wow, and then in between that I'm trying to do work, right? So it's it's it's bad. Yeah, so that's why I'm like, okay, so like when I get off, I'm I'm doing a compilation for Hamilton, and then I'm going to um install some DMX switches, and then I'm doing another uh compilation, and then I'm doing some video editing, and then yeah, it's um and then some programming. Um and I'm supposed to get this all done in the next couple hours, so wish me luck.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:30

A nice break for you at least to get away from the phone a little bit. Uh yeah. But yeah, again, I want to thank thank you for coming on and enjoying and spending some time with us and and carving this out and sharing sharing your whole story and your journey with us. Like it's it was nice to be able to kind of you know learn more about yeah, who is Tom and find out what goes into the shows and stuff that you do. And so we really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:50

Yeah, you're no problem. You're actually talking to an AI agent right now, and Tom's actually in the other room working.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:58

Nowadays it's hard to tell. It's hard to tell sometimes. Like it's I've gotten good. Yeah, you'll see the glitch in the matrix and be waiting.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:06

If somebody wants to uh reach out to you or uh install you know one of your systems, where could they reach out to you or uh go to get it?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:14

Yeah, absolutely. Um info at magical lightshows.com.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:17

Okay, very good. Awesome. Well, we look forward to uh seeing all the light shows. I'm excited for Christmas. I always cue it up and I think we even we didn't, I think we even did a live uh watch. Oh, right, right, right, right, yeah. The premiere, yeah. Yeah, one of the premieres. So yeah, um, yeah. So thank you again. It's been an honor to have you on, Tom. Uh thank you guys for working with us and coming on. And uh looking forward to to the future.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:44

Yeah, we'll talk again soon.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:46

All right. All right, take care of you guys. All right. Well, we just want to say thank you again to Tom. Um what a great episode. Uh really had a great time talking to him, lots of knowledge. I know I learned a lot. I don't know about you, but I learned that. That was cool. It was cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:59

That was that was that was really yeah, that was that was awesome. I mean, definitely uh yeah, he went a lot more a lot more in depth on stuff than than I would I would expect. So it was really kind of cool to see the the personal side of uh of Tom. And yeah, all we see is is just just the shows, right? All you see is the is the videos and the it's really you know see the person behind him sometimes. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:20

Uh we're this is it. This is the closing closing episode of this season. Of the season, season four of the books. Yeah, this is it. Uh want to say thank you uh greatly to Muxboard. Uh thank you again for for your help and sponsorship of this season. Uh without you, we really could not have done this. Uh really to any of our sponsors, right? Um you have um PGI. PGI. Yeah, I'm driving I'm losing it today, man. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:49

PGI get a commission tickets. Uh I think they finally got camping stuff sorted out, it looks like finally got camping stuff sorted out.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:55

Yep. By the time this releases, you will have uh camping spots. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:01

Um there's a couple shows going to be up for this year, so uh go up there and uh check them out.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:07

Yeah, yeah. Looking forward to those. David David will need some help. So I might need some help. So if you if you uh if you have my info, reach out to me. I know a guy. Uh wanna say thank you to Lori and it uh uh Fire Tech. Yeah, huge shout out for the sponsorship. Again, without you, this would not be possible. So we really appreciate that. Uh and then obviously uh T Sky and Panda, Wizard, Winda, whatever you want to call them.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:40

So I'm not sure. Yeah, okay. We're rolling with Winda then.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:42

So I think thanks to Winda uh and T Sky again for for the help uh and sponsorship. Um looking forward to future endeavors with you. And uh reach out to your local favorite wholesaler for T Sky and Winda. Um maybe me. Uh we know. I know a guy. Yeah. So um be safe out there. Um yeah, got a month and a half until we're all lighting up the sky for I mean we we live for a couple days out of the year, right? I mean it it's uh what we all look forward to. And then when we come back for season five, it's gonna be it's gonna be ready to rock and roll for Sky Wars. Fall shows, fall shows. Yeah, lots of stuff happening.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:31

Yeah, from PGI to Sky Wars to Lone Star. I mean, yeah, yeah, you've got Sooner Skyfire mixed in there. You got a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff there in the in the fall. Yeah, fire jam. Another busy one. Fire jam. Yeah, yeah. So hoping hoping hoping to see some stuff there happen there. So I mean, uh still waiting to kind of guess we're gonna make some confirmation, some things worked out on their side, but uh we'll see how how all that stuff kind of kind of happens. But well, with that, yeah, but again, guys, go uh go out there, have you a uh a safe, a safe season. Um if you're in the process of scripting, catch the finale tips of the week. They're they've been they've been rolling out there, and so um get brushed up. I see there's been a lot of lot of questions online and around finale stuff. And um, I know our videos get shared in some of the Discords and some of the places as well. So uh go out there, check them out, some good information. Um we're gonna try to connect with Drew maybe after the season and see if we can't get a few more recorded that we can have out there maybe in the fall for people to be working on some fall shows or yeah. Maybe I'll have my own personal questions I need to get answered. Yeah, I mean selfishly we'll bring them on and talk about some stuff. But uh yeah, go out there, guys. Guys, be safe. Have have have a good safe 4th of July. Um come home with all your fingers and toes and uh and all your body parts and uh yeah, be safe out there. And so, but again, guys, until we see y'all next season. Season five, gonna be seeing next season. Yeah, go out there and unleash your inner pyro with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:57

This has been another episode of Pyro Unleash. Come back each week for more industry insights, technical tips, and awesome pyro design. Have fun out there, be safe, and as always, remember to unleash your inner pyro with us.