Setting up a sky-shot cake: base, level and distance
A flat base, a straight cake and a clear sky above it: the five-minute setup that makes a cake fire the way it should.
A season at the testing field
Why we fire a sample of every batch before it goes on sale.
From July to October, two afternoons a week, our team drives out to a testing field outside Sivakasi with samples from every new batch of cakes and aerials.
Each sample is placed on a steel base and lit, and one person times the cake from the first shot to the last while another films it. We note the shot count, the duration, the colours and whether every tube fired. If more than one tube in a sample fails, the batch does not go on our list that year.
The notes go straight onto our product cards, which is why our durations sometimes differ slightly from the printed box. The videos go to customers who ask for them on WhatsApp, so you can see a cake before you choose it.
Testing also helps us plan shows. Knowing that a 60-shot runs exactly two and a half minutes lets us write a firing order that leaves no long dark gaps. It is slow, careful work, done in the quietest weeks before the Deepavali rush begins.
