(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (keyboard keys clicking) - [PK] People really don't realize how much goes into "WaterFire."

Wednesday is a wood pile workout.

We get six quads of wood delivered.

- [Barnaby] We're looking for trees that are already coming down.

We don't want them to be taking anything down for us, and we wanna make sure it's really dry.

We burn almost entirely pine, cedar for kindling, and then pine for firewood.

And that's what they were moving in the boats this morning.

- [Kellie] It's a lot of fun, but it's a lot of work.

And this is, like, the ultimate behind the scenes of "WaterFire" that not a lot of people know about.

And the fact that it's all done by volunteers is really awesome.

(gentle music continues) (wood falling) - All right, let's get a good, happy one (indistinct).

(group laughing) - I'm smiling!

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music intensifies) (gentle music continues) (keyboard keys clicking) - So Adam, if you wanna preset the next light on that side.

- [Adam] Yeah.

- And then we'll just wait 'til Levi to get back to with the extension cord.

All this preset that we do prior to Saturday saves us 20 man hours on Saturday.

We're running five miles of audio cable for the event.

We're putting up tents.

We probably put up, I'm gonna say, about 20 pop-up tents.

All gotta have electric, all gotta have lighting.

- [Crew] Come down a little bit.

(keyboard keys clicking) (soft music) - So John Bonner designed this sculpture, and it's the Rhode Island Holocaust Memorial, and it's been here in the park for about 10 years.

And this is the life stone, which is the sort of breathing heart of the art piece.

And in the dark, this very important memorial gets passed by.

People don't see it.

So for each of the memorials in the park, we figure out ways to bring them into the celebration of light.

And what we do here is we invite people to follow an old, Jewish tradition which is a pledge to remember a deceased person by respectfully placing a small pebble on their grave.

If you look at it closely at "WaterFire" you'll see the fires of "WaterFire" inside the bead.

So that's got a lot of poetry to it.

And what we're doing now is, in the dark, people place the pebbles, but if they place them too far down on the surface, like here, for example, they'll slide away.

So we put a very invisible veil to help capture the stones because so many people want to place stones, you can't just put them there at the top.

(soft music continues) It's all part of the artwork that's "WaterFire."

(soft music continues) (keyboard keys clicking) (upbeat music) (keyboard keys clicking) - "WaterFire" study, 9:22, Thursday, two days before the event.

This is our weekly meeting before an event.

Market Square Bridge Society, that tent's already up.

We put the banners up yesterday.

Nice job, by the way, guys.

It's 50 torches being processed out.

6:15, we line 'em up on the path right beside the star field.

Levi, you're good with everything as far as set up?

You guys are good?

Anybody got any questions?

All right, kill it, guys.

It's all yours from here on out.

Thanks, everyone, nice job.

- Good job.

(group applauding) - Hoo-ah!

Hoo-ah!

(soft music continues) (keyboard keys clicking) - Wednesdays are like finalizing things, you know, maybe new merchandise is coming in that we need to sort, prep, pack for the next fires, update our registers.

(upbeat music) - Well, today I'm volunteering in the store and as part of that, you're getting ready for the event, which we are having an event on Saturday night.

So part of that is having the T-shirts folded and ready for merchandising and selling.

My own experience is to see what it takes to put on a "WaterFire" instead of, you know, just the walking around, the enjoying the music.

That's all wonderful, but the behind the scenes is really something to see as well.

(upbeat music continues) (keyboard keys clicking) (birds chirping) (upbeat music) - (indistinct).

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (keyboard keys clicking) (upbeat music continues) - Hey, Kevin.

A few people dropped out on our team.

Can your team, or can you send some people up here to help us out?

- We do a timeline for every event.

So on the event, there's eight different teams, eight different areas on the event site.

So the timeline will go from basically 6:00 AM through 2:00 AM.

Every minute is calculated out to where they should be, what they should be doing, what's happening.

- Ready?

One, two.

(upbeat music continues) - Go right.

(indistinct) - Our team's ahead.

- So we're gonna hold off on this.

If you guys want to start in the back, we're gonna get the catering tents up and then the tent back, okay?

- Are you guys ready?

- Yeah.

- Lift up, one, two, three!

- We go over there with Kris, right?

- This is a (indistinct) case.

This is what actually powers up all the speakers from that end to the middle, over here.

- The production crew, you know, my team down there, it's been a team that's been together for about five years.

So the items that are repetitive, they've got it like the back of their hand.

It's the new stuff that's happening for that event that I've gotta make sure they're on top of, timing-wise.

- That timeline is to the minute, which we try to go with it, but obviously, things happen.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - Okay, one more fence, yep.

Thank you.

Then you're good on this side.

(wheels rolling) - I didn't realize how loud my alarm would be at 5:30, or, actually, 4:30 in the morning.

Woke up my neighbor's dog.

It heard us running around upstairs.

- [Kris] Do you guys want some water?

- So it's 10:45 right now, and right now we're setting up the faux fire, so making sure that when people walk by, it's really nice and making sure it looks a little triangulated.

So it makes it look like it's on the actual fire right there.

People always ask, like, "What's the magic of, like, getting this done?

Like, how do you do this?

Like how does it happen?"

- He just needs a little bit of something.

♪ Little bit of ♪ - Is that a song?

(crew members humming) - Oh, we're just setting up the RISD greeter station so people can be like, "Oh, what is this?"

And you can be like, "WaterFire."

And they go, "Whoa!"

(wind blowing) We'll wait on that.

(upbeat music) - This is for "WaterFire Providence," and we are on Washington Place, right in front of the RISD Design Building.

I've got a couple hundred pounds of meat going on in here.

I've got about a hundred pounds of brisket, a hundred pounds of pork.

Come around about eight o'clock tonight, this whole street is gonna be packed with food vendors, art vendors on the other side.

(upbeat music continues) - [Kris] We are working on getting the merchandise for our main sort of info and merchandise station for "WaterFire."

(upbeat music continues) - And then we're actually Googling.

- Trying to figure out what's happening here.

- What's happening here, yeah.

(upbeat music continues) - Well, it's a brand new experience for us, so we're just looking forward to whatever's gonna go on.

(upbeat music continues) - We're interested in the "WaterFire," fire on the water.

We are very excited.

(wheels rolling) (soft music) - We are trying to rebuild these braziers.

Usually the RISD area gets a lot of wind, so it's essentially a wind tunnel.

We want every brazier to be an art piece, so we gotta do some things to fix it.

(crew member chuckling) This is essentially a fuse.

I'm gonna light it later, so the torch will go right in there.

(soft music continues) (soft music intensifies) - Okay guys, listen.

4:45, 45 minutes until tent opens up.

I need you dressed in a half an hour.

That's 30 minutes, you're dressed, 45 minutes tent opens.

Okay, guys?

Thank you very much.

Let's go.

- All right.

- We've got so many things happening tonight.

We've got the 70 teachers getting their awards.

(audience applauding) - Katie comes to us from (indistinct).

- Thank you.

- Congratulations, ladies.

(soft music) (soft music continues) - You're still gonna see the LEDs under it.

Did you bring a pebble for us?

- [Spectator] Yeah.

- Thank you for coming.

(soft music continues) (soft music continues) (soft music) - I am so excited about the walk tonight.

I'm so grateful that we're honoring Rhode Island educators this evening.

- I'm actually very excited.

This is a really cool night.

- You're lighting the torch.

Carrying the light and spreading it on.

- (indistinct).

(soft music) "WaterFire."

(soft music continues) (people chattering) - It's about 20 minutes 'til lighting.

We have a situation in the basin.

- There's four braziers down, so I'm assuming we have to rebuild them, correct?

- We do have Providence police boat there taking care of it but it is gonna delay our lighting.

- [Ed] What's going on right now?

It just was blowing my mind and we've never seen this before.

I'm not sure what was happening, what was gonna happen next.

(soft music continues) (soft piano music) (soft piano music continues) (soft piano music continues) (soft piano music continues)