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The making of Night of the Full Moon
My wife and I first went to Thailand in 1995 when we did an extensive tour and it is no secret that we fell in love with the country and particularly the people. We now go there regularly every year for about a month, usually in November, or January/February to escape some of our winter...
We have settled for going to the north of the country to Chiang Mai, which is 500 miles north west of Bangkok. The climate there from November to March is ideal, dry and sunny.
The first time we went to Chiang Mai, we met a Thai girl, Pat (full name Supattra), who is a licensed tour guide. She was orphaned as a child and gradually a relationship developed between us to the point that unofficially we are now her Mum and Dad.
She is 35 years old now, has visited us twice and has been welcomed as part of our family. This now gives us a big advantage over other tourists as we see aspects of Thai life and have mobility not usually available to visitors. This can make filming a lot easier.
Pre-Production
Having done a lot of the travelogue bit, we now look for something more specific to film. We had heard of the annual festival of Loy Krathong which is celebrated in Thailand on the 12th full moon of the year occurring at a weekend early in November.
We had also encountered a small scale celebration of the festival at the River Kwai but from guide books, we learned that the place to be for this event is Chiang Mai.
Various explanations for the festival are given, but put simply, it is something of a harvest thanksgiving and involves launching floats, decorated with candles and flowers into water, usually a river. At Chiang Mai, however, it is more than just that.
The year we intended doing it, Pat was able to give us the specific date of the festival so we were able to ensure we would be in Chiang Mai for that time. There was little research we could do before hand as none of our guide books covered the event in any depth. so we were very reliant on Pat to keep us right after we arrived.
Filming
The main part of the event takes place at the River Ping in Chiang Mai and to our dismay, Pat suggested that we be down by the riverside for 7am on the Saturday morning. This meant being up at about 6am, - on holiday?! However, we gritted our teeth and got there.
This enabled us to film the preparations for the dragon boat races, such as the crew being blessed, the boats being decorated with garlands and also the boats being baled out. For some reason they seem to ship water very easily!
We also got footage of the cheerleaders rehearsing and the making of the Krathongs (floats). The sequence of the actual dragon boat race was a bit shaky as it was taken from another small boat which was bobbing about.
The main event starts after dark, with a four hour spectacular parade of illuminated giant Krathongs or floats, many of which are then launched on the river.
The problem of filming a parade is that because of the crowds, you are stuck in a static location. So my wife, Jean, took on the task of spotting suitable cutaways which could be used to add interest to the sequences.
The other problem was that many floats had there own music so that any in camera editing, or post production editing, would cause unacceptable sound jumps. Therefore long sequences were filmed to give an unbroken soundtrack for use at the editing stage.
My camera, a Canon XM1, was left to its own devices as far as exposure was concerned and it handled the scenes perfectly. However, manual focus was used quite a lot. I blessed the development of the flip-out screen, as it was often necessary to lift the camera over the heads of people in front to get a shot, and for this, the screen was invaluable.
One piece of luck was that, near where we were standing, a small group set about launching a paper hot air balloon, something else which is a feature of the festival. I was able to get in close to film this, a process which resulted in great hilarity, so much so that anyone watching the finished film is inclined to join in the laughter.
Footage was also taken of the small Krathongs on the river. With each having a candle, which was undisturbed by the warm, still, night air, and with thousands being launched into the river, these made a stunning spectacle.
One bonus was that another four hour parade takes place the next night on the Sunday evening so that means that you can have two bites at the cherry.
Post Production
This was carried out in my computer using Adobe Premier. Having been to Chiang Mai many times, I have quite a library of footage and it was from this that the opening establishing shots were taken.
As always with editing, the most difficult part is knowing what to leave out, this applied particularly to the parade as there were so many spectacular floats to chose from. When capturing video like this, I put the cutaways in a separate folder, this then makes it easy to look at the selection and chose a suitable one where required.
I am not fond of fancy transitions except for a special effect. I feel that they draw attention to an edit point which should go unnoticed. Consequently I only used straight cuts or dissolves.
I think I spent about as much time on the soundtrack as I did on the editing. I wanted to keep the ambient sound, as this added considerably to the atmosphere of the event, but as I mentioned earlier, each float was producing its own sound.
However, having filmed long sequences, I was able to lay down a length of unbroken sound and then put the visuals on top. As the sound did not have to be in synch with the visuals this did not cause a problem. Also, making full use of the Premiers audio cross fade facility, this resulted in a pretty smooth soundtrack.
Where music was used, this was drawn from library CD's available from the IAC.
The voice-over was written at the usual three words per second and then recorded by my wife Jean. She has always done my commentaries, as she has a pleasantly pitched voice, and having done a lot of amateur drama in her youth is very good at getting the phrasing correct.
These days, I record it straight on to a the hi-fi tracks of a video tape and from there import it into the computer. It is then cut up to fit in the Premier timeline. When finished, the video was viewed a number of times from the computer and any necessary tweaks made before exporting it to tape.
- Ken McRonald
The Night of the Full Moon won the 3rd place of Amateur Award at the Cotswold Int. Film & Video Festival 2003, and also received a silver award at IAC Norwich 2003.
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