Stockland Martel

In the video “On Cloud Nine,” a leggy model in a fuchsia dress emerges into a cloud-filled white room from a door so small that she has to stoop to get out of it. She collects the clouds and carries them out through the mysteriously diminutive portal. There’s no dialogue, and her movements appear to be sped up, giving the piece the feel of a classic silent movie, except it’s in color. The whimsical clip (which you can see at the end of the article) is a collaboration between photographer Liz Von Hoene and Neiman Marcus associate creative director Margo Weathers, filmed by Von Hoene while she was shooting fashion stills for the May issue of Neiman Marcus’ The Book. “Since this first film fluke,” says Von Hoene, puckish as ever, “we’ve gone on to codirect several commissioned films, to the great appreciation and amusement of Neiman Marcus.” Here, she takes us behind the scenes of “On Cloud Nine.”

What was the brief for this project?
The funny thing is that there was no brief. Our little creation was truly spur of the moment. We had heard about the new film capabilities of the 5D [Canon EOS 5D Mark II], which we happened to be using for our shoot that day. Our knowledge of the workings of moving film was and still is a bit naïve, so we looked to a time in moving pictures when everyone fell into that category. The amazing resourcefulness of Buster Keaton and even Busby Berkeley—we find them so inspirational.

How did you conceptualize this video? What were your inspirations?
The concept started out as a still jewelry story: working with all white, thinking of something white that could be about the face area for jewelry. Head in the clouds was the jumping-off point. The merchandise changed, and so it became a fashion story. Then a room full of clouds. And for that little twist of humor, we scaled the room down to smaller proportions.

Since the video was not part of the original job, how did Neiman Marcus use it?
Hanne, the model, walked behind one of the clouds, and it became a skirt. That became the idea for the film’s ending. Neiman Marcus posted it on their website to promote the fact that spring dresses had arrived in the store.

Where did the shoot take place, and how did you prep or design the set?
We were required to shoot in Dallas, due to some travel restrictions. And to our good fortune, there is a trifecta of great set/prop brains there: an ex-pilot and ex-Marine from a company named Gratuitous Sets, who work beautifully with a genius stylist/model maker named Jocelyn Meinster, who is formerly of Flaunt magazine. Everyone who sees the video thinks there were special effects involved, but it was actually fishing wire, scissors, and some really synchronized timing.

How long did you have to shoot and edit?
The main focus had to be the still shoot—the reason we were there in the first place. We shot the film in about an hour. The snags that took up the most time were when her cloud skirt got stuck and came off when she walked through the tiny door. And once we finally got it sewn back on her, she had to go to the bathroom, so that took a while. Fortunately, it was shot sequentially and was a pretty simple edit. But we say that not as editors but as people who asked the editor to do stuff.

The music you used is fantastical—a perfect complement for this playful clip. Did you have someone compose it?
We know it sounds incredible, but that music just happened to be playing when we were shooting. It was from the Igby Goes Down soundtrack—it’s called “Insanity Is Relative,” by Uwe Fahrenkrog, the composer of “99 Red Balloons.” An amazing producer tracked Uwe down on Facebook in Germany, and he liked the idea of working with us, so we made a usage deal.

What did the client think of the video?
We got an email from the CEO of Neiman Marcus and were immediately asked to do more. We’ve shot 12 other films in the three months since that time. So I suppose you could say it went over pretty well.