Interview with director and photographer Marie Schuller
Hello Marie and welcome. 'Flights of Fantasy' is the Summer 2023 collection. It is built around the ideas of fanciful and unexpected. A place of make-believe, imagination, dreaming. Its carefree, romantic, pioneering, encouraging people to reinvent where they go and who they are, to get out of their heads and into their hearts.
Marie, please can you share with us your inspiration behind the 'Flights of Fantasy' film (Can we focus on Sunny’s Quest for this interview?) series and how you first conceived the ideas that capture the direction of the collection?
What really strikes me about OB as a brand is that they are real storytellers. I find this unique and inspiring. Their garments are not just about the items of clothing, but the story behind them, they have a transformative and escapist quality. They author a million storylines that run through each collection and is assured in the way they talks about their garments. And instinctively knows what personalities would wear what items, which prints would fit into which surroundings and which designs represent which emotions.
This is massively helpful to me as a filmmaker because it sets the scene and enables me to build a script around parameters that are true to the brand. It’s much more efficient going into a project with an honest conversation about what the clothes are about rather than the more traditional commercial approach that often puts restrictive concepts into place before I even join, with scripts that don’t draw on my style or strengths at all. OB in that way is unique and their trust and openness have been instrumental in our work together. It allows us all to be inspired, come up with wild stuff, push things, sometimes even push too far and then readjust, and finally arrive at a narrative that feels true to the collection.
We initially bounced a few ideas back and forth, including stranded mermaids and 80s detectives, wildly exploring the elements of OB’s escapist qualities, until finally settling on much more purist themes: The sense of freedom and richness of connecting with others and nature. The film might feature dramatic scenes and big visuals but if you strip it down it’s really about very simple human emotions that most of us can relate to. It’s about escapism and about simplicity. And it’s about the things that are true to OB, like the sun, the beach, water and purity, and things that are true to me as a filmmaker, like nostalgia and kitsch.
Could you discuss the process of selecting and working with the models, actors, crew and collaborators for the 'Flights of Fantasy' series, and how their unique talents contributed to the project?
We all know that film is a massively collaborative process. It’s funny how bonding a 15-hour shoot day can be - you see the best and the worst of humanity all in one day. A bunch of strangers packed together in a hugely stressful and time sensitive situation that have to somehow all work in sync to get the best results. It’s a recipe for disaster but when it works it’s bloody brilliant.
I love working with people I know and trust and a lot of the team have been involved since our first OB project: Our producer Nancy Ryan and DoP Carlos Feher, and of course OB’s stylist Matt Luckcock (the most organised and patient person on set!). But this time we flew to Cape Town meaning a lot of the crew were locals that I hadn’t shot with before. We really lucked out with our art director James Mader. Simply put he’s just got great taste and the means to make things happen. He designed the giant wings for the project’s second film. He also instinctively understood the mood and feel of our storylines and OB’s aesthetic, so his contribution really elevated the films.
Casting is a massive factor and I always go through various degrees of panicking and second guessing when it comes to our films’ protagonists. I think one important aspect with casting is that photography and film are really two completely different entities. Some models work great on film but don’t come alive in the photos, or vice versa. For OB we do both, and it’s almost best to look at the two genres separately when it comes to casting.
Most of our performers were models not actors and their dedication and willingness to push themselves and just go for it was astounding. What the audience sees is 2 minutes of perfectly polished film material but behind that are two long days of pretend drowning in a pool, getting whipped in the face by three-meter waves for 20 takes in a row, screaming at each other in fake unscripted arguments, holding up 25 kilos of wooden wings while pretending to be at ease, falling onto the wet sand head first, playing football on a beach during a heat wave. All whilst having me shout nonsensical directions at them in a heavy German accent. It was full on, and they were all up for it, motivated and pushing themselves to get the absolute best results. I have massive respect for that.
Did the clothes fit the stories or did the stories fit the clothes?
The stories fit the clothes! The clothes always come first; our stories only bring them to life. At the beginning of my career, I worked for five years at Nick Knight’s SHOWstudio and he was very assured in his belief that fashion films must always be about the garments, nothing more or less. He doesn’t believe in narrative fashion films because in his opinion ‘the clothes itself are the narrative’.
I use narratives, dialogue and other forms of cinematic methods, elements that Nick would probably not approve of in his purist take of fashion film, but still, I see the truth in what he says. If you make a film about fashion, the clothes must come first. Everything else is just a vision to enhance the collection’s own storyline.
What was your vision for the overall aesthetic of the collection in the films, and how did you ensure that the pieces chosen aligned with this vision, or was it the other way around?
When combining film and fashion it’s always most important that the characters we create feel genuine and believable, that the garments they wear are an extension of their personality and feel natural to their character. I hate it when actors look overly styled or ‘dressed up’. It feels staged and suddenly the world you create in front of the camera crumbles and reveals itself as a big make-believe. To keep the illusion and the fantasy of being catapulted into a different world all elements must harmoniously sit together, and styling is a massive part of that of course. My background in filmmaking is mainly in fashion and beauty and I find it such a peculiar and beautiful sub-genre to work in. It’s easy to snub the importance ‘fashion people’ put into elements of hair and make-up. I constantly hear jokes along the lines of ‘I can’t believe it takes two hours to do no-make-up make-up’. And I get that, but sometimes it really does matter. These details matter. Fashion is the oldest form of self-expression and when you make a film with a collection at its core it becomes massively important that the characters, the art direction and the storyline we build around it is all in perfect harmony with the collection.
If you want a more pragmatic answer, it’s hard to put into words ‘how’ this happens. I guess in the end we are visual artists, what we do rests on our taste and experiences and influences and trust in our collaborators but doesn’t necessarily need to make ‘sense’. A lot of the choices we do are instinctual. Just like Adam simply knows when the character feels ‘right’ for his garments. Most of the time he is the one who will have the final say when it comes to assigning specific looks to specific scenes.
Apart from the clients! What was the most challenging aspect of creating the 'Flights of Fantasy' films, and how did you overcome these challenges?
The biggest challenge on shoots in general is the need to defend and fight for your vision whilst simultaneously relying only on your imagination. This feels terrifying, but at the same time you are never allowed to fully voice your doubts because as a director you have to be that assured leader at the top of the helm stirring the ship. The thing is, when I come up with a concept it might be inspired by other artists and work, but mostly it’s just pictures in my head that somehow, hopefully, make sense. Then you start the machinery of making it all happen, you get all these amazing people to build amazing stuff, a whole team to invest time and their best efforts, actors to record dialogue that in your head will work with those visuals that at this point also only exist in your head, get 100 people on set to pull together and do their best work to support you and your mad vision, all trusting your word that it’ll come together in the end. I am so grateful that actors believe me when I say, ‘Don’t worry, I know it looks really stupid right now and you must feel like an idiot when you walk like that and scream that bizarre line into camera whilst wielding that prop, but trust me, it’s going to look great in the end.’ And the more people put their trust into me and really go for it, the more I think to myself ‘Holy shit, this better work!’, because the thing is, one never has a guarantee, right? The more we push into uncharted territories, try weird stuff, tell eccentric stories, stir away from the typical established visual commercial languages to try new stuff, the more filming becomes scary. Because it’s risky to do things differently. Unless you try you can’t do something unique and special, I guess. But it’s bloody scary on the way there, and the fact that the whole crew, and most importantly OB trust me so wholeheartedly really makes the weight of responsibility kick in hard.
I remember one moment when we shot inside the cinema room of this eccentric villa in Cape Town which was, for no reason whatsoever, styled like a Singaporean karaoke bar. It was an amazing space, but it was dark and slightly seedy which pretty much is the opposite of what Orlebar Brown stands for. It was also ridiculously expensive to shoot there. So neither OB nor production really wanted to shoot in there and both suggested cutting that specific scene. But in my head it made sense to get those shots, they were supposed to sit in the edit just before the cast’s arrival on the island and the claustrophobic, dark, hedonistic surrounding of that luxurious cinema would emphasise the stark contrast to the purist island environment. At least so I thought. And it’s a real testament to both OB and Nancy my producer that both allowed me to shoot that scene without any interference or push backs. It was the last scene of the day, and the crew was pretty spent by this point. Carlos only had around 30 minutes to light a massive space and on top of that the daily load shedding just kicked in meaning all the room’s ambient lights switched off. I had seven tired actors to block, 20 minutes until wrap and production in my ear. I was the only one convinced that scene would work and in those moments, you do start doubting your vision a little bit. And you feel a pang of guilt because you fought for something that now doesn’t come together easily and that no-one really wanted anyway.
But we got the scene and it made the cut. It always astounds me when things align in the edit and the many disconnected aspects of filmmaking come together and somehow ‘make sense’. As far as challenges go, that moment during the shoot was the most insecure I felt during the whole project.
Which scene or sequence in the film series do you feel captures the essence of 'Flights of Fantasy' collection most powerfully, and why? (Again, for this interview, can we focus on Sunny’s Quest?)
I love the scene where the group plays coconut football on the remote island’s beach. It sums up the collection’s spirit for me. We only had a tiny window to film this because we shot on a part of the beach that was about to get cut off by thigh tide. The water was already creeping up towards our C-Stands and monitors, so the entire scene was rather improvised: no props apart from a coconut, no lights apart from the sun, no directions to either the cast or the Steadicam operator. Yet once we started rolling it just so naturally fell together, we all just ravelled in the ridiculousness and beauty of being on that amazing beach. The actors kicked that nut around, pulled each other into the water, fell over laughing all whilst runners tried to salvage camera gear from the waves. There was a total disregard for hair and make-up and all those things - the cast just jumped around the water, the OB clothes got sprayed with sea water and sand, nothing mattered anymore. It was genuine and unscripted fun and it felt natural and effortless and weirdly bonding. Everyone was like ‘we’re on this jaw-droppingly beautiful beach, the cast is going off script, the clothing is getting wet, and yet it’s bloody perfect.’ I guess the best moments happen organically and that sense of embracing the moment with all its unexpected moments of imperfect beauty is what really captures the collection for me.
What do you hope viewers take away from watching the 'Flights of Fantasy' films, and how do you wish to inspire them?
I guess what has always been important to us is the transformative quality of the OB films. How they can transport you from a Slim Aarons style pool party to a remote island so seamlessly. There’s something deliberately romantic, almost kitsch about our storylines, they are inspired by escapist ideals rather than raw reality and hopefully they’ll momentarily transport people into a mindset where they want to search for a remote beach or have a massive blowout party, either figuratively or symbolically speaking.
How has your background and previous experience in the film industry influenced your work on the 'Flights of Fantasy' series?
I guess you gradually learn from your own missteps and the aesthetic crimes you create early into your career. It’s safe to say that I did a lot of very bad films when I started off. But unless you fail you haven’t tried hard enough to push boundaries, right? At least that’s how I reason it to myself. In the early days I very much subscribed to the idea of ‘save it in post’. I applied heavy post-production, manipulating the source image into very abstract and surreal imagery. Back then I was a much better editor than I was a director and my films benefited from that - my work was heavily cut, using editing as a stylistic driving force, and I pretty much explored every single trick in the FCP7 effects library. There was a criminal overuse of the mirror effect (a true 2010s’ fashion film staple) in my films. Instead of going into a shoot with a sense of structure or narrative in mind, I approached film from the editing backwards, hiding the fact that I wasn't a very good director.
It took years, and close to 100 films, to gain a conceptual understanding of what I actually like and believe in, and how I am able to communicate this with the medium of film. Back in the days I had a technique I named 'accidental editing', where I took a clip and literally chopped it up by random. I'd then rearrange the bits to create a choppy edit that would jump back and forth and inject dynamic and energy into the edit. When I started thinking more intensely about the structure and cinematic flow of my own films, I had to seriously adjust my approach to editing. I made a rule for myself to never cut unless the cut was needed. How does this film benefit from this cut? Do I need to cut, or am I only doing it to hide the fact that my material doesn't have the energy or doesn't hold the interest of its audience without a choppy edit?
This new approach led to a chain of boring films at first, but then forced me to become better and seriously address my sense of storytelling. I moved away from heavy post-production and became much more raw and intimate in my work. I started working with narrative and dialogue and made use of the elements that make film unique and differ to photography. I questioned every decision I took as a director: Is this idea original? Do my casting choices represent the world as I see it? Does this make sense? What am I trying to say? What world do we want to catapult our audience into?
Were there any specific cultural or historical references that inspired the collection pieces and colour choices in the films?
I use a lot of what people would call ‘vintage references’, especially for styling, hair and make-up, composition, and lighting. I also love nostalgia and kitsch in my work which is also quite a retro stylistic method I guess - I love the theatrical way actors performed in the 50s and 60s, the sense of drama. It’s considered old-fashioned by now but there’s a real charm in the naivety of things that haven’t stood the test of time: old graphics that were the fad of the moment but nowadays seem completely outdated, long zooms, the naive at best and harmful at worst representation to femininity and masculinity, a madly dramatic and closely-synced soundtrack, working with stereotypes and stereotypical themes, glossy slick hair… all these things continuously find their way back into my work. But the key is to take those cultural references and twist them or modernise them. Only then will it become a unique visual language that feels relevant today rather than a cheap copy of the past. I love cinema from the 60s and 70s, but if I tried to take my references too literally, I’d only fail. I just can’t compete with the Godards or the Hitchcocks, no one can. That time has passed, and they’ve done it perfectly. People always think it’s easiest to copy but if you copy too closely, you’ll merely create a cheesy period drama. Believe me, I tried. It’s much easier to create your own thing with those references, because then you move away from direct comparisons with the best of the best. And you end up with something original.
Plein Soleil and its modern reinterpretation The Talented Mr Ripley have been a reference since our last OB collaboration. Once I saw the Flights of Fantasy prints, Slim Aarons became a big reference as well. There’s a sense of effortless luxury, unapologetic dedication to summer, leisure and party, vibrancy and freedom in those prints and their colours, it just felt very Slim A.
How did the choice of prints or materials, such as linen, contribute to the overall mood and tone of the films, particularly in terms of evoking a sense of summer, indulgence and freedom?
If you think about fashion film as a genre that starts with the clothes itself and then builds the concept around the clothes, then this means that the garments, and of course its prints and materials, are the catalyst for almost all creative choices taken during the shoot. In a way that happened here too. We start with nothing but the collection name and pictures of the clothes. ‘Flights of Fantasy’ is like a mini brief in itself, it immediately awakens certain images in your head. Then you get those fantastical prints, the colour ways, the tailoring, the textures, the fits - all that feeds back into your decision making and slowly you start building a universe: What character would wear this print? What kind of man would choose this linen tailoring? What would this man look like? How would he wear his hair? And where would he live? What would he be interested in, what would his aspirations and dreams are? The more we build a character around the clothes, the more a story comes together. And before you know it you have a fully-fledged personality in your head who lives in a villa by the sea and dreams about building a flying machine. As absurd as it sounds but somehow you can directly backtrack this construct to the collection itself and all its finer design details.
Looking back on the completed 'Flights of Fantasy' films, is there a particular outfit or piece that you feel best encapsulates the spirit of the series, and if so, why?
It would have to be the original Flights of Fantasy print that runs through the shirts, swimwear and even the inflatables. It’s the most striking and characterful print of the collection and sort of sums up the whole paradisal and fantastical flair of the films. It was the catalyst in choosing the eccentric villa and pool where we shot. And it inspired the whole Slim Aarons aesthetic.
My personal favourite however is the more abstract blue and white print that the second film’s hero wears whilst floating inside the pool. The colours and shapes of the outfit blended in so perfectly, he almost became one with the water.
We’re going to end on quick-fire round, five one-word answers:
Pool or an ocean?
OCEAN!
Hotel or villa?
depends on the villa, but VILLA
Hot or cold?
HOT of course you fool
Party or dinner?
I still have a few years of PARTY left in me
Adrenaline or meditation?
ADRENALINE although most probably in desperate need for meditation