ALL EYES ON NEIMAN’S

While you were out trying to finish your Christmas shopping last year, you might not have noticed a man with a small camera and a microphone standing at various stations throughout Nei-man-Marcus’ downtown store. That’s just fine with him. The man was Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, and his purpose was to capture you, the Dallas shopper, on film for his latest work, a documentary about Nei-man-Marcus.

Wiseman and his crew were in Dallas between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. While they were here, they shot 110,000 feet (55 hours) of film in an effort to capture the ins and outs of a large department store. Wiseman shot early-morning sales meetings, executive committee meetings, fashion shows, advertising policy meetings-even a few segments at the store’s 75th anniversary celebration. But mostly he shot customers in almost every department of the store.

Wiseman has made many documentaries detailing the inner workings of various organizations. Hospital, a documentary about a medical facility, was filmed in Metropolitan Hospital in New York City. Wiseman’s other works include Welfare (about a large welfare agency), Meat (about one of the largest feed lots and packing plants in the nation), Juvenile Court (this is getting simple, isn’t it?) and Model (figure that one out yourself). His latest work, The Store, focuses on Neiman-Marcus’ local headquarters.

Wiseman is known for his unobtrusive method of filming in which he uses a small, hand-held camera, a hand-held recording device and natural lighting. This method, he says, enables him to capture subjects without making them feel as if they’re on stage, producing a more realistic view. Wiseman has been limited to the use of black-and-white film because, until recently, it was difficult to obtain high-quality color reproduction with natural light alone. But now he’s able to use high-speed color film, and his first crack at the new method will be in The Store. He says he was fortunate to first use color film in this manner with the Neiman-Marcus documentary in Dallas. “Shooting in Neiman-Marcus,” he says, “is like being handed a $20 million set.” The Store is presented by television station WNET in New York City for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and is scheduled to air on PBS affiliates across the country on December 14.