Lost in Translation: German Fashion Invades Princeton

Ever wonder what Princeton would look like in a German infomercial? We hadn’t either. That is, until we saw this video, which refashions Princeton as a German clothing store:The video, which took over a month to produce, was a joint effort between Jack Hutton ’13, Sebastian Steffen ’13, and Tim Delaney, a student at Penn. Having partnered with Delaney to produce films in the past, Hutton said he had fallen “into a bit of a creative dry spell” after coming to Princeton this fall. Steffen, a native German speaker, approached him about a video contest sponsored by Frontlineshop.com, a German clothing store that Steffen frequents. The two immediately began writing the script and partnered with Delaney for plotting and filming ideas. When the English script was composed, Sebastian translated it into German.Hutton, who doesn't speak any German, said the subtitles proved a bit tricky, as he often had to “intuitively figure out when each phrase and line should begin.”The film received fourth place in the contest. Although he said that this was a bit disappointing, Hutton added that in the end he was “just happy to have made the video for its own sake.”And in case you’re wondering about the final scene, it was shot around the same time that our campus masturbator still prowled campus. Hutton says no one really bothered or cared about the half-naked man standing in the middle of Whitman at 12:40 on a Thursday afternoon. “Thankfully, we didn’t get caught committing any act of ‘lewdness.’”