He has just ten seconds. But in those ten seconds he is so good that you might think Jörg Westphal really is Sebastian, 51, from Hanover. Technician by trade and major investor. But no — what do you mean, might think? Ever since the commercial began airing on television, the actor has actually been receiving Facebook messages from people who thought it was all true. "I thought, hey folks, what's going on? It's all just fake! How can you believe an advert?" Well, he is simply too good to be true. But what comes across so light and breezy is in fact the result of hard work. The ten seconds are the edited-together illusion of a ten-hour shooting day. The director experimented and fine-tuned until he had Sebastian from Hanover exactly as authentic as he wanted him. The very first shot alone — Sebastian's walk into the fictional television studio — was filmed in countless variations. After all, it had to look as genuine as possible: Sebastian walking up to the camera and having to find his bearings in a world so foreign to him as a technician. In second eleven, a hand comes into shot which, though sold as the hand of Sebastian from Hanover, is in fact not his at all. Not Jörg Westphal's, that is. Because it was not technician-like enough, the production decided. "So I argued and said, folks, what do you think a technician's hands look like! Mine were too delicate for them," Jörg Westphal still chuckles weeks later. "I never would have thought my hands weren't suited to it." The sound technician's hands on set seemed more fitting. So the finished deal of the major investor is not actually held by the man who supposedly pulled it off. It is and remains all just fake — but believably lovely all the same!
It's All Just Fake
