In the summer of 2003, comedy duo Badesalz (Bath Salts) came to the Film Academy with an offer that just couldn’t be turned down: complete artistic license to make a short animation based on one of the duo’s sketches. On the same day, they listened for hours to individual sketches, until they found one which they all agreed would work. It quickly became clear that for the sketch Kernseif (Curd Soap) a hare and a turtle would have to be presented conversing in a public lavatory. Next, a plot was conceived based on the audio version of the sketch. After the story and the characters had been determined, Hendrik Nachtsheim’s and Gerd Knebel’s (Badesalz) voices were rerecorded, though this time according to diverse instructions from the directors.

Sebastian Stolle began drafting the characters, while Alexander Kiesl designed the toilets. Set research and development had top priority, and so several photo safaris were organised through the jungle of public lavatories in Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart. However, to give the 3D scenery more texture, photos were not used, but drawings based on them. These were edited on the computer to produce a very special look. Since everything had to take place within a single space, many little details were introduced and the textures edited at the highest resolution possible.

The animators divided up the two characters according to features resembling their own. It soon became clear that Sebastian would animate the turtle, and Alexander, the hare. Ideas were spontaneously incorporated and shared, which inspired even more ideas. The plot gradually grew tighter and more dynamic. No special tools or renderer were used in lighting the scenes, instead they were lit quite traditionally, one by one, so as to achieve exactly the results they had in mind.