The film was shot during an actual concert tour in small to medium-sized clubs in Germany. The gigs were announced under the title "Grand Hotel van Cleef-Night" with the surprise band "Hansen". The concert audience knew nothing in advance about the film project and Jürgen Vogel being the singer.
In preparation for the movie, Jürgen Vogel listened to 26 different CDs by German bands. Those by Kettcar and Tomte were the ones he liked best, so the Production Company contacted the bands' label Grand Hotel van Cleef and asked whether they'd be interested in making a movie with Jürgen Vogel. The musicians were then told about the film's rough plot and fictional singer/songwriter Markus Hansen's biography and asked to write 10 songs that fitted both.
The producers of the project used different types of media to tell the story from different points of view. The movie tells the events from Tobias Hansen's point of view, who is shooting a documentary about his brother and his band. The songs on the soundtrack CD tell the story from the point of view of Marcus Hansen, the brother. In addition to that, Heike Makatsch wrote a diary as the character Ellen, whom she plays which was published as a book.
Jürgen Vogel, singing here for the first time, enjoyed the experience so much that he publicly contemplated a sequel, just in order to have a reason for the fictional Hansen Band to tour again and produce another album. However, during a number of special gigs in 2007, the band announced it to be definite that those would be their last appearances as the Hansen Band ever.
Apart from the general idea of the movie there was no actual script. The plot was developed as the band went on tour and all scenes and dialogue were improvised. The emotions of all people involved were supposed to be as real as possible. To enhance this effect, the actors were only allowed to be together when the camera was rolling and were not allowed to talk to each other during breaks.