Buttgereit has been experimenting with film since 1977. His first project was called Gags und Schwarzer Humor, a parody of TV commercials. Color Trip was created after his camera broke and the developers gave him back black, blank film. After scratching and washing the film, something blue, black and green came out of the projector. Klassenfahrt was a movie about his class in his last year at school. Stress was another version of Color Trip using another returned blank film. He claims his very first feature was called Interview with Frankenstein.