Making What We Do in the Shadows

Overview

Directors Taika Waititi (Boy) and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) will be discussing their film What We Do in the Shadows in the latest Script to Screen Writer’s Room session at the Q Theatre on June 26.

What We Do in the Shadows is a comedy about four vampires – Viago, Vladislav, Deacon and Nick – flatting together in Wellington. The vampire mockumentary follows the Wellingtonian vampires around during the more mundane ‘human’ aspects of their everyday lives. "Maybe the vampires in the other movies aren't that evil, you just didn't get to know. Maybe they have other interests that you didn't know about... You only see when Dracula goes to kill that virgin at midnight, but what does he do when he's waiting around... maybe he likes to do topiary in his spare time." said Jemaine Clement during an interview with the Los Angeles Times at Sundance Film Festival.

Before directing, Taika Waititi worked as an actor and painter. He realised he wanted to write his own stories and become a film director while playing a male stripper called Mostin in a TV series called The Strip. “I remember sitting around in the green room in my G-string thinking ‘Why am I doing this, just helping someone else to realize their dream?’” Waititi said in a recent TEDxDoha talk. Months later he wrote and directed the Oscar-nominated short film Two Cars One Night. He has since directed feature films Eagle vs. Shark, New Zealand’s most popular local film ever Boy, and now has What We Do in the Shadows under his directorial belt too.

Masterton-born Jemaine Clement became famous for his role alongside Bret McKenzie in the award-winning television series Flight of the Conchords. He has gone on to act in films such as Muppets Most Wanted and Rio, as well as making a coveted special guest appearance on the The Simpsons.

Clement and Waititi met while studying at Victoria University in Wellington together.

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