Meet the crew behind the creepy comedy What We Do in the Shadows

After six years of mischief and murder, vampires have finally stopped terrorizing the east end of Toronto. Their mansion at 65 Heward Ave has been demolished, but Shayne Fox still has many vivid memories. 

"There's filled-in new asphalt in the middle of the parking lot. That's where we had a pond… we did dig here," says Fox. "And there's also a smaller patch here where we had some graves."

Fox is the production designer for What We Do in the Shadows, a horror-inspired sitcom starring four misfit vampires who live with their sleep-deprived, overworked human servant. Created by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement — known for Jojo Rabbit and Flight of the Conchords — the show feels like The Office meets The Addams Family. Although it's set in Staten Island, every episode except the pilot was made in Southern Ontario. 

What We Do in the Shadows just wrapped filming their sixth and final season for FX and Disney Plus. The show has a lot of laughs, but also a lot of freaky stuff to look at. And all that incredible eye candy, from the fighting werewolves to the Chamber of Curiosities filled with magical relics, was made by the show's Canadian crew.

Building the spooky sets

"People have no idea how much the level of detail we go to, the conversations we'll have about a lampshade, or a fabric colour, or about a window that has to break." says production designer Shayne Fox, who received a Creative Arts Emmy nomination for her work on the show.


"We were buying things mostly used, because we would paint things and muck them up… bring them into a more vampiric palette," she says. "All the old lamps, books, carpets, curtains, furniture, candelabras, chandeliers, taxidermy, skeletons, daggers, anything that felt vampiric. We could pull from Victorian references, or Medieval, or Baroque. Anything that worked." 

"There was this collector in Finland we found online, he had these lamp shades that were made of skin," Fox says, laughing. "Not human skin! But it looked like human skin." 

Special effects with silicon and slime

Paul Jones also created countless bizarre things for What We Do in the Shadows. As the show's prosthetics designer, he did elaborate makeup for an ancient vampire named The Baron, a zombie, and many animal-human hybrids. He also built many animatronic characters: notably, a human-sized flying vampiric monster named The Sire.

"What We Do in the Shadows is probably the most fun I've had in the thirty years I've been doing this," Jones says nostalgically, as he sits beside an unnervingly accurate prosthetic replica of one of the actor's heads.

The silicon head looks exactly like Colin Robinson, the fourth vampire in the house. Unlike his more traditional blood-drinking housemates, Colin is an energy vampire: he feeds off of people's energy by boring or annoying them. 

Paul Jones made two replicas of Colin Robinson's head for a scene where (spoiler alert!) he temporarily dies. Jones created one normal head, and one head filled with a collapsible face. He puppeteered the pieces of the face using metal cables, and filled the head with green goo.

"The actors are reacting to Colin, but it's actually a completely fake body the whole time," Jones says. "I was able to swap the head out. So as his face caves in, it's the second head. I pulled cables attached to the inside, and his face just pulls in on itself like an old pumpkin." 

Jones adds that the prop was resettable, so they could make Colin's head implode again and again. "Imagine doors on a cupboard with hinges, and then there's one piece in the middle like a jigsaw puzzle piece."

Directing serious scenes and supernatural stunts

"I really wanted to ground that scene." says Tig Fong, who directed that episode. "I wanted them to be as serious as they can muster. You never have to tell the actors to be funny … the actors are so funny, the writing is so funny. And really to me, what makes it pop is when the serious moments are serious … they're going to come right out of it anyways, and it's just going to make you laugh harder." 

Fong also worked as a stunt coordinator for all six seasons of the show. They choreographed the fights, lit someone on fire, and supervised the vampires flying. 

"I refer to it as the big little show. Most comedies don't even have a budget for action. Our action is as big as we could get it." Fong explains. 

"The vampires fly a lot." says Fong. "We use multiple winches, to go horizontally and vertically. A winch is like a mechanical drum with a line on it: the drum spools up, and takes in or pays out line. It can go so fast it can pull your limbs off, so we obviously don't turn it up that high. Then of course in editing, there's wire removal."

Fong is proud of how the show balances hilarity, horror, and heart.

"It's actually a very queer positive show … in the way I like to see that, which is in comedy, and in a throwaway kind of way," they say. "You know, Guillermo [the human servant] tells his brother that he's gay, and then nobody cares, and they all want to talk about just being vampire killers."

The undead vampires are finally put to rest

With What We Do in the Shadows drawing to a close, Paul Jones has decided to decorate his apartment with his favourite artifacts from the show. He has a cursed hat made of witch's skin in his living room, and a picture of one of the vampire's lovers on his fridge. 

"I was there doing my job, but also looking around going, 'How is this not the best job in the world? I'm surrounded by professional hilarious comedians dressed as vampires, puppeteering a toad,'" says Jones.

Just beside the parking lot at 65 Heward, Shayne Fox walks through a large storage area. She points out some pieces that still need to be sold: a five foot wide chandelier, a chaise longue, a desk from the Vampiric Council. She's also overwhelmed with gratitude for her experience.

"You realize that you're fulfilled creatively," Fox says. "You got to do something really amazing that was well received, and was a huge creative playground. We did it!"