VFX technical director for Weta, Stan Alley has a lot of major motion films of which to be proud. From Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to The Desolation of Samug, Stan has helped the New Zealand-based studio reach new heights of visual effects magic. However, one of Stan’s more interesting projects is a small budget, indie film called What We Do in the Shadows, directed by friends Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi.

What We Do in the Shadow’s premise could be described as a combination of This is Spinal Tap meets The Office meets Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a mockumentary that takes almost every Hollywood manifestation of the iconic blood suckers (from Bella Lugosi’s films to the Twilight series), and drives a hilarious streak through the vampire genre itself, one that’s admittedly lacked some fresh ideas for several years now. We talked with Stan about some of the gags he had to pull off for the film, such as non-reflective surfaces and mirrors to vampire-to-bat transformations.