Creative Execution

We re-purposed an XBox Kinect and created software that enabled you to control a ‘vampire shadow’ just by moving your body. The better the dancer, the better – and funnier - it was to watch. Using a projector, we hit the streets, challenging people to show us their best vampire dance-moves. The public’s reaction was overwhelmingly positive. The oddity, humour and creepiness of seeing a dancing vampire shadow attracted attention and made people want to interact. It also gave them a taste of the movie’s off-beat humour, and doubled as a digital billboard for passing for traffic.

Our interactive drove traffic to local cinemas, and helped achieve the maker’s overarching goal of keeping this locally-made movie in the Top 5 at the Kiwi Box Office for 3 weeks, weathering the ‘drop-off’ period after launch and fending off fierce competition from far better funded Hollywood rivals.

Spoof vampire movie What We Do In The Shadows is a small, locally produced film in New Zealand. It was released at the same time as big-budget Hollywood movies like Transformers 4. Our job was to try and boost ticket sales in the second and third weeks after launch – a notoriously difficult period for smaller movies lacking big marketing budgets. In the movie the vampires love a bit of dancing. One of the main vampires also bears a startling resemblance to the original Hollywood vampire, ‘Nosferatu’. This was the inspiration for creating an interactive vampire shadow in the shape of Nosferatu, and using it as a tool to interrupt people on their way home and get them to go and watch the movie instead.