- published: 26 Dec 2013
- views: 13745
Akiva Schaffer (born December 1, 1977) is an American writer for Saturday Night Live, film director, songwriter, and member of The Lonely Island. He majored in film at University of California, Santa Cruz.
Akiva directs, co-writes, and edits the majority of the SNL Digital Shorts. He was the director of '"Lazy Sunday", "I Just Had Sex", "Natalie's Rap", "Dick in a Box", "Peyton Manning for the United Way", "Iran So Far", "Jizz in My Pants", "Boombox", and sang with Samberg and T-Pain in "I'm on a Boat". He also sang in "The Creep" with Samberg and Taccone. He also sang part of the call-and-response in "We're Back!"
On the Internet, Schaffer directed The Lonely Island's The 'Bu, the group's record-breaking contribution to Channel 101, which was a parody of The OC and also starred Sarah Chalke (Roseanne, Scrubs) as Melissa, as well as Samberg and Taccone. Schaffer has also contributed to several other Channel 101 productions as part of The Lonely Island. Schaffer has directed four music videos for the band We Are Scientists and one for Eagles of Death Metal. Schaffer also directed and acted in the film Hot Rod, starring Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Bill Hader, Danny McBride, Isla Fisher, Ian McShane and Sissy Spacek, which was produced by SNL's Lorne Michaels. Schaffer was on hiatus from Saturday Night Live from January until March to do prep work on The Adventurer's Handbook starring Jonah Hill, Jason Segel, and Jason Schwartzman. Hill and writing partner, Max Winkler, wrote the script. The film was put on hiatus which allowed Schaffer to return to SNL. Schaffer was credited as an Executive Producer on the recently released film Macgruber. The film was co-written and directed by Jorma Taccone. Other songs include "Jack Sparrow" in The Lonely Island's new album Turtleneck & Chain.