Akiva Schaffer

Akiva Schaffer
Akiva Schaffer at the Premiere of Hot Rod in 2007
Birth name	Akiva Schaffer
Born	(1977-12-01) December 1, 1977 (age 34) Berkeley, California, United States
Medium	Internet, stand-up, music, television, film
Nationality	American
Years active	2001 – present
Genres	Sketch comedy Situational comedy Comedy hip hop
Spouse	Liz Cackowski (1 child)
Website	thelonelyisland.com

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.^[1]

Career

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.

After cowriting the MTV Movie Awards for two years with his Lonely Island collaborators, Schaffer returned in 2009 to help co-produce the show which was hosted by Andy Samberg.

Schaffer is currently working on his second feature film directorial project Neighborhood Watch which is slated for a July 27, 2012 release.

Awards

In 2007, Schaffer won an Emmy for his participation in the production of "Dick in a Box". He was nominated for an Emmy for the song, "Motherlover." He was featured in People Magazine's Sexiest Bachelor with Andy Samberg, as Sexiest Best Friends. He has also won two Writers Guild of America Award and a Peabody Award for his work on Saturday Night Live. The Lonely Island was nominated in 2009 for a People's Choice Award and a Grammy Award.

References

External links

• The Lonely Island
• Akiva Schaffer at the Internet Movie Database