Bruce McDonald isn’t exactly known for directing films about the blood-sucking undead. But there’s a first time for everything, and that’s part of what attracted the award-winning Canuck director to the upcoming family feature My Babysitter’s a Vampire.

McDonald (Hard Core Logo 2 and Trigger, which premiered at this year’s TIFF) is also no stranger to youth projects, having directed several episodes of Degrassi: The Next Generation. But he was drawn to Babysitter because it marked several firsts – not only is it Teletoon’s first original live-action feature, but it’s also the first live-action project for prodco Fresh TV, known for its Total Drama Island animated reality series.

“These were all new folk for me,” McDonald tells Playback Daily. “It’s nice to be at the beginning of something and be part of that design. The script was smart and funny, plus the timing is great since we’re in the time of the vampire.”

He points to the “suave and sexy” popularity of vampires, referring to everything from current pop culture surrounding Twilight and True Blood, to Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers and Vampire Vs. Wolfman, but that there was nothing quite yet for the ages six to 12 crowd.

“It’s not hard to see why (Babysitter) was designed for kids,” he says. “The appetite has been created, and these characters will always be popular.”

McDonald says he also doesn’t have a big background in working with green screens and wire work, so that was another fun first for him that was also a challenge, along with completing the shoots in a rapid 15 days.

“Most of the scenes take place at night and really early in the morning, so that can be punishing on a crew,” he says. “But the professionalism of these kids, some adult actors don’t know why they need to hit the mark, but these kids were great.”

Degrassi was McDonald’s introduction to working with kids, so when the opportunity to sink his teeth into this project came along, he was pumped. “Kids have a different energy level than adults,” he says. “Plus, some of them will be well-known and later on end up financing your film!”

Babysitter debuts on October 9 on Teletoon. It’s also the pilot for a 13-part series that’s currently in production and slated to air in 2011.

Meanwhile, the director is keeping plenty busy as he completes the post on Hard Core Logo 2, and turns his focus to two other projects: Lucky Ho, a martial arts film that takes place in a women’s prison, produced by Foundation Features, and Exile in Dreamland, which he describes as a “film noir jazz romance” that brings back several members of the Pontypool gang, including Stephen McHattie and writer Tony Burgess.