Rather than creating a drama that focused solely on mental health, Griffin says the murder mystery format allowed those themes to emerge naturally.

Because mystery is great.

Everyone loves mystery.

And if you can take that mystery and push it into a direction where it starts getting interesting and you start thinking about those things, then that's where the good stuff comes.

How did you and co-writer Donald McKenzie Mayo start playing around with this idea eight years ago?

Yeah, well, it's funny.

It's a real simple start like anything.

We were walking to a party and the idea pops into your head of, oh, what if at this high school party, there's a kind of a mystery there and a murder at the center.

And we sort of just kept, as kind of kids do, creating new stuff and characters in this big sort of world.

And the story just started as a short film and then became a film and then became a TV show.

And now it's kind of this, what is a web series, but hopefully maybe a television pilot that we can then sort of introduce people to this story.

And what do you think, what have you found about rangatahi in Aotearoa New Zealand and what they're missing on their screens? What's not there yet?