My Next Project: The Canvasser

Hi. Today, I wanted to tell everyone what I'm working on for my next project and why. I hope to write a series of posts highlighting the development of this project to help people understand a little more what goes into the writing process. In this case, my next project is a screenplay that I've called The Canvasser.

Logline

An unemployed and disrespected political canvasser takes a long-shot run for city council before going on welfare.

Genesis

The genesis of this story came out of my experiences canvassing on before of political parties for many years for a volunteer and as a candidate for councillor in the recently completed municipal election. Over my years of experience, I've encountered a lot of unique and humorous situations that would ideal for a comedy. Another influence for this story is a guest lecture that I gave a Carleton University last year about political communication. My ideas, which I attempted to present in a humorous fashion, were a big hit with the students as they simplified a great deal of theory and research into simple, easily understood, and memorable principles that were easy to remember. A screenplay provides an opportunity to present these ideas in a more visual and easily digestible format. It also gave me an opportunity to work in a genre (Comedy) that I've never worked in before, which will help to develop my skills in writing humour.

Genre

Political Comedy. I chose a comedy not only to develop a weakness of my writing (comedy) but also because it fit with a lot of the experiences that I have encountered during my canvassing career. There is a lot more to political campaigns than what you see in movies, most of which is pretty funny and so I wanted to capture these experiences in a format that people would enjoy, understand and remember.

Format

Screenplay. I've chosen the screenplay format because the story in my head, which is dependant on cutting and contrast to develop humour, is tailored specifically to the strengths of video. It is unlikely that I would ever be able to sell this screenplay but if I keep the cost low enough, it may be something that I could make on micro-budget sometime in the future.

Still to Come

That's all the detail I want to go into for now. In future posts, I'll talk about my characters, the structure of the screenplay, and my writing and later editing process. Ciao for now.