Bad Dads like our bowling league

By Joanie Veitch - The Weekly News
Despite the buzz about his new television series, The Listener, which debuted on CTV and NBC earlier this month, local screenwriter Michael Amo would much rather talk about Bad Dad, a no-budget webseries he's co-producing with Dartmouth filmmaker Craig Moore.
Bad Dad takes the everyday situations of a suburban dad and his friends, and plays them out in wickedly funny six-minute episodes. Amo himself takes the lead as the self-parodying Bad Dad, doling out kernels of hard-earned wisdom over a glass or two of chardonnay.
With his own friends acting the various characters - Vlad Dad, Prowler Dad and Mad Dad - Amo says filming each episode reminds him of the zany, off-the-wall fun of his film school days back at Ryerson University in Toronto.
"I love the idea of being with real people from my neighbourhood. It's a great bunch of guys and Craig's great to work with. We have a lot of fun with it," he said.
For Amo, who spends much of his time pitching ideas to producers who only ever see the work in terms of its "marketability," it's the simplicity and ease of producing Bad Dad that makes it so rewarding.
"Bad Dad grew out of my frustration at seeing so many of my ideas go sideways. I guess you could say Bad Dad's like our bowling league. We do it because we love it," Amo said in an interview on Father's Day, the same day Episode Two, "Games Night," hit the web.
Although much of Bad Dad is filmed indoors, the entire production takes place in Dartmouth. In fact, every script Amo is working on right now is based in Nova Scotia.
He's just finished the first draft of the pilot episode of Hope, another series he has in production with CTV, and he's collaborating with local producers David MacLeod and Chaz Thorne, to develop a feature film he wrote called Whirligig, about a man who comes back to Nova Scotia after living in Japan, only to find he's worn out his welcome at home.
After spending much of last year away from his wife and two young sons while working on The Listener - which he wanted to set in Halifax, but ended up being filmed in Toronto at the request of Shaftesbury Films, the production company behind the venture - Amo hopes these projects will remain in Nova Scotia.
"There are a lot of really good people working in the film and television industry here. We just need more opportunities. I'd love to see it personally, because then I wouldn't have to spend so much time in airports," Amo said.
A screenwriter for several years in Toronto before moving to Dartmouth in 1998, two of Amo's screenplays, Blessed Stranger: After Flight 111 and Tagged: The Jonathan Wamback Story, were nominated for Geminis.
Bad Dad can be seen at baddad.tv The Listener airs on CTV on Thursdays at 10 p.m. and on NBC at 9 p.m.
joanie.veitch@gmail.com