How a weird local truth became our dark-comedy neo-noir TV pilot
- Nick Bohle
- Jan 1
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 4
Written by: Nick Bohle
Welcome to my personal production diary/blog/filmmaking tips hub as it pertains to There Are No Squirrels In Lethbridge - my first narrative television pilot.
When my co-writer and producer Conner Christmas first blurted out the title There Are No Squirrels in Lethbridge, I laughed… and then immediately felt that itch you get when a story is hiding inside a sentence.
Not a premise. Not a logline. Just a statement that sounded like code—something you’d hear in an old private eye show when a case goes sideways and the only safe way to communicate is through metaphor.
I laughed and said, “I love it... What is it about?”
Conner said, “I don’t know...”
So we did what filmmakers do when the clock is ticking: we sat down, stared at the title, and let it start talking.
We took on a list of scenes and stayed in close contact over the three days - the last three days before the deadline. Each of us wrote for hours and hours, Conner in Calgary and myself in Lethbridge. On day three we copy pasted it all together and spent the day on video calls refining the script. At around 11:59:59 PM we had the grant complete. I hit submit and proceeded to cross every appendage I could for 1/3 of a year.
Many months later, the shooting script ended up being approximately 38 pages. Our mentor, Scott Lepp, had some great insights on tightening things up but he left it up to Conner and I to make the calls. That cutting process on its own was tough. We had to"kill some darlings" and remove one full scene for budgetary and logistic reasons. However, that process really refined our story and gave us a few thousand extra dollars to play with. And now... we have a great scene already written that could fit into a future episode - with a few tweaks, of course.
A deadline, a title, and three days of writing a TV Pilot
At the time, the TELUS STORYHIVE deadline was approaching fast, and I was hungry to submit something; to create—anything—that felt authentic, locally reflective, engaging and genuinely watchable.
Conner was in town hosting a comedy show at Good Times Lethbridge Comedy Club. I pitched him the opportunity: “What if we swing for this deadline together?”
That’s when the title arrived, unannounced, as we were walking up a friend's driveway. Like a clue from a future version of ourselves. Conner blurted out, "There Are No Squirrels in Lethbridge?" A factoid he'd be stricken by for years as a former resident of High River (home to a healthy squirrel population).
A week or so later, we locked in for three consecutive days, wrote a 45-page TV pilot screenplay and produced a one-minute pitch video.
Was it perfect? No.
Was it alive? Absolutely.
Then some four months later, the email landed: we’d won a narrative grant from TELUS STORYHIVE—and suddenly our weird little code phrase wasn’t just a title anymore. It was a production.
What the story became
At its core, this pilot is an homage and a remix: a dark-comedy neo-noir with the bones of classic P.I. stories, but built with modern production value and a regionally specific heartbeat.
Here’s the central engine:
Betrayed by the city he once loved, defamed P.I., Jack Dawson is ready to leave his past behind. But on the night of his fateful departure, he takes a case that unravels his small town infamy and changes everything.
It’s a show about reputation, rot, longing, and the lies we tell ourselves to survive—delivered with jokes sharp enough to draw blood if you aren’t watching.
Why Lethbridge, specifically
First: the title is true. There really are no squirrels in Lethbridge.
That fact alone is strangely cinematic. It’s small, specific, and unsettling—like a missing detail in a familiar photograph.
Second: I’ve wanted to help push Lethbridge toward a more active, professional film ecosystem for years. I’m a board member with the Lethbridge Independent Film Society, and one of my biggest personal goals (and a goal of our broader community) is to create more meaningful filmmaking opportunities here—for artists, technicians, businesses, and audiences who want something made with them, not just around them.
This project is part story… part proof-of-concept.
A signal flare that says: we can do this here.
We aim to craft future episodes and put more people to work in the months and years to come.
The moment I knew we were onto something
Day 4 was our “farm house day”—our biggest day on paper. The kind of schedule that can break a micro-budget production if even one domino falls.
What's more is that we had lightning striking in the area right up until an hour before we went to camera, but it all disappeared just in time.
By the end of that day, something rare happened:
So many things went right—because of planning, an outstanding crew, a ton of generosity, and a little luck—that the set started to hum. Cast and crew weren’t just getting through the day. They were locked in. Collaborative. It felt like a TV set.
And for me personally, being able to hire and pay roughly 30 Alberta cast and crew members on a micro-budget project felt like a real milestone. It wasn’t just a creative win—it was tangible support for people doing real work in a real industry.
That night, I thought: This is why we’re doing this.
What’s next for this project
and for these blog posts
This post is the start of a 6-part behind-the-scenes series that follows the life of this pilot from concept to launch:
How we stretched a micro-budget without destroying morale
What it actually took to do a union-performer production (without drowning)
How I balanced starring + producing
How post-production became a one-person marathon (including the full score)
And how we’re approaching festival strategy, self-distribution, a theatrical tour, and broadcast release.
If you’re an indie film fan, a filmmaker, or a Lethbridge business owner wondering what professional storytelling can look like here—welcome. You’re exactly who I’m writing this for.
Want HatChap on your next project?
If you want cinematic, story-first production value—whether that’s a narrative project, a documentary, a brand film, or something genre-bending—let’s talk.
Help us bring this prairie noir further
Festival submissions, deliverables, marketing, and touring all take fuel. If you want to help There Are No Squirrels in Lethbridge reach more screens—and help prove what’s possible for independent filmmaking in Southern Alberta—your support matters.
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@Therearenosquirrels on Facebook and Instagram
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