Wharf Rats web series receives Telefilm Canada grant

The director of the P.E.I. web series, Wharf Rats says he hopes themicro-budget production grant received fromTelefilm Canada will help start the production ofthe show.

Director JasonArsenault hopes the $127,500 from Telefilm will help leverage money from otherfunders.

"We're hopinghaving a small amount going into that other program may sort of make their decision easier and that would give us a healthy budget to work with."

Arsenaultsaid hehopes to have $250,000 to make the series, which he hopes to shoot on the Island in September,

The comedy series is set in the imaginary fishing community of Split Lip Cove, P.E.I.and revolves around two small-minded but likeable brothers, played by DennisTrainorandRobbieCarruthers, who are also writers on the show.

Top 5 pitch

The idea for Wharf Rats started as an entry inCBC'sComedy Coup in 2014, where it finished in the top five pitches.

"We just decided to come up with something to shoot in basically a two minute sketch to enter it in this comedy competition."

Thinking that would be the end of it, the three men were surprised to go all the way to the final five in the competition.

"The project has seen a bit of success before but it's still hard to get projects off the ground and so we're still trying to do that."

Arsenault said they believe there is an audience for the web series and they're excited to have funding to begin working on it.

The plan is to shoot eight episodes that are 10 to 12 minutes long.

"The total series will run about the length of a normal feature film, a total of 80 minutes."

Arsenaultsaid they are waiting to hear about the remainder of the funding.

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