3. Tarred and Feathered

This first of three chapters featuring examples of arts-based approaches to environmental communication drawing on the book’s case study presents a script for a one-hour documentary film, framed as a television talk-show, featuring an imagined summit of participants in the public-relations war over Alberta’s environmental stewardship of the bituminous sands. The script is followed by discussion of the author’s choices of initiating idea, research sources, format, voices, the world of the story, its structure and visual style, and other notes on the meeting of synthesis, analysis and (re)presentation in the script. Included are analysis and commentary on screenwriting theory, the creation and dissemination of the script, and reflections to help ground an initial framework for engaging broader publics through arts-based research in environmental scholarship.