Faced with losing joint custody of his son, a puritan leather worker is forced to cater to the undervalued S&M market in his country town.

Thanks Monique.

Yeah, a leather worker is just someone who works with leather – makes belts, jackets, that sort of thing.

He needs money either to afford legal fees or because he’s consistently failed to make child support payments. I feel like I want to avoid dragging the film into too much of a courtroom / legal drama, so maybe I should steer towards the latter? “Unable to make his child support payments and faced with losing joint custody of his son …”?

You ask if this wouldn’t be further ammunition for the mother – and you’re absolutely right. Without stating it outright, the logline hints that this will become one of the major conflicts of the film; he will need to keep his dealings as secret as possible – which will become harder and harder as he becomes more successful. It’s almost definitely going to be the second act climax, when the mother finds out about his involvement in the S&M scene and uses it as leverage to take his son away.

I suppose I used “undervalued” because a large portion of the film is likely to be concerned with revealing the worth of marginalised people. You’re right, underground could be used. I think I prefer undervalued – it hints at more than underground.

I feel like the idea of a puritan leather worker who helps to liberate a sexually marginalised group of people from the prejudices of a small country town community and unwittingly becoming a hero to that same group of people suggests a comedy to me, or at least a dramedy? How would you re-frame the logline to clarify the comedy inherent in the premise?