When Revival began filming across Saint John, Sussex and Hampton, local filmmaker Greg Hemmings knew the production was a major opportunity for New Brunswick.
Now, the series has made its way onto Netflix, marking a milestone for Hemmings and his Saint John-based production company.
Based on the comic book of the same name, Revival is a dark mystery about people who return to life after dying. The series began streaming on Crave in Canada and Netflix in the U.S. on Aug. 24.
For Hemming, whose Hemmings House Productions has been making film and television projects for about two decades, Revival was the company’s largest production to date and its first project to reach Netflix.
“There’s something about Netflix that is very validating,” Hemmings said. “For me to be able to see a show that we produced sold to Netflix, it’s a big deal.”
The series was a partnership between Hemmings Films in New Brunswick and Ontario-based Blue Ice Pictures, with Canadian and American financing.
But the production’s impact was felt long before viewers pressed play.
“We brought a fair bit of money into our local economy and dropped it here,” Hemmings said.
For Saint John’s Sarah Mullin, Revival brought a more personal kind of opportunity: her first experience working on a television set.
Mullin initially joined the production as a props trainee. Within three days, producers noticed she looked like one of the show’s main characters and moved her into a stand-in role.
She stayed in that position for the rest of the shoot, while also working as a background actor and photo double.
In one scene, Mullin was fitted with prosthetics to double for Romy Weltman in a scene where her character is stabbed in the stomach with a scythe.
“They were like, ‘Yep, looks like Romy’s stomach,'” Mullin recalled. “Can you be the photo double for the scene where she gets stabbed with a scythe in the stomach?”
Mullin grew up acting in theatre and had always wanted to make the jump into film, but she said opportunities in Saint John were limited.
“I’ve always wanted to break into the film scene,” she said. “Living in Saint John, there just wasn’t a lot of opportunities prior to this.”
“It opened a ton of doors,” she said.
For Mullin, those doors opened on a set that would eventually reach audiences far beyond New Brunswick.
For Hemmings, that is part of what makes Revival significant for the province’s film industry.
“We do have a really committed and talented film crew in New Brunswick,” he said. “It’s not big enough yet to support something of the size of Revival.”
The production brought in department heads from Ontario, giving local crew members the chance to work alongside more experienced professionals.
Hemmings said more productions could help New Brunswick workers gain the experience needed to eventually lead those departments themselves.
But whether another production the size of Revival comes to the province will depend in part on funding.
Hemmings said New Brunswick’s current film funding program is not large enough to consistently compete with provinces such as Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. He said policy changes are needed to create a more competitive film and television tax credit.
Still, Revival has given Hemmings a reason to be optimistic.
“Saint John is a fantastic place to consider shooting here,” he said.
He compared the production’s potential legacy with Children of a Lesser God, the Oscar-winning film shot in Saint John and surrounding communities in the 1980s.
“I see Revival having the same weight as Children of a Lesser God because it was the first time in a very long time we took a big swing,” Hemmings said.
“We did it and people remember it.”
Now, Revival is no longer just a production filmed in Saint John. It is a series available to audiences through one of the world’s biggest streaming platforms, putting a New Brunswick production in front of viewers far beyond the province.
And Hemmings said he hopes that visibility will help make the case for what New Brunswick could produce next.
“It’s almost like the legacy of the beginning of a bigger dream,” he said.Â
