If you live in Atlantic Canada, it’s hard to miss Greg Hemmings. Just pick up a paper, and you might see one of his photo “Postcards” in the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. Or maybe on the way to work you’ll see an advertisement his production studio, Hemmings House Pictures, put together.

^{Greg Hemmings on location in the Arctic.}

After work when you’re relaxing at home, you might be watching a music video shot by HHP, or, if your tastes run to that sort of thing, a wrestling documentary. He’s even building a name on the international documentary circuit.

A native of Saint John, NB, and a graduate of Niagara College, Hemmings has been working professionally in TV and film since 1999. Prior to forming Hemmings House Pictures in 2007, Greg co-founded HIT! Media with Glenn Ingersoll and Andrew Tidby, with whom he has partnered on several different projects over the years. An avid traveler, Greg’s TV, film and documentary work takes him around the world, and his passport visas read like a rambler’s dream catalogue: Bermuda, Mexico, Switzerland, China, Indonesia, Italy, France, Portugal, England, Venezuela, and even the Arctic.

Music videos, commercials, and corporate projects are Greg’s bread and butter, but he’s never forgotten his creative roots. He’s being recognized for his efforts at local, provincial, national, and international levels. A sampling of his list of awards is striking: “Best Documentary” at the Silver Wave Film Festival for “Rubaricon”; Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Saint John Board of Trade; a New Brunswick Merit Award; and most recently, a Commonwealth Vision Award in London, England for “Papikatuk” – an award presented by Lord David Putnam. The topics of his documentaries are a secret insight into his passions: music, urban subcultures, the environment, community festivals, wandering poets, and travel itself.

More than all of these, however, Greg is enthusiastic about living and working on the East Coast. His TV and film work has taken him to all corners of the globe, but he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Atlantic Canada’s regions. Speaking with Greg, one gets the sense of someone whose loves are firmly planted on the Atlantic seaboard, but whose business and artistic zeal take him abroad. Recently celebrating the birth of his first child, Greg’s a new breed of Atlantic Canadian professional – he has his cake and eats it too, never sacrificing the local for his global concerns.

ECC’s Alex Willis spoke with Greg in late August.

Alex Willis: Congratulations on the birth of your daughter.

Greg Hemmings: Thank you, Alex. It’s a new trip in life. For anyone interested in adventure, have a child.

AW: Ever a hair-raising adventure?

GH: You get used to not sleeping! The afternoon lulls, after lunch...well, you get used to not having them anymore. But it’s fun as hell.

AW: As a young entrepreneur, based in Atlantic Canada but working internationally, how do you balance your professional and your family life?

GH: Thankfully I’m not alone in this. I’m part of the Wallace McCain Institute, and we meet once a month over the course of the year, with other entrepreneurs, presidents, and CEOs. The common thread is that everyone wants to find that magical balance. If you run your own business, or are running a team of any size, you’ll just be taking more calls. You very rarely bring your personal life into work, but you always bring your work into your personal life. And it’s not healthy.

My wife has a “type A” personality, which helps, but with a child, I’ve forced myself to stop. When I get home, I try not to open up the laptop, or take phone calls...the result of which is that I fall behind. The messages keep coming in, the contracts keep coming in, and business keeps happening. So sometimes I have to force the life-work balance. There is no “off time” for the New Millenials, though. Sometimes I wish I had a 9-to-5! [laughs]

AW: It seems like most Atlantic Canadian entrepreneurs and professionals share a real desire to work and maintain a family life. But you do, as you say, work in an industry that is 24-7, where connectivity is essential. What challenges do you face working in this industry in Atlantic Canada?

GH: The challenges are huge. The real markets for the television industry in Canada are in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Arguably, Halifax would be the fourth. So I’m working in one of the fringe markets, and it’s OK, but we’ve got no broadcasters here. We have an Atlantic office for CBC and for CTV, but at the end of the day the decision-makers for national programming are in Toronto. Those producers living in Toronto have an advantage – all they have to do is walk down the street, to CanWest, CTV or CBC. Everybody’s there. So whenever I go to Toronto I have to be strategic, plan meetings ahead. Usually the Toronto guys are really good, knowing that we’re from Atlantic Canada, and so they try their best to make time for our schedules. But the geographical disconnect between the broadcast centres and us is considerable. We’re lonely ducks out here!

AW: So those are some of the challenges. What then are some advantages to working where you do?

GH: I have huge advantages, especially in New Brunswick. I don’t deserve the amount of support they give me! [laughs] People have been so good in taking ownership and investing in my business, asking “Let’s see where he can take it.” Film New Brunswick has very limited resources, but it’s always been so easy to work with them, and they even bring projects to me. So being recognized as one of the few television producers in the province is a huge advantage. I’m not ashamed to say that I’m a medium-sized fish in a very small pond. It works to the advantage of someone in a niche like me.

AW: Music has played a strong part in your creative development, continuing to this day in your involvement in the Atlantic Canadian music scene – particularly in your production of music videos, filming of concerts and festivals. From a filmmaker’s and music industry person’s perspective, how do you feel about the Atlantic scene?

GH: I’ve been filming the East Coast Music Awards for the past 5-6 years, and we shoot hundreds of bands. Two years ago, I was actually nominated for Industry Professional of the Year – interesting since I’m not at all a professional musician. But it was great that someone recognized our company as very involved in the music video scene.

I think Atlantic Canada is pumping out some great stuff. You don’t even have to mention Wintersleep, and Grand Theft Bus, and the incredible country music and bluegrass scenes... Music is engrained in the fabric of life on the East Coast. If there’s anything strong culturally in our region, it’s on the musical side, and our musical exports.

AW: Speaking of music, you recently spent some time filming a documentary in Venezuela on their El Sistema youth music program, with Ken McLeod [of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra] and your brother Mark [Hemmings, Director of Photography at Hemmings House Pictures]. What did you learn from your experiences?

GH: That’s a project that we just started, actually. We’re going to be filming this over the period of about a year. El Sistema has around 350,000 kids enrolled, every single day, in the classical music program. It runs from about 1 pm until they turn the lights off – could be 10 pm. Every day of their lives, they learn classical music. And now Venezuela is producing more world class classical musicians than anywhere else on earth. And what’s happening, more than these kids becoming great musicians, is that they are becoming really active members of society. So this is about citizenship. Kids in Venezuela would normally not have an opportunity to expand their minds like this in their day-to-day lives. Sadly, the reality of Venezuela, and Caracas, is that a lot of these kids would normally end up going down roads that are destructive, if this program was not in place.

So, Ken, of the NB Youth Orchestra, said, “OK, well, Venezuela’s a so-called ‘developing country,’ and they can get so many kids involved. Canada’s a so-called ‘developed’ country, but it doesn’t mean our poor children have better opportunities. Why can’t we put a similar program together?’
We went down to Venezuela with Ken, and we learned El Sistema, and how to bring it up to Canada. We have a school in Moncton that has donated a space, and starting this September, the program is going to be implemented there. We’re going to follow the story for a year, and see if a social program like this can be as effective in a developed country as in a developing country.

AW: You’re a board member of the New Brunswick Arts Board. Tell me about your work with this organization, and how it facilitates your own work as a television-and-film maker.

GH: I’m a recent addition to the Arts Board. My first real documentary, “A Head’s Tale,” was partially funded by the New Brunswick Arts Board. That was the best thing I ever did in my life, because I got paid to follow music festivals around North America, and, of course, doing what you do when you do that! [laughs] I’ve had so much given to me from our community that I thought I should be fast to respond and give back. Sitting on the board was important to me because, even though I work at a business, my business is based on creativity. Our New Brunswick business culture really does need to embrace creativity through the arts. I find that New Brunswick, sadly, isn’t always the strongest supporter of the arts, despite all our fantastic artists. I think Saint John has an incredible underground of artists who will probably never be recognized, but they’re all around us, living among us. It’s part of my personal goal to raise awareness, talking about it, going to a pub to see a show, or checking out a gallery hop, whatever it takes. It needs to become something that’s part of peoples’ livelihoods, their everyday lives, this support of the arts.

AW: You’ve been recognized by the New Brunswick community, recently receiving the New Brunswick Merit Award. But you also won the Commonwealth Vision Award in London, England for your short film “Papikatuk.” That’s pretty impressive stuff.

GH: Thanks. That last one came out of left field, totally unexpected. I guess it’s the New Brunswick way to not have high expectations about these sorts of things. [laughs] My short film was one of 250 selected from 53 Commonwealth countries, and so I was really surprised, right up until the last minute, that I was in the running. I knew that my film was in the top six, but even when they were calling the third place winner, I thought that person had won, and so I said, “Wow that’s great, they really deserved it!” And then before you know it, they’re calling my name last, and David, Lord Putnam is throwing an award into my hands!

AW: What was it like meeting Lord Putnam?

GH: He’s a regular dude. Like somebody’s uncle. We had a good chat, mostly about how my life was based on “Chariots of Fire.”

AW: Mine was based on “Memphis Belle.”

GH: [laughs] Love it! For me, though, I’m not star-struck. I get a kick out of meeting interesting people.

AW: Now you’ve racked up a pretty remarkable list of clients through your work with Hemmings House Pictures, and your previous production houses. You’re clearly already building your name and your brand in that sense. But how do you balance the “business” side of your art with the creative side?

GH: At the beginning it was really difficult. I’m an artist, I’m out shooting films, but I still have to do the books. So I hire somebody to take care of that. Then I realized I needed somebody to help me with camerawork and editing. So I take the guy who I had doing the books, and teach him how to do camerawork and editing. Give him more control. But now I’ve got nobody to help me with the books. So I hire another guy who’s strictly administrative. You get more clients, and then you need another editor. And before you know it, I’m managing people. Then we got a new office in Halifax, so I need “Another Me” at the Saint John office to make sure everything’s good there. So I moved to Halifax, and originally I was here alone for eight months, back to square one, self-sufficient – but now we’ve got two employees here.

So rarely am I behind the camera, or in front of the AVID [film editor]. I love shooting and I love editing, but what I’m doing right now is that I’m growing a business. It’s been a recent revelation that this is a creative process in itself. My creative soul is being fed by actually stepping away from the camera and the editor, and going out and producing, connecting people, and making things happen. Some people might think I’m a media whore for having my fingers in so many media. [laughs] But it’s all part of the creative adventure.

Putting yourself out there, and allowing people to be involved in your life, it can be creative. I’m not a very good public speaker, so I try to find opportunities to speak in front of a lot of people. Prior to that, I was terrible on the radio, so I said, “I need to get as many CBC radio interviews as possible.” Strangely, I still don’t think I’m very good on camera, but these kinds of challenges really keep me alive, excited. I started blogging in 2006 just so I could learn how to write! [laughs]

AW: On your blog, actually, you recently wrote that “New Brunswick is one of the most beautiful provinces in Canada...and no one knows it!” You’ve traveled pretty well all across the country. What could New Brunswick be doing differently to showcase itself?

GH: Everything. I’m excited that Revolution Strategy just got the NB Tourism contract. Nothing against the previous company, but they weren’t based in New Brunswick. I think it’s appalling that outside production companies are doing the commercials for tourism. I think New Brunswick may be stuck in the “glitz and glam” phase, thinking “We have to go to Toronto,” or even Halifax, thinking we don’t have anyone here who can do the job. Which is totally untrue. So I’m excited that Revolution is doing this, I think they’re going to do a kickass job.

AW: You’re from the Saint John area, so I know you’re passionate about that city, but what are some other places in Atlantic Canada that you find inspiring?

GH: I hate to say it, but for me, I don’t find Halifax that inspiring. If I was younger, in my 20s and single, I think I would love living here.

Personally I love the access to the rural surroundings that Saint John has. But outside of the city? The whole Charlotte County area – Deer Island, Campobello, St. Andrews – are incredible. I see St. Martins as having a ton of potential and would love to see NB Tourism develop awareness of that area. I drove up to Doaktown recently – it’s amazing! Up through Grand Lake, all around there...I could go on. Actually, in New Brunswick, I can’t go 50 km without stopping and loving every little town.

AW: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me, Greg.

GH: No problem, man!