{"id":8786,"date":"2025-06-06T11:17:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T14:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=8786"},"modified":"2025-06-06T11:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T14:18:08","slug":"crews-eye-queens-county-for-possible-tv-series-locations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2025\/06\/06\/crews-eye-queens-county-for-possible-tv-series-locations\/","title":{"rendered":"Crews eye Queens County for possible TV series locations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Picturesque fishing villages like Port Medway could be an attraction for film and TV crews considering productions in Queens County. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

Crews have been touring Queens County this spring scouting out possible locations to film a television series.<\/span><\/p>\n

Region of Queens Mayor Scott Christian said recently he\u2019s been approached by \u201cthree or four\u201d different crews considering production in the area.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to do it here. I think that there’s one big project that they have the creative greenlight on and they’re just looking at crossing the Ts and dotting the Is and it seemed like it was pretty promising the conversations that they had,” he said in a recent interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

“There was a lot of nodding heads and excited ideas that they were tossing around. I don’t know anything about that industry but it was pretty cool to be involved in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Christian didn\u2019t say who he met with, but he said he showed some crews around Liverpool and other areas of Queens County.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Nova Scotia government\u2019s distant location incentive is one reason productions are looking farther outside the traditional Halifax and Chester-Mahone Bay-Lunenburg areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Introduced in 2024, it provides up to 10 per cent additional funding for film and TV shoots that film at least 150 kilometres away from downtown Halifax.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really cool. <\/span>It’s a bit of a game changer for small to medium-size productions and so it’s sort of all eyes on Liverpool. We’re really, really well-positioned with respect to that because we’re just outside of that threshold, we’re 158 kilometres away from downtown Halifax.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Laura Mackenzie, executive director of Screen Nova Scotia which helps bring productions to the province, told QCCR that Nova Scotia is a very attractive place for international and domestic productions.<\/span><\/p>\n

It can stand in for any location on the northeastern seaboard such as Maine or Martha\u2019s Vineyard, as well as places like San Francisco and other cities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And she said with the new incentive, more places in rural parts of the province are being discovered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUntapped locations are really exciting for productions and there’s not a lot of them left in Canada so this distant filming bonus gives productions the opportunity to go look in areas that would never have really been taken advantage of.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

About 100 productions are filmed in Nova Scotia each year. But very few make it outside the metropolitan Halifax or Chester-Mahone Bay-Lunenburg areas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mackenzie says that\u2019s because crews based in Halifax want to keep travel costs low.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now that we have the distant filming bonus, we can highlight areas of Nova Scotia that we know they will consider because it\u2019s not cost prohibitive anymore, like Liverpool. So this is great news for all of us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She said \u201cmore than a handful\u201d have already taken advantage of the incentive, with Cape Breton being an early choice for a couple of productions. <\/span><\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t know which specific companies may be looking at the Liverpool area.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf they’ve travelled down to Liverpool to have a look at your area then there\u2019s something there they want. They wouldn\u2019t go there if there wasn\u2019t something there they want. It\u2019s definitely a good sign. It\u2019s encouraging if you see production companies and their creatives travelling around and meeting with some of the decision-makers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mackenzie cautions, though, that there are many factors that decide whether a crew will film in an area, including the ability to close roads, to use local community centres to feed their crews, and the support of the local business and artistic communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Melanie Perron, the co-owner of Hell Bay Brewing in Liverpool, says having film and TV crews in town would be a big boost for her business and others.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be fun because I know they\u2019ve done things like that in Mahone Bay before and it just sort of puts a place like that on the map. I think it would just be great for our area, just to show it off and let people know what we have to offer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mackenzie says Screen Nova Scotia has been working with local economic development officers to give them tips on how to make their area attractive to a production. <\/span><\/p>\n

She said locations like Lunenburg have streamlined the process, to eliminate as many obstacles as possible. Those municipalities also have one person available to help productions work through permits, deal with police, set up security and work with the community and local business.<\/span><\/p>\n

Screen Nova Scotia also has a guide on how locations can become film-friendly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately the economic impact is pretty great,” Mackenzie says. <\/span><\/p>\n

“Productions really want to make sure that they’re giving back so if they can use the local restaurants they’re going to use them, if they can hire the artists and the unique talents and skill sets that come from that community, then they will.\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

Mackenzie said a couple of Hallmark Christmas movies wrapped up filming in Nova Scotia earlier this year. Perron at Hell Bay thinks Liverpool would be a great location for one of those.<\/span><\/p>\n

Something like Love is Brewing at Christmas?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be great. They can come to Hell Bay and I\u2019ll make them a special brew.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/strong><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/filminqueensjun625.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crews have been touring Queens County this spring scouting out possible locations to film a television series. Region of Queens Mayor Scott Christian said recently he\u2019s been approached by \u201cthree or four\u201d different crews considering production in the area. \u201cThey want to do it here. I think that there’s one big project that they have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[1686,3173,3176,3182,3180,3179,1722,3175,39,3178,1721,3183,49,24,226,3174,3181,3177],"class_list":["post-8786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-economic-development","tag-film-crews","tag-film-location","tag-film-productions","tag-hallmark","tag-hallmark-christmas-movies","tag-hell-bay-brewing","tag-laura-mackenzie","tag-liverpool","tag-location-scouts","tag-melanie-perron","tag-production-companies","tag-queens-county","tag-region-of-queens","tag-scott-christian","tag-screen-nova-scotia","tag-tv-productions","tag-tv-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8786"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8790,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8786\/revisions\/8790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}