We created a video to promote tourism, and we ended up seeing the city in a new light.
In late 2025, we pitched the idea of Four Seasons on the Bow to Tourism Calgary. They were looking to branch out from influencer videos and create something that showcased who Calgarians are. Their research had told them that visitors appreciate Calgary’s kindness above everything else, and that's a hard thing to convey in a video about the five best poutine spots in the city.
With that in mind, we started thinking about the things that make Calgary different: our vast network of cross-country ski paths, the golden age of microbreweries, the flood of murals covering our walls, but there was one thing about Calgary that I hadn't seen anywhere else in my travels: a crystal-clear river running through a city of over a million people. This river would be our literal through line.
Each season, we delivered a standalone video for social media. These videos sat amongst videos suggesting the best things to do with your family, perfect date nights, and all the other things vying for a few seconds of someone's attention.
Numbers-wise, they did well enough, but where we really saw the impact was in the direct messages. These weren't videos with titles designed to catch the attention of the algorithm, but for the people who did watch them, there was a sense that they were genuinely discovering something about the city.
That discovery wasn't lost on us either. Each season, we took our cameras to places we thought we knew, and each time we experienced it like it was our fist time. This discovery is a constant by-product of filmmaking, of course. Trying to capture something on video in a way that communicates a story forces you to see it differently. To see it in a way that others might. I can skate, but I had to look at the frozen lake at Bowness from the perspective of someone putting on skates for the first time. I don't fish often, but I had to adjust my perspective to understand why world-class fishermen fly to my city to float down the Bow. By doing that, you are setting yourself up to learn.
It should be noted that Tourism Calgary never once tried to make us pivot away from this direction. They really pushed us to focus on the vibe of Calgarians. They understood that audiences and algorithms are fickle. The videos that work today won't necessarily work tomorrow. A video that gets big numbers doesn’t necessarily translate into tourists, fans, or a community. To create a story that actually breaks through the gloss and the slop we swipe through every day, the storyteller has to take a moment to see their world differently.
by Eric Pauls