Slowing Down with Destination Canada
In an era of hyper-slick, attention-grabbing tourism advertising, Destination Canada’s latest campaign with Spy Films, ProdCo and Rethink boldly takes a very different route. Instead of adrenaline-packed itineraries or postcard-perfect montage moments designed to evoke on-the-spot FOMO, these tourism films take stock of the smaller, more delicately perceptible moments that say as much about a place as its landmarks.
Pumping gas at a station, encircled by the majestic Rocky Mountains, drinking in an unexpected display of northern lights in Yellowknife, or crossing paths with generous strangers in snowy Quebec – all are given the same quiet reverence usually reserved for cinema.
While this paired-down, honest approach may seem unusual for a national tourism board, it is one that leans heavily on trust between the client, Destination Canada; the agency, Rethink; and the filmmaker, Alex Takacs.
Shot on 35mm and leaning into understated performances, the series is less about ‘selling’ Canada and instead focuses on the simple pleasure of just being there, observing the magic in the mundane. For Alex, this project was also a chance to merge his own personal nostalgia for Canada with a style of filmmaking that resists spectacle in favour of subtlety.
LBB’s April Summers sits down with the director to hear about the thought process that went into his translation of that balance of banality and wonder, the role Spy Films and ProdCo played in production, and why slowing down might be the most powerful storytelling device a brand can use during this time of “visual diabetes.”
LBB> When were you approached by Destination Canada to work on this project? Can you tell us about the initial brief?
Alex> The project came in just as I was getting back from visiting family in Toronto for Christmas, so I was feeling pretty wistful and nostalgic about Canada. The team at Rethink had written a dozen fantastic scripts riffing on the idea that what’s completely ordinary to Canadian locals is a magical experience for visitors. They wanted to take a paired-down, honest approach to these films and that really resonated with me.
LBB> This campaign does an excellent job of communicating the widespread existence of both the country’s awe-inspiring nature and the easygoing disposition of its inhabitants. Is this what you hoped would be the takeaway from these films? How did you hope Canada would be interpreted by viewers?
Alex> I grew up in LA but visited northern Ontario every summer and winter – so I’m not exactly a tourist, but not a jaded local either. I’m somewhere in-between, which made it easy to find the balance of banality and wonder that the scripts were trying to convey. In general, my experience of Canada has always been one of familial warmth and a sense of homecoming, so I hoped to translate some of that feeling to the audience.
LBB> The films subtly demonstrate the ways in which Canada is a friendly and community-driven country, can you tell us a bit about the direction you were giving the talent? And why was it important to the story?
Alex> The politeness and generosity of the characters had to feel second nature, totally automatic, almost a compulsion. This was easy because the talent was all local and the Canadian propaganda is more or less true.
Even if a scene is short and simple, I like to talk to actors about what came before action, and what happens after cut. We tried to make it feel like a slice of life, almost documentary in texture. Considering the campaign’s spirit of authenticity, it was important that the performances weren’t too bubbly or contrived. I often gave the actors explicit permission to do less, to really strip it back and find a breezy naturalism that felt genuine.
LBB> Each film spotlights very different parts of the country. Where did you shoot each film and how did these locations influence your directing and ideas for the spot?
Alex> The project was scheduled in a way that gave us almost a week in each city to scout and plan before shooting. This allowed the DP Jeremy Cox and I to visit the locations dozens of times, do light studies, shoot B roll, and let the unique energy of the place bleed into the final shotlist. The first thing we looked for was a strong master wide shot, then worked backwards from that.
The first spot was shot in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, which we picked because we wanted to capture the northern lights for real. They don’t always happen, but we had a tracking app and got very lucky on the last night. It was a mystical experience. We were also often working in -30 degrees Celsius, which is its own kind of mystical experience.
The second shoot was at a gas station in Yoho National Park on the BC side of the Rockies. We little-man scouted almost every gas station in Alberta and British Columbia on Google Maps to find it. The beauty of the surrounding mountains had to be shockingly obvious for the idea to work and I think this one delivered.
Our last leg was in Quebec City. The casting here was phenomenal and I feel like the performances we workshopped early on shaped the flow of shots just as much as the geography and French colonial architecture.
LBB> Each scene embraces the ‘slow burn’, making them feel grounded in the present, and very different to the type of advertising we’ve been accustomed to expect from brands like Destination Canada. When and why did you envision this specific approach?
Alex> The potential for a slow burn approach was hinted at in the brief, but I’m very partial to slow in general. I think we’re all suffering from visual diabetes; every day we encounter thousands of images that would fry a medieval peasant’s brain but it all just ends up flashing by as background noise. Slowing down and holding on a shot is a way to re-calibrate attention and pull the audience into the moment. It’s like putting a gilded frame around something.
For me personally, the natural beauty of Canada is linked to mundane activities, summertime boredom, and a special stillness. An action-packed vacation riding zip lines is cool, but to fully experience a place I think you need the time to just hang around and do ordinary things. Flip some steaks, eavesdrop while pumping gas, get your car stuck in a snowbank. The whole Bourdain monologue.
I see these films as a kind of honest, no-frills hang-out in Canada with Canadians, showing a genuine realness beyond the typical pitch to tourists. Even those random in-between moments can have a lot of magic.
LBB> All three films feel like scenes from a broader feature-length project, was this the idea? How did this approach help communicate the brand’s message? How did you achieve this cinematic look and feel?
Alex> Film is great for romanticising the mundane, so it felt right to give these spots the subdued visual language and pacing of a feature. Shooting on 4 perf 35mm film was a major part of the overall cinematic feeling and Spy Films and ProdCo were heroes for making it happen. Stock is a precious resource, so you tend to be extra deliberate with your framing, blocking, and timing. For a campaign grounded in soulful simplicity it made sense to put a lot of care and attention into each frame, and film enforces that by default.
LBB> Did you encounter any challenges or technical difficulties during this project? If so, how did you overcome them, as a team?
Alex> The weather was always acting crazy, particularly at the gas station in the Rockies. We started the day shooting in a blizzard, then suddenly got hammered with sunlight that wasn’t on the forecast. After we flagged and tented everything, it rained for an hour while we broke for lunch. The morning’s snow cover had melted by the middle of the day so we had to reshoot a few things for safety. It took a lot of quick thinking from Jeremy to reshuffle set ups in a way that wouldn’t compromise our image. He was extremely dialed in and had an inexhaustible, driving energy that I really value in a collaborator.
We didn’t necessarily need snow in Yellowknife and Alberta, but it was absolutely mandatory for the script in Quebec. By the time we got there, warm weather had started creeping in. Our producers were all over it and made sure we had the extra snow we needed to make it work, even if it was a little more slushy than we hoped. Some unintended realism. Rethink and Destination Canada were both genuinely collaborative partners and there wasn’t a surprise we couldn’t handle over the course of the month.
It was one of those epic, long haul jobs where you’re really grateful to be stuck in a van with a talented team you enjoy just being with. The post-wrap come-down was real.
Read more from Spy Films here
Read more by LBB's April Summers here
