01 /Saad
Waseem
Founder · Director · Cinematographer
Saad Waseem is the founder of Happy Day Films, a Calgary-based film and content studio built on a simple belief: the best brand work doesn't feel like advertising. It feels like a memory.
Saad started behind a camera the way a lot of filmmakers do — filming things he loved, for no one in particular. What followed was less typical. Under the name @happynotsaad he built a following of more than 400,000 people and generated over 750 million organic views, with zero dollars in ad spend. Those views weren't bought; they were earned, one story at a time.
That audience became the proving ground for how he works today. Saad directs and shoots with a creator's instinct for what people actually stop scrolling for, and a cinematographer's eye for how it should look when they do. The result is work that carries the polish of a commercial and the honesty of a personal video.
He's created social media and UGC content for Nike, SportChek, Bauer, YoungLA, and TrainingPeaks — directing, filming, and editing the kind of videos that live natively on feed — and appeared as national talent on the Nike × SportChek Vomero 18 campaign. Across more than 150 projects, the through-line has stayed the same: real people, real rooms, and a camera that knows when to hold still.
Saad works out of Calgary and takes on a small number of long-term brand partnerships at a time, alongside campaign and commercial work — a small, local crew, never outsourced overseas, with quality over quantity on every frame.
- Transport Canada Advanced Drone Pilot
- Nike × SportChek Vomero 18 campaign
- 400K+ following · 750M+ organic views
- 150+ projects delivered

