Case Study:

Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

Launched

2019

Runtimes

Various

Seen On

📺📱💻

Overview

For more than seven years, Threefold has documented the creation of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota. What began as a feature documentary has grown into a historical archive, a long-term content library, and a foundation for marketing materials as the library approaches opening day. The project represents the kind of complex, long-term storytelling Threefold is built to handle.

Long-Term Storytelling Partners

Most productions have a start date and an end date. This one unfolded over seven years.

Since 2019, Threefold has documented the creation of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota — a $400 million cultural institution rising from the landscape that helped shape Theodore Roosevelt himself.

The project began with an international design competition that helped define what the future library could become. Since then, our team has followed the project through design, fundraising, construction, staff growth, partner development, and opening-day preparation.

7

Years Filming

60+

Production Days

42

Medora Visits

15+

Locations

50+

People Interviewed

34

Terabytes of Footage

$400

million cultural institution documented

13,500

Miles driven

The Challenge

Documenting the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library required more than showing up with cameras. It required long-term trust, national production logistics, deep interview strategy, archival discipline, repeatable aerial documentation, and the ability to maintain creative continuity through years of change.

The project involved leadership, staff, architects, engineers, designers, builders, historians, technologists, donors, government partners, community members, and countless partners and vendors. Each person, place, and milestone contributed to a much larger story.

Our Role

Our collaboration with the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library has been a multi-faceted project, divided into three distinct components:

Marketing: We are consistently delivering publish-ready content to support ongoing communications. This includes specialized pieces highlighting the Living Building Challenge, The Native Plant Project, as well as comprehensive quarterly and yearly project updates.

Documentary: We have plans to create a full-length documentary highlighting the different phases of the project.

Historical Assets: Beyond our immediate deliverables, we are capturing archival footage with the long-term future in mind. We are filming moments that may not be used today, but will serve as invaluable resources many years from now.

Embedded Storytelling

Long-term documentation requires more than access. It requires context.

Over the course of the project, our team became deeply familiar with the library’s mission, leadership, partners, timeline, challenges, and evolving story. That context allowed us to ask better questions, recognize important moments, and understand how individual shoots connected to the larger narrative.

After seven years, the work was no longer just about knowing where to point the camera. It was about knowing what mattered.

Interview Strategy

More than 50 people have been interviewed for the project, including TRPL leadership and staff, major partners, architects, engineers, designers, builders, technologists, historians, and community voices.

Each interview had to serve a specific purpose. Some filled in the early history of the library. Some explained the design and construction process. Some captured the politics, fundraising, partnerships, and public mission behind the project. Others helped preserve personal memories and decisions that may not exist anywhere else.

Together, these interviews form the backbone of the documentary and the archive.

Travel Production

The story of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library extends far beyond Medora.

Filming has taken place across the country, including New York, Chicago, Wisconsin, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Bismarck, and other locations connected to the project’s partners and development.

At the same time, our team returned to Medora again and again to document the building’s progress through changing seasons, construction milestones, and the transformation of the site.

Data and Archival Systems

Capturing the footage was only part of the job. Keeping it organized, searchable, and usable over six years became one of the project’s most important challenges.

To date, the project includes 34 terabytes of footage across interviews, drone footage, construction documentation, behind-the-scenes material, partner shoots, travel, events, and marketing assets.

A project of this size required systems for file organization, backups, footage review, interview tracking, and long-term post-production planning.

Technical Continuity

Over the life of the project, production technology changed dramatically. Cameras changed. Codecs changed. Storage demands changed. Color pipelines changed. Editorial workflows changed.

Through all of that, the final body of work still had to feel cohesive.

Threefold’s job was to maintain visual and creative consistency while continuing to improve the technical quality of the footage as tools evolved.

The tools changed. The standard did not.

Aerial Documentation

The landscape is central to the story of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library.

To capture the relationship between the building and the Badlands, Threefold programmed 28 drone routes, allowing the team to return to consistent flight paths as the site changed over time.

These repeatable aerials created a visual record of transformation: from landscape to construction site to cultural destination.

Deliverables Along the Way

Because the footage was organized and developed over time, TRPL did not have to wait for the final documentary to benefit from the work.

Threefold created deliverables throughout the project, supporting fundraising, public awareness, partner communication, milestone announcements, social content, and opening-day marketing.

This approach allowed the documentary footage to work in real time while continuing to serve the larger long-term story.

2025 Year in Review

Living Building Challenge: Place

But that's
not all!

Threefold will be onsite in Medora for the Grand Opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library.

Our entire team will be right in the middle of the action all week through the 4th of July.

Spot us in the crowd? Flag us down and say “Hi,” as we’d love to meet you.

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