Yellowstone Country Tourism
Benefits of tourism Video Campaign
The Project
The goal of this project was to communicate the benefits of tourism in Montana’s Yellowstone Country.
Windfall, a full-service advertising agency, brought us in to help create a video for Yellowstone Country Tourism. The project required us to work within established brand guidelines while developing something visually distinct: a nearly 4-minute piece explaining the benefits of tourism in Montana's Yellowstone Country region.
We landed on a paper-cutout journal style that gave the video its own identity while staying cohesive with Yellowstone Country's existing brand.
Windfall, a full-service advertising agency, brought us in to help create a video for Yellowstone Country Tourism. The project required us to work within established brand guidelines while developing something visually distinct: a nearly 4-minute piece explaining the benefits of tourism in Montana's Yellowstone Country region.
We landed on a paper-cutout journal style that gave the video its own identity while staying cohesive with Yellowstone Country's existing brand.
The Challenge
The video needed to communicate policy-level information like what a destination management organization does, how tourism dollars flow through local economies, how the region balances promoting tourism with protecting what makes it special. Fairly dense content that could easily feel like a presentation.
The other constraint: we had to build this almost entirely from existing media. Windfall has an extensive archive of photography and video footage from across the region, but nothing shot specifically for this concept. Our job was to take those assets (images and clips from different sources, different seasons, different contexts) and create something that felt original and cohesive.
The other constraint: we had to build this almost entirely from existing media. Windfall has an extensive archive of photography and video footage from across the region, but nothing shot specifically for this concept. Our job was to take those assets (images and clips from different sources, different seasons, different contexts) and create something that felt original and cohesive.
Our Approach
We started by combing through Windfall's media archive to pull selects. This included photos and video of landscapes, towns, people, activities across Yellowstone Country's five counties. Then we built a beat-by-beat storyboard paired with the script Windfall had written. Every frame was planned, communicated, and revised before animation began.
The paper collage treatment was the solution to making existing media feel new. We rotoscoped and masked hundreds of images of mountains, horses, people, barns, signs, skies, and turned them into textured paper cutouts. We combined these with video footage to create layered compositions that moved through different scenes: various locations, activities, partners, seasons.
To give it a stop-motion feel, we animated most of the piece on twos (12 frames per second). This reinforced the handmade, tactile quality of the paper world.
We also filmed original content for the narrative framing. We sourced and laser-etched a journal, then rigged a bird's-eye dolly rig to shoot the opening: a hand opening the journal to reveal paper collages inside. That's how we enter the paper world. The journal reappears in the middle and at the end. Turning a page, reinforcing the motif, giving the video a sense of structure and cohesion.
The existing Windfall video library served both as transitions between paper compositions and as its own scenes showing what the region has to offer. But everything stayed connected to the paper world through deliberate transitions and the journal.
The paper collage treatment was the solution to making existing media feel new. We rotoscoped and masked hundreds of images of mountains, horses, people, barns, signs, skies, and turned them into textured paper cutouts. We combined these with video footage to create layered compositions that moved through different scenes: various locations, activities, partners, seasons.
To give it a stop-motion feel, we animated most of the piece on twos (12 frames per second). This reinforced the handmade, tactile quality of the paper world.
We also filmed original content for the narrative framing. We sourced and laser-etched a journal, then rigged a bird's-eye dolly rig to shoot the opening: a hand opening the journal to reveal paper collages inside. That's how we enter the paper world. The journal reappears in the middle and at the end. Turning a page, reinforcing the motif, giving the video a sense of structure and cohesion.
The existing Windfall video library served both as transitions between paper compositions and as its own scenes showing what the region has to offer. But everything stayed connected to the paper world through deliberate transitions and the journal.
What We Delivered
A 3-minute, 46-second animated video that takes policy-heavy content and keeps it visually engaging. The paper collage style made it possible to use mostly existing media while creating something that felt completely original. The pacing stayed energetic with things constantly moving, constantly happening, so the information never felt static.
The collaboration with Windfall worked because we brought adaptability, technical problem-solving, and a willingness to work within constraints. We took what they had and figured out how to make it into something new.
The collaboration with Windfall worked because we brought adaptability, technical problem-solving, and a willingness to work within constraints. We took what they had and figured out how to make it into something new.
Special Thanks
Thanks to Alex, Megan, Cassidy, and the Windfall team for trusting us to bring this paper world to life.
