How do you film a decade nobody filmed?
Advancing Infrastructure is a documentary for Bentley Systems’ 40th year. Bentley makes the software engineers use to design and run roads, bridges, rail and water, and it wanted its own story on film. We built it from three things: the Bentley brothers in their own words, re-enactments of the company’s early years, and Bentley’s own archive. I was creative director and executive producer at Think Less.
Advancing Infrastructure
The Bentley Systems Story
We interviewed Greg, Keith, Barry and Ray Bentley at the company’s headquarters in Exton, Pennsylvania. Then we spent two days in Utah re-enacting the 1980s on period sets, with a drafting table, an HP plotter, a 1980s terminal and four actors, styled to cut beside Bentley’s photos and early footage.
The film runs 12:47, with two :60 spots in three ratios each. Bentley released it on YouTube in September 2024, and it has passed 2.4 million views (November 2026). We also made Business Milestones, a second, 7:11 film for Bentley.
A Think Less production
For Bentley Systems
Creative director and executive producer, Cole Sax
Athletes featured in the series
Skateboarding, surfing and climbing enter the Olympics.
NextWorld
Debut
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