Behind the Scenes of E-470

On June 1, 1991, the first 5-mile segment of E-470 opened to the public. Just 25 years later, E-470 is a 47-mile, nonstop, all-electronic tollway. The communications team at E-470 needed to to celebrate and what better way to do that then a 25th Anniversary Video of E-470.

“The E in E-470 stands for a lot of things to different people. East, extended, excellence certainly has to be at the top of the list now.”

This video was the largest production Mainstream has done to date. Everything was on a grand scale to capture just how innovative E-470 is to Colorado. E-470 is one of the first U.S. tolling authorities to transition to an all-electronic tolling system. E-470 no longer houses cash collection toll booths or coin baskets.

One of the ways Mainstream wanted to visually showcase the highway was through high resolution time lapses. Our team got up before sunrise and set our cameras up along the highway to capture the road with the best backdrop possible. We captured the sun setting as well. There were a handful of scenes that needed to be filmed from above, in bird’s eye view. This gave Mainstream the chance to use a Drone to execute certain shots.

This project held so much amazing footage, that we broke the content up into two parts. One full length anniversary video and another three minute cut down version.

This project was our most high concept story. Not only did we get the opportunity to use all the different production tools in our toolkit, we got to tell a story about a highway that project that against all odds came to be and shape the history of Colorado.