Adventurous Producer Thom Beers Strikes “Black Gold”

Thom Beers believes he has struck another goldmine.

The creator/producer of such hits as Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, Monster Garage and Ax Men — just to name a few — will unearth his latest find when Black Gold premieres June 18 on truTV.

Following the adventures of oil drillers, known as “roughnecks,” who put their lives on the line to capture the bubbling crude, the show continues Beers’ fascination with the world’s most dangerous jobs. Whether it’s on the high seas or in the arid badlands of West Texas, Beers says the key is finding the right people to tell their stories.

The former Ted Turner acolyte got a taste for exotic locations and extreme lives while traveling the world as an executive producer for shows like National Geographic Explorer and several Jacques Cousteau specials. Then he realized that there were stories just as compelling closer to home.

By celebrating blue-collar workers — and the forbidding places in which they sometimes have to do their jobs — Beers has built his own wildly successful brand of visceral entertainment under his Original Productions banner. Currently, he estimates he has 14 different shows in production on nine different networks.

While he’s mostly shined on cable networks, NBC has just committed to 30 hours of Beers-produced programming, including America’s Toughest Jobs, which is scheduled to air next year. He’ll also produce scripted programming — a return to his roots as an actor and playwright.

Beers took a breath recently to tell us a little about Black Gold and how he puts his unique shows together.

With gas prices and such, the oil industry doesn’t exactly inspire thoughts of heroes and good guys. Was that a concern when you were considering this series?

Thom Beers: Not really. These are the guys that drill the holes. They’re not the ones selling the gas to the pump. We make shows about blue-collar heroes, and that’s what these guys are. They get up every day and do an honest day’s work for a good wage. They actually make more of a wage than most.

Walk me a little through how you get a show like this off the ground. Once you have the idea, what happens?

As a filmmaker, the first and foremost thing is, do I have a story? Is it an interesting location? Are there interesting people, characters involved in that story? Are there rewards and risks? You’re looking to create a really good dramatic arc, an authentic experience with great storytelling. We get out there and, what I usually do, is get on the ground. I got my old pickup truck for this one, and drove out to Midland and Odessa, Texas, and spent a little time kicking around some of the local bars and going out to some of the rigs and going, “OK, this is an interesting rig. These guys are interesting.” In essence, the idea is to build from the ground up. You don’t do a cattle call like in L.A. and go, “OK, who wants to be in a TV show?” Out there, you do honest-to-God legwork. That’s what I kind of like about shows like this, too, you know, these guys aren’t people looking to be a TV star.

When you show up in the areas, do they know you’re there for a TV show?

It’s kind of easy for us now. Clearly, with Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers and the shows that we do, there are a lot of fans out there. They go, “Oh, you’re the Deadliest Catch guy, hey, that’s cool.” They know what we do; we celebrate the blue-collar working men and women of America. It ain’t a bad thing.

What kind of feedback do you get from the people featured in your show, or from people who work the jobs depicted in your shows?

That’s kind of the coolest thing in the world. I’m not a big fan of fame, but it’s really kind of fun to see these guys. … There was a great story about a year ago, when I did Ice Road Truckers, one of the truck drivers lives way the heck up in northern Canada, and the show doesn’t even air in Canada, so he doesn’t know that the show’s a huge success. Except he gets a call one day from Jack and Meg White of The White Stripes who are traveling through on a concert tour through Yellowknife, and they track him down, because they want to go drive in his truck. I mean, how obscure and strange is that? They got videotape, they’re in there making a video, singing with him in his truck. That kind of stuff is really fun. I like the upside of that little bit of fame. They don’t anticipate that.

Do you think what you’re doing is a whole new breed of shows, or can you identify specific predecessors that have influenced you?

I often say God bless Bunim and Murray [Productions]. Because them creating The Real World, in essence, raised almost three generations now of people who are looking at verite life. People are used to it, they have more patience and tolerance to it. That’s the real steppingstone, the early Real Worlds, I really do think that broke the genre for all of us. People are actually curious about everyday, common lives. Our job now, what I do is take that a step further — go to exotic locations, interesting locations, far-reaching, final frontier locations. If you think about it, where I like to go, I’m up in Alaska, I’m down in the dead flatland, hot land of Texas. I’m up in the sweeping cold of Canada. The whole idea is to go find really interesting backgrounds, and at the same time, be aware my responsibility is delegating this experience to [viewers]. They’re saying, “You know, I got a 9-to-5 job. I go to work. I punch my clock and I know exactly how much money I’m going to make every week. But I do it because I got to feed my family and pay my bills.” But there’s no passion in that. People in America, if you ask them, 60 to 70 percent of them would change their jobs tomorrow. What we’re offering them is a unique look at a different job, an alternative job, and I think being outdoors has a lot to do with it, too. We spend so much time indoors in our lives that this offers these big vistas, an opportunity to go to work with no roof over our head. So I think we give a really unique experience. And clearly, there are stakes. You got to have stakes to make a show work in this genre, there’s got to be winners and losers. I think that people, they just root for that. You look for the underdog, the little company that’s just out there trying to make a living and strike it big and hopefully they do. And if they don’t, that’s OK.

What will people learn about the oil industry by watching Black Gold that they didn’t know before?

The neat part about it is that connection, every hole they punch in the ground in Texas, somebody should be happy because it makes us a little less reliant on oil from the Middle East. I think that’s really the key to this. We should be celebrating and drilling our holes here and let’s make this American oil. Because of that, there’s a great pride down there. These are guys that are second- to third-generation oilmen. They’re salt of the Earth, they’re honest, straightforward men and women. I just love it. I love the community. I love the danger of it, it’s just visceral, it’s dirty, man, it’s dirty! That’s the one thing, I don’t know if I could do this job as a living. You see these guys show up every morning, a pair of blue jeans, a pair of boots and white or gray T-shirt. Within 60 minutes, man, they are just one big sludge pile. They are just grease from head to toe, covered in mud, sweat and, what would be a great last one, gears. Mud, sweat and gears.

You also cover the oilmen financing the digs, like Mike LaMonica, who’s pretty fascinating. He’s a millionaire oilman, but he’s also a full-time deacon in his church.

Yeah, he’s pretty multidimensional, and taking a lot of risk. These guys, my God, it’s costing them $1 million, $1.5 million to punch a hole in the ground two miles deep. If that comes up ugly and empty, they’re broke. They’re rolling the dice. When that oil starts creeping up, it’s like “Wow, look at that.” These guys are making $10,000 a day, for the next four years. So the upside is like “whoa,” but you’re sweating with those guys every day, going “Man, if this thing comes up empty, I’m done.” It’s like a blackjack table, you get a cold spell going, two or three dry holes, you’re out of the business. This is boom-and-bust stuff. Every one of these guys will tell you they’ve been a millionaire one day on paper, anybody’s who’s a wildcatter, they’ve probably been a millionaire four or five times on paper and they’ve been broke twice as many times as that.

Do you feel like you’re gambling in that way with your kind of shows?

I own this show, I actually put my money where my mouth is on shows like this. I’m out there speculating just like those guys. Owner of content, we’re a studio here, we’re co-producing with truTV on this series. We’re rolling the dice, too.

But we’re in a great position right now — we’re working with probably nine networks on 14 different series, but the great part about it is what it does, it offers me a huge opportunity to basically quench my curiosity. It’s like, “OK, what do you want to do?” “Well, I’ve always wanted to do a show on oil.” “Cool. I’ll take it.” I’m like, “Yeah!” I’m on the next plane to West Texas. This is good. That’s what I love about it. It fuels my wanderlust, and I’m extraordinarily thankful for that.