I got the chance to talk to Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? and of course his amazing television series 30 Days that starts it's third season tonight at 10PM ET/PT on FX.
Nads: What do you enjoy more, doing the films or doing the format of 30 Days?
Morgan: I love making movies. I think that the incredible thing about a film is that a film has the ability to really transcend culture. Super Size Me played in like 75 countries around the world. My new film that came out, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? has been sold in about 60 countries around the world. And 30 Days has done really well. I think 30 Days plays in about 15 different territories now internationally, with a lot of these countries starting to produce their own 30 Days episodes, because originally that was my intent was for these own countries to focus on problems within their own societies. And so that's starting to happen.
I find each to be rewarding for a lot of different reasons. With 30 Days we're able to cover so many more topics. It's a very defined production schedule with 30 Days, there's a beginning and a middle and an end when you make this TV show. Whereas, when you make a doc it can take a very, very long time. Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? took us about two and a half years from start to finish, where with 30 Days the start to finish of this whole show cycle is about eight months.
Nads: Wow sounds really quick vs making a whole documentary. When you start do you have a beginning, middle and end? And is your journey that of a scientist where you'll start with a hypothesis and know what you're hoping to find?
Morgan: No. I pretty much go in with just an idea of, like with Super Size Me we're going to eat this food for 30 days and see what happens. With Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? we're going to go try and find the world's most wanted man. Then we kind of spin the top and see what happens. You know there's people you want to talk to and you know there's places you want to go, but other than that I really like to let that whole process be very organic. I like things to develop on their own. I let people help steer where we're going, and when we're in a country or we're in an interview the best things that happen are when somebody comes into an interview or something happens that one door opens and leads you to three or four different things you never even thought about or never anticipated.
Some of the best advice I ever got was from a friend of mine right before we made Super Size Me. I called a filmmaker friend of mine; I'd never made a movie, never made a feature and I said, "Could you just give me some advice?" And he said, "If the movie you end up with at the end is the exact same movie you envisioned at the beginning, then you didn't listen to anybody along the way." That's such good advice. And we take that advice with 30 Days and I take that advice every day with the films we make.
Nads: What do you consider a successful 30 Days?
Morgan: I think a successful 30 Days is one where you don't really know what's going to happen. I think there are two. There's a successful 30 Days as a participant where I go in and I'm surprised and my eyes are opened and I learn things and experience things that 99% of us will never get to. And I think that's really what I love as a participant that I get out of the show. For me as a person who watches the show, I love that every episode isn't tied up into a nice little bow, that at the end of every episode people don't always get along. Everything isn't always resolved. Sometimes people find commonality; sometimes they agree to disagree. Sometimes their relationship is just as volatile at the end as when they started. And for me that's what makes the show real. This is a show that really does deal with reality in so many ways and deals with a lot of the problems that we face as a culture on a daily basis. And I think for me, that's what I love about 30 Days.
Comments (1)
Wow Nads, we were just all discussing this show in the forums and here you are on the main page interviewing Morgan, himself.
The show is great, he's great, your great, our forums are great, so anyone wanting to discuss "30 Days" further, stop by the forums and look for it by name. We love newbies.
1 of 1 | Posted by chooch850 | Posted on June 3, 2008 8:42 PM