Thirty Days Later
Danny Gallagher
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Morgan Spurlock has a lot of titles he could put on his business card. He's an award-winning playwright.  He created a hit Internet show called I Bet You Will that became the first online show to crossover to cable television (MTV) in 2000. He's an author, an executive producer and the host of a new television show on FX.

But in the limited vision of popular culture, he's known as that guy who ate nothing but McDonald's for a month in the film Super Size Me.

Those fateful 30 days almost shut down his liver, but the success and critical acclaim of the film breathed new life into his career. The film earned him a Best Documentary Director award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary. But, more importantly, it raised a new awareness on America's increasing obesity epidemic and their love for all things super sized.

Now, he's taken the Super Size Me format to FX to explore other social issues. His new show, 30 Days, features Morgan and his girlfriend, Alex, trying to get by on minimum wage, an ex-Army reservist living with a gay man, and a mom who shows her college bound daughter the dangers of binge drinking. Morgan spoke with Arriviste Press about the busy life of a filmmaker in the fast paced world of television, what it takes to create films and TV shows that are equally thought provoking and entertaining, and being "that guy."

A_P: I've been reading and watching a lot of interviews with you, and I saw you on Jimmy Kimmel Live and they all introduce you as "that guy who lived on McDonald's for 30 days." So my first question is what makes you sicker: eating McDonald's food or talking about it?

MS: (laughs) It's amazing, I don't feel as bad after talking about it. So probably eating it, but I'm somebody who still loves a good burger. I still go out to get burgers, just not so much from those places.

A_P: With 30 Days you take the Super Size Me concept and use it to explore other social issues. Is it hard to get people to look away from Super Size Me and show them that there are other things going on the world that we could be dealing with?

MS: I think Super Size Me did such a great job of capturing something that affected a lot of us, that's a part of our everyday lives and it took off in a way that I couldn't even have imagined. But there are a lot of people who still haven't seen the show. There are people who haven't even heard about 30 Days. It's just getting them to know that this thing is happening. But I'll probably be "that guy" until I make another movie, I'd say.

A_P: Let's talk about how 30 Days came about. Did they come to you or did you go to them?

MS: I went to FX, and we actually went to all the networks but FX was who ultimately picked it up, and I got the idea for the show while we were editing Super Size Me. While I was sitting in the editing room, I thought it would be great to create a show where we could deal with social issues in a way that wouldn't be preachy and wouldn't tell you what to do much like Super Size Me has done, the way it looks at this very serious social problem with obesity in America. That was how the whole thing was kind of born, trying to create a show that would enable us to do that…Super Size Me deals with a very serious issue in a funny way, in a way that doesn't tell you what to do that lets you make up your own mind. For me, those are the kind of things I like anyway. Those are the kind of shows I like, and those are the kind of movies I like. I like things that let me make up my own decisions.

A_P: You said you went to all the networks. Are we talking ALL the networks?

MS: We met with everybody, all the major networks. We were at one network and the guy goes after we pitched the show, "Well, who wins?" "Well, nobody wins, it's not a game show." He said, "Wait, nobody wins this thing?" I said, "OK, fine. You do, the viewer, by watching the show every week." Then he said, "This meeting's over."

A_P: Was FX the only one that got it?

MS: FX was the only one that got it so quickly from the beginning. They said, "We know what you want to accomplish. We know what your goals are of creating a thought-provoking television show. That's the kind of stuff we want to make." They just got it.

A_P: When you came up with the idea for the show, were you going to be in every episode?

MS: Ultimately the goal was for me to do every single episode, and my girlfriend [Alex Jamieson] told me if I did that I wouldn't have a girlfriend anymore. Well, I won't do that then.

A_P: If Alex had not said that, would you be willing to do some of the things that the people on this show do?

MS: I would never ask someone to do something I wouldn't be willing to do myself. I would never ask somebody to put themselves in these situations. But when it came down to starting to figure out which one made the most sense for me, and when Alex said she would go with me for 30 Days, it was what makes sense for both of us to do? That was the minimum wage episode.

A_P: Which do you think would the better show: one where you're putting all kind of people through these social torture tests or one where you're doing it yourself?

MS: That's a difficult question. I don't know. I think the show is so good right now because it's so good seeing other people. It's not just me doing these things. You're seeing people who are really becoming affected, who really have to deal with their own ideologies. They have to question the choices they make. For me, I think that's better. It shows you regular people, people who go through the same trials and tribulations that you do everyday, who come from where you live. It's a lot more relatable to the majority of the audience.

And, for me, just the logistics of having to shoot all six would have been impossible. I would just now be finishing the last one. It would've taken us six months to do six shows, which by any stretch of the imagination would not be that economically feasible to a network.

A_P: What's the schedule like?

MS: This past Friday was our last shoot day, and we wrapped everything up. It's been a wonderful process, but it's long. It's an arduous process because it such a massive show. Shooting 30 days for a show is a lot. You've got to think that any scripted show like the Law & Order shows shoot for five days to make one show. Survivor shoots for about 40 and then they make 14 shows. If you look at where we are with the hours of footage, we shoot anywhere between 125-150 hours a show. That's then cut down to 44 minutes. We're making movies every week. We're making documentary films that are just huge.

A_P: So is this harder than Super Size Me?

MS: It's different because the turnaround time is so much faster. Super Size Me was edited for nine months and through a couple of those months, I had two editors and they were kind of tag teaming through scenes before we went into a final cut. So it's very different in how quick you have to turn these things around.

A_P: Where do you get the ideas for these episodes?

MS: The headlines. You turn on the TV or read the paper; these are things that are talked about every day in our country and are serious social issues. For me, I didn't really realize how difficult it was going to be living off minimum wage or $5.15 or $6.15 or even seven bucks an hour until I was there doing it. It was definitely something I thought we should explore.

A_P: What surprised you most about that first episode?

MS: I think it's the impact it has on relationships, the impact it has on a couple. That's why I'm so glad Alex went because it really showed the strains that are put on a relationship when you're struggling through this type of existence…When I was there and saw how Alex and I were like just exhausted when we were around each other, we were bitter, we were angry with each other at times, and we were just emotionally spent. You just see how hard it would be to keep a family together, to keep a relationship together if you're working two jobs and six or seven days a week. It would just be impossible.

A_P: I think the interesting thing with the first episode is you're exploring minimum wage and you stumble upon this other issue with health care because all of a sudden, both of you get sick and you've got a $1,200 health care bill. Did you realize that you could be exploring one issue on the show, stumble onto another one, and show the audience how these issues are connected?

MS: For me, especially when you're there, that was one of the things we never even thought of it until we were there. Suddenly she was sick, and I hurt my arm, and this is something else. This is one of those little things that you never could plan for that just kind of comes up and you're like, this is a good storyline. This is a serious problem that we never connected to this. When we started meeting people who don't have health insurance and who have kids and families, [we learned] that when you don't have health insurance, your primary care provider becomes the hospital. That's a tough proposition when you leave with a $1,200 medical bill.

A_P: Let's talk about some of the other episodes. You've got a hardcore Christian man who goes to live as a Muslim. You've got an ex-Army reservist who goes to live with a gay couple in San Francisco. You've got another man who experiments with anti-aging drugs and steroids.

MS: That's right, he goes on human growth hormones, steroids and testosterone. It's pretty incredible because that's another one of those things when you hear about all the time. There are millions of Americans who take HGH and steroids everyday but they are doing it to stay young. It's not just Jose Canseco and the baseball players speaking before Congress.

A_P: So how do you find these people and how do you convince them to live on steroids for 30 days?

MS: The goal for us was to find somebody who was kind of open to what the concept is. We don't want to find somebody who would never want to do it anyway. The key is to find someone who might be open to try it, somebody would be on that path anyway and would be willing to do this or try this or somebody who's ready to start doing it anyway and we're just kind of piggybacking with them. This was a guy who'd been thinking about it because he wanted to regain his high school physique, his college physique and he was just gung ho.

A_P: Were any of the other episodes where you met someone and it took some convincing to get them to go along or were they all gung ho from the start?

MS: Most of them were gung ho from the start. When you're casting in the final stages, maybe you have two or three choices and our first choice always came out on top. It's usually the second and third choices who are behind your number one that are maybe a little more … and probably that's my own trepidation because that's not who I want anyway

A_P: With Super Size Me, you tried to transform the way people look at junk food. So with 30 Days, do you hope to transform junk TV?

MS: For me, the goal is to try and create a show that, like the movie, makes people think a little bit. I want to entertain you, and I think the show is very entertaining and very funny and really different. But at the same point, it makes you think. It makes you use the grey matter in your head, and, for me, the goal is to try and continue to create some things that inspire people to think, makes us want to examine this world we live in and change the world around us. That would be my ultimate goal.

A_P: Are you even thinking about how funny something is or will be when you're putting it together?

MS: You never know what's going to happen. When Scott was going to live with the guy in the Castro district, Scott was our ex-Army reservist, a homophobe. When he was going, you're thinking, "Wow, this could be one of the funniest episodes because who knows what's going to happen?" But you never know because you never know how someone is going to react. You can try and do whatever you want but especially for us because we're not putting together bits, we're not putting together stunts for people to do. It's just them going through their life and you never know how they're going to react in a situation.

A_P: Did you always want to be a documentary filmmaker?

MS: I always wanted to make movies. I always wanted to be in this business. I never wanted to do anything else. Super Size Me [was] made because I wanted to make a feature film and we had about $50,000 in the bank [from I Bet You Will], and I said this is a movie we can completely pay for that we can make right now. Let's do it. I had written a play a couple of years earlier called The Phoenix. It won the [Audience Favorite Award at the New York International Fringe Festival] and I just finished the adaptation of that play to a screenplay, and I was going to do it because that's what I wanted to make. But the more I read the screenplay, the more I said that it didn't feel right and I needed to work on the script more and I just said I'll think of something else.

A_P: Are there ideas you have for 30 Days for future episodes?

MS: There's so many possibilities, so many things we can do. We have a long list. For example, one we wanted to do this year but the logistics are so difficult was we wanted to do a show about the US prison system and just the logistics of getting inside to shoot in a prison are very, very difficult. So hopefully, if and when they do pick up the show, we'll jump right into that one immediately because it just takes time and planning to pull that one off.

A_P: Do you think of yourself as a journalist?

MS: I think of myself as a filmmaker.

A_P: The reason I ask is because as a reporter, I'm always told that I have to be objective and detach myself from the situation and you sort of take on the role of a gonzo journalist who jumps right in the story and starts exploring everything around him. Are you just more into the filmmaking aspect of it?

MS: It's still about the story, and the story has a very journalistic side. But my goal is to make something that's relatable and is not going to distance itself from someone because of the topicality or because of how we deal with it. I want it to be something that anyone can watch or relate to.

Danny Gallagher is a freelance writer, reporter and humorist living in Texas where everything is bigger, badder, better and battered.
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