'Ice Road' creator keeps on truckin'

Beers' formula mixes danger, colorful characters

By DANIEL FRANKEL

'Ice Road Truckers'
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Approached by History Channel exec VP and g.m. Nancy Dubuc with the proposition of adapting a 2000 installment of "Modern Marvels" about the men who haul heavy equipment over perilous ice roads in northern Canada, cable nonfiction ace Thom Beers had just one question: "How do you make a compelling 10-hour series around six guys sitting in a truck, driving in a straight line for hours on end by themselves?"

Of course, anybody who has viewed Beers' unique brand of storytelling -- which reached mass-audience consumption levels with Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" -- knows it's not just the danger that lies just below the frozen surface that makes the show compelling.

Just as with "Catch," it's Beers' knack for harnessing the charisma of larger-than-life tough guys that gives "Ice Road Truckers," a hit rookie that will contend for nonfiction series honors this year, its traction.

"Jobs like this draw guys like these -- they're almost too big," notes Beers, quipping, "We have a saying about women who come up to (these northern parts) looking for a husband: The odds are good, but the goods are odd."

Season one of "Ice Road," which followed six truckers as they trekked back and forth in 18-wheelers over frozen lakes between their home base in Yellowknife, Canada, and a De Beers diamond mine produced History's best primetime ratings ever, averaging 3.2 million viewers. The finale pulled in an audience of 4.8 million.

Critics were warm to "Ice," too, with the New York Times' Virginia Heffernan noting the series "gets right exactly what 'Deadliest Catch' got right, namely that the leave-nothing-but-your-footprints, green kind of eco-travelers are too mellow and conscientious to be interesting to watch. Instead, the burly, bearded, swearing men who blow into their own transmissions and welcome storms as breaks from boredom ... are much better television."

"We all are students of our own inventory," says Dubuc, noting that the inspiration for the series came from looking back through History's ratings, er, history and noticing the spike the orginal ice road show enjoyed back in 2000. "We pulled up the ratings, saw a pattern, and said, 'Why aren't we doing this?'"

Having met with Beers and his Original Prods. team numerous times during her days at A&E, she had long wanted to collaborate with him.

"This just brought us to that place," explains Dubuc, who also commissioned Beers and his crew to create another rookie nonfiction series this year, "Ax Men," which cuts into the high-perched endeavors of timber workers in the Pacific Northwest.

Indeed, Beers is on quite the roll these days, launching yet another men-of-professional-danger cable skein, "Black Gold," which taps the travails of oil drillers for TruTV, while receiving a contract from NBC to produce 30 hours of relatively inexpensive alternative programming.

Paying as much as $3 million to produce an hour of dramatic series programming, Peacock officials were undoubtedly intrigued by the fact that Beers' programs can draw as many as 4.8 million viewers, yet cost only about $500,000 an hour to make.

Despite all the new activity, however, Beers remains juiced about "Ice Road," which will kick off season two June 8 focusing on truckers servicing natural gas pipelines and navigating a frozen thoroughfare 1,000 miles north of Yellowknife in the Arctic Circle.

"It's spectacular," Beers says. "As they drive out over the frozen ocean, you can see the waves underneath the ice."

Season two will include four of the six truckers from the initial campaign. To find them, Beers queried trucking dispatchers across northern Canada, asking for "your most interesting guy."

"You're looking for a hardened pro, an underdog and a rookie," notes Beers, describing his philosophy toward cast composition.

Most coveted, he says, is the hardened old pro. "A guy I interviewed 20 years ago in Costa Rica said this to me, and I always look for this: He told me, 'I don't know the answer to your question, and I don't pretend to know, but I'm going to tell you anyway.' That's what we're looking for -- that guy who has an opinion on everything."

Born to stage-performer parents, and a former aspiring thesp himself who studied under Lee Strasberg in New York City, Beers arrived at his rapport with rough-hewn blue-collar types, in some ways, through ironic circumstances.

While Beers was growing up outside of Buffalo, his mother was gifted with a poodle from Jane Mansfield following the completion of a stage gig together. Beers says he and his brother were charged with caring for the dog, which came with a pink rinestone collar and leash.

"Every day we had to walk that fuckin' dog all over town," he recalls. "We grew up in a very blue-collar, rough-and-tumble environment. You grow up fast that way."