|
 Producers of the show, which airs the third of six episodes
this Sunday night, deliberately sidestepped any focus on the
environmental concerns of hydraulic fracturing, the
controversial technique that uses high-pressure water laced with
sand and chemicals to coax oil and natural gas out of the
ground.
Instead, "Boomtowners" tells the stories of some of the
thousands of people who relocate to rural North Dakota for a
fresh start in the oil boom, where roughly 1.2 million barrels
of crude are extracted each day.
"This is a character-driven series," said David Royle, head of
programing and production at the Smithsonian Channel, a joint
venture between the museum and CBS Corp. "Coming through this
whole thing is a sense of the pioneer spirit, which is a truly
American phenomenon."
The show, which uses drone-mounted cameras for unique shots of
the North Dakota landscape, tracks eight groups of people,
including an itinerant evangelist working as a safety inspector
and a lesbian couple running a trucking company.
Rather than gawk or patronize, "Boomtowners" often is at pains
to accurately depict life in a region many consider forlorn.
"I think people have begun to realize that what we're doing here
is not reality programing of the kind that takes place in
Swampland, Louisiana," said Royle, in a reference to A&E
Network's "Duck Dynasty."
"Being the Smithsonian Channel has its advantages," he added.
It was the Smithsonian's involvement that first attracted Ben
Moorhead and his wife Phoebe, who moved from Arizona in 2010.
"I thought it would be a fun experience to show folks what life
is like here," Ben Moorhead, who drives an oil delivery truck
and is one of the show's main subjects, said in an interview. "I
do like the social values out here because there's a lot of
hard-working folks."
[to top of second column] |
CHEAP OIL
The show was filmed last summer, when oil prices – and salaries
- were higher.
Indeed, the narrator bluntly declares in the pilot episode that
"a steep drop in the price of oil would affect the entire region."
That statement proved to be prophetic, as a more than 40 percent
drop in oil prices since last August has fueled job cuts.
The show has effectively become a kind of time capsule, evoking the
not-so-recent past when North Dakota actually had the nation's
largest unemployment rate - now held by Nebraska - and the gold-rush
mentality reigned supreme.
Royle defended the disconnect, pointing out that "Boomtowners" tries
to capture a slice of time in the vein of a documentary, rather than
offering an up-to-the-second glimpse of oilfield life.
None of the show's characters have been laid off yet, Royle added.
"I'm still making a very handsome living doing what I'm doing," said
Ben Moorhead, the truck driver. "The boom hasn't died, but it's
slowed down to the point beyond just needing warm bodies."
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Terry Wade)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
