McMillion$: McDonald's Monopoly Fraud Revisited
The HBO documentary miniseries McMillion$ tells the gripping tale behind the McDonald's Monopoly promotion scam. Between 1989 and 2001 a criminal ring defrauded more than $24 million in prizes from McDonald's.
If not for a tipoff to a backwater FBI office, McDonald's never would have found out about the fraud. The ensuing investigation resulted in the arrests of over 50 people.
Directors and executive producers James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte bring this incredible story to life. They share how they developed the project. James and Brian also discuss the series' entertaining cast of characters, including the FBI investigators who broke the scandal.
McMillion$ has earned five primetime Emmy nominations and scores of rave reviews. It is a refreshingly funny docuseries that captures the activities of a criminal syndicate, and it also has something to say about our willingness to believe the unbelievable.
“Some people knew what they were doing, but some people were legitimately duped into participating and claiming prizes, without ever knowing that this was a federal crime they were participating in.” - Brian Lazarte
Time Stamps:
02:38 - Where to watch the documentary McMillion$.
03:13 - How the release of the series went and how successful it was.
04:10 - A brief synopsis of McMillion$.
07:15 - How the game massively affected McDonald's sales.
09:37 - Who tipped off the authorities about the criminal gang.
10:29 - How the FBI pursued the investigation.
14:06 - What it was like meeting FBI agents for the first time.
16:57 - How James got the idea to make the film.
18:42 - Brian’s first reaction when he heard the game was rigged.
22:49 - When James realised that the film was going to be successful.
24:32 - How they made an old story feel gripping and relevant.
29:35 - Why they decided to use re-enactments in the film.
33:55 - What it’s like being nominated for five Emmys.
35:40 - The companion podcast they did alongside the series.
41:06 - The next project they are working on.
42:58 - What drew them both to work on dark comedy documentaries.
45:44 - The difficulties involved with pitching dark comedy documentaries.
47:10 - Lessons Brian and James have learned from the project.
Resources:
McMillion$ (2020)
McMillion$ Podcast
Shamrock Productions
This is Distorted
Alamo Pictures
Connect with James Lee Hernandez:
Connect with Brian Lazarte:
More from Factual America:
MLK/FBI: America on a Collision Course
Alex Gibney's Theranos Scandal Documentary
10 Best Documentaries about America
The Best Alex Gibney Documentaries
How to Pitch a Documentary to Amazon
Interesting Reading from Factual America:
18 Best Movies to Watch on Netflix
How to Pitch a Documentary to Netflix Buyers
6 Best Nature Documetary Series to Binge Watch
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15 Intense Documentaries About Scams and Fraud
24 Best Documentaries about America
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Transcript for Factual America Episode 47 - McMillion$: McDonald's Monopoly Fraud Revisited
James Lee Hernandez 0:00
My name is James Lee Hernandez. I rarely ever say the Lee when I introduce myself, and I'm one of the directors, executive producers, writers, editors of McMillions.
Brian Lazarte 0:12
I'm Brian Lazarte. Also one of the directors, executive producers, writers and editor of McMillions.
Speaker 1 0:20
I see this note on the desk - McDonald's, monopoly, fraud. And I go - give me that damn thing. Cuz I'm bored to death of this healthcare garbage, right. It's important, but I was ready to move on. It seemed like this meeting just took forever. I might have been hungry twice in that meeting.
Speaker 2 0:39
This was Doug's opportunity to be an undercover agent.
Speaker 1 0:43
I showed up with a gold suit on. This was like a golden-fry suit.
Speaker 2 0:46
He looks like he's a manager of McDonald's.
Speaker 1 0:49
But I had a white shirt on, so I thought I was safe. I wasn't. Man, undercover is awesome.
Matthew 1:02
That is the trailer for the Emmy nominated HBO documentary McMillions and this is Factual America. We're brought to you by Alamo pictures, a production company that makes documentaries about America for international audiences. Today we're talking about the McDonald's Monopoly promotional game fraud of the 1990s and the doc that chronicles it. Joining us are the directors and executive producers and they wear many hats on this film, James Hernandez and Brian Lazarte. James and Brian, welcome to Factual America. James, how are things with you?
James Lee Hernandez 1:37
Pretty good. About as good as they can be in this day and age. A lot of at home, luckily been kept staying by my girlfriend and our dog, it's really helpful.
Matthew 1:49
One of our guests, when I asked that, said he's COVID good. Expression I've started using more often now.
James Lee Hernandez 1:57
Which is sort of like a lukewarm regular time.
Matthew 2:00
Exactly. And Brian, how about you?
Brian Lazarte 2:04
Yeah, doing great, all things considered. You know, 2020 has been a wild year for us. And, you know, it keeps getting wilder, you know, even as we're finishing out December. Good. Kids are good. Taking advantage of extra family time and extra sleep wherever possible.
Matthew 2:27
Okay, extra family time is important, as I've discovered. And probably should have always known. Just to remind our listeners, the film you've seen or heard the trailer, it's McMillions, came out in February on HBO. We're based here in the UK, came out on Sky documentaries in May, nominated for five primetime Emmys. The Guardian here in the UK calls it "a rip-roaring romp around the McDonald's Monopoly scandal", which I would heartily agree with. And so thanks again for coming on to the podcast. And as you've already alluded to, in this most ridiculous and challenging of years, this has been one hell of a ride for you this year, hasn't it?
James Lee Hernandez 3:10
Yeah, it's quite extreme ups and downs, I'd say of my entire life. We were very lucky in the sense that the world didn't shut down until literally the weekend after the last episode aired. So we still got to do the normal press run, which premiered at Sundance, and, you know, week to week, HBO released it in America. So by the time it was finished that next weekend, it was, everybody was shut in. So we're very happy that people were, basically people held hostage to watch the show.
Matthew 3:52
Well, I mean, it's a six part, for those of our listeners that don't know, maybe. Maybe have been living under a rock, I don't know. It's a six part series. And maybe Brian, why don't you give us a little synopsis of what this McMillions is about?
Brian Lazarte 4:11
Sure. Well, you know, especially for us who grew up here in the States, McDonald's did this Monopoly campaign, back in the late 80s and all throughout the 90s. Where, if you, you know, played the game Monopoly, you kind of knew how the game was played. You could go and get a large french fries, Big Mac, and you get a peel off sticker that you would then build onto your board. And, you know, with the right number of stickers and game pieces of Monopoly, you could win various prizes. You could win a jetski a Sea- Doo, you could win a bicycle, new TV, and obviously the prices kept going up to a house, a car, a boat, and the ultimate grand prize was the million dollar grand prize. Everyone wanted this. You know, who didn't want to go to McDonald's and get a Big Mac and a million dollars. And so there was this tremendous marketing campaign that McDonald's put out, year after year, and they did this, you know, sometimes multiple times a year, multiple campaigns. And then we would see, you know, these winners come forward, you know, who won the grand prize and what they were going to do with their money. And this went on for well over a decade. And it turns out that, you know, from 1989 to 2001, almost every single winner who came forward for any high value prize, turned out to be part of this criminal ring to the fraud the game. And the FBI subsequently, you know, helped round up all of these criminals in this massive, you know, undercover operation. And over 53 people were indicted across 23 states, and most people don't know about the story. Or at least didn't prioritize making this series. So it's a wild one.
Matthew 6:02
Yeah, that's, I actually want to talk more about that in just a little bit, about how this thing just sort of flew under the radar screens for most of us. You may or may not know, but they still run it here in the UK. I actually won a years streaming for one of the local streaming services on the McDonald's Monopoly game here a couple years ago.
James Lee Hernandez 6:28
Interesting, we actually saw your name pop up in some of the federal records.
Matthew 6:32
I was wondering about that, you know, that one phone number besides uncle Jerry's, that kept coming up. There's a reason I haven't been back and haven't lived in the US for a while now. But, I mean, James, Brian's already alluded to this, but I do know, having listened to some other stuff you've done, you have a McDonald's background, if you will. And I mean, how big this, this thing was everywhere, wasn't it? I mean, it was just, you've got some great archival, obviously, of this game. And it just, I think it was quite amazing even how it would like drive sales.
James Lee Hernandez 7:16
Oh, yeah. And specifically, in America, it did, as you you have proven because you've won, it eventually went to other places around the world. But growing up as a kid in the 90s, this thing was massive. And every single year, they would run it once a year, then it got to the point where they'd run it twice a year. Because every single time that they would run this game, McDonald's, their sales would go up 30 to 40%. That's a massive amount. It was such a popular game. And I was one of the people that was just every single time it ran, trying to win it. And then it got to the point where when I turned 16, my first job was at McDonald's during the heyday of this game. And it was one of those things where like, you would trade pieces with friends, you were like, if you went on a road trip somewhere, you would stop at McDonald's and random places that you would never go because you would think, oh, that's the reason I can't get that one piece I need, because I just keep going to the same McDonald's over and over again. So it was this massive, massive thing. And, you know, that's why when I first heard about the story, it really called to me. Because I was one of the people who was trying to win this thing. And I was just blown away that I had never heard about this. That I didn't know that there was some huge fraud ring that was taken down, which at the time when I found out about it, it had been, you know, like 15 years, something like that.
Matthew 8:53
It's, and we won't go in too much detail, because I think for those who haven't seen it, it is, I don't want to have spoiler alerts, even though this has been out for a while. Because I think it is well worth having those little, little surprises while you're going through it and watching it. It's a great deal fun, I will say. But, everyone was completely unaware this was going on. This could have gone on forever, it seems like. 24 million in fraud, I think, as you said, I think all but a few of the top winners were implicated in this. Do we know who provided the tip? Because it's just, it's an interesting story. It's just down to one person calling this office in Jacksonville of the FBI, isn't it?
Brian Lazarte 9:44
Well, have you seen the last episode yet?
Matthew 9:46
I've, you know, I haven't. I have to admit. You see, I'm making my way through. So you've caught me.
James Lee Hernandez 9:57
You'll just gonna have to keep watching.
Matthew 9:59
So I'll have to keep watching. Okay, then we'll leave it at that. But then, well, then maybe that's interesting. You know, that's part of this as well. I mean, it ends up being this sleepy FBI office in Jacksonville. I'm not trying to offend anyone here, but I think you even say it yourself in episode one. That it was kind of the place for retired agents to go, to finish their careers. Is that right?
Brian Lazarte 10:29
Yeah, I mean, Jacksonville FBI, you know, really covers such a large, it's like covers the Middle District of Florida. And for those who've never been to Florida, it's a massive, massive state. And for those who don't read news stories about Florida, weird stuff happens in Florida all the time. And so it seems appropriate, you know, that the FBI gets a lot of weird inquiries. But yeah, I mean, some of the agents who were there, I mean, like most people, Florida's got great climate, great weather. So who knows exactly the reasons we can, you know, hypothesize why a lot of those agents stayed there. And this was kind of considered the sleepy Agency. But they were the smaller team. And in a lot of ways, a little bit of the, you know, the underdog in this story. And they kind of approached things in a more traditional, you know, very by the book, old school method. And so, the story is interesting on a lot of fronts, because what happened with this one particular rookie agent who was just hungry for something new, and he came in and was like, you know, what can I do? How can I get undercover and was always trying to find things. But you know, the FBI, at that time was really focused on healthcare fraud. That was like a big issue. And when this story came through, or this one tip, sort of, you know, presented itself, through this, FBI has like hotlines people call in and they say, like, Hey, I see a suspicious package, you know, go check it out. And they get these complaint calls. And this came through that, supposedly. And this one agent caught wind of it through his superior and was like, you know, just on a mission like, this sounds way more interesting than the healthcare fraud stuff I've been doing. And just starts putting the pieces together, and is like, hey, there's real substance to this. And they didn't know how far back with, I mean, this is 2001 when they caught wind of it. So they just thought like, okay, they hear the McDonald's Monopoly game is rigged. And this mysterious character by the name of uncle Jerry, you know, is behind it. And that's it. And they just start their investigation. We, you know, we really loved learning the procedural aspects of what they went through creatively. And then this incredible undercover operation that subsequently came about, you know, through the creative discussions of how to crack this case.
Matthew 13:18
I think that's a good point. It's obviously, the film is, you know, as they say here, on the 10, as advertised. It's about the McDonald's Monopoly as fraud and scandal. But, I mean, just in Episode One, you learn so much about how the FBI operates and investigates these sort of things, which I found very interesting. The other thing, if I may notice, is you guys hit a goldmine with this group of investigators, didn't you? Because you've got, I think you're alluding to Doug Matthews, who I would describe, I was surprised to find out he was an accountant by background. He's an accountant with ADHD, I think. You've got his boss, Chris Graham. I mean, did you know you were gonna, this must have been a gold mine when you walked in and started interviewing these guys. Is that right, James?
James Lee Hernandez 14:06
Yeah, it definitely, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Like if we could have cast some characters to be FBI agents, this is how we would have written it. But this is real life. And that's who they really are. But the first interactions with all, this whole team, it was just a shock, because you're used to thinking of FBI agents as just robots with suits on. And then the first conversation that I had was with Mark Devereaux, the federal prosecutor like, wow, this guy is a good personality and then meeting Doug and talking to him and like, who is this guy? Like, I need to get on a plane meet him immediately. All the way up to Chris Graham and Tom Kneir and Janet Pellicciotti. And like, all of these guys, this entire team started to learn like okay, well, FBI, they're not robots. They're actually just individuals that had great training, smart people that come together and actually have to investigate. I mean, the FBI has investigation in its name. But you think that the FBI is just so powerful that they make two phone calls and they know everything. And it was really fascinating for Brian and I to, we wanted to show what it actually is like. It's so different than TV shows and movies and how all this works. Like, they get this really small kernel of information. And how do you expand that out to a huge investigation where they end up arresting 53 people? And to go through the steps of all that, was just so great for us. And then they were very open and honest about how it works. About the level of teamwork that they have to use and creativity. If you think about it. Now, they had to investigate something on two different fronts. They had a proactive investigation with the crime actively happening, but then they had to go back in time and try to figure out, okay, well, how long has this been going on for. That's just a monumental thing to think about with this happening, what, for 12 or 13 years. It's just staggering, especially for a small office where in Jacksonville, they had a small fraction of agents compared to somewhere like Atlanta, or Miami or Chicago. And it ends up that this entire office that really has to focus their workforce on figuring this out.
Matthew 16:37
And, James, you already, both of you, mentioned this already, you know, how this all flew under the radar screen for so long? I mean, how did this project come about? How did you get the idea for doing this?
James Lee Hernandez 16:57
So it started in 2012. I was, sometimes before I go to sleep at night, I'll just lay in bed and look at Reddit. And just laugh at funny cat videos or read interesting stories. And there was a TIL, Today I Learned - nobody really won the McDonald's Monopoly game. And like most people, I loved that game, like I talked about earlier. And when I looked into it, it just links to a local Jacksonville newspaper blurb from 2001, saying eight people had been arrested. And that lit me on fire, basically. And so I just started doing all this research and really couldn't find that much. And it got to a point where it was just the same info regurgitated over and over again, via different media outlets. And so I just kept looking into it over the years, over the next year or so, and then put a Freedom of Information request in with the US government. I was like, I want to know what it's all about. And it took a little over three years for that to go through. And once it did, I was able to find out the names of the FBI agents and federal prosecutor that was part of it, and then reached out to them. And then once I reached out to them, they said, yeah, this is our favorite case. Nobody's ever hit us up about this before. We'd love to work with you. And at that point, I've known Brian for a really long time. And he has a phenomenal background of documentary filmmaking. And I called him and I said, let's grab some lunch. I think I have something really big here.
Matthew 18:36
And Brian, what did you do when James called and you met for lunch? What did you think?
Brian Lazarte 18:42
Well, if we had met at a McDonald's, it would been a better...
Matthew 18:48
Do a scratch card or something?
Brian Lazarte 18:52
No, I mean, of course, just like on the surface, when you pull back the curtain on a story, or on a part of your life that you remember seeing it one way for a long time, you're like, wait, I never had a chance to ever win that game? And you learn about it after the fact you start to wonder, like what else has been hidden from me in life? And of course, you know, there's a great deal of intrigue here. Okay, so the FBI are part of this, you know, investigation, they went undercover. They pretended to be a film crew to shoot a commercial for McDonald's to basically, you know, get people telling their stories for how they won the game, as a means to investigate this crime. Like, of course, on the surface, that sounds fantastic. But then you got to wonder like, okay, well, how good are the characters who can tell the story? And how big of a story is this? I mean, obviously a lot of people were indicted as a result. Would they be willing to go on camera, would they be willing to share their story? Is there, you know, a lot of different veins, twists and turns that the story has, that are worth venturing down. And of course, the moment we stepped into it in a meaningful way, and started filming some stuff with the guys and started asking more and more questions, it was like, you know, shock. Like, hang on a second. There was all those double take moments that we had, you know, investigating this, you know, at that early phase that we realize, like, this story has the legs to go well beyond just a feature documentary and could go multiple episodes into a series. And this would be such a tremendous vehicle to do that. That's actually, you know, James and I were digging into this on our own for a while, and then we ultimately met up with Unrealistic Ideas, which is Mark Wahlberg, Archie Gips, Stephen Levinson's unscripted company. And we partnered with them, and we brought HBO. And HBO got excited about it. And subsequently, that's how we ended up with you guys with Sky. But this is, it's been a pretty incredible road to see. You know, we thought it was amazing. Other people thought it was amazing. And then, you know, we were able to get the support and funding to actually make this happen and tell this incredible story.
Matthew 21:35
I want to continue that conversation. But we're gonna give our listeners a little break here and a word from our sponsor. And then we'll be right back with James Hernandez and Brian Lazarte.
Factual America midroll 21:48
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter at Alamo pictures to keep up to date with new releases or upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program, our guests and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.
Matthew 22:07
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with James Hernandez and Brian Lazarte, directors and executive producers and many other hats they wore on the series McMillions, HBO, Sky Docs here in the UK. Well, Brian, we're talking to you, whichever one of you wants to answer this. You answered a lot of questions I was going to ask because, you know, this decision of - is it a feature? Is it a series? HBO and Unrealistic Ideas getting involved? But when did you really know you had a hit on your hands?
James Lee Hernandez 22:49
The second that we met Doug Matthews and McDonald's Monopoly fraud. But I don't know if we ever necessarily thought we have a hit. We just, the fun thing about doing this together with Brian was that you have basically somebody else that you can bounce things off of. And if we thought it was interesting or funny or cool, that was our barometer. Just whatever we personally thought we would want to watch or thought was interesting. That's what we would do. So when we were finished with it, watching the episodes, we would laugh at things, we would get emotional about things. Like okay, well, if we're doing that, then hopefully other people will respond to it. And I guess the only time I ever thought, wow, this actually might be something big, was when we premiered at Sundance Film Festival. HBO laid out this marketing campaign, and part of it was they created a McMillions bar. And they turned an entire bar on Main Street in Park City into a McMillion's theme bar where people could win prizes and all this stuff. And when we walked into it for the first time, that might have been the time we're like, this might be bigger than I thought it was going to be.
Matthew 24:11
My ship has come in. (laughs) Brian, how do you bring a 20 year old scandal to life? I mean, you could do archival, you got B roll, you get talking heads, but that alone could just be boring, you know? How do you bring this to life and make it jump of the screen?
Brian Lazarte 24:32
I mean, you know, that's the secret sauce of filmmaking. No, I mean, we always knew that telling a story historically, you know, has its pitfalls. And you don't want to, it's very easy to kind of fall into those tropes of just feeling like a factual recounting of things that happened in the past, and we always wanted this to feel very cinematic. And to feel very present, you know, like we're actually living in the middle of what was the investigation. And the way that we decided very early on to approach this story was structure the series in a very particular way, where that episode one really came from the FBI's point of view. And we wanted the audience to really feel like they were an investigator. Like they were part of that team. And that we're learning things as the FBI agents are actually learning things. And because we found that process very interesting, it's very simple to jump to like, oh, and then this person got arrested and that person got arrested. But when you're in the middle of it, and you start with that seed of, you know, if you haven't seen it, in the very first episode, Doug Matthews is just talking to the superior agent, training agent, Rick Dent, who was the senior high level very experienced. He was like, the poster child for the FBI. And he just had this one post-it note on his computer that said: McDonald's monopoly fraud question mark?. And Doug sees this and is like, what is that? And just starts this conversation of like, well, how long has that been there? Like, were you even gonna do anything with it? Like, were you even gonna follow through with this? And he's like, can I do something with it? And in a little bit, and it's like, you're on this journey with this one rookie agent. And then, he's like, trying to figure out ways to go undercover. And he's like, pitching ideas, and like, no one in the office wants to hear it. But then he pitches this idea of like, the Publishers Clearing House style of undercover. Where, for those who don't know, in the States, maybe you guys have it there, but like, the Publishers Clearing House does this like a sweepstakes where they go to your house. It's like a raffle type thing that you submit all your information, you give away your life, basically, to maybe win a million dollars or $10 million for life. And they award the winner live on television, or at least they used to do it this way, where they show up to your door with a camera and a crew and balloons and confetti. And he pitches this style of undercover operation. And they actually get behind this, they think that this is really kind of a clever idea. And of course, he has no experience ever going undercover. And he gets this chance to do this. And we were very fortunate that we actually had the footage of the FBI going undercover. And so we knew that like, okay, we have this great archival, we want to tell the story from the FBI's point of view out of the gate. And we want to feel like we're in it. And so that was our tone of approach. And then, as the series progresses, in Episode Two, we start to learn from the other side, the criminals. The people who were, you know, indicted and part of this. And we love that as we discovered these characters in the series, and for ourselves that there were a lot of layers to them. And that some people obviously knew what they were doing, but there were some people that were legitimately duped into participating and declaiming prizes, who, you know, never ever thought that this was a federal crime that they were participating in. And we wanted to humanize each of their experiences in a way that we could identify. And so, the series evolves, as we go episode to episode. And hopefully, you know, the audience gets to go on to this incredible journey along with the FBI, and us. Similar to like, what we've learned along the way. And, yeah, obviously the finale is, you know, is a nice twist and turn, but we won't spoil that for you or for anyone else.
Matthew 29:13
Exactly. Much appreciated. But James, whose idea was it to use reconstructions? Because I know, that can be a double edged sword sometimes and can fall flat, but I think, the episodes I've seen, I think they're brilliant. And so how did you come up with ideas for that and how to shoot those?
James Lee Hernandez 29:36
That was Brian and myself. There are so many great parts of the story that there just wasn't footage of. Like, for example, the first time that the Jacksonville FBI office tells McDonald's about this whole situation. And the pressure cooker that they described on both sides of it, of what it was like to be in that office and revealing something this big. There's just obviously, we're not going to be getting any footage from inside of an FBI office in this very pivotal moment. But we wanted people to live through it. It didn't. We just didn't want it to be a flippin story of that, like, okay, we went there, we had them come in. But no, you need to understand, you need to feel that pressure that they were under. I mean, you have this small office telling one of the biggest companies on the planet, that there is something wrong with your most beloved game that makes you the most money. And so we started really with that. And, of course, we pitched the show like that. The entire vision from the very beginning was having recreations to really let people feel and be in the moment of these pivotal stories. And HBO, they usually are not big fans of recreation. But Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller, at least Lisa Heller, they really, they normally don't like it, but they were very open to it. And so what we said is, like, look, we will cut the entire show together, we'll put in storyboards to give you an idea of what the recreation will look like at this point. And once we showed them the first episode, they got it. And it was really, it was a good combination of having their mentality of not totally normally liking it, but it really made us focus more on okay, well, we're gonna shoot this in a way that does not distract the viewer from the story that's being told. There are a lot of documentaries, and it works in some of them, where you can actually see an actor's face and people are almost like giving a monologue. And we didn't want that. We already had great characters telling great stories. We just wanted to hint at, have a visual hint of what that person was talking about so it can really bring you into the story more. And so it was a collaboration of all of us, but yeah, that was... Brian and I definitely had to sell them on the idea that it could be done tastefully and wouldn't just seem cheesy.
Matthew 32:16
Exactly. And I mean, just for me, personally, I mean, I really appreciated it. And it must be quite a challenge, because you've got the subjects, they're all live, I guess. And yet you show, you have to get actors that are their younger selves. And yet, what I also liked about it was, let's face it, this is the 90s. And 90s are pretty hot right now. And, you know, I remember putting post-it notes on that monitor that looked like that, you know, with those kind of messages and these sort of things. And dress and everything. It's, I think it captures it quite well.
James Lee Hernandez 32:50
Thank you. Yeah, we were really big on the idea of basically, in the middle of making a documentary series, we made a movie. We shot, we wanted to make sure that the costumes, the makeup, the hair, everything was very much in the period of time, took you back to that. One of the coolest things was, we filmed in an old office and turned it into the FBI office. But it's just wild walking around and seeing big CRT monitors like with the back on them and clunky keyboards and big printers and all that. It was definitely a time warp, walking through that set.
Matthew 33:31
Well, it took me back to sitting in a cubicle in the 90s in an office, for good and for bad. But I mean, what's it, for both of you? What's it like being nominated for five Emmys? That must be exciting, but it's also in the year of COVID. So it must be very different than your usual ceremony.
Brian Lazarte 33:55
Yeah, I mean, obviously, for James and I, this is a tremendous accomplishment. I mean, we were not only grateful, out of the gate, to have the support of HBO, to make this. To spend, you know, over a year and change of our life pursuing an incredible story that we loved, and we're very passionate about. To get accepted into Sundance and have that like, at every turn, we were just like, hey, we're happy with what we got at the moment. And this is a tremendous wish list of any filmmaker to be at these, you know, particular junctures in our career. And of course, to be nominated is just, is a tremendous honor to have five nominations for our series. You know, really, we can't, I don't think, put into words, how appreciative we are to those who have watched it. Who've been fans of the show, who followed our subsequent, our companion podcast to the series. And then to have industry professionals who we respect and collaborate with as well, offer their support and put us, get us to this point. So, hopefully, this is the beginning of a new trend for the next project, and projects that we have coming up. Super grateful.
Matthew 35:22
I do want to talk about projects you have coming up. But before we get there, so obviously I'm particularly interested in this idea that you did a companion podcast for this series. James, was that your idea?
James Lee Hernandez 35:41
Yeah, totally mine, nobody else. Actually, that was another collaborative thing. It was something that we discussed with Archie Gips from Unrealistic Ideas and even talking to like HBO, because there were so many interesting things about this story that hit the cutting room floor. And just we wanted every little story to be in there. But if it's not necessarily relevant to the spine of the story, and it could have been 12 episodes, but that might have been milking it a little bit. So we always had this idea. And pretty early on, we had talked about doing a podcast, brought it up to HBO. And then coincidentally, after we had had some discussions with HBO about it, then the Chernobyl podcast had come out. And Brian and I are both huge fans of that show. Both love Craig Mazin. And so we're like, look, it works. Like this is a very interesting thing. It's adding value, it's adding to the overall story. And so then they agreed, and we went forward and did it. And it was, we really had a great time. It's cool, because, as you know, with a podcast, you can turn that around pretty fast. Whereas with a documentary TV series, it took us years to make. So it's nice to be able to create some art in the span of a week.
Matthew 37:11
Yeah, I think there is, you know, the different ends of the spectrum here. But I will say you do an excellent job. I've only had a chance to listen to the first one, but who wants to tell, maybe even tell us a little bit more about, because each episode of the podcast tracks, goes with one of the episodes of the show, doesn't it?
Brian Lazarte 37:36
Yeah, so each, it's really truly designed to be companion, to listen to after you've actually watched that episode. So if you want that little refresher break in between each episode, if you're not bingeing them back to back now. They're great buffers or you can binge the podcasts after you watched and binged the series. But yeah, each episode, we have a new guest. Usually, it's, well, it's always been a subject of our show. So the first episode, we had Chris Graham, the second episode, it was Robin Colombo. The third episode
James Lee Hernandez 38:13
Gloria
Brian Lazarte 38:14
Gloria Brown, the fourth we had
James Lee Hernandez 38:18
George Chandler,
Brian Lazarte 38:19
Geroge Chandler.
James Lee Hernandez 38:21
Fifth was AJ.
Brian Lazarte 38:22
Fifth was AJ. Yeah, they're all great.
James Lee Hernandez 38:25
Then the last one was, was Mark Devereaux. The Federal Prosecutor.
Brian Lazarte 38:30
And so, you know, one of the things that we were really excited about, not only talking about things that we experienced while making it, discoveries that weren't included within the body of the series, but we actually play the audio of deleted scenes that never made the actual series. And that's, you know, some of those are really fun and great. And I'm trying to think like, I think we played, did we play the one with Doug, there was another undercover operation that we didn't feature in the show that Doug talks about, and was absolutely hilarious, and...
James Lee Hernandez 39:08
I don't think we did that one.
Brian Lazarte 39:10
We didn't include that?
Matthew 39:11
It could be a bonus episode.
Brian Lazarte 39:13
There we go. Yeah, we actually did do a bonus episode. I forgot, yeah, we did do a...
James Lee Hernandez 39:19
We did do a bonus episode. That was more of, it was hosted by Tom Segura, stand up comedian and podcaster extraordinaire. And he basically interviewed us about what it was like to make the entire show.
Matthew 39:36
Wow. So kind of like this, except probably much funnier and better, better produced. But no, I think it's, do you think this is something that's gonna be pretty standard with series? These you know, it's almost like when CD, you know, DVDs came out and you had all the director's cut or whatever, and voiceovers, which I guess, work and didn't work in certain ways. But I mean, for our listeners, I highly recommend it. I found it on YouTube, I gather it's on all the different platforms. The cutscenes, I like, you find out where the idea for shamrock productions came from. You have all kinds of interesting things. I like the, you know, asking the subjects how they now think of it, now that they've, now that everything's in the can and now it's been produced, how they feel like, it comes across and things like that. I think it is a great companion piece. And much, much pithier and well put together than this podcast, at only 30 minutes or so. So something we're going to aim for in the future. But you mentioned it just before I segwayed, or not segwayed, but we went down that tangent a bit. But what is next for you two? If I've read through Hollywood media and stuff, there's supposedly other things in the work. So maybe you can give our listeners a little taste of what's to come?
James Lee Hernandez 41:07
Well, there was, what we can say is that we are working on a new series. And...
Brian Lazarte 41:16
It's through our company.
James Lee Hernandez 41:17
It's through our company Fun Meter, which, fun meter is named after Doug Matthews favorite saying that he liked to tag the fun meter. So we figured, our first project together, it's a nice little callback. And also it shows the viewpoint that we have on things. And we usually, and this was part of the hard selling point for HBO, is when we're like, okay, we're going to do a true crime documentary series. And it's going to be funny. And they just couldn't wrap their heads around that fully. Because normally, true crime docs are about someone being wrongfully accused and jailed for 20 years, or a mass murderer or something eerie weird. And it's not going to be like that. So we have that general viewpoint on projects. But we are working on a new series that is in a lot of ways more quirky, and weird and interesting, and has a larger swing of comedic to tragic tone than we did with McMillions. I can't say exactly what it is yet, but it's going to be very exciting.
Matthew 42:28
Okay, well, we definitely look forward to it. I think the tagline on Fun Meter's site says "stranger than fiction, scripted than non scripted content". What is, what's drawn you to to this idea of, sort of this, it's more than a niche, but this idea of, because I personally think that truth is often more stranger than fiction, as we all know, but what's drawn you in this direction?
Brian Lazarte 42:57
I think that, you know, our taste for humorous, like finding humor in the most obscure places. And dark comedy is our, you know, still at the root of, some of our favorite movies and TV shows. So, we just, we love docs and documentaries, we don't see it too often in this genre. And you know, there's some great docs that are very tragic, or some great docs that are needle pushing an issue and really important to get out there. And true crime is fascinating, you know, it's definitely like it's been having its heyday now for a good long while. And just people are invested in these, like in the details of how people pull off, you know, these intricate crimes. But the fun factor or this, you know, the quirky factor, I think it appeals to us on a lot of levels. We love comedy, and, you know, why not explore this space and discover, you know, tones in the documentary genre that haven't really been explored in food. I mean, not to say that people haven't done it before, but it's certainly something that attracts us. And, you know, I can't think of anything else, James.
James Lee Hernandez 44:32
The thing that we like is that, like McMillions for example, it could had be done in a way where you're making fun of the people in it. But we'd never wanted to do that. We want funny characters to be funny, but life can in an instant, be funny and then tragic in the next moment. And so we were really drawn to stories like that, that have a certain weird quirkiness to them with interesting characters, but also have a very serious undertone to them. Like there are morals to the story of McMillions, just like any other of the stories that Brian and I are diving into. It's not all fluff, there are actual very real things within it. But you can also laugh within that seriousness.
Matthew 45:17
And I think, James as you're sort of alluding to, is this a tough sell? I mean, when you're going around, as you said, you're fortunate to have had HBO and Mark Wahlberg's company, you know, support you in all this. But pitching these types of stories, is that a tough one, when you go into that boardroom and try to pitch that story?
James Lee Hernandez 45:43
Well, it was until McMillions came out., That's a, that's quite a helpful calling card of saying this story has these aspects to it. But take a look at McMillions, you understand the type of tone, and it's going to have something within that ballpark. So that is actually been helpful. And Brian and myself, we are very, we don't like to leave anything to chance. So when we're pitching something, we're coming with a pretty detailed thought out written breakdown of the entire show. And then we're also having a visual sizzle reel, or something that really shows how interesting the story can be at a kind of tone that we're going for.
Matthew 46:33
It's hard to believe, but we're actually coming to the end of our time together. So it's been a whirlwind tour of McMillions and Fun Meter and the things that you're doing. I hope it's been a whirlwind tour for you. But, you kind of already alluded to it, and going back to McMillions. So both of you, what are the lessons you've drawn, not so much, what are the lessons you've drawn from doing this as filmmakers? And what do you hope the series legacy will be?
Brian Lazarte 47:10
You know, I think a good story is a good story. And, you know, if you actually invest the time and the effort to really find out how far and how deep a story goes. Like, we McMillions, you know, as even though it's six hours, like we didn't talk to every single person who was indicted. You know, there's so many other veins to this, that, you know, we could have kept going down and going down and going down. And, you know, I think that you always learn on every single project. Like there's not, you know, and you take that knowledge to the next, to the next, to the next, and you just keep building from it. I think there's so many things like, not only in terms of my collaboration with James, and how we work together, how we, you know, started and built our company, the things that we want to work on in the future. But, you know, just, I think we really appreciated the tone of McMillions. And, as James was saying earlier, like that we never, we like things to be funny, but never to make fun of anyone. And it's very easy to do that, if you've got some wacky kooky character to just like, you know, exploit that aspect of their personality. And so there is a certain angle in which we want to approach quirky characters. But, you know, I think at the root of this, the legacy for McMillions is just, hopefully, it's a well told story. It illustrates our cinematic approach, our ability to look at things, almost like a scripted series would be approached or a scripted movie. But, you know, has the heart of the documentary. And is revealing, in its information in a way that is compelling and makes you laugh, and makes you cry, and makes you think about it after the fact. Like if you can achieve all of those things in a project, I feel like you can succeed in this medium. And hopefully we can continue to do that in future projects.
Matthew 49:33
And James, do you want to add anything to that?
James Lee Hernandez 49:35
Yeah, the biggest lesson to me out of all of this was to not play it safe. And everything from how I first delved into the story, all the way to us having the most recreations and something HBO has never done, to doing the large, well now there's a much larger series with the Vow, but we were the largest series that they've done. And just in a lot of aspects, there were ways where we could have played it safe, but we really fought for what we believed in and how they should be. And ultimately, even if it isn't exactly what we had originally planned, we did push things a little bit further than they normally would have. And it worked. And then, you know, the other side of that is like, I'm just very appreciative, very appreciative to Brian, for the partnership and to Mark Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson and Archie Gips, and Lisa, Nancy and everybody, HBO, the amount that they put behind it. You know, the legacy of this entire thing is that, we've talked about this a lot throughout it. And this was a big selling point, or not even a selling point. But this is when we talked about, like, the serious undertones of the show is, this is a big lesson. And sometimes good people just make bad decisions. Like most of the people involved in this, that became federal criminals, they weren't career criminals. They weren't these, like criminal masterminds, or anything like that. They were just regular people who, you know, sometimes things are too good to be true. And if you're down on your luck, you're willing to turn a blind eye to that. And so that was a big lesson that we wanted to show, is that life isn't necessarily just one way or the other, there's a large gray area where you can live and then sometimes it can lead to a documentary being made about your life. Hopefully, that doesn't happen to all of us. But it doesn't mean that you're a bad person.
Matthew 51:42
I think that's an excellent point. And I just want to thank you for making this. If anyone had been at home when I was watching these episodes, they would have wondered why I was laughing my head off at times, and why I had a smile on my face. And so I'm looking forward to binge watch the last couple of episodes that I hadn't gotten around to yet. So thanks again. And I think we all look forward to your next project. If it's anything like this one, I know it will be another hit. And just to remind, so thank you, basically, thank you James Hernandez and Brian Lazarte, the directors and executive producers extraordinare of McMillions. You can still stream it on HBO and Sky Docs here in the UK. I highly recommend it. And just to say a big shout out to This Is Distorted Studios here in Leeds, England. And a big thanks to our listeners. You're the reason we do this. And please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family, wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America signing off.
Factual America Outro 52:55
You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo pictures specializing in documentaries, television and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the shownotes for more information about today's episode, our guests and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at Alamo pictures, be the first to hear about new productions, festivals showing our films and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk