Former Smuggler Producer Jeff Miller Launches Interrogate
New shop opens in LA with Snorri Bros and UK's Outsider directors on his roster.
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Former Smuggler producer Jeff Miller has launched a new production company called Interrogate which opens with the Snorri Bros on its roster.
In addition to the Snorri's, who worked with Miller extensively while both were at Smuggler, Interrogate will also represent a group of directors from the UK roster of Outsider, including James Rouse, Bart Timmer and Jorn Threlfall.
Miller says the company will work across genres and disciplines, producing not just traditional TV commercials and longer format branded content for agencies and marketers but also music videos and films. It opens with offices in L.A. and New York, as well as a presence in London via its affiliation with Outsider.
Miller sees Interrogate as being well positioned for a changing media environment. "As the entertainment and advertising worlds continue evolving at an ever-increasing pace, we're launching with a small roster of extremely accomplished filmmakers," he comments. "We're developing a creative environment and culture that delivers the highest caliber work that is always innovative, whist always being respectful to our clients as well as our audience."
The Interrogate roster is an extremely diverse, versatile, and generous group that's won numerous international awards, created some of the most interesting web content and developed specialty equipment and techniques that have gone on to become industry standards. Anchoring the roster are the enigmatic Snorris, childhood friends from Iceland whose work for such brands as Palm, Motorola, Dell, Cadillac and Starz has consistently been executed with a striking degree of visual freshness, intelligence and style. Among their agency clients are such shops as Anomaly, Modernista!, Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
The work of the Outsider directors who will be featured on the Interrogate roster stands out on its own. Rouse, for example, has seen his award-winning Trojan Olympics virals (Weightlifting, Precision Vaulting and Judo Semi-Final) make it to the top of just about every major viral video list published over the past few years. Timmer has just broken a follow up to his Heineken "Housewarming" spot with a new effort for the brand, titled Men with Talent, which is proving just as popular. And Threlfall has a new Kia spot, titled "Home," out from David & Goliath in L.A., that adds to a lengthy list of automotive clients that includes BMW, Audi, Mazda, Subaru, Toyota and Saab.
Miller says he was inspired to go out on his own by Smuggler founders Patrick Milling Smith and Brian Carmody. "They really encouraged me to do this. It feels great to open with their blessings and support," he notes.
Miller came up through the ranks as a line producer, where he collaborated closely with directors, EPs, agency producers and clients. In his nearly 15 years in the industry he's produced literally hundreds of TV commercials for clients across the spectrum, shooting not only all over the US but around the world.
Interestingly, Miller got his start in the industry not as a runner or P.A. but on the other side of the camera, working as an actor. He eventually began writing for the screen, and sold a screenplay to Disney before starting to produce independent features. This led, in turn, to working in music videos and then commercials, where he produced his first job for director Samuel Bayer. Miller then hooked up with Traktor, the groundbreaking directorial collective, and spent several years producing for them before landing at a start-up company called Smuggler in 2002. After leaving Smuggler in 2009 he joined Dektor Films as Executive Producer, where he helped rebrand the company as The Cartel. He left that shop to open Interrogate.
"It's really been a great ride," he says of his experience working with Carmody and Smith. "I'm immensely grateful for the opportunity they gave me. My goal with Interrogate is to take all the experience I gained there and share it with a new group of creators and collaborators. We want to work together to inspire and motivate audiences, to generate real emotional responses with our work and to serve our clients and our industry with vitality, integrity and humility."
The company is represented on the East Coast by Kent Eby and Katy Dickson of Eby Dickson, in the Midwest by Marguerite Juliusson of Marguerite Juliusson & Co. and on the West Coast by Rebecca Reber and Brooke Covington of Reber Covington.
