Former Smuggler producer Jeff Miller, who spent the last year as executive producer at The Cartel, has launched Interrogate, a production house that opens with the Snorri Bros. on its directorial roster. In addition to the Snorris, whom Miller had worked with at Smuggler and The Cartel, Interrogate will also represent several directors from the U.K. roster of Outsider, including James Rouse, Bart Timmer and Jörn Threlfall.
The new venture will work across all genres and disciplines, spanning TV commercials, longer format branded content, music videos and films. Interrogate has offices in L.A. and New York, as well as a presence in London via its affiliation with Outsider.
The Snorris are childhood friends from Iceland whose work spans such brands as Palm, Motorola, Dell, Cadillac and Starz, and agencies that include Anomaly, Modernista!, Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners, and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
As for the coterie of Outsider talent handled by Interrogate, Timmer has just broken a follow up to his Heineken “Housewarming” spot with a new effort for the brand, titled “Men with Talent.” 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. Rouse’s directorial debut, a web campaign for Trojan condoms in which carnal gymnastics take on Olympian proportions, helped him earn inclusion into both the SHOOT and Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcases in 2004. This marked the first of assorted viral successes for Rouse who has gone on to score with TV efforts such as the joyous Discovery Channel “Boom Dee Ya Da” anthem, the witty Nike U.K. football spot “Turning Spanish” and Kia Motors’ inspired Flashdance takeoff. The latter came out of David & Goliath while the Discovery Channel promo and the Nike U.K. ad both were created by agency 72andSunny.
Miller came up through the ranks as a line producer, where he collaborated closely with directors, exec producers, agency producers and clients. In his nearly 15 years in the industry, he has produced hundreds of TV commercials for clients across the spectrum, shooting not only all over the U.S. but around the world.
Miller got his start in the industry 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 ’09 he joined Dektor Film as executive producer, where he helped rebrand the company as The Cartel. He left that shop to open Interrogate as owner/exec producer.
Representing Interrogate are Kent Eby and Katy Dickson of Eby Dickson on the East Coast, Marguerite Juliusson of Marguerite Juliusson & Co. in the Midwest, and Rebecca Reber and Brooke Covington of Reber Covington on the West Coast.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More