Revenge of the Nerds: Ironbound Films

by Jay Blotcher, June 29, 2009

Filmmaker Daniel A. Miller is a crusader. His documentaries showcase injustices, from the Holocaust to the September 11 attacks. But he does not illuminate subjects with the punishing light of interrogation; instead, his examinations gently tease out the grey areas of morality, such as America’s role in the Spanish-American War or the modern miracle of wiring this country for electricity. At the same time, you get a history lesson so thorough in its arcana that your temples might ache. But egghead Miller leavens his work with abundant heart, turning potentially dry filmic screeds into engaging portraits.

A self-professed nerd, the Cold Spring-based Miller is one-third of Ironbound Films. He’ll be the first to admit that partners Seth Kramer and Jeremy Newberger share his obsessive, bookish affliction. (All three were raised with a New York Jewish suburban sensibility that inculcated them, they say, with a lingering sense of inferiority. It has only made them try harder to succeed.)

Miller, Kramer, and Newberger grabbed onto filmmaking as an escape from their conformist suburban surroundings, Miller said, and, not incidentally, as a “search for meaning in the world.” Working together since 2003, when they co-founded Ironbound, the trio has built on individual reputations to establish industry presence for their production company. The result is that they are shortlisted for buzz-worthy gun-for-hire projects, in addition to a roster of self-generated work.

It is a wintry day in the Lower Valley. Here in the sweet but somnolent town of Garrison, the stately, red-brick Ironbound Films headquarters sits adjacent to the railroad station. The company partners have called it home for three years.

As a filmmakers’ workspace, 35 Garrison Landing boasts a cinematic pedigree. Hollywood descended on this river town in 1968 and dressed it up as 1890s Yonkers for the movie musical Hello Dolly! The Ironbound company office was then an inn in its declining years, but director Gene Kelly transformed it into the hay and feed store of stuffy Horace Vandergelder (Walter Matthau). The Dutch surname, in ornate scroll font, remains on the plate glass doors and windows. Furthermore, a Dolly musical number shot here serves as a heart-lifting leitmotif in last year’s film Wall-e.