Indie Filmworker. Former Studio Exec. "HopeForFilm" (memoir/handbook & current newsletter). Lifelong believer that we can build something better together.
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Articles by Ted Hope
Paramount is getting desperate and doing the crazy stuff people do when they know it is a lost cause... and it is making others crazy too!
there is only one Eraserhead baby and only one way it could be made and if that hadn’t all gone so right, would we never had David Lynch? Someone must look out for the art, the artist, and the audience. I will and perhaps you will too. And the more we can work together to free ourselves for being dependent on the system we are in, the better it will all get. Yes! It’s the sort of weekend when you get two back-to-back BlockTheIllegalMerger posts. Wild! Let’s go! The LA Times has a decent overview.
Calendar Update #39
There’s nothing like an LA sunset (SG) FilmStack Daily Digest’s calendar fills your life with options, choices, and all you need to make the most of this magnificence. Or at least might come close.
My cup of hope for film might runeth over; can I share some with you?
There is more than the eye can see. ain’t no pizza; ain’t no fooling around! yum yum, dig in! Hope For Film only works when you read it. We thrive when you subscribe. Perhaps you’ve heard: we’ve got something going on over here. There are going to be some big changes coming down licketysplit and then some. To receive the news right into your inbox, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber today. Error I started this post as I headed off to Cannes last week.
Have You Been Hurt by Media Consolidation? I Have. Original
This week in In Development, I wrote about what may be the most important structural shift happening in entertainment right now: the emergence of a creator-driven ecosystem that increasingly overlaps with the traditional film industry. Ted Hope’s essay below describes the same moment from a different vantage point — the disappearance of the infrastructure that sustained American independent film for decades.
Tell Me: What’s Your NonDē "Dangerous Idea"?
Some of you have noticed I am curating Slamdance’s “Market Monday” Industry Day next Monday and have it themed around “THE NONDĒ WAY: FUN & DANGEROUS IDEAS TO DISRUPT WHAT ONCE WAS “INDIE” & TO SEPARATE FROM A BROKEN CORPORATE FILM INDUSTRY”. It is a IRL event at the DGA in Los Angeles on 2/23..I know some of you can’t make it.
You can't just bury your head in the sand, friend.
I wrote this statement below as a lead in to one of the FilmStack Daily Digest posts recently. One of the things I find funny is how folks seem more desirous to argue that everything is okay, than they are to discuss why we no longer need the system that has been built. The truth is I would be more hesitant to state the first part if I wasn’t so confident of the second part. As a film producer, I have never limited my responsibilities to getting the movie made, or even to getting it made well.
Is Movie Marketing Now Truly Broken?
We generally blame on at least one of five specific things for everything in the FilmBiz that doesn’t work as we hoped: Media Overload Engineered Distraction & The Resultant Attention Deficit Syndrome The Pandemic (that ‘ol chestnut) The pivot to Global Streaming Dominance, and Social media. Sure they are all connected, but they are all distinct too. And then we quote William Goldman and expect everyone to just nod their head in agreement. And by we, I don’t mean “me”! I don’t buy that pony, pally.
Hate To Tell You… It’s Getting WORSE
Last week, word started going round. The sitchu in the FKATFB just dropped several notches. And then some. The prognosis for the non-corporate filmmakers of all breeds isn’t looking too good anytime soon. The wise will find opportunity in the hopelessness. And for those that are willing to do the bigwigs bidding, best gulp down that rosé in a single swallow as the shaggy sunset will soon shatter your greying days. Soon it all will be gone, gone, gone. Why? Because we are all such suckers.
Yes, Take Your Kids to the Movies
ANORA was a beautiful, exciting, independent film on a six million dollar budget—competing with films that had budgets of $150 million. Watching it sweep the Oscars gave me all the feels. When Sean Baker said, “Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen…Parents, introduce your children to feature films in movie theaters and you will be molding the next generation of movie lovers and filmmakers,” I gotta admit, I teared up a little.
Be Prepared: A Sh*tload Of Chaos Is Coming!
Back when I started this newsletter I encouraged you “get ready for the coming sh*tstorm”. HT#4: How To Make Sure You Are Ready For The Coming Sh*tstorm Did you follow my advice? Did it help? I think it would have. I hope it did. Call this post “Part Two” of that one. There is no doubt that things are going to be different in the cinema realm in the years to come. Shall you pack your bags or dig a bunker? Put on your battle gear?
The Logical Response Is To Be Bitter
Elena Saavedra Buckley has a great piece on Todd Solondz in the New Yorker this week. Maybe not so great in getting his next movie financed, but it does speak a great deal to the state of the world and culture. Todd’s plight is what is causing me to lose interest in cinema. Seriously. I want a world where he — and others like him — makes movies regularly. Something tells me I won’t get things as I want them to be….
MMMM: Could Being Bored & Not Longing For A Better World Be The Answer To Everything? To Anything?
Another monday morning movie musing…. That’s not me above on IG (I don’t know how to change the thumbnail), but if you click the link you’ll get to see & hear not only my “Four Last Watched” and my in depth analysis of what makes for great airplane viewing.
Q&A: Producer Christine Vachon Doesn't Have Dark Nights of the Soul
It’s damn near impossible to imagine the American indie film revolution of the late 20th century taking place without Christine Vachon. But even as the movement began to dissipate in the early Aughts, the result of production houses and distributors being bought up and shuttered by Hollywood studios, she pressed on.
32 Qualities Of Better Film
Note: As previously shared, I am slowly porting my priors over here. This remains one of my all time favorites. The last time I reran an old post, most readers seemed to mistake it as of the moment. This is not necessarily reflective of my current mindset — but I don’t change that much. I look forward to doing a contemporary update of this post, but I have a great deal amount of other posts to first write, so it will have to wait a bit.
I Feel A Change Is Going To Come
I accidently sent a draft of this post on Wednesday, and didn’t plan to send until Saturday. I am posting his latest draft on line without sending it out a second time. My apologies These things happen. I will fail better next time. INVISIBLE NATION opens for a week at VanCity tomorrow. Please check it out and order tickets ASAP. THANKS. https://viff.org/whats-on/invisible-nation/ I don’t what you are planning this summer, but I have a bit of a world tour coming up and I hope you can join me.
'Civil War' Highlights a Growing Divide in American Culture...and Not in the Way You Think
It’s unusual for me to dive right into discussing a film immediately after its release. Before I express opinions, I prefer to stew on them for a couple of weeks to properly interrogate how I feel and why.
Are Our Film Festivals Dying, Getting Ill, Or Just Aging Out?
If we really want to escape from hell and build something better, we have to recognize the root causes of our current misery. This post may be crazy math for some, but when you squinch your eyes right, secrets are revealed. Let’s drill down from some recent issues to see the deeper reason why they might have occured. The cracks look like destruction and decay to some, but they also reveal the light where the hope for film gets in.
"In my work, I strive to confront complexity rather than shy away from it."
I hear many filmmakers and audience members complain about the conformity in mainstream and corporate filmmaking today. They both tell me how much they want to make or experience something different, something unique, and something bold. Hopefully soon the executives will hear them and open the doors. AMPAS already has taken note, particularly in the do…
5 Questions #11: Nisha Pahuja
Have you ever sat down to watch a film and just been so stunned to what is unfolding that your eyes well up because you are feeling the world change as a result of the work you are witnessing? I did just recently,, and we are all fortunate the director of that remarkable film, To Kill A Tiger, Nisha Pahuja, answered a few questions for us.
HT#15: This List Will Change Your Life
HT #15 How To Improve Your Life As A Creative Professional. You are going to have an awesome year. How do I know this? Because I have a gift for you. It is not as influential as good luck may be, or even privilege, but I know it can help. It may not be an introduction to the person that is going to change everything for you professionally, but we already sort of know each other at this point, right? This is even better than that.
Consciousness, Conformity, And Indoctrination
How do we see the truth about where we are right now or any time? What holds us back? Why aren’t things better? Does it really have to be this way? Why do so few folks seem to have good ideas? How come it is so hard to execute things when we know they are needed? Ah… the questions, the questions! The most likely explanation is often the simplest (Harkum’s Razor). For me The Matrix remains the last great Hollywood movie.
Unlock The Power Of Loving What You Do
No matter what happens, it is going to take longer than you suspect. You are lying to yourself if you think this one is going to be a quickie and it won’t suck you in. You think that money is coming, but it won’t; you are going to be working for peanuts, again. Yeah, I know, they are good people who know the special you bring, and they will be appreciative… for awhile… maybe. Until they don’t. They love you. And they forget about you. How can you stand it?
HT #12: So The World Does Not Usually Agree With Your Taste… Now What?
HT#12: How To Persist When The World Does Not Share The Same Taste As You (Jump to the end for the TLDR bulletpoints if you are short on time) You are in the business of making things. To succeed in such a business, people have to want what you make.
5 Questions #1: Hal Hartley
If you follow along with my Substack Chat, you know that I’ve been looking for ways to expand what I am doing here on HopeForFilm. I’ve believed I mentioned this in posts too. I was considering both a “5 Questions” and a “Project Of The Month” or “Crowdfunding Highlight” column. So I decided, at least this time to do all at once. When one of your first collaborators is also on the last days of a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for their latest movie, you can’t waste time.
America's Greatest New Film Festival!
So what’s this film festival I wanna tell you about? It’s been hiding in plain sight for awhile. Have you heard of the month of October? Perhaps you’ve been there… It happens across the entire country and is the radical revision of the film festival ecosystem that many have been hoping for. It’s radically decentralized and incredibly diverse. It has many different personalities. It plays in some of the best venues imaginable and brings the films and many filmmakers right to where the audiences are.
How Labor WILL Win The Strikes
I think many of you know that I offer free “paid” subscriptions to anyone on strike, any student, or anyone having financial hardship. The last category was perhaps worded wrong. I want to make clear: any filmworker who hasn’t been able to work as intended — that means you! Just let me know and I will slip you a free pass. Then you can leave comments here and share with friends.
Hope For Film | Ted Hope | Substack
Hope For Film Ted's thoughts on cinema, the film business, & the creative process.
The Coming Cinema Apocalypse (Is Here)
I think it may be time to take out the crystal ball again. Last time we looked back on the past to see what may be coming. This time we are looking at where we are right now. I’ve provided you the preppers guide to the oncoming sh*tstorm so you can manage alright. I know you know I am a HOPEful guy, but perhaps it is worse than we expect. If it smells like chicken and tastes like chicken, is it chicken? I keep one earthquake bag in my car, one upstairs, and one downstairs.
MMMM: They Are Looting The Store
Is it just the FKA The Film Biz, or is it something bigger? Is it End Times or the end of capitalism? Was it a perfect storm of free money and new technology that stimulated an abandonment of what once was a magic beanstalk? By “magic beanstalk” I mean folks earning a decent living doing what they love — that’s what was FKA The Film Biz once was able to deliver. And now it is no more. Maybe it’s not so bad.
How To Get You & Your Film “Discovered”
You’ve made something good. Maybe you got into a great festival. Maybe you didn’t. Let’s just say it is better than some of the films that have been distributed recently. Or that it is easier to market well that many others. Regardless, it’s going to be hard to get noticed and gain momentum. In fact, it’s going to be really hard. Damn difficult. There’s a ton of stuff getting made and not enough getting seen. Even less is being bought.
How To Make Sure You Are Ready For The Coming Sh*tstorm
On Wednesday May 12th, Brian Newman and I discussed how to navigate all the changes coming our way in the FKATFB on a zoom with 400 people hosted by the Sundance Collab program (use the link to check it out). I had a good time, but there was so much more I wanted to discuss. But that’s how it always is. Too much to say and do in this short life.
AMPAS Can Help Save Cinema Going, But…
I love cinema going (OALSASITD), but I do think streaming is one of the best things ever for the film industry. UCLA’s 10th annual Hollywood Diversity Reportreleased this past Thursday demonstrated that Streaming is a great equalizer. The creators and performers on Streaming far better represent our world than those in the theatrical space – and we still have a long way to go. For all the social and political awareness in the FKATFB, we required business goals to make the changes we needed.
Want To Sustain & Improve Indie Film? Give New Producers $$$$ NOW!
We must put good ideas out there — regularly — if we want to have a reasonable hope that any of them will ever catch on. Sometimes what sounds crazy to you may be just the thing the world or your community needs. If you ask me, we need to build a Wild Idea Generator (yes, The WIG) that spits these #WildIdeas out and sees what eventually sticks, even if it takes eons, by which I mean years.
Where Should A Lover of Cinema’s Focus Now Be?
If you are reading this, I assume you are a bit like me, forever pondering how can we make this world safe for better cinema. Granted, you may not fully subscribe to my definition of “better” cinema, but if you want to improve both the work and the ecosystem for the “better”, then you are on my team. Thanks for being here. I need to get you a jersey.
The TPP Shell: Tenacity, Persistence, & Perseverance
Unlike parties, the longer you stick around in a creative life, the better it is going to get. You have to plan to stay late from the start. You need some tricks in your bag not just for when you need to get that party started, but also for when the going gets tough and energy might be running low, what are you going to do? If you are sharp and can stay sharp, the more you do, the better you are going to get.
How To Return Investment In First Features To Something Other Than Philanthropy, Pt 1 of 2
If you’ve been reading HopeForFilm since I launched in November on Substack you probably recognize I have a soft spot for first features. First films are often financed by folks who know the filmmakers. You see the problem right there, right? That means that generally the folks that get to have a career, have to come from a fairly privileged background just to know folks who might finance their first film. But it wasn’t always that way, and it doesn’t need to be that way now.
We ReallyReallyReally NEED a Think Tank For Cinema, Story, & FilmBiz Innovation
Back during the last World Financial Crisis, somewhere around 2008 or so, Eugene Hernandez and others pulled together the NYC Film Community. I think we all hoped it would lead to solutions and innovations, but it turned out everyone just needed to vent. I am sure that was not the intent, but that was what happened unfortunately. People always have a lot they want to say (and Substack wasn’t invented yet!) and rarely are given a forum to do so.
We Need A Map Of The Film Ecosystem
When it comes to The FKATFB, of all the things that we could have, should have, and don’t have… the ones that could be easily built… and shared amongst all across this globe… to great positive effect… I think it is a map of the film ecosystem. I would vote for that as project #1 Low Cost Thing Non-Profit or Philanthropic Film Organizations Could Accomplish Right Now To Good Results. Granted, we won’t get it right on first try. It will just be the first iteration.
Recommended Creative Practices for the Age of Abundance & Access, 2023 Edition.
Understand what is unique about creating in the age of abundance and access, particularly how do the business needs differ from the times before — and how much do you want to conform or rebel. Define your chosen mode of expression’s Unique Attributes. Define your chosen mode of expression’s’s Truths Define your chosen platform of presentation’s Distinct Attributes. Know what you love and develop pattern recognition to spot it and the lack thereof quicker.
Fond Remembrances For Two True Lovers Of Cinema
What is a life well lived? I don’t have the answer for that yet, but whenever we lose someone -- particularly when it is someone I have had the great pleasure of getting to know -- that question rockets through my mind. I hope my end is sudden, but I hope even more thatI can say that however I am shown the exit, that I feel satisfied that I have done the best I can, that I didn’t neglect the ones I love, the things I love, my dreams, and aspirations.
Has The Film Industry Lost Respect For DEVELOPMENT?
Have you ever seen a “Developed in association with” credit on an American film? Prove me wrong, but Hope votes nope. How about a “Development Producer” credit? No. In the main titles? Please!! Has anyone ever told you about a big development fee they received? Or even how they got hired because so and so heard that they work miracles with advancing the script? Chances are to every single such questions, this is a chorus answering “No. No. No. No and no.” Why is that?
What I Want To Learn For My Art
2023 has just begun, right? It’s still early, yeah?It’s not dark yet. We are still in that time of year when we are encouraged to look back and forward simultaneously. What did we accomplish last year and what are our goals for next year? That sort of thing? Perhaps you’ve already moved on, but I think I still have some digging to do. There is still so much that I want to learn. There is a lot that I wish I had studied in school.
Life/Work Hacks & Strategies For The Film Professional Or WannaBe
The most anxiety-prone time for me professionally was when I was just starting out. I had decided I wanted to make movies and there was nothing else I wanted to do. I truly felt it was all or nothing. It wasn’t that “failure is not an option” bullshit, because failure was the likely outcome; that I got. I had no experience. I knew no one in the industry. I had no money. But I was living in NYC and was willing to throw myself fully into it.
A Simple Fix For The American Indie Film Ecosystem: Sundance Film Sales
Sundance is a unique market for completed films, as it is one of the sole acquisition opportunities for films available on an all rights global basis. A large number of the Sundance titles each year are fully financed by private equity and without any presales – which in this era makes them even more valuable to the Global Streamers. The festival also falls at the top of the year when most companies are flush with fresh cash if their fiscal years align with the calendar year.
How Bad A Mistake Did The FilmBiz Make?
In honor of Sundance, this is Wednesday’s post on Monday. Monday Morning Musings will take a hiatus this week. One of the great comforts in this world is that the best and the brightest, the most powerful and best capitalized, make dumb ass decisions time and time again. Hold that thought close to your heart. Trust me, it will give you tremendous comfort. We will return to it time and time again. You will need it when you are wondering why does it have to be so and could ever get any worse.
Cultural Production In The Age Of Abundance
Our industry and culture have changed, yet we have yet to redesign our processes for this new reality. Our entire film ecosystem was structured around content scarcity until the Global Streamers pushed everything towards “Peak Content”. The scarcity model required us to maximize individual title revenue’s by creating specific hierarchies and cadences for releasing a title across different media platforms and territories. Success was generally evaluated by the profit or loss a film generated.
What I Might Have Missed If I Had Gone To Sundance The First Time I Had A Chance
Today I am going to Sundance, but it will be for my shortest time ever. Our film CASSANDRO premieres on Friday at 530P at The Ray and I am truly excited. Ironically, I think Good Machine (or rather our former machinists) has a record number of films there this year. That said, stuff requires me to flee at dawn the next day. It would have been a joy to see twenty or so movies and catch up with old friends. But I am also looking forward to what may happen by not being there.
Monday Morning Musings: The Curse Of Being A Persistent Optimist... In The Film Biz
Happy MLK day! It takes time but the arc of history bends to justice, and in that spirit today’s musings are on the time all change takes. And don’t be worried; this is post is not as long as it looks, as the latter half is really just links… They tell you that the sign of insanity is to continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. That this is so frequently proven wrong by the stories we tell, is but one of the many reasons I love making films. The fact is: we change. We grow.
What I'm Reading: Early Cinema Syllabus
I actually finished a whole book! I have found in past years when I was struggling with reading anything longer than an article that making a syllabus style reading list on a specific subject helped me focus. So for my first book this year I chose a book written by silent film historian Jane M. Gaines (whose work led to the founding of the Women Film Pioneers Project). I thought her book Pink-Slipped What: Happened to Women in the Silent Film Industries?
Where Oh Where Has My Sweet Cinema Gone? A Suggestion On How We Can Find Our Way Out Of This Present Pit Of Total & Utter Despair.
Everything will get better if we interrogate our processes, recognize their strengths, and then find ways to enhance them further. Think of it as Truth & Reconciliation hearings for our own professional pursuits. Then we just have work together to build it better. That’s my secret agenda for this blog. Cat’s out of the bag. You in? This is all part of a process of course.
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