By Anthony Frajman
For over 30 years, film producer Ted Hope has been a major presence in, and supporter of the American independent film industry.
Beginning with the company Good Machine, which he founded with producer/creative/executive James Schamus, followed by production company This is That, Hope has produced over 70 major films, including Todd Solondz’ Happiness, Todd Field’s In the Bedroom, Todd Haynes’ Safe and Ang Lee’s first four films, to name but a few.
In those years, he has seen just about everything, and has witnessed first-hand, a sea change in the independent film and documentary industries.
Hope was recently head of Amazon Original Movies for five and a half years, spearheading their entry into movies and overseeing films including Manchester By The Sea and Peterloo.
Currently, Ted is a producer/partner at Double Hope Films, where his recent productions include George Clooney’s The Tender Bar.
We spoke with the producer and indie film champion to get his insights and tips for Australian documentary filmmakers, ahead of his talk at the 2022 Australian International Documentary Conference.
You’re known as a fierce advocate of independent filmmakers and documentaries. Are you optimistic about the distribution landscape for documentaries, given the change and uncertainty of the past two years?
“I think there’s a couple of challenges (facing documentary filmmakers and producers). The positive piece of it, is linked of course, to the negative piece of it, which is the huge demand for new work, for new movies of all sorts. And for the first time, because the dominant business model has shifted off of one that is just revenue driven on a single title basis, to one that is audience driven, based on audience acquisition, to be specific, I think it really can usher in a real change in terms of perspective, of who gets to make the films, what the subject of the film is… Documentary and fiction, both. I think a big part of that is the different platforms leading to more local programming, local perspectives, but then disseminating it on a global basis. We can celebrate the differences of perspective and learn from this and strengthen in it. Things can be incredibly robust. The more we kind of conform into a homogenous blob of mediocrity, the worse it’s going to get.
“I think that the business goals of the streaming platforms are aligned with diverse work. With that, the piece of the challenge is, their business goals are audience acquisition. It’s more that ‘we need you to click on something on a regular basis’ than ‘we need you to complete something’. The demand is also of a huge abundance of titles and nothing has yet been built that really adequately sources and manages and launches and contextualises a wide variety of titles. The need to get beyond a buzzy centrepiece, like a Tiger King, as a prototype, for example. There is a definite challenge about what do you do for the ambitiously authored, formally inventive film that embraces a provocation as part of its promise to its audience. I’m not sure that a streaming platform will ever be the best place for that, for something that will comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted.”
How has the pandemic affected the distribution and production climate facing documentary and fiction filmmakers and producers?
“I think that there would’ve been a shift to the dominance of global streaming as a business form, but it wouldn’t have come as fast. The pandemic just cemented things. And I think it has been relatively crippling to the theatrical exhibition side of things. But it may have helped people to recognise that they may have a paved paradise and put up a parking lot, but they have to fight for what they want. And, on top of that, I think because people are staying at home and because of the ease of access to so much stuff, they also recognise what they’re missing, and how they want to define their lives.
“Personally speaking, I left Amazon with what I felt was like a surefire, foolproof plan of how to build a better mouse trap for the entire film industry, and I was gonna be the guy to do it. And I tested it out with folks and got pretty far along, was about to start to staff on a global basis when I just realised, ‘Do I wanna be fighting over bottom line profit for the rest of my life, or rights grants and things like that? No, I don’t, that’s not how I wanna spend the next 15, 20 years of my life’. And if I had been able to seize momentum as opposed to inch slowly forward, I may have dug myself into a trench that I couldn’t escape. And I think other people with their art, are realising very similar things too. In the formation of the larger entity that I later abandoned, I was developing material, and it’s all coming to fruition now. So, I’m in conversation with lots of folks who did spend that time trying to strategise.
“It was not a good time to go out and earn trust on a very unique and eccentric subject that you would then be embedded with for the next two years. That kind of form of documentary, I think will suffer for a couple of years because the homework that’s needed in that early stage really couldn’t be done. (I think there’s lots of great films using) archive work (to be made). I think people will start to realise, we’re sitting on a hundred years of great footage that hasn’t found the right purpose or articulation previously, and we better figure that out fast.
“There was a wonderful film by a filmmaker called Sarah Dosa at Sundance this year called Fire of Love, for example, which was an archive doc, a love story about two volcano explorers who probably died exactly as they would’ve wanted to die. They were like the Jacques Cousteau of the Thermal Underground. But I know of other films, that are animated documentaries, for example, because things couldn’t be done, they couldn’t really make what they felt was a cinematically ambitious work under the COVID pandemic circumstances.”
How did your time at, and insight into Amazon, impact your thinking as a producer, and what do you believe will be the model of the streamers going forward?
“I think that there are a lot of challenges ahead for the industrial, cultural industries, regarding sourcing, nurturing, developing, the production, execution, delivery, positioning, contextualisation, marketing of titles, and how to solve that. I feel like the existing leaders inherited a system that was built for a different way, a different product and different business goals.
“I personally believe that the streaming world will move to a third-party supply relationship. So, instead of having in-house production, they’ll move towards favoured relationships, with specified business goals from them.
“I think you really see this in the doc space stateside right now, that it’s been a great time for companies to launch and outfit themselves to do the production and delivery part for the channels themselves and thus become reliable supporters.
“In some ways, we’ll start to see the emergence of a middle entity production company that gives the buyers the confidence that it will be delivered a quality product. But that’s in addition to the producers and directors that come forward. Sometimes they generate their own stuff, but I think that they there’ll be an increase of those suppliers. I generally look at that very favourably, because I think that the more diversity and personality that you can have as a creator, you can then target your work to one of those entities.
“When I got hired at Amazon, the head of the studio at that time said, “Ted, I only want you to hire people who love cinema, not the folks who love the cinema business, but who really love cinema”. And I would impart on my executives at the time that nothing will persuade me more than if I think you are on the side of the movie and willing to risk your job for it, that’s what I want to feel from you. I think I might go to my grave wishing that that would be the nature of an executive. It may have been my nature. I love the fight to make the greatest film to lift the good into something great. But I think that, really, the truth of the industry is, most executives want to keep their job, and they keep their job by saying no, not by saying yes. And they keep working within the framework, not trying to figure out ways to push it and get something more. Most employees frankly don’t want to do that.
“As a result, I was always looking for operational improvements, ways that you can help revise the process to help lift the project. And the challenge with that, is to take something from 90% to 98%, quality of execution is a lot of work and is incredibly emotional and it probably has no effect whatsoever on audience engagement. People will still watch the film. Where it has an effect, I think, is on longevity of a title; on its ability to go evergreen, to reach and to become part of the cannon, things along those lines. But that’s, to me, my favourite part of the work.
“It’s led me to put an even greater emphasis on development and pre-production, and how we examine what our plan is, and talk through the opportunities that may exist for cinema, and what that construct might be. It’s always evolving and it’s never a one size fits all. It requires a custom fit, but you see different things. And I think we need more ways of growing comfortable with that precise idea. We take something out and we think it’s gonna be a good movie. But our job is to try to figure out how to take the good and to transform it into something great. And how can we start to examine it so that allows us to do that. I’ve gotten more strenuous in that bit of the process. I also think you’re often surrounded by people from a similar background and experience. And when you are trying to advance form, and find new perspectives, you see how limiting that is. And yet, it’s really hard to diversify your ranks, while you’re already swimming as fast as you can against the current.
“I love it when a film takes off, when you see that opportunity. And for all the beauty of a big screen experience, there’s also this incredible thing that happens due to global streaming that people all over the world have access to something at the same time. And they have the channel through social media to discuss it with people all over the world. I think more people are seeing daring work now than they ever have before the pandemic. Only my cinephile friends had watched things, TV shows in particular, in a language other than their native born one. And now everybody has seen shows in other tongues, it’s incredible. And with that becomes other forms and other faces and new sensitivities and compassion, and it’s like, ‘yeah, global streaming and the pandemic has changed the world’.”
Amazon changed their strategy completely during your tenure there. Is there a downside to the constantly changing priorities of the streamers?
“When I was at Amazon, I was like, ‘Wow, we change our business strategy so frequently’. And I thought it was unique, but I’m sure that it’s happening at all the streamers. And I would say all the networks and all the studios now, I’d be surprised if any of the global streamers have a business strategy with real targets that sticks longer than four months. Because you’re getting information in so rapidly, you’re course correcting and adjusting along the way. I’ve seen it now as a producer, when you talk to folks and they tell you, this is what they want. And then you say, ‘Oh, that’s awesome. I’ll develop it and bring it to you’. And four months, five months, six months later, you bring it to them, and it’s, ‘Here’s the thing, yeah, you know, we’re not looking for that anymore. We’re looking for this’. And you’re like, ‘Ahh!’, it keeps happening.
“I’m a big believer that, for lack of a better term, prestige, I like to call it, ambitiously, authored work, stuff with a clear point of view that is aiming for a level of excellence will always be highly valued. But it totally makes sense that there’s specific titles that hit multiple quadrants or audience segments these companies will want. So, it depends on, are you working on something that has limited bandwidth and can do X, or are you working on something that can go really wide and get a lot of it done? I don’t think any of that stuff gets worked out, overnight.
“While I was at Amazon, we had, I think, seven films that Netflix made, my team took them all the way up to cast and location, everything was ready to go, but they didn’t fit our business plan. And we had to say goodbye to them. And sometimes they worked for the competition and sometimes they didn’t. I wanted to go with them each and every time, I was like, ‘I put my heart and soul in this, and I believe in the filmmaker and I think it can happen’. And then sometimes I’m glad that I didn’t. And sometimes I wish that I had. I can’t say I succeeded with that every time at Amazon. Amazon was great to me in terms of letting me make the things I wanted to make, or at least not making me make things I didn’t wanna make. But it was always a fight for resources in the release of a film.”
Is there a danger in the streamers being too conventional in their interests and things getting lost in the mix?
“100%. We are living at the age of abundance and access anytime, anywhere, any device, and we have less. We actually do have less. And we’ve lost key parts of the experience. As someone who loves all forms of expression, the discovery of the material definitely influences the appreciation of the material. When we lose that bit that gives it context, what happens? I’m super fortunate. I found a partner who loves to talk about movies and politics and how we live, as much as I do. This is our discourse. We do a lot of that contextualisation for each other and find the thing from the past that we want to watch, but there’s no algorithm for it. And it’s not built that way. What is going to make you decide that you’re gonna go see the five-hour movie, when it shows up on a big screen on a Monday night, that is by the filmmaker who you’ve liked, but haven’t seen a movie of for two years, because you know you’ll never get to see that five-hour movie on streaming. Not in a single sitting, they won’t allow it.
“I think we can start to see lots of innovation come about that deals with that kind of drift to mediocrity. The industrial, profit driven side of the industry, they’re stuck in that drift, and they don’t know how to elevate it. There will be lots of people pounding on the doors to pay attention to what’s outside. And maybe it’s a dragon that can fly over those walls. Maybe it’s just a little mouse that’s gonna go in through the hole and contaminate all of your rice reserves.”
You’ve produced a number of films by debut filmmakers. What do you enjoy about the process of working with new directors and how important is it to support emerging talent?
“For me, I wanted to see somebody really playing with the tools and really trying to get what hadn’t been done before. And then that starts to work. And a lot of those times, somebody like Ang Lee, you start to see, ‘oh, they can really now take it wider. They can do more’. Helping someone achieve their opportunity and seeing where they could grow was a big ripple out there. It makes you want to do it again. I think there’s something satisfying in that. Plus, you become almost a magnet for that. One of the reasons I liked working with new directors is, new directors often sought me out to help them with their work. Also, as an artist grows, they need you less and less. I think I’m, for lack of a better term, very much a creative producer. I can do the strategy point, the financing point, the execution point. But what I really enjoy is somebody who wants to spitball ideas and figure out how to advance it. I only make the director’s film, but it’s rare that somebody knows what they want from day one. It is much harder within a corporate environment to get new directors’ work made; if all you’re relying on is the comps, the competitive analysis of prior movies, which has been the go-to method for lots of films that get financed at the studio level. I was super fortunate to be at Amazon over several administrations. And by the time I left, the importance of cultural relevancy was a given at the company. People wanted things that mattered to the world at this point in time. And there’s many ways that can be reflected, but it’s a real gift to new directors, to perspectives that have been shut out previously, to value that as a commercial aspect to film.”
Have documentaries like Honeyland opened things up for filmmakers who may be more marginal with their work, globally and from Australia?
“Yes, I think so. There was for a long time, it felt like, a cartel of support around the truth to power documentary. It was very rigid in storytelling and you weren’t getting expressionistic docs that were aiming for cinema. They were delivering information, but not cinema and not a feeling. Slowly, you had movies that started to pop up, like Honeyland and Cutie and the Boxer. And there were always movies out there, by the likes of Chris Marker, who were, the gods of a different form, but spoke of what could be done. As, I think, that culture became more ubiquitous, as access increased, the hunger for what was missing also increased and the opportunity to create also did.
“30 years ago, you would gather in a cinema or pub, or arthouse and you would see the like-minded people and they would probably become your cohort going forward. That movie would be the Velvet Underground equivalent. You all went out and made movies. Now you’re lucky to find it, you’re stuck in your own home watching it. What is that cycle and ripple? That’s the question. How do you take Honeyland and allow the art form to scale? I love the growing dominance of the international community in the Oscar side of the AMPAS, where you start to see that. I think that there is a benefit in that what has always been smaller audiences, for documentary than fiction films, people are used to less than optimal screenings and it ends up being more of a solitary pursuit. I think that for something to flourish, you need a concentration of expression and execution that only an active community can fully generate. I’m not so sure that the connectedness of the world through the internet is the right substitute for that.”
What are some of the challenges and opportunities facing documentary filmmakers?
“I think the challenge is for all filmmakers, but it’s very true with documentaries, it is to not settle into mainstream form. The ubiquitous nature of the form and of the channels, leads to a sameness, that you have to work against. There is a challenge because part of the appeal of documentaries for businesses, is that they often have a very core audience that will not be missing this thing because it’s about a subject they care about. Yet, the financiers, are trying to deliver a regular cadence of titles for different audience segments like documentaries, because they’re cheap. A core audience is passionate about them, and it doesn’t cost them much, so they can later give the Hemsworths tens of millions of dollars to be in different franchises, and that’s what most people will want. But they can’t give you a movie a week if you’re making all 200 million films. So, they love a nice little doc that can be made for one or 2 million. But that can be a dangerous combination, the passionate core audience and limited financial means. How do you design something for the budget you have that both satisfies and challenges, which is challenging the complacent and comforting the challenged? How do you do that?”
AIDC is on at ACMI from March 6-9, 2022 and online March 10-11. Details here: https://www.aidc.com.au/2022-conference/whats-on/2022-sessions/
