Ted Hope

Ted Hope is an indie film stalwart who has produced an incredible number of well-received films and in later years has seemed to turn his attentions more to the film industry as a whole. This breezily-written book is almost a memoir/self-help hybrid that many celebrity authors go for, except instead of life advice he offers advice for the dying film industry. Each chapter is centered around one or a few of the films he produced over his career and the central lesson you can take away from show more his experience. This approach could have left Hope looking like a self-centered know-it-all, but instead he comes across as affable and genuinely concerned for the state of film. Hope believes in smart, adult-oriented storytelling and he firmly believes the audience is still there for that type of film, even if studios increasingly don't (and his current position as head of Amazon Studios confirms this belief).

I really enjoyed this book, but I'm also particularly enamored with indie cinema, not just the films itself for the filmmaking ethos; I've long dreamed of making films completely independently from the major studios. For a long time that dream seemed completely impossible, but the times are changing for film and how it is produced and consumed. And Ted Hope's charming, fast-reading book has given me...Hope for Film (oh god, I'm so sorry. I regretted that pun immediately, but also I don't know how else to end this review. I feel dirty.) show less