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Qualities Of Better Film #7 of 31: The Joy Of Doing

JOY OF DOING:
Some films you can look at and feel the pleasure the team took in making them—or rather think you feel that pleasure, because it may very well have been anything but fun getting those movies done (writing a bit from experience here).

Filmmaking is an investment of a great deal of time, labor, and money—and everyone knows this. Hopefully it is also an investment of a great deal of thought, research, and collaboration. Regardless, it is an unspoken bargain between the audience and the filmmakers that a film will produce more pleasures than what it took to make them. There is a quality inherent in certain films that acknowledges the privilege of making films and the pleasure that comes with getting to exercise that privelege. When a filmmaker is able to get this attitude up on the screen, it is as if the filmmaker is inviting the audience to a party. The early Godard films certainly have this as do the films and videos of Michel Gondry—you know that both artists really like the ideas they are putting forth and that enthusiasm is contagious. Part of the fun actually comes from not taking the act of movie making so seriously. You could feel this in Richard Lester’s work for sure. Tarantino’s films overflow with enthusiasm for every aspect he is putting on screen, from the actors to the music; every second feels like a kid in a candy shop.

— Ted Hope

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Ted Hope is an American independent film producer based in New York City. He is best known for co-founding the production/sales company Good Machine, where he produced the first films of such notable filmmakers as Ang Lee, Nicole Holofcener, Todd Field, Michel Gondry, Moisés Kaufman, and Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, among others. Hope later co-founded This is That with several associates from Good Machine. He later worked at the San Francisco Film Society and Amazon Studios.

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