Ted founded and runs the New York City based film production company Good Machine, with his partner James Schamus. Together they produced Ang Lee's "The Wedding Banquet," which won the Golden Bear at the 1993 Berlin Film Festival, was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy award, and was cited by Variety as the most profitable film in relation to it's cost of 1993. Together they also produced Ang Lee's feature film debut "Pushing Hands," Dani Levy's "I Was On Mars" and Jill Godmilow's "Roy Cohn/Jack Smith" featuring Ron Vawter and executive produced by Jonathan Demme. In 1992, Good Machine theatrically distributed Christopher Munch's "The Hour And Times" and currently represents "Clean, Shaven" by Lodge Kerrigan for world sales, as well as "Rivers Of Grass" for North American sales, all featured at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival.
Ted Hope and James Schamus were awarded the 1994 IFP Spirit Award for Producing.
Through Good Machine, Ted has served as executive producer on Tom Noonans's feature film "What Happened Was...," co-starring Karen Sillas, Grand Jury and Screenwriting prize-winner at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, and Todd Haynes' "Safe," starring Julianne Moore, which commenced principal photography in January 1994. Good Machine also supervised post-production and world sales on the recently released "Eat Drink Man Woman" directed by Ang Lee.
"Working on 'Amateur' feels different from Hal's other films," says Hope. "It's our first film with an international star but many of the crew have worked on all Hal's projects since they were students in film school. It's a real community, the language is refined, communication is quiet -- we can communicate with grunts and nods.
"Hal becomes nicer with every film. It's clear to him how dependent he is on his support team and he's very respectful to everyone. He knows that he's no longer just some guy from Long Island making a movie, he's not coming from a void. Hal is now a voice in cinema with many devoted followers and film students emulating him. There's even been a retrospective of his films while we've been in New York shooting.
"Before 'The Unbelievable Truth' Hal would write a new script every three months and through that process he found what he was interested in. I watched him deliver scripts, then endlessly rewriting and revising. With 'Amateur,' three and a half months after delivery of the script, we had the finance secured. I see this as a measure of the industry's faith in Hal."