Yo! I’m Tom Morrison, and I’m beyond stoked to be spending my co-op experience here at JTWO Films. It took me most of my life to discover that filmmaking was the path for me, but I’ve been a creative mind for as long as I could remember. Starting from my intense love for drawing, music, and my hyperactive imagination, I was coming up with stories from the moment I could talk (and I talk a lot), but I’ve found that the medium of film is the best possible way to bring this myriad of ideas to life. 

My niche is in directing, as it allows me to interact with every aspect that goes into making a film, from pre-production, to being on set, all the way to post. I’m also a people person, and directing allows me to put my love for working with others to good use. However, because I’ve always been a very hands-on person with my approach to art, I’ve also had extensive experience and enjoyment in my work with camera operation, G&E, and even special effects makeup and art department. Whether it’s directing or any of the aforementioned jobs, I bring my creative mind to everything I do and enter a project with the goal of being able to creatively express myself while efficiently helping execute the overall vision for the film, whether that vision is mine or not. 

When I tell a story, I tend to think past the constraints of genre and instead seek out to create a film that elicits a strong reaction from my audience, whether it be laughter, getting scared out of their seats, or just thinking even after they’ve left the screening. While I don’t bind myself to one genre, I try to experiment with how I can convey the messages and emotions of the most ordinary human experiences, and portray them through a more fantastical lens, so that my films are relatable while still making the most emotionally driven aspects of human existence appear as big on screen as they do when we experience them in our day-to-day. My desire to experiment with how my stories are told also branches out into the many aspects of art that I engage in on a regular basis, beyond just caring about how everything looks on camera and how I feel about my actors’ performances. How can I make this scene look more like one of my drawings? How could some music in this scene convey the emotions of the story better than the confines of dialogue? In everything that I do, I’m always exploring and seeking new ways to communicate ideas to my audience, in hopes that they truly feel something once the credits roll. 

 Growing up, I experienced films and tv shows like most kids, but my parents were very adamant on showing me the TCM channel. From there, I got to explore media from all decades, which opened my eyes to comedy, dramas, and thrillers that influenced my influencers and from there, there was no going back. I knew content unlike anyone my age and I loved it. It felt as though I was in on something no one else was. That being said, as a kid, I would be embarrassed to share my favorite movies, because they seemed so weird, so different. At ten years old I declared the 1996 queer comedy Birdcage my favorite movie. For obvious reasons, being a shy kid in a small town with even smaller ideals I felt weird not saying Big Hero 6. I loved sitting down and watching such a spectacle. It wasn’t until years after the first watch that I really got the movie. Of course, I would laugh and enjoy the film, but it wasn’t until I was old enough to understand the sophistication of the humor that I knew, I wanted to make people laugh. I wanted to entertain people like Robin Williams. 

From a young age, I knew I wanted to tell stories. From playing make believe to stories written in my wide ruled notebook, I loved building worlds and personas. It quickly became a passion of mine, but I didn’t realize it at the time. It wasn’t until I received my first camcorder at the age of 9 that I was able to find an expressive form for all these ideas, film. It was unlike photography and writing, things I have explored at this point. It was an untapped medium I thought could only be utilized in Hollywood. I quickly discovered how wrong I was and began recording everything around me in hopes to one day use it for my movie. I still have yet to create said movie and honestly question if I was ever going to, but now, I am left with hours of footage and I refuse to delete any of it because it all has value. I like to think of SD cards as sketchbooks. Each one, each off load of one is a wrap on a certain era of your ability. I am able to go back and flip through some of my very early “sketches” and I can be inspired or just amused by what I was, but either way, I learn and grow from a period in my life I didn’t think I had any knowledge to share. The beauty of film is not only in the stories on the page, but the visuals that tell that story and realizing that was life changing.

I grew up with parents who were both photographers, so I was always surrounded by cameras. I got my first digital camera at 9 years old, which I mainly used for photos such as the one you’re seeing. 

As time went on, I started using my phone to make trailers, music videos, and shorts with friends and family. I loved making these, and I loved how easy it was for me to do so using apps like iMovie and Video Star. But one thing I almost always insisted on was being the one behind the camera. I was fine to be in any kind of video, but I preferred holding the camera and bringing my vision to life. 

Middle school rolled around, and due to me spending copious amounts of time on Youtube and Instagram, I gained a love for editing as well. I would edit clips from TV shows and movies, as well as my own videos that I took over time. I used Cute Cut Pro to cut and add music to my little edits. 

I got my first Nikon DSLR at 14 years old. I went to a sleepaway camp every summer for six weeks, where we were completely unplugged. But I desperately wanted to document my time there, and writing in journals wasn’t enough for me. I needed a visual aspect to look back on fondly. I brought my DSLR to camp in 2018 and my love for photography skyrocketed. 

All of this culminated in me deciding to become a film major halfway through my freshman year in college. I had such an appreciation for the art of filmmaking, and paired with my love for visual storytelling, I felt like it was the right move for me. And boy, was I right. I took basic and intermediate level courses before hopping on my first student set, which ignited a spark in me that I hadn’t seen before. Once my first set was over, I had the opportunity to be on many sets afterwards, learned so much, and made so many connections. Learning the theory and also the practical behind filmmaking was crucial to my development as an artist and creator. I love working with other people, it’s one of my favorite aspects of this field. I’m so excited to further my education and push myself to create, collaborate, and connect with everyone here at JTWO! 

 While I don’t have a Christopher Nolan or Steven Spielberg “movie maker from the moment I was born” story, I definitely started making up for lost time since I was fourteen or fifteen. I would say The Matrix was my entryway obsession to film and the endless possibilities which can be explored through the medium. But the movie itself was not entirely responsible for my appetite now, it was really all the exploration that came with learning about it. What got me hooked was the idea of a Matrix trilogy, an expanded universe, director’s voice, inspiration and rhetoric behind the ideas, a story being told across multiple films which had to be fleshed out in a correct way. 

The research that felt required to understand these films, and learning about the directors’ careers has me on what I describe as chasing that never ending high of finding movies I like and that resonate with me. I started looking backwards, forwards too eventually, realizing even the all-too-precious Matrix trilogy was actually a tetralogy/anthology of sorts, with the Animatrix being a sort of unsung movie in the series. Discovering movies this way, uncovering hidden gems, expanding my taste, and going back to directors’ earlier works became a sort of hobby of mine. In this, discovering the Wachowskis Bound felt like a pivotal moment for me and was sort of a tradition I never dropped. I live for my favorite director’s first movies (usually they’re crime movies), and I take all them into account as good examples for films to aspire to for a first movie of mine. My favorite films are dialogue driven, with limited scope due to budgetary restrictions, and have high-concept plot ideas that help propel the story forward in a unique way. 

Eventually, I had watched enough films and gone on a die hard Spaghetti Western binge, and felt like I was done watching movies… I wanted to write my own. Taking cues from a couple older screenwriting books and filmmakers, I broke out my index cards and wrote a Western out on about 120 index cards, roughly a card per script page. Of course, when I was done, I realized I hadn’t sworn off movies completely, instead I just wanted to fuel my passion in a new way. I wrote this first script, then went back to watching tons of movies, and the cycle has just kind of stuck, but recently they have overlapped a lot and I try to write daily and watch a couple movies a week. I have roughly four feature film scripts under my belt, most of which have focused on adolescence, naturally, but I am looking to break out of my shell soon to focus on more adult stories. 

More and more, my passion has been in screenwriting, and honing in “chunky” dialogue to fill pages in scripts to focus on smaller budget ideas…how else am I going to get short films going? Eventually, I want to become a professional writer/director, but for now, I will continue to consume movies like my life depends on it, and draw inspiration and take cues from my favorites to create my own works. My favorite genres to work in are thriller and crime, and I absolutely love writing from these grittier themes to ask questions about humanity and what drives people to do things. 

This is a picture of me at 3 years old with a cardboard box on my head. You probably gathered that on your own but I figured I’d make it clear. You’re probably wondering why? The simple answer is because I had an audience. In the home movie that this is taken from, I put this box on my head and pretended to be a TV, putting on a show for my audience (my mom and dad). I would entertain my parents and then would abruptly say “The fun times are over”, removing the box from my head. They would act upset and say “nooo!” only for me to say “the fun times are back on again!” and place the box back on my head to thunderous cheering. Oh yeah. This is the life!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been addicted to this feeling of making people feel something. My love for getting a reaction took me through many hobbies: learning musical instruments, writing stories, and even (for a brief time), being a magician. Pictured here: (Yes, I did in fact do Birthday Parties)

But by far the most fulfilling way for me to get the reaction I wanted was through film.

My first experience with film came in the form of making short movies with my cousins using my Dad’s phone. Very rudimentary iMovie presets and unintelligible audio crafted a grand viewing experience for all. But the quality of these movies didn’t matter, it was the fact that they made our friends laugh. Something that I crafted from nothing was now bringing joy to other people, and to me that was the coolest thing in the world.

I quickly became the designated videographer among my friends and family, filming comedy sketches, family events and everything in between. As I experimented more, I learned more. I became curious and taught myself how to edit, how to use an actual camera, and how to make my movies look better. Any time I had a school project, I asked if I could make a video instead of powerpoint.

At a senior year high school sports banquet, I announced that I would be majoring in Film and Television Production and was literally laughed at by my coach and many of my peers. “That’s a major?!” they said. (I’LL SHOW THEM! I’LL SHOW THEM ALL! *Cue dramatic lightning strike.) Sorry, got a bit carried away there, but the point is this was something I wanted to do all the time and I wasn’t afraid to go for it.

When I started college at Drexel University, I was immediately thrown into film and TV classes and loved every part of it. I picked up new skills and thought about how I could use them to better shape my own stories that I wanted to tell. I also learned that there was a sketch comedy club called “Drexel Night Live”. A spoof of “Saturday Night Live”, it was a student-run live sketch comedy show consisting of live and recorded sketches. These kids were doing what I wanted to do, they wrote comedy, recorded films, and put on a show for an audience. It wasn’t about getting paid, the reaction they got from the crowd is what fueled them to do more. After attending one of their live shows, I worked up the nerve to ask if I could join. Several terms and many shows later, I am now the President of the club and am instilling my love for film and comedy in our new members.

All these years later I still love getting a reaction, and film is the medium that allows me to express my ideas and reach people in a way that is truest to my heart. It’s like that expression “You get more joy out of giving a gift than receiving a gift” (which sounds like a bunch of hooey to anyone who’s gotten a really cool gift before) but I do think there’s truth to it. For me, the greatest gift I can receive is bringing joy to others, and I hope to do a lot of that here at JTWO.

Around fourth grade, my mom found a magnet arts middle school nearby and after immediately applying, I attended the school from fifth to eighth grade. When arriving at the school we did an “intro to the arts”, to try them each out before picking an “emphasis”. My first time walking into the video room time stopped, it was just a small room in the back of the library but 11 year old me felt like I just walked into Disneyland between the poster filled walls, figurines, and the endless extraterrestrial film equipment. Before I even sat down I knew I wanted to spend the next four years in that room. I had finally found a safe place where I could make movies like I wanted to do and learn how to do it properly in an environment of other kids passionate about film.

The teacher, Mr. Kelsey very quickly became someone I looked up to and considered a mentor, and was truly a teacher who wanted us to be ourselves and be creative, and this was the first time I was given space and resources to do what I’ve so desperately been wanting to do. The video room became the joy in my life and my safe place, and continued to be for years after middle school. After school in high school I would head to the middle school to help Mr. Kelsey teach the incoming fifth graders, and each year got to experience the joy of teaching enthusiastic 11 year olds how to make movies and edit them.

Making videos was something I wanted to do before I knew a career in film was even possible, so by the time we were supposed to start thinking about colleges, there was no doubt in my mind on what I wanted to do, and that there were no other options. This was poked, and questioned, and challenged, by family, teachers, and peers, however I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else and wanted to do what would make me happy.

What I love about film is the ability to create emotion and share it with others. I want to make others feel something and highlight the beautiful small moments that come with life. This all started with the need to document my memories and things I thought were cool or pretty, and it’s the same now 10 years later. I spent a lot of my life wondering how the films I watch impact me and my emotional state so deeply, and I think it would be so rewarding to create that feeling for somebody else.

Fast forward to my junior year as a film student at Drexel and I’m living what 11 year old me would think is the dream life, and I’d have to agree with her. With too many amazing experiences to count and a few projects I’m proud of under my belt, I was led to an awesome new internship at JTWO, and cannot begin to explain how excited I am to learn and get all the experience I can to help me grow to be a better filmmaker.

Taking photos became a huge passion of mine, my high school photography teacher helped me realize how I can express myself within my photography. Throughout highschool I continued to do creative and documentary photography, building my skills and finally feeling like I had found a passion I could carry with me forever. When the time came around to start thinking about college I was lost. I had good grades, but didn’t gravitate towards any majors that were more practical. My photography teacher helped push me towards doing film, and I am so glad for his input in that situation. When I was accepted to Drexel University in Philadelphia I was extremely excited to declare Film and Television production as my major. Looking back, I was not ready for what was in store for me in the slightest. When I first entered Drexel as a freshman, I thought I wanted to focus on cameras. My self doubt fought me through classes, and I felt I didn’t have the same skills as the other students I worked with. As a sophomore I was asked to do art direction for a small school run television show, and I was nervous but said yes. Something clicked for me when I started working on the props and set decoration. I started thinking about all of the films I was obsessed with when I was younger, each created a mystical or mysterious world through their production design. Now in my third year at Drexel, I am very focused on set decoration and composition. It’s fun to be involved in the cinematography by deciding what’s in frame. I often think back to how I used to decorate my room to match the movies I liked, or created small props to make the magic of my imagination come to life. It’s inspiring to know I have carried these skills with me for a long time, I just had to discover them again through my love for film as a young adult. I am eager to see where the next year of school takes me, as well as grow my skill set here at JTWO Films.