[ITALY] Making Movies Is Hard

From: James Morrison
Sent: Wed 5/24/06 5:08 PM
To: Tara Stromberg
Subject: random thoughts‏

Tara,

Sitting in the library again. Should I tell you how crazy things have been here? You probably could have guessed. Making movies is hard.

We're doing pretty good as for now. Doing casting at some fancy LA spot this Saturday. Still do not have the funding secure from Ian's family. This is making me a little edgy. I have a good feeling his family may not like me too much, seeing as how I show up out of nowhere & tell him to ask them for 3,000 to make a story I made up. Oh well!
Been sleeping on his couch for a week now. It's a nice couch! MMMMhmmmmm.

This library sucks & there's all these homeless people using the computers next to me & they smell real good. The computer barely works & keeps dropping offline. Tonight I have a meeting about scheduling. We're shooting our interiors on a sound stage at the school! How professional, I know.

My head drifts farther & farther every day with more to do & more shit to talk to people about why they need to do this. I'll be happy to get rolling & actually doing something.

I'm a waitin for your letter. I'm kinda diggin these e-mails because I know you get em' right away. Nathan is flying in on the 2nd, but I have to stay here I think till the 19th. Cigarettes here are cheap & that is nice. That's the only cheap thing though, everything else is a lot.

The kids I'm working with are real professional and keep bothering me about insurance and shit. I hate producing work. I'm pretty good at it though because I'm so talented in the arts of bullshit. Still, right now I am doing much more producing shit than anything directing. Our storyboards are non-existant at the moment. yeah...

Enough of my film bitching! There are much bigger problems in the world.

I hope Italy is going well & you're not down about that damn foot. You should just cut it off & hobble from bread shop to bread shop. I finished Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters on the plane ride here. Seymour and Introduction is kind of hard to get into right now. Are they supposed to be connected as one book? Or are they just two separate stories in one book?

I wish I had more to tell you. I'm happy to be out here & working on something.

Keep that foot in good condition & eat some bread and cheese & listen to people speak Italian... I hope you're getting some ideas for your script to shoot on 35mm!* Everyone I tell about that here is big time jealous by the way.

miss you RIIIIIICCCCKKKK!
James

*Referring to my acceptance into the NYU in Prague: 35mm Filmmaking program. 

***

From: Tara Stromberg
To: James Morrison
Sent: Thu, 25 May 2006 15:10:34
Subject: cant think of a clever subject title....

James,

I figured you were busy since I hadn’t heard from you in forever (at least it seemed that way.... >le sigh<) its true, the emails do come faster, but there's still the matter of finding time to write the email. i have plenty of time to, because compared to you, i hardly do an work over here. i have class from 9-1 two days a week, and 2-5 two days a week, and then some writing homework. you’re making me look like a lazy bum!!!! ^.^;;;

but anywho, back to the whole mailing thing, yeah, your messages never come often enough. i feel like i have so much to tell you about, but then again its probably not as groundbreaking as all the work ur doing over there, so i kinda feel selfish. my foot woes are unworthy of a juxtaposition with your starving artistry. but im gonna tell you it all anyway. ^_^

gahhhh and i just bought a postcard to send you too, but since u still havent gotten my other letter, itll probably take forever to get to CA, and by that time we’ll both have tons of stuff to talk about. oh well, the postcards not big enough anyway. ill send it soon with a clever note, much more clever than the one i am so painstakingly trying to write at this moment.

sooooooo where do i begin? i feel really bad about all this crazy film stuff getting you down. but ur having auditions!!! at a swanky place!!!! and u have producer people to help you (even though they’re a pain in the ass, but that's their job, so u dont have to do it), and storyboards can be easily done with stick figures (you dont have to be a van gogh, the film is the important part), and ur already scheduling things out. however, these things are mostly overshadowed by the fact that you have no budget. but that's not ur fault! blame ur producer! and ian. er, his parents. i didn't know that you needed that much money....he should try to convince his parents that he wont have a future unless he makes this movie. or rather, you make it, with his help.

funny thing is, i'm having money problems as well. i went to exchange my $300 in travelers checks last week at amex, and the exchange rate only left me with $230. that's not good. as of now, after spending money on groceries, the bus, meals, and the doctor that charged me 40 euros to poke my foot until i said it hurt, i have 120 to my name. and i still have four weeks left here...

...and since im on a rant already about things that suck, ill just mention that our room smells like the septic tank underneath us, and I'm getting eaten alive by ginormous mutant mosquitoes. i killed two yesterday, and made them suffer a horrible death.

but, there are good things as well. and so far they outnumber the bad....so far. I'm off my crutches and the soft cast is off, and I'm walking again ^^ (lord, its a MIRacle....) and to celebrate, i went out with friends and got drunk....again. but it wasn't as bad as last time (ie i wasnt stumbling or pretending to smoke the wine cork or peeing on random trees) I hip-hopped it up at this club and we had a grand ‘ol time. and now i can take a shower standing up like normal people.

Class has been good. for my history-art class (it cant even be classified) we went to one of the oldest museums in the world, the Uffizi, which had a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit and a Michaelangelo painting and about a million painted Madonnas (not the singer, the virgin). Our teacher gave us these headsets connected to a mic she had so we could her her. I felt like a cyborg. i wanted to get you and my mom some journals with leo and his art and other spiffy art stuff, but they were mad expensive. instead i bought 30 cent postcards. but ill find something...

i just got an email from my mom yesterday-she said my grandma is home and doing great, which makes me feel so much better. she’s been in the nursing home and hospital for almost three months.

oh, i got a haircut today. it looks a bit short (shoulder length) cause its so curly and wavy. itll probably grow back by the time i come back. but its oh-so soft,silky and light. ill have to send u a pic. do u still have ur scrappy beard? i hope ur gonna be taking pics over there. i actually have taken a bunch around the city and stuff. ill send u the link to my photo account.

so yeahhhhh, my 35mm script. now I'm rethinking my original ideas. i dont know what to do!!!! :( if ur friends are so jealous they should send me some III-DEAS. for class i wrote my really bad script; it's about umbrellas that come alive when they are mangled and left on the nyc streets at night, and they mangle ppl in revenge. but i kinda like the idea, cause if i did it with stop motion it would be really creepy. as for my script for class, its the one that i left on ur laptops desktop. i have to rework it tho. i got some new feedback. i wanna do it for my narrative in the spring. so let me know if you know anybody that's good with pyrotechnics. i need to blow up a lawnmower.

ANYways....i think I've went on about myself long enough. did u like the raise high the roofbeams story? i know, both of them are pretty dense prose-the seymour intro is not in the same time frame as the previous story, but they’re related because they're both about the Glass family. i actually cant remember much from it, to tell u the truth. i wish i could send you The Little Prince book - actually its online, u should read it. its quick and i think you'll like it. very philosophic and child-like. and it has pictures.

well i would love to write more, but your eyes can only take so much of a bright white screen, and those homeless ppl are probably startin' to smell pretty bad, so i will send this along and hope to hear from you very soon (or as soon as ur schedule allows you-i know ur already swamped, and i doubt ur getting much sleep, especially since its on a couch. you cant fool me ^_~)

i will be anxiously awaiting your letter or e-mail, whichever it will be, and I'll probably send u a postcard and also another letter, that's longer than the last (and just wait to you see how long THAT one is :P)

i will pray to buddha and do a raindance for ur film, even though i know you’ll get it done anyhow, even if u have to bullshit ur way through the whole thing and run from the cops and live off water and cheese doodles for a couple of weeks. it'll be a contest to see which one of us gets the skinniest :P

sooooo i will enjoy my tasteless bread and mushy fruit and catch some lizards (RIIIICK, do you know that iguanas can grow back their tails??????!!!!!) and you sleep and dream of $3000. 
just don't be a coconut*. 
i don't think ur a coconut, but worrying toomuch is very coconut-esque.....so be cool like a cucumber...and i'm gonna make like a banana, and split...

miss you and wish u were here,

Tara

*Reference to the song "Ask Me Anything" by The Strokes.