The New Teaser!

Another late night shoot

Hey, folks.

Saturday night we were able to shoot in an interesting new location. We were up late, so thanks to everyone who helped. The scene we were doing was one we had already done with the previous "Badi's Woman" but now had to be redone since the part was recast since then. It is interesting to be able to go back and redo a scene. Barry retooled and rewrote the scene (I'll try to stop using "re-" prefixes) to bulk it up with a little more development of the character's relationships within the "bad guy" organization. The scene serves the same purpose it did before as far as progressing the plot, but in my opinion feels more fleshed out. What was previously a short conversation between Reese and Badi now shows more interaction between Reese, Badi, and Badi's woman.

Badi is a prick to a stranger in both versions of the scene, but the new version is more elaborate, due in great part to Beele (Bile? Bilay? Sorry for totally butchering the spelling of your name, man!) who added alot with his performance. In the first version, this aspect of the scene was like a punchline punctuation that ended the scene. Now it is woven into the action as a more natural part of the scene.

Another difference this time around was the location, which I mentioned earlier. The first time we did the scene, it was outdoors and in a place previously used in the movie. The new location (Badi's lounge) looks sexier and, considering the weather, was luckily indoors (thanks to Mohamed for setting us up with such a sweet place to use!). I think different and interesting locations add alot in the long run, and this one not only looks cool but also adds to Badi's character. I think there is only one other scene where we see Badi in his casual, non-business environment, so it will be a real treat for you Dylan Badi enthusiasts. Some personal insight not available on the trading card.

Another cool thing about the weekend's shoot was that I got to see some of the movie on a sleek, big, flat-screen tv. I think I can get so used to seeing clips on youtube that I forget how sexy the movie actually looks. And seeing it on a big tv is always exciting. I can't wait to actually see it on a theater screen. That will be sweet. When we watched the trailer at the Brattle, we all basically fudruckered our jeans (as C-Note would say). So I can only imaging how cool it will be to see the whole movie on the big screen.

Well, I should probably stop rambling. The new teaser will be up tomorrow, probably. I'll leave you with a Lawson: White Heat fun fact:

-Although Chief Coffeestache didn't pioneer the "penis-in-the-popcorn" trick, he perfected it during a 1971 screening of The French Connection to the grateful applause of the world.

Thanks for reading!

Tommy

Not Cool Man!

So over the weekend I was working hard on editing two scenes. I had to capture a few hours of footage, and then sort through it all to find the clips I wanted, needed, and could use. I got a good solid three minutes edited in the timeline in Final Cut and was pretty excited. I know three minutes probably doesnt sound like too much, when in reality thats a LOT of work. So, point of the story is this. After I saved the project, made sure everything was cool, somehow the folder got screwed up and all that work I did is lost forever (until I do it again). Frustrated? You bet!

New Screen Shot

I am working on throwing together a quick little clip, something new, so people can see other shit going on in the movie. I have two big things to edit in the next week and a half or so, so I am going to be busy, and will probably have another bloopers reel I can put together too.

Either way, he is a hilarious screen shot of Chief Coffeestache answering questions from reporters about the White Heat epidemic. The text at the bottom is blurry because its supposed to scroll by, and it says (when asked to comment his reply was, "I'm fucking Steve Guttenburg!") Tons of fun!

State of the Lawson Address

It has been just over a year since shooting started on our first "feature length movie" LAWSON: White Heat. In the first few weeks/months of shooting, everything was going so smoothly, and we were breezing through scenes with ease. As the scenes grew progressively more complex, obviously things start to get harder. Some of the things we needed to do were out of our control until the weather got better in the spring again.

We took a small break, and once the weather was favorable, we started back up. Over the Spring/Summer, we made leaps and bounds as far as the progress of the movie goes. We were once again smooth sailing, and although we obviously weren't going to get the movie done for Spring/Summer of 2007 (an unrealistic goal to begin with), we were sure of ourselves that we'd be done shooting by the end of the Summer.

Day after day, week after week, people who know we are making a movie will ask the same question over and over and over and over. "When is the movie going to be finished?" Believe me, if we could have a solid date and know exactly when it would be finished, we'd tell every single person we could, so they can come see what we've been working so hard on for the past year. Unfortunately though, unforseen roadblocks once again stalled our progress on finishing the movie. As frustrating as it must be for people who want to see the damn thing, imagine how frustrating things have been for us. Here we are, busting our asses, shooting on weird schedules late at night (finding times to work together is nearly impossible when everybody has jobs, bills to pay, and we arent getting any money to do this), and doing everything we possibly can to finish this thing, and shit falls apart.

We were set up in three or four different places at different times during the summer, where we'd be able to go in on weekends, shoot our crazy finale on all day shoots, which wouldve taken maybe a month or so, and you know what happens? We fall onto hard times and bad luck, and every place we had, fell through due to unforseeable events taking place. I.E., thanks but no thanks, take your stupid movie and go somewhere else.

This is really not as easy as people think. We arent just a bunch of shithead kids anymore wasting our nights with unprepared, uninspired, stupid little skits we made with a bogus cheap camcorder. This is as close to a real movie as we can get with ZERO BUDGET, ZERO CREW, ZERO LOCATIONS, and basically nothing but us working on it. We've had a ton of help in finding places from my uncle, who I owe a huge amount of thanks to for all of his help and hard work, but other than that, any money spent is from our own empty pockets. We don't have jobs where our accounts are over flowing with extra money to blow on making a crazy action/comedy movie here.

As fun as it sounds to "play dress up", get soaked in fake blood, run around with a camera and pretend to shoot each other, there is so much more to what we are doing, and what we have done thus far. From the writing of the entire movie, to the shooting, acting, editing, music, effects, its all us. We've borrowed equipment, and asked for help with some poster designs and stuff like that, but the actual production of the movie is 5 dudes who had an idea, and we are busting our asses to get this thing done.

So please, bear with us for a little more time. If you've lost interest in everything we have done thus far, thats okay. Thanks for your interest in the first place, and if you are still waiting on the edge of your seats to see what a bunch of meat heads like us can do if we put our hard work into something, hopefully you'll have as much fun watching the finished product as we will.

We've figured out a solution to our negative warehouse space, and we are going to start shooting the very end of the movie shortly. While this is taking place, I will get back on my chair in front of the computer, and puzzle together everything we have finished as we take the time to finish this thing. It's almost over, I swear.

Thanks for reading, keep supporting us and understand that we want this done as much as you!

-Barry

First Entry

Halloween Contest Update!

Hi, everyone!

We got our first submission for the First Annual Chief Coffeestache Pumpking Carving Contest the other day! I will try to get a picture of it up here and on the myspace page soon. It is an exquisitely breathtaking rendition of a pensive Chief Coffeestache. Very well done, indeed. So the gauntlet has been thrown down. A line in the sand has been drawn. If you want that free DVD you better get cracking on your pumpkins!

Just to remind everyone, the deadline for your pumpkin is Halloween night. Our highly qualified panel of judges will pick the best pumpkin from all entrants and the winner gets a FREE DVD of Lawson: White Heat. Good luck and thanks for reading!

More Dumb Videos

This was a while back, and I was supposed to post it weeks ago. I bet the suspense was killing people.

Status update from Barry

I have been beyond slacking the past month or so. I said I would post some things a while ago, and had planned to have all the shit we have finished edited, but the frustration we've all been through due to the inconsistent shooting schedules has made me relax and not stress too much. The only deadline we have is "when its finished its finished" at this point. They got a good deal of shit done this weekend, and it seems like we are all back on the right track to finish this bad boy up before years end. not a promise, but a genuine and realistic hope on my behalf.

Its gonna be pretty good. Hopefully expectations are still there for us to have something enjoyable for people to watch, because while its not going to be a classic like Harry and the Hendersons, it is still going to be a worthwhile way to waste an hour and a half of your time hopefully.

Ah yah!
Barry

A few updates

Hello, friends!

Saturday night saw us back on track finishing a scene in Whitman. Overall I think it came out really well especially with a few "on-the-fly" additions that were made to the scene. I feel like we might need a few more shots to tie things together but we might be able to do those elsewhere and be finished with our Whitman location finally. Egan was on fire as the Chief. He's such a loud, vulgar character. And thanks to Bill for coming out again. His portrayal of Officer Flannigan will warm many hearts.

In other news, we have a new video of some outtakes and bloopers. Here it is:





Thanks for reading and remember that we are taking submissions for the First Annual Chief Coffeestache Jackolantern Competition all month long (see the post below for more details).

CONTEST!

Hi there, friends!

We are having a contest during October and YOU could win a most excellent prize! Here's the deal:

The other day, as I carved my annual Halloween pumpkin into the likeness of Charles Bronson, I realized that I really wanted to make a Chief Coffeestache jackolantern, too. If any of you share my dream (or at least want to win a cool prize), then that's the challenge! All you have to do is make a Chief Coffeestache pumpkin and send us a picture of it. Our esteemed judging panel will vote for their favorite and the winner gets a free DVD of LAWSON: WHITE HEAT when it is released!

So here are the rules again:
1) make the best jackolantern of Chief Coffeestache
2) send us a picture of it
3) win a DVD of LAWSON: WHITE HEAT

The deadline for your submission is Halloween night! So get the kids in the car and head on down to the pumpkin patch!

And here's the pumpkin that started it all:




My Charlie Bronson Gourd

The Classy Interview

Here is a short interview with Jesse Ali Cintron who plays Scott Balls. He clocked out of work today so we could get the shots we needed. Thanks, man!

Bit by Bit

Hey, everybody!

We've slowly but surely been getting back on track. We shot a new teaser trailer recently and just need to finish up editing it and then we will unveil it to the internet and possibly at a festival in North Dakota. Other than that we've been getting a lot of the montage footage and b-roll stuff done.

Today we were able to get access to a truck trailer and so we got some good footage of a few gang members (Stefan Kersey, Scott Balls, and Henchman #7) loading boxes of White Heat into the truck. It looks pretty good and I think it will fit in nicely. We also filmed a brief interview with Jesse about the fact that not only did we not pay him for his time, but we also technically cost him money since he had to leave work for half an hour or so to get the shots. He's a real trooper. Hopefully we can get that interview up here, too.

Every little step we take forward is bringing us closer to the end of this project and I can't wait to see the finished product. And this brings us to the broken record you always seem to hear from us: we still need a warehouse space. If you know of anybody who is in-the-know on how to get a large space cheap (or free) please get in touch with us.

We have a meeting tonight where we plan to schedule out the rest of the shoot and hopefully get underway on wrapping up this movie! Should be fun. More updates to come as we figure more out. We're a bit disorganized at the moment but I feel we are still on the right track and on pace to finish soon. Lawson will be busting bad dudes soon!

Thanks for reading!

-Tommy

ehhh...

So it's yesterday afternoon. Tommy and I are out, trying to film the first thing in weeks. (possibly the first thing we've tried to shoot in a month and a half) We're talking for a bit over a ton of ideas that we can accomplish in his basement, but I realize as we are having this conversation that it is getting close to sunset, and we can walk, fairly quickly to a beach and some parking lots that will have very cool sunset shots of the city. The walk takes longer than we hoped, and we cant really shoot the sunset shots that we had planned. Along the way, we spied a bunch of places where a well placed camera could get a pleasant shot for us to use in teasers or random montage places.

As the sun is completely disappearing, we walk back to this railroad bridge, which links the dorchester port to the mainland of dorchester. When we passed earlier, Tommy said "this would make a cool shot, lawson looking over the trains" As I'm setting up the camera and getting light levels a train passes. Bill and Alicia come by to watch us work and lend moral support. I am set up and waiting for this simple B roll shot when I hear these guys start saying "ennnhhh, here we go" and I assume the car I see in my peripheral vision is Kyle, who was supposed to meet us here and drive us back to Tommy's where we are planning on shooting more scenes. Even as this car pulls up, perpendicular to us, with flashing lights, I am thinking "where did kyle get flashing lights?"

These two cops hop out of the car, and point flashlights in out eyes. I say "hey, how's it going?" they ask what we are doing, and tommy says "we're filming a movie" They say "No, you're not" They say "In this day and age, you should know better." We acquiesce. We say "oh?" Tommy says, "well, we could leave.... or..." the say "yeah" As I'm packing, the train passes. We walk to Alicia's, and try to convince her mom that we got arrested and she came and bailed us out. It doesnt work.

Update

Hey, everybody. There isn't much to report on right now, but I wanted to disperse the crickets before they began chirping insessantly. The movie has been on hiatus for the past month or so while we recharge our batteries, but no need to worry. We are starting up again shortly. We will dust off the guns, badges, and mustaches and get back to finishing this movie.

The warehouse situation remains as our biggest obstacle at the moment. There are ways to work around it creatively but situations like this prove the benefit of having cash while trying make a movie turn out the way that you want to see it. To have a budget greater than pocket change seems like such an amazing luxury to have and, although I don't want to speak negatively, it is disheartening to see that some of the worst movies have had more money put into them than I may ever see in my life. It's dissapointing when Larry the Cable Guy can make a movie with explosions, stunt men, and Danny Trejo and we can't even get an empty warehouse.

We have plenty on our plate to take on, though, as we march forward to the conclusion of our Lawson adventure. There is still a lot of montage footage to be done and some very funny short scenes still need to be shot. And then the epic finale. And then the sequels.

The myspace page (myspace.com/lawsonwhiteheat) has been touched up a little, too. Let us know if you like the changes or not if you get a chance. We also have a few friends working on movie posters, which are looking very sexy. They will be posted here, the myspace page, and everywhere else we can reach once they are finished.

We are all looking forward to finishing the movie and then watching it with everybody. It's going to be a lot of fun, so we hope to see you at the premiere!

Thanks for reading!

-Tommy

guys!

For the past month I said I'd put up some new bloopers, or SOMETHING on here, but I have been pre occupied with other shit.... Like eating food, moving, buying a car, and generally being a moron.

I am almost moved into the place, and then I will be able to get back to business and do some more shit on the movie. It doesn't really matter anyways, because we are stuck at a standstill YET AGAIN. No worries, we are very close to the end, we just have to figure out another way to get over another stupid bump in the road.

Clips this week hopefully.

Hey Yo!

I'm just giving a little update here on what's going on. The movie is coming along pretty good. Got a lot of shit done in the past month, but we still aren't at the end. What's good though is we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, as opposed to a month ago when we were stalled and couldn't see shit.

I've been slowly but surely getting back into editing the shit. I have one of the scenes we've done like 90 percent done. I need to add a lot of sound and stuff to it, but as it is right now, it looks pretty good. I am also about halfway through another one. I haven't been able to pump through the stuff like before, but I have been extremely busy/burned out recently so cut me some slack here.

We are taking the next two weeks off to recharge our batteries. I know I need it, although I can't speak for everybody else.

Either way, when we start back up, we have 4 things to take care of that we could theoretically do in a weekend, and then we have one more huge part to do. Either way, it's SOOOOO close to being finished as far as shooting goes. We are almost there so all three people that read this, bear with us here.

Also, I still gotta throw some new bloopers or something on here, just so there is SOMETHING to put up.

We're Making Progress

Hi, everybody. We've all been asked the same question lately: "Are you guys done yet?" The answer to that is: "No, but it will be worth the wait." We have all been putting alot of hard work into this movie and for us it will be a great accomplishment to finally have an opportunity to show it to all of you. The past few weeks have seen alot of progress. Some great scenes are being put together and I feel that every time we film something new we get a little better at what we are trying to do.

On Saturday we filmed some TV news footage/press conference stuff with Chief Coffeestache. It was very fun to do and hopefully comes across that way in the movie. We also shot a "special effects masterpiece" on Saturday followed by a "stunt spectacular" on Sunday. Very fun weekend indeed. You'll have to see the movie to find out more about those though!

If you are on myspace we have been adding some pictures to the page periodically over the past couple of days (like the two Barry posted below), so go check that out: http://www.myspace.com/lawsonwhiteheat

If you aren't on myspace and you can't see the pictures then fear not. Here are a few of them to whet your appetite for the upcoming movie:










We hope you like them and hope you like the movie even more. It will be alot of fun when it's all done. Thanks for showing interest in the movie, being patient while we finish it, and for reading the blog!

-Tommy

*This just in*: Apparently Lawson has a posse!

messing around

Two pictures I messed with in iphoto and came up with this shit. I have a few more to post, I just have to clean out my flash drive.

HAHAAAA!

Update

SUPPOSEDLY getting in the warehouse space this weekend to do some shit. We will see.

I have a shit load of footage to start editing again, which I am VERY excited about. I have 3 scenes to cut up and piece together and see how we did on. I am pretty confident we have some good shit in there.

Browsed the photos the other night from the photo shoot. Longest picture slide show in history, but there are some beauties in there.

When I am editing the footage, I will probably piece together another set of bloopers so we have more clips to show, and you can see some funny mess ups. We finally did something with Leeann, who replaced our old female in the movie. She was awesome, and was (as we all agreed), a much better actor than any of us, and made it look easy.

Either way, finally making progress on the thing again makes me so excited. This is gonna be pretty entertaining (knock on wood) once everything is finished. Hopefully people will enjoy it as much as we will.

Effects Test

I just learned how to do this today using a tutorial from the cool guys at detonationfilms.com

Either way, I realize after the fact that I should have put a before and after on the clip with and without the music, flares, and sound effects, but whatever. Either way, this is just a ten second sampler or so of what the movie will hopefully be like effects wise. AWESOME!

Also, I realize the machine gun in the background has nothing yet, but it will, dont worry.

Barry

Saturday highlights

just a couple little things from the two shoots over the weekend.

We had a very productive reshoot, correcting a bunch of mistakes I made on the first run through of the scene several months ago. The whole thing looks much more coherent and natural thanks in part to Barry's eye and a bunch of people who didnt mind waking up early and being background actors.

Afterwards, we fed an injured sparrow donuts for like twenty minutes, Kyle went to work, and the rest of us went to grab lunch back in dorchester. It was a pretty typical time at Gerard's, with us musing over highlights from the day's shoot, a couple worries about the upcoming night shoot, and talking way too much about the police academy movies, mexican wrestling, and debating the merits of fart jokes. On the way out Tommy spotted Kevin McBride, a local boxer who defeated Mike Tyson a couple years ago, sitting by the door, playing Keno. We spent 2-3 minutes debating whether to ask him to be a generic bad guy in a fight with lawson in the weeks to come. We ended up just walking by him and saying "hey, how's it goin?" Then we all split up to crash/recharge for a couple hours.

At dusk, we showed up at the location, spent some time setting up shots, figuring out the schedule and waiting for actors. The shoot went pretty smoothly, other than a couple problems finding the best lighting, and some of our effects not working as well on set as they had throughout testing. At one point, while we were shooting this very intense speech by the chief, behind this warehouse, somewhat in the middle of nowhere, at about 11pm, the real cops drive through, but dont even give us a second glance. Later, after a few hours, we see the flashing lights at the end of a very long driveway, and start to worry that perhaps now, after all this time, they are coming to yell at us. To tell us to wrap it up and go home. Paranoia sets in. So we all walk over to the front of the building, just to chat and diffuse any situation that's about to happen. We talk to a very cool cop, who tells us they were just arresting some drunk off the street, and as long as someone doesnt call in to complain, he wasn't worried about us. We didnt finish everything we'd hoped that night, because our plan going in was fairly ambitious, but we got a ton of great footage, and though it was a long night (I think we got back to Boston around 4am), I think we all had fun.

thanks to Doug, Abdi and Debruyn for waking up too early to not get paid.
and thanks to Bill, Al, Eli, Gomer, and A.D. for staying up too late to not be partying.

LAWSON: the ending begins
-johnk

update from today so far

we had a few extras show up and give us a hand this morning which was awesome. overall a pretty good shoot this morning, although we have to go back tomorrow to get one more set of line recorded due to a mistake on my behalf, but thankfully we wont need the extras, and we wont need to be there as early as we were today.

this is a quick bogus commercial we did today after Egan asked that I buy him some Summers Eve for a drink, and I did just that. Very stupid, very us.

Smell that? . . . It's Excitement!

Hi, everybody! We are getting ready to start filming our epic final scene. We have all been keeping busy getting things ready and I think we're all a little nervous but very excited to finally get going on this scene (which will be awesome if all goes as planned). Egan put together a blood pump that we will hopefully be putting to use on Saturday at our warehouse location. Barry and John have been looking into after effects and stuff like that which could be very cool additions to the movie. I've been working on some music. Kyle found a "Chronicle" themed ice cream. Excitement is in the air!

So, any of you out there who feel like participating in what will be a very fun movie, let us know because we will be filming the finale over the next few weekends.

"Blood and Gore and So Much More" will be on the menu at the White Heat diner, so stop by for a visit. You can have Chronicle Crunch for dessert.

Thanks for reading
-Tommy

YOUTUBE Contest

Our video didn't make the cut. If you go watch all the videos that did, maybe it will be mind boggling to other people as well why we didn't. Ours is WAY better than half the shit that made it. Not being a bitter Barry for not even making it into the competition, the other videos legitimately suck, with the exception being:



That was AWESOME!

Hi, everybody! We are finally getting started on the big finale for the movie. If anybody in the Boston area wants to play a cop on Saturday, June 16 we could really use the help. Filming will be in downtown Boston from 7am - noon and then again later in the day 7pm - (possibly) midnight in Whitman. Ideally, we would like the same people at both shoots for consistancy reasons. It will be a long day that will consist of milling about on camera and there will be a lot of down time but it is for a good cause. And you also get a chance to be killed in an epic shootout near the movie's climax (during the night shoot).

Get in touch with any of us if you are interested in being a part of the movie!

-The cast and crew of Lawson:White Heat

The Vigilante

There is a sketch comedy contest on youtube coming up (deadline to submit for round 1 is today), and we decided we'd whip a quick thing together. There is a 3 minute time limit, and all videos will be judged and then POSSIBLY entered into the contest. IF we wind up making it, make sure you get your friends, your family, and everybody you know to vote for us if you think this skit is half decent. Even if you don't, please vote for it anyways if it is accepted. There will be more details as to whether or not this makes it in the coming week. Thanks for the continued support on LAWSON, and its finally getting back on track.

Ah yah

New pics coming soon, and a possible glimpse at a fund raising trailer I am going to work on. Sorry for the shortness of news and all that jazz in recent memory, but I have a good feeling that its going to pick up shortly and we are finally going to be able to finish this thing. Keep your fingers crossed and all that.

Thanks for all the support

HELP LAWSON SAVE THE WORLD

We are trying to get the word out further about Lawson: White Heat. We are trying our best to overcome our set backs, move forward and finish the movie. Though, we need your help! We need you, to help Lawson Save the World! If you aren't already friends with Lawson on myspace, please, add him. Lawson: White Heat If you know anyone who might be interested in Lawson, have them add Lawson. Spread the word of Lawson, the more people that know of Lawson and have Lawson on their friends, the more the word will get out. We also have a running blog for the movie itself, Lawson Production Blog Check it out, there is some fun behind the scenes stuff, a teaser trailer, and a couple blooper reels on there and on the Lawson White Heat Youtube Channel. Finally, Evil 1985 will be launching our website around July 1st. We will be giving more information as this date comes closer, but it will include Everything Evil1985, including more information about Lawson, as well as, our other productions in the works. We ask you...Are you willing to, Help Lawson Save the World?

I'm Stupid

*WARNING* This post might be really boring but I felt like sharing my stupidity with the world.

Greetings again from the Lawson Laboratory!

As some of you may know, I have been trying out various methods of getting blood to spray for the big shootout at the end of the movie. One idea that I've been tossing around from the beginning has been to have a pull string with a button tied onto the end burst a balloon/condom/bag full of blood. The bag would be placed under an actor's shirt and the string would be pulled through a small hole in the shirt, looking like a squib as it bursts. Sounds easy enough, and it is now that I've stopped being an idiot.

Previously, I kept trying to thread string through the balloon with a needle. Obviously this puts a hole in the balloon. I spent so much time trying find ways to get the string through and plug the hole at the same time that it never occurred to me that I didn't need to puncture the balloon in the first place. I could put the button-end of the string into the balloon of blood and then tie it off.

After months of toying with several different ideas, this simple solution presented itself as I was lying in bed this morning.

I am an idiot.

So I am going to go back to the lab and try this out. It should work. I'll keep you updated.

Thanks for reading!

-Idiot


PS: I just tried it out. It works. Can't wait to see this movie when it's finished! Also, we will still be using the air pump but the more blood effects in the movie the better. And as Barry says, "variety is the spice of life."

Ha....

So, news on the Lawson front. We are slowly catching up on some of the things we needed to get done for the majority of the movie. Unfortunately however, our warehouse fell through and we are back to square one on the ending.

Thankfully, we got the Chinatown scene done, and I am going to talk to one of the girls about finally getting to do an important scene at her house.

I have a bunch of new still shots from some of the more recent things we've done, and I will try to get them up soon.

To tide people over, I am going to post this rediculous video we did for my lighting class. Extra thanks to Egan, Tommy, and John for the help.

Trust me, its rediculous.

update coming

I will have an update probably tomorrow of whats been going on, and maybe a quick little video highlighting some recent shit.

WINNER!

So the teaser was shown tonight at the AiME awards show at the Brattle Theatre. We all headed there to see the trailer on the big screen, and to hear the reactions from people who've never seen anything about the movie.

First off, it was shocking to me that it got nominated to begin with. How cool was that? Moving on, there was some stiff competition for the category, and ours was the second one shown.

As soon as it started, as Tommy said, people "got it" right away with the opening line and the piles of coke. When he jumps through the table and blows people away, it got a pretty damn good response, and people seemed genuinely impressed/enthused by the trailer.

After it finished, it got legitimate cheers and lots of clapping, not just "oh, thats my friends movie so ill clap for it", but legit applause which was pretty damn awesome. This is a huge boost of confidence for me personally, and I am sure for others. One of our concerns is whether or not this is going to be a universally funny movie, or just an inside joke laugh riot. I truly believe though, its going to find an audience and be funny to anybody who can take a joke.

Anyhow, after the remaining trailers were shown, they come out to announce the winner. I am doubting ours will win, when of course they call my name. No sooner than they finish saying my name I'm mouthing "oh shit" and am already halfway on to the stage. I wanted to laugh out loud that it won but instead grabbed the mic and said what anybody who didn't think they'd win would say....

Thanks.

Then I got off the stage and was still laughing and in shock that it won. So good. We are officially an award winning group, and the movie still isn't finished. Hopefully people will come out in droves to see the finished product when its done. Next year, the whole thing will be submitted and MAYBE it'll win more shit.

Crazy!

Back on track

We were finally able to shoot something this weekend, as we did the Chinatown thing with a posse of Asians (thank you for everyone who came out and helped). We need to go back and get some establishing shots when we have the day for that, but overall I think it went okay. I am interested in seeing how it will cut together, because this was one of those extremely short sequences, but we had no legitimate dialogue planned before the shoot. So it was mostly adlibbed, and we had Egan telling us what we said before so we could keep it consistent.

Secondly, we got a new girl to replace the old one, which is awesome, because now we can head to our friend Maggies place and finally do an important scene at Badis place.

We should be hearing about the warehouse shortly too, since a specific deadline has passed that we have been waiting for. We will see how that all works out as its going to be a tough sequence to shoot. It could be friggin awesome though.

So, soon enough, we will be back in the full swing of things, we will get some merchandise out there, and hopefully we will be wrapping up in a little bit. This is where its going to get even harder than before since we need to have so many people on set for certain shots, but its going to be pretty damn fun.

Keep checking back for more

Teaser on the "Big Screen"

I submitted the teaser to my schools video festival a couple weeks ago. I had no real expectations that it would be accepted, due to how rediculous it is, and how serious some of the people at school are. Needless to say, the nominations came out today, and the White Heat teaser is up for best PSA/Trailer.

So if you have nothing to do next Thursday night, head to the Brattle Theatre to catch it on the big screen, and be sure to cheer when the 30 seconds of glory are over. So at least I won't be the only one there with a boner when its on the big screen.

The Waiting Game

Being at the mercy of others, when you're so excited, and so close to being finished with something completely sucks. We are patiently waiting to get into the ware house, so we can get the finale finished(which if all goes as planned is going to be pretty friggen good).

We are looking for a new lead female so we can shoot the House scene, reshoot the scene with the Mustang, and a couple of other important scenes.

Next Saturday, hopefully we will finally be able to get our Chinatown shoot done, and once we get POLICE T-shirts, and I round up the extras, we can reshoot the Crime Scene. I take responsibility for that not being done yet, but I need to make sure we have enough people, and enough clothing for them to wear.

This making movies shit, without a budget, without a legitimate shooting schedule, and without a crew (outside of us), is incredibly hard. Hopefully our next project to be determined after this, goes a lot smoother.

There WILL BE a sequel to this no doubt, but I don't think it will be the next thing we work on, as taking a break from the Lawson world will do us all a lot of good, even if it is just a few shorts things to work on in between while the story is fleshed out.

For those still waiting however, be patient, White Heat will be worth the wait, and there are plenty of ideas we have for screening the movie and promoting it, so bear with us as the tedious process of making the damn thing hopefully comes to an end shortly.

well then

We had a great meeting this week, where Tommy laid out his vision for a bunch of stunts and gags during the climax of the movie. We spent 2-3 hours figuring out the floorplan and got a rough idea of how many props and extras we will need.

In the past couple weeks we've had some fairly annoying setbacks, including cancelling full scene shoot that had been scheduled two weeks in advance. Then we had plans to get some outdoor covereage this past weekend, and a backup plan for other stuff to do in the snow if it snowed. Of course it snowed then sleeted then rained eliminating any sort of shooting.

We were able to get a bunch of random linking footage done, some inserts and general b-roll; so this month hasn't been a total wash. (Barry has been editing the footage together as we've been working, so we generally know if things worked in a scene or if we forgot anything within a couple weeks of shooting)

Scheduling can be such a pain, but really all that stands between us and finishing filming is organizing a couple more chunks of time and money. If anyone out there would like to contribute either their time to be an extra in the three remaining major scenes or give us some cash to buy a few remaining supplies, feel free to send an email to lawsonwhiteheat@gmail.com, (we do take bags of cash with dollar signs on them, celebrity cameos are welcome and product placement is negotiable)

and as always, join the facebook club
and become lawson's friend on myspace
thanks for waiting, we'll be done uhm,
probably before the new gnr cd comes out.
-johnk

Frustrating

So, we had a pretty important scene planned for last night. One we've been waiting to do for probably two months, but due to schedules and location concerns, we were unable to get it done. So, Koziol, myself, Abdi, and some extras were all set and ready to do the scene, but the girl in the scene never got back in touch after numerous tries. It is yet another wrench in the plans and of course a minor set back in the grand scheme of things, but I, like everybody else, just wants to get this damn movie finished and finally show it to everybody we've been telling about it.

The positive note is that the weather is nice out today for the first time in a while, so we will be able to do some out door stuff today and see how that goes.

SOB Coffestache

The Fuck Tally

I went through the edited footage again, and in the 24 minutes or so of video, there are a whopping 97 uses of the F-bomb. The majority of them come from Chief Coffeestache, with RapMaster Reese coming in second place. There is no doubt we'd have an R rating if this was a real theatrical movie. With the ending, if its as good as we want, possibly an NC-17. Who knows. We just dont have boobs in the movie.

By going over what still needs to be shot and trying to estimate timing of each scene and things like that, I still believe the movie is going to hit the hour mark, and go over by a few minutes too. Maybe if we are lucky it will be 70 minutes or so, which for a group of inexperienced assholes, thats pretty damn good.

Ah yah

Good Weekend

We wound up shooting a really funny scene last night and this afternoon. I already edited it and have showed it to Tommy in its 99% completed form. It is very funny, especially considering it was thought of yesterday. I will possibly grab some still shots from it this week and maybe throw it online. Not sure though because I dont want to spoil anything. Maybe I can find one part to use.

Anyhow, we are slowly getting back on track and getting the coverage we need until we get the go ahead on the warehouse scene. Since the weather is finally not deathly cold too, we can head back and reshoot an important scene we need. It is coming along quite nicely, and shortly I will get in touch with my friend Tina about the photo shoot for the posters.

This has been a great learning experience, and now we know that the entire process, if we want it to be pretty good, takes time, effort, and a lot of patience if you want a quality piece of work. (quality as in how it looks, content is up to the viewer. you will all love it though if you like our sense of humor)

Blood Test

DOUCHEBAG...

http://coffeelaughs.ytmnd.com/


how kyle has been spending his day off...

Can't Duck the White Heat

Our friend Tereck at work, has a studio with a friend of his. They produce rap and hip hop and are currently working on an album. Abdi (Badi) has been on top of things as far as trying to make connections with anybody who might be willing and able to contribute music for the movie.

For the past month and a half, maybe two months. We've been hearing from Tereck about how the song is coming out, and finally on Saturday, it was available to be heard for us. We didn't wind up getting a copy until tonight at work, and on the ride home we listened to the song over and over.

So we have a legitimate rap song, produced specifically for the movie, with White Heat being said numerous times throughout the song, which in my opinion is pretty damn cool! Not only do we have the blessing of Ravage to possibly use some more of their shit, but now we have a real rap song. Abdi is also trying to finagle a song from another guy he knows.

This thing is coming along pretty sweet if I could say so myself, and many thanks to Tereck and his friend Slim, who made the song for us. Also, nice work on Abdis behalf for making connections and hooking up the movie. Sweet!

Chief Coffee-laughs

Back to the Lawson

This weekend, we are finally getting back to the grind and working on the movie. This Wednesday is a meeting where we are figuring out exactly what needs to be finished, so we can finally get back to shooting the movie.

The weather has been a real drag for everybody, and I suppose the possibility of a nice snowstorm in the next couple of days isnt going to bode too well for the upcoming weekend. No more excuses however, we have to finish this fucking movie.

I am tired of sitting on all this great footage and I am sure everybody else is as anxious to see the finished product as we all are. Trust me, the wait will (possibly) be worth it, depending on your opinion of rediculous action/comedy movies with tons of vulgarity, tons of blood, and tons of naked chicks!

All of that is in the movie, minus the naked chicks. We dont know many chicks who will be in the movie in their clothes, nevermind out of them. HA!

Anyhow, be on the lookout this week for hopefully another update of something relevant.

Ah yah

Effects Tests

Greetings once again from the Lawson Labs!

Last night John, Beavis, and I did some tests with the air pump to see how our blood spray will look on camera. Overall I am very happy with the results. It took a couple of tries with a few variations but we finally got a great, over the top spray of blood. The hardest factor to negotiate is the amount of blood. If there is too little blood in the hose, nothing comes out. But as some of the tests proved, too much blood sprays out for a hell of a long tme. It was hilarious.

We also tested out a modified sport top bottle that will create pulsating bursts of blood from an amputated stump. I think it will work really well.

John was taping the tests and hopefully will be able to make a short video out of the footage and have it on here pretty soon. Until then, here is a picture of my t shirt after the first successful test of the air pump.



Thanks for reading!

-Tommy

The Warehouse

Hi, everybody. Today, as Barry mentioned below, we checked out a warehouse where we will be able to shoot the final sequence in the movie. Beggars can't be choosers in a situation like this so I am grateful that we have been offered the place to use. It is smaller than what would be ideal in my opinion, but as I just said, I am in no position to look a gift horse in the mouth. I think with creative camera work and good editing we can turn the space into a seemingly larger area. It will be a good challenge.

I am excited that we have a space to work in. I am excited that the movie is almost ready to hit the last stretch of filming. And I am excited about the oncoming media blitz. We all have grand ideas of papering the city with ads and teaser info and such. But the recent Aqua Teen ad campaign/terror threat that hit Boston the other day really got us thinking . . . probably in the wrong direction. So, if you happen to be riding the T and you spot a man in a fabric muscle suit disarming bombs, don't be scared! It's just Lawson saving the lives of the innocent! He's making the world a safer place for you and yours. And if you're lucky, after he dismantles the device, he will give you a flyer to a screening of Lawson: White Heat! What a hero.

Maybe all train cars should have this:


Speaking of bad ideas, our production company (Evil 1985) may have a future project lined up. Our very own John Koziol will risk his health in a $10,000 bet to rapidly lose weight and then gain 200 lbs! We will document the entire process. We'll see how good an idea this seems later, but as of right now it's a terrible and great idea.

We wish John the best of luck.

Lawson rarely speaks, but when he does it is usually to order more french fries for John Koziol.

Thanks for reading.
-Tommy

Slow goings

People went and looked at one of the warehouse spaces today. I showed up a few minutes late and missed the inside, but they said it looks good and thats good to me. I just want to get this thing finished to be honest.

We havent been keeping up in the past three weeks for whatever reason, but hopefully this is the spark plug we've needed to get our asses back on track.

There isnt really too much left to do, outside of the ending, Badis house, some coverage/montage shit, and a reshoot of something that came out poorly, but we just havent done anything. Maybe I will be able to throw together another set of bloopers, or something to that extent to get something out there since its been so slow. Who knows.

Cant wait to finish, and start doing something else

update

So, we took last weekend off, which I will be quite honest, was awesome. I think we all might have needed a break to recharge our batteries a bit.

We dont necessarily have THAT much left to shoot for the movie. There is a small scene in Chinatown, Badis house, and we are reshooting a Crime Investigation scene because what we shot isn't the best it could be.

Other than those, we obviously have the ending to shoot. The ending of the movie is going to be a HUGE undertaking for us. We are waiting for word about the possible warehouse/building we may have to work in. If we get it, its going to take so much pressure off of all of us, and we will know we are coming in on the home stretch for the movie. The ending sequence is a good chunk of the movie, as everybody knows we are attempting to have one of those amazing (or as amazing as we can do with no money) gun fights with buckets of blood, and a body count full of gruesome deaths. Hopefully, we will be able to bang that out in a few weeks once the location is secured.

Other than that, we have small shit, like establishing shots and things like that to get, which wont take very long, but we have procrastinated in getting because of that reason. It is all mostly little connecting footage and things like that, which in theory we could get on any given day, with the right people around.

So the hope is still that the movie will be all set for a spring release. Once "principal photography" (to try and sound professionaly) is finished, I will finish editing the movie, while Tommy and John work on the score and music, which I've heard some stuff and I think its pretty cool. Either way, it is coming along, I just wish we had a budget and a legitimate shooting schedule from the get go so we could have finished already. Those are the breaks when you're doing your first movie with no budget, and a guerrilla mindset.

Look for movie posters, stickers, and all that other promotional shit to pop up at some point too. Once we do our photo shoot, all bets are off and the hype machine will be in first gear.

Riveting

myspace and other shit

Go to Myspace.com/lawsonwhiteheat and add us as a friend.

RapMaster Reese also has a page. Trying to get some silly promotional stuff going for the movie, so in theory we are all going to have myspace pages for our characters. myspace.com/rapmasterreese.

Also, we've begun the shitty process of reshoots for certain scenes. Sometimes things either dont look great, the sound sucks, or it just wont edit together well so you have to go back and start from scratch. While the process isnt fun, its a necessary part of the movie making ordeal we got going. Too bad it finally bit us in the ass that winter weather is actually here. We will be freezing our nuts off from now on. Bogus

Update

So last night, we had our police station shoot. We did a bunch of different things, including the big interrogation scene. I think everything went pretty good, and it was a pretty fun time being in a professional office building, acting like jackasses. Anyhow, I know it is usually just me being paranoid because I don't want to miss anything when we are shooting, but I always get concerned that we missed something. I will find out in a little while when I put all the footage on the computer, but I am pretty sure it will be alright.

here's another. . . I'm bored

Lawson is my Muse

Hi! I was playing around with a program called Comic Life and made what I think are some pretty fun pictures. These aren't official posters or anything like that, but hopefully you get a laugh or two.


Thanks for checking us out! Lawson will always fight the good fight!

-Tommy

Lawson, COLORADO

While vactioning in Colorado, Kyle sent this in from the road.

Update from Barry

While we are still on the hunt for our warehouse for the finale, and preparing to shoot the last couple of smaller scenes, I have been messing around with the footage we already have for the movie. There are over ten tapes so far of raw footage, and I have been browsing through, and editing what I can for the movie. So far, minus the music, and a couple of minute details or extra cover shots we need, there are three scenes to the movie officially finished.

For these three scenes, the running time is just over 11 minutes, and in those 11 minutes, I believe there are 24 instances of the word fuck, but I might be wrong and the number might actually be in the 30s. I dont want to go check again, but needless to say, its a lot. What is great about it is the fact that 99 percent of them are all from "Chief Coffeestache"

Anyhow, I just started working on another 2 scenes that I hope to have rough versions of this weekend. To say that they are coming out good is an understatement.

I am not going to lie or sugar coat anything, because when we started shooting the movie, I think we were all sort of hesitant to think about how good or how bad the movie might turn out. After putting those scenes together, seeing the other raw footage, and making additions to the script, I can honestly say we've got a pretty entertaining, decently made actual movie. No more four minute skits with "in camera editing", this is the real deal, or as real as you can get with a crew consisting of under ten people as the main players, and absolutely no money what so ever.

Whats great too is that people are aware we are making a movie, and might not know what to expect as far as quality, look, style etc. etc. So in all honestly, I am even more excited at the prospect of premiering the movie knowing of at least 1 person who has told me they arent expecting much. So I cant wait to show it and find out what he thinks when its done. Its going to be so good.

Also, I saw the gun shots John worked on in after effects for the trailer, and it looks pretty damn sexy. I hope to get him the trailer footage this weekend so he can put em up on there and we can debut the newly improved, official teaser.

Thanks for reading, and please tell your friends, family, pets, or anyone or anything who might be interested in the progress of a small group of friends busting our asses for the fun of it all.

Barry

Bloopers part 2!

This is for Abdi, who has been wanting new bloopers forever.