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.