The making of Lawson: White Heat from Lawson: White Heat on Vimeo.

Yo!

It's Barry. Been swamped with work and wasting my life getting ready to move. Anyway, the point of the post is to talk about the status of the special features for the DVD which will come out before the Cubs win the world series. I am just about finished all that shit, just haven't put the final touches into them. Gonna be a little more of a wait until I move and get settled but expect the features to be posted in November. Buh guh guh guh!!

Lawson: White Heat on Funny or Die.

With the website back up, we are getting back into the swing of promoting the movie. Last night, we put a scene up on funny or die. We decided that the first scene we would put up is the Police Briefing scene. It's funny, short, and doesn't need a whole lot of context around it.

We plan to put up 3-4+ scenes over the next couple weeks on funny or die. This might be a good way to push people to www.lawsonwhiteheat.com to watch the entire movie. For those who have not seen the facebook posts yet, here is the scene on Funny or Die. If you like it, give it a 'Funny' rating. As for right now, we have 110 views, 80 funny views, with 100% of voters giving it a funny rating...So far, so good:

Police Briefing - watch more funny videos

NFC and More!

Hey everyone. Lawson: White Heat is up to 600+ views on vimeo, we want to thank everyone who has taken the time to check it out, and those who have passed it on to friends. We have a couple new things going on right now! This weekend we are doing the National Film Challenge. For those of you who don't know, Lawson: The Force was done for the National Film Challenge, so, we could end up with another precursor to a feature length movie, hopefully, the feature doesn't take 3 years, this time.

We are doing planning and writing Friday night. Saturday we will scout locations, purchase/create props and shoot that night. Sunday, John will be editing the short for submission. Due to technical issues, Lawson: The Force was never submitted, so hopefully this year, we get it in.

Also, some fun news to spread is that we are in the works of creating Lawson: The Animated series. My friend Joe has been doing animation for years, and loved Lawson, so we put two and two together and here we are. He has been working on concept art for the Chief, here is your first taste. We are working on a story for the series. We are thinking they will be short episodes with some good comedy and a good story. We hope everyone checks them out.

WATCH FREE

LAWSON: WHITE HEAT from Lawson: White Heat on Vimeo.

On vimeo

Check out the complete movie on Vimeo. It is also embedded at lawsonwhiteheat.com

LAWSON: Online

check lawsonwhiteheat.com throughout the weekend as the movie will be streaming online from then on. I will try to get it online Saturday at some point, and have Egan post it up on the main page of the site. Sweet!

Update

Slow goings on the DVD front. It'll be out sometime, hopefully by the end of the summer. We had planned to do a big DVD release screening and party, and for all I know we might still, but in the mean time the movie will be uploaded to vimeo on or around August 14th. We got a nice rejection (actually we received nothing at all) from the Toronto After Dark Film Fest. Thanks for the courtesy of informing us we don't fit into your busy schedule. I thought we had a prayer to get in as our movie is right up their alley. Like many other festivals though, they tend to claim that budget doesn't matter, but they're already becoming a festival that shows shit made for a few million dollars.

Word of advice, don't waste your time and money on film festivals.

DVD Release

Working on a few special features (bloopers, deleted scenes, behind the scenes documentary), and then we will announce the DVD release date. It will most likely be the night of a screening, as we want more people to see it to decide if they wanna buy the DVD. Should be a Friday night again. This time, we also want to have a party the following day to mingle, have fun, and not worry so much about how many people come. Just want to enjoy the fruits. More details coming soon

another deleted scene

Bengie's Bells

For those of you who attended the premiere, the first sight to greet you on the big screen was this message from our sponsor. We're a bunch of corporate sell-outs.

Deleted Scenes

Hello!

Thanks to everybody who turned out for the premiere last Friday. I hope you all had fun. So far I haven't heard a bad review. Except for one guy whose response to my query on his opinion said, and I quote, "Yeah, I didn't mind it." How lukewarm. I would have preferred a heated thrashing of the movie than such a "blah" response. Then again, I guess if someone didn't like it, they probably aren't going to tell us.

So for those of you who did enjoy the movie and are thirsting for further Lawson carnage, we present to you two Deleted Scenes!







There might be a few more deleted scenes coming soon. If not, you'll have to wait for the awesome DVD! Coming Soon!

Thanks for reading and checking out the scenes!

-Tommy

TODAY'S LAWSON FUN FACT: Although we haven't got the final figures yet, it's estimated that more than 300 people turned out for the premiere Lawson: White Heat!

HaHAAAA!!!

We had the big premiere on Friday. Moved from the 217 seater to the 440 seater. When we first heard it was a little overwhelming. The night of, it was awesome! We had over 300 people. Not sure the exact number, but it was a great turn out all things considered. I didn't expect a 440 to be filled, especially for a midnight showing, but 300+ people is pretty damn good.

There were a few parts in the movie where the audio crapped out. It bugged the shit out of me. Literally I was squirming in my chair, wondering what the hell was wrong. I had thought I fixed the majority of the stuff on the computer. It sounded fine on the TV when I prewatched, and in the headphones when I was touching up. Finally when a couple of things that had never given an issue were beyond quiet or unheard at all, I realized I did all I could, just the audio hookup wasn't playing a channel. So anything that had sound balanced on the second channel, would either be really quiet, or in the case of a couple voice over FX, not heard at all. Needless to say, I was really upset about it, but after the first ten or so minutes, it basically balanced itself out and everything went pretty smoothly after that.

Nothing but positive reviews from people. I was pumped, the other guys were pumped, passed out some raffle prizes to all the asians that won. I was in turn able to work on my stand up routine making jokes about it. Good times had by all!

Waiting to get some more screenings going asap. Working on the DVD. Just posted a couple deleted scenes on the lawson youtube page. What else is going on? Film Festivals. Should start hearing from some of them in the coming weeks hopefully. Can't wait to get the stamp of disapproval! Riveting!

ah yah

We were featured in this weeks issue of the weekly dig. Find it on news stands around Boston now! Or you can see it on their website which I don't feel like posting a link to.

The theater shit. I had mentioned previously that I was a little disappointed that our poster isn't up, we got the dreaded asterisk next to the movie title as an unofficial movie and shit, but I realize it's not an issue. I am backtracking also because they've been nothing but cool to us throughout this whole ordeal. I actually think they're surprised with how many tickets have been bought already too. I personally made a few seperate trips and wound up picking up over 40 tickets.

Tommy and myself headed down there today to test the DVD and we were brought into the main theater. We were wondering why as we are supposed to be in the upstairs half sized one. We assume since tickets are selling pretty good, they moved us to the bigger one. No complaints from us! I think they realize that regardless what the content of our movie is, and whether its something theyd normally show or not, its bringing people there and we are obviously REALLY pumped and excited about it. They've been great. I've just been stressed and nervous and looking for things to get antsy about, when really theres nothing to worry about.

We saw the shit on the big screen. I mean REALLY big screen. It's much larger than the upstairs one so I am really psyched about that. In my opinion, it looks even better blown up huge and seemed more legitimate than watching on the big tv at home. I don't know what it was but for some reason it looked more "cinematical" to me. We caught the first ten minutes or so, and I am actually glad because I got to hear an audio issue I need to fix. One of the only redubbed scenes in the movie came out louder than I'd anticipated. My computer at home, it sounds great. It all sounded balanced. At the theater? Egan's voice was out of control. So I should have it touched up as best I can, all things considered.

Cant wait! Cant wait for it to be over and finally get people to see what a lot of hardwork, time, and no money can do for you!

promotion, festivals, shit's hard!

Since we started the movie, we made rough estimates and calculations of what we spent on the movie. Keeping in mind that we used a lot of things already in our possession, made do with home made props and set design and all that shit, we didn't spend a ton of money on the movie at all. Between the group, we said about 2000 dollars. Even that to me is on the high side of what we spent. I'd like to catch peoples reactions and get their opinions on how much the movie cost to produce. I think the majority of people will assume a lot higher than what we spent.

This leads me to the next part of the whole movie making process. Now that it is finished, we need to get the damn thing out there. We want people to see it. Maybe they will laugh, cry, shit their pants, walk out, who knows? But getting them to see it and spreading the word is what we are doing now.

**REVAMPED** The theater told us we'd be able to have a poster up and flyers and all that jazz, but we aren't actually mentioned on their monthly schedule. I was pretty bummed about it, and they put a note up to let people know we are a rental and not an official show they put on. At first I was like why? I know we arent the usual art type fare shown at indie theaters, but we are still the shit! I think mostly I am just nervous and paranoid cause I want everything to go perfect and want the place to fill up. We could probably get more people in there if more people knew we were there to begin with right? Such is life.

It is ridiculous to me when I am looking at everything we did to produce the movie, and now we are spending what seems to be more on promotion, flyers, festival entries, posters, etc. etc. The theatre rental itself cost a quarter of the shooting budget. Festival entry fees range from 30 to 60 bucks a pop. We are paying a bunch of people to sit there and watch the movie and decide if we are good enough to be seen by others. Our movie definitely has a specific crowd that would love it. I truly believe it would be the most important crowd as well, and that is the teenage dude crowd, looking for some raunchy humor, violence, and offensive language. The issue is, our movie will probably be judged by some old fart who is stuck on the "old days" when movies had no sound and the visual impact told a million stories on its own. It sucks. We PAY people to decide the fate of whether or not a couple hundred people in Toronto, Long Island, Pittsburgh or Denver can actually come and see our movie. We should be getting paid because maybe there are huge crowds of people who DO want to see it, but they don't even know about it. I can now see why "independent cinema" is such a tough thing to do. There are so many people, production crews, and indie companies out there trying to grab a piece of the pie, but really, we aren't even given so much as a glimpse as to what we would be eating anyways.

Maybe we should open up shop on a festival of our own. I'd love to be able to be a part of something like that. Then again, my taste, your taste, and anybody else judging would all be different as well. I guess there is no real fair way for your movie to get seen.

Whatever.

I am rambling on. I could go on for a lot longer, but I don't want to bore the two of you reading this. Bottom line, show some support to the local guys busting their asses! I.E. US!

Here we go!

It's almost 1 in the morning right now. Technically its Thursday morning, to me since I havent slept its still Wednesday. So we have 9 days until the big premiere. Its getting down to the nitty gritty. We have done flyering, lots of internet postings and whatever we can to spread the word. The tickets have sold fairly well so far. I think a lot of people are waiting for the night of the show to buy em, but they're over half gone. Not too shabby.

Me personally, I am starting to get really nervous. Getting butterflies in the stomach just waiting and waiting and wondering exactly how it is going to go. I want to be able to sit and hear peoples reactions. Are they going to laugh? Get up and leave? Throw popcorn and tomatoes at us when it is over/ Whatever happens, good or bad, so long as people have SOMETHING to say, and they aren't indifferent will be fine with me. It is just crazy to think that after all this time (original preparations started in June of 2006), almost 3 years later it is finally finished. What a marathon. We've had our ups and downs, disagreements, differences of opinions, fuck ups, things going better than expected, worse than expected, lost locations, lost actors, lost mustaches, audio issues (I suck with audio when I do it), so on and so forth. So many things have gone on and changed since we started. So to say I am nervous and curious about everything should be obvious. I am even sitting here rambling to nobody on the blog just wondering whats gonna happen.

I guess for the next week I will try to post daily updates leading up to and after the premiere. Also be on the lookout on May 20th. We should have something in one of the local papers, the Weekly Dig in the arts and entertainment section. More to come

Hey, friends and fanatics! The big premiere is coming up! Clear your calenders and tell your friends!

LAWSON: WHITE HEAT WORLD PREMIERE!
FRIDAY NIGHT MAY 22nd at MIDNIGHT
COOLIDGE CORNER THEATER
TICKETS ARE $9

All of our hard work will be up there on the big screen for you to see. So come on down and bring friends, enemies, or strangers to have a good time with all of us!

Looking forward to seeing all of you at the end of this long, long road!



Today's Lawson Fun Fact: Lawson: White Heat began shooting in October of 2006. KIDS! WE DID IT!

scene

for those not interested in outside links, just watch it here

new scene and all that shit

Slow goings on the blog. Most things are now being redirected to lawsonwhiteheat.com

Big announcement on the premiere date coming shortly.
Been out promoting with flyers and stuff like that.
Sent out some screeners to numerous people and festivals.
Summer of LAWSON has begun

Lloyd Kaufman from Troma was kind enough to do a cameo in our movie (also look for him in Crank 2). He plays the mayor in the scene and it came out pretty funny.

Feel free to check lawsonwhiteheat​.​com to see the last scene we are releasing before the big premiere. There's still a chance of a full trailer, but I'm not guaranteeing anything.

lawsonwhiteheat.com
lawsonwhiteheat.com
lawsonwhiteheat.com

new scene is up on the news page

Barry

street team

this weekend the Boston Comic Con took place and we took a trip downtown with a stack of mini posters and flyers to promote the recently launched site. The weather sucked, but we got rid of a fair amount of stuff. Egan was on his game as he was getting in front of large groups, cornering them so they'd take the flyers because they want him to move/get the fuck out of the way. I was doing the friendly approach mentioning a locally produced action movie, take a look if you're interested. There were plenty snubs headed my way. The worst of these took place when a cool little ten year old walked by with his dad and completely ignored me. Punk.

Tim and Debruyn were getting in on the action too. We all sucked at it. I had a perfect target and Tim jumped in front of me to do a sweet hand off to some people. What an asshole. Overall it was a lot of fun people watching and handing out what we could. Afterwards we headed to Newbury Comics and dumped off some flyers there and hung em up. Then up to Little Stevies to do a little of the same. At this point we stopped for some dogs at Spikes and I took off (important things going down, seeing as I was pumped to go see Fast and Furious!)

Egan met up with Kyle and the others later that night. I wasn't there for the night cap but more flyering took place, and apparently outside of Coolidge Corner they got a good response as there was a midnight screening of the Lost Boys. Not bad for our first weekend of trying to promote. It'll be better when we have the release date for our premiere screening too. Should have info this week,

In the meantime I have been contacting local press, and a ton of festivals around the country. So hopefully things start looking up from here on out.

Barry

Lawsonwhiteheat.com Launches!!

After months of work, lawsonwhiteheat.com has finally launched. Please check it out, we will be using it to keep everyone updated with upcoming news. While there, you can also follow links to add us on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. You can also sign up for Email Updates and 'Join the Force', our street team to help promote the movie. Please, visit the site, watch the 4 trailers and spread the word about the movie!!

Visit http://www.lawsonwhiteheat.com

Thanks!

Friday night we all got together to watch the first full assembly of the movie on Barry's giant tv. His little dogs jumped all over us, and tried to steal Abdi's food. There were a couple small things missing, some graphics, music and fx things, but the movie is great. It doesn't drag at all, it looks and feels like a real movie, not some school project. Barry cut tighter a couple of scenes so the ending flows better and quicker. The way he cut up the Ravage song near the end fits the scene perfectly. The whole thing is hilarious, we rewatched one scene about five times and all almost choked to death from laughter. It's been so long in production, but we're finally almost done. We're all super pumped about it, and looking forward to the premiere. Hopefully, Barry won't bring his dogs.

Agreed

To follow up on the last post, I completely agree that we have a pretty unique thing on our hands. Not the idea of a good guy vs bad guy action comedy, but just our own style and brand of insensitive and hopefully offensive humor. What we watched didn't have all the fx and stuff but tonight I've already hit it hardcore. You can already notice the difference in one specific large gun fight where I've started the fx process. I also chopped up a ravage song to use during the scene and it works great. It's made the scene ten times better.

Almost done!

Watched the Rough Cut

Hey there, everybody,

We're getting pretty close to the end here in Lawson land. A bunch of us got together last night to view a rough cut of the movie and it didn't disappoint. By this point there were only a few things that I hadn't seen cut together so it was very exciting to see those final pieces of the puzzle take shape. There are a couple things that need to be added and a few places that can be tightened up, but overall this baby is almost ready to blow.

We just need to shoot the other half of the Mayor scene (Kyle has an upcoming story about that trip) and a news reporter bit this weekend. Throw those into the mix and add some special effects and music and you can finally see what the Hell we've been working on for so long. It's crass and offensive, violent and bloody, funny and unique (at least I hope it is all of these). I am well aware that each one of those descriptions is totally subjective and what might be funny or edgy to one person might be incredibly stupid to someone else. This isn't your main stream run of the mill comedy or action. It's off the wall. I think that we have something that is both originally unique and nostalgically familiar. You have seen our cliches before in a hundred cop movies but never quite like this.

So get ready for bullets, blood, and bad language . . . USA! USA! USA!

Thanks for reading!

-Tommy

Today's Lawson Fun Fact: Freddy vs Jason vs Lawson in 2012. Not the movie. The presidential debate.

Oh My!

This is the type of shit that will be left on the cutting room floor....... Maybe on the Super Ultra Fucking Awesome Lawson White Heat Is The Best Movie Ever Edition of the DVD you can see some of this stuff. I will post more pics later tonight if I get around to doing it

Start Licking Your Chops

Hey, friends!

Last night John and I were at Barry's apartment watching Puppy Bowl V. While there we checked out some of the footage he's been editing. I don't want to give away too many details but there is a great fist fight and alot of the final, tense showdown has been put together. I'm looking forward to seeing how that scene turns out. It brings almost all of the main characters together into one room for what is hopefully a suspenseful finale.

We've been checking out the footage as he's been editing and it isn't just exciting to see it coming together but it is also helpful because it lets us see what works and what doesn't. Some of it we will chock up as being a learning experience and we can avoid those mistakes on our next movie. Other things we can fix. For example there is a scene where there are two special effects close ups that were done. One of them looked really good. The other didn't look so good. Since It wouldn't take too long to recreate, John and I reshot the second effect a few weekends ago. Hopeful it fits in seamlessly. We'll see. If it doesn't fit we can either try again or acquire yet another learning experience from this whole process.

Things are looking good and coming together pretty quickly. I'm also thinking we should offer an online service where if you write to us we can have the Chief chew someone out for you in an online video. He talks shit with the best of them. I should probably ask the Chief first before I start a business based on him swearing at random people.

Thanks for reading and get ready for an action-packed extravaganza!

-Tommy

PS: Watching Death Wish 3 on Barry's giant HD TV was a real treat.

TODAY'S LAWSON FUN FACT: Have you noticed how beards are cool again? Lawson totally started that.

Up to Speed

The editing process is going VERY good. Some of the stuff is coming out really good. I'm having a ball with the majority of it. There's some other stuff that let's our rawness show which is a little more tedious and hard, but so far so good. I am loving editing as well because I'm the lucky one that gets to see everything come together and I see the movie first. I'm a jerk like that. I've been able to show the guys some stuff here and there. The ending part (the final two minutes) is finished and got a very good reaction. There's a big fight scene in there too that has also been getting some rave reviews.

As soon as the cuts are finished (soon enough), I will be doing my best with audio/color correction and trying my hand with some music with the other guys. If we compile enough stuff we should have plenty to choose from.

Also, once that's all set we can get a legitimate preview together if we want. We've shown enough teaser footage and people are interested already though so we will see what happens. All I know is it's an exciting time in the White Heat world at the moment. As soon as we have a date for the premiere, I am sure you will get annoyed with how often we post invites and reminders. I am so excited. Red carpet affair!

Barry