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.