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

Looking to 2009

If you go back to Lawson: The Force, the precursor to White Heat, you can say this movie is going on 3 and a half years in the making. Ideally in our perfect world we laid out, this wouldve been done Spring '07 like initial teasers well... teased. Now however, I am still hard at work on everything post production. Recently due to the holidays and my constant sickness since early November, my post production has been less productive than one of the coughs I'm having. I've gotten a fair amount done, but nothing like I'd hoped.

I'm sure the anticipation, and moreso the frustration is killing our four fans, but believe me, it's killing me too. Since I'm editing it all and all than crap I have seen everything from start to finish. There's some scenes I've seen a hundred times by now. To say I'm sick of them is an understatement, but I'm still impressed with them when all is said and done. It's going to be great to see it all in action all together and with a huge group of people to witness what hardwork and no cash can accomplish.

I've held off making bloopers since the one I did ages ago. There are two others out there as well, but my time is better spent with the actual movie. I'll save bloopers for the ending credits so people will stay and sit through them and stock around for what is hopefuly going to be a cool q&a session and after party at the premiere. Soon enough.

I hope to have an update again soon with new still shots, and maybe there will finally be a video tour of my editing shit and maybe a running commentary from me regarding a certain actors behavior on the set of the movie. What kind of jerk demands a trailer, catering, and girls when we have no money?

Keeping Busy

Hello!

While Barry is glued to his editing computers there are still a great many things to be done in the world of Lawson. We have a lot of little things we want to shoot either for the DVD or the big premiere we plan on having. There are some awesome things in the works and if they pan out you are all in for a treat.

I've been trying to get into the swing of recording some more music lately. Most of what I've been doing isn't specifically for the movie but I am using as practice for the Lawson Theme Song, for which I already have a finished demo. I want to polish it up and I have some more terrifically cheesy lyrics to go with it. I'm trying to get a little more skilled with my recording and editing before tackling my final take on the theme.

John, Barry and I have all been interested in taking a crack at scoring the movie but we can't really do that until we can see the scenes and how they are paced. Hopefully we can deliver some quality sounds to go with the already impressive-beyond-our-means sights. Maybe we'll just hire John Williams.

Thanks for reading and keeping up with your Lawson news!

-Tommy

TODAY'S LAWSON FUN FACT: Frank Stallone is jealous of the Lawson Theme Song.

Slow and steady

I've been holed up in my sweet office, staring at the screen, going through footage and just cutting the movie together. I am working on a gun fight/maze at the moment. My hope was to have it finished this weekend but I've got half done. The upside of it is the first half I have done, is chock full of effects and a ton of the post work is done for the gunfire, explosions, blood and all that stuff. These things add so much to the scene it's crazy.

I wish I had vacation time from work because I'd literally take two weeks and just sit there all day and try to get the rest of this done. It's happening at a steady pace, but man am I getting antsy. I need a new comfortable chair as well. That might help me too because I can only sit there for so long before needing a break and watching the celtics or csi or something. I will try to give an editing update every couple days or so and possibly put up new still images and if you two are lucky, maybe a nice ten second snippet of action

Barry

Don't FUCK with the babysitter!

Radio Interview pics

Here are some pics from of us doing the interview with MJ for her radio show last week.

Wrapping

I received word Saturday night that filming on Lawson: White Heat concluded. Shooting is finished, editing is in the process. Triumph is on the horizon. 2 years we all worked on this. From the starting stages sitting in my old apartment living room with scripts doing walk through thinking we would be done filming a movie in a month or two until Saturday when the camera stopped recording for the last time we all have gotten support from family and friends, and a million questions asking when the movie is going to be finished. It is much appreciated to all of those who have been part of the movie, contributed, helped, acted, donated time, locations, or laughed at what clips and scenes have been filmed or shot. It means alot to us and we are anxious to get the finished product out there. We had a radio show interview tonight (see post below for the link) and it was just another aspect of the whole movie making process that was fun.
Note: Saturday's shoot was done in Egan's basement. Egan's house borders a football field, and when when the shoot was done, an announcement was made and the following video was recorded.





I also heard Terry Funk caught wind of the epic undertaking which was finishing shooting the movie. He was so proud and was telling every one "We did it...We did it kids, we did it!" Im sure theres video floating around out there.

FINALLY

Remember the date kids, November 22nd 2008. This is the biggest day for us so far in the world of Lawson. After just over two years, numerous roadblocks, lack of money, plenty of doubters, technical difficulties, headaches, personal doubt and lack of motivation (for me sometimes anyway), and constant nagging from our rabid three fans wanting to know when the hell this thing would be finished, we finally finished shooting last night as mentioned in the two previous posts.

The last scene was fittingly enough the most physically draining, and mentally draining for me personally. It was the climax between the Chief and Reeses issues coming to a head. How it's going to look cut together is anybodies guess but all I know is after it was finished it was very rewarding to know our hardwork has finally paid off. Unfortunately for me though, there was no jubilant celebration for me at all as the physical demands, cold and filthy basement, and general exhaustion had me take a trip up to the good old emergency room to get a double treatment for my good friend Asthma. I've never been in a colder, more dust filled basement than the one below Egans parents house. Black snots and black goo being hacked up, an inhaler that became pretty useless by nights end and more physical activity than my 200 pound, out of shape aging body is accustomed to. No longer am I the slim and sexy, athletic, and "invincible" 16 year old that I wish I could still be. Instead I am an aging, fattening, hypocondriac that is in pain and winded from the simplest tasks like lifting the toilet seat. Needless to say, when this is finished and the "Lawson riches" come into our bank accounts, I will be an absolute dive and demand the Arnold Sfhwarzennegger treatment and insist on having a stunt double, and not worry about doing my own fights or stuntwork.

The rewarding part of it all for me personally, is knowing that myself, John, Tommy, Egan, Kyle, Abdi, and Lianne, and even the smaller roles from Jesse, Rory, and All the Asians were done all by us. We had very little help at all (thanks Ted, Alicia, Mohammed, Maggie etc for locations) and for all of our hard work, this has been an amazing experience in movie making, friendship, and facing adversity. We held out hope, we've persevered through a ton of horse shit, people backing out and numerous other issues to finish something really special to me and to everybody else involved. To all our fans and supporters, and everybody involved, a sincere thank you is in order and a round of applause for all of you. You were all big helps and without you all and your patience and willingness to sacrifice Friday and Saturday nights for a project that seemingly would never end is awesome. Thanks

Whatever happens with the movie, be it ten people see it or ten million see it, love it or hate it, at least you'll all know the hard work and time, and virtually no money that went into it was a fun learning experience for us. For those movies out there that are considered "low budget" while have millions of dollars at their disposal, and even the ones with 5/10,000 dollars. That's 5,000 more dollars than we had when we started. We used the little money we spent (I'd honestly say in two years the movie cost a whopping 2,500 dollars total give or take). So all people saying you need a ton of cash to make a movie, eat my ass. You need fun people who have sort of an idea how to do stuff, and a crew of people who want to have fun doing it.

In the famous words of RapMaster Reese

"suck my fuckin dick yo!"

Take that, Axl!

Hello, friends!

As John said, we shot the last scene we needed to do yesterday. I was unfortunately at work for most of it, so I can't give you too many first hand details. But if it went as well as the rehearsals from the morning, then it is going to be a really good movie fight.

Not only is it very exciting that we have no more scenes to shoot (barring any additions or reshoots we deem necessary), we finished one day prior to the release of Chinese Democracy. The jokes and comparisons have been made over the past couple of years since our movie has been taking forever. But whatever. We at least finished shooting before Chinese Democracy came out. And since that mythic monster actually came out, it should be reassuring to you, the Lawson-fan, that our movie will be ready for a viewing someday soon!

In other news, at 11:00 o'clock tonight some of us will be interviewed on a web radio show. Check it out live at this site:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/triadstudios

or check out MJ's myspace page where the shows are posted:

http://www.myspace.com/triadstudiospresents_mj

I'm sure we'll cover any number of topics about our movie and the show may accept call-in questions (though I'm not 100% sure of that), so get your questions ready. We want to hear from you guys. Or at least listen and be there in spirit. It should be fun.

Thanks for reading and please check us out tonight on MJ's radio show.

-Tommy

Today's Lawson Fun Fact: Lawson will get his free Dr. Pepper today. Thanks, Axl!

shooting, done

About four or five hours ago we finished shooting the last scene for the movie. We're all super excited, happy, dirty, proud and tired.

Barry showed us all another scene that he just finished editing. (he posted a screen grab from it last weekend) Its truly fantastic. Moves the story along nicely and is full of hilarious vulgarity.

In between us all choking to death in the horribly dusty Egan family basement we watched a video we made years ago. It was entertaining but pretty sloppy. Since we made that movie we've all gotten older and fatter, but we still have the same goofy sense of humor. (and a little more talent) Lawson: White Heat is going to be a full length, well done version of those fun movies we used to make in one night, quickly and with in camera edits 5, 7 or 10 years ago. And its going to be great!
-johnk

Picture

I thought this would be a funny one to post while I am editing. I found it about ten seconds ago and laughed at it.

Click to enlarge it

Dumb Video

So as some of you may or may not know... Actually you all know because the people who read this are the people I speak to anyways. After the movie is done, I am going to be working on a bunch of sketches, skits, dumb shit, and dubbing of old UWA matches. The idea is to have a "variety web tv show" with a wrestling federation as the main focal point. The beauty is we never have to do anything physical because of the old footage we have, and all of the new stuff will be done in a round about way. Should be tons of fun!

Here is a second teaser for the show

some news

We were invited to be guests on an Internet radio show to plug the movie and chat and crap. Once details are solidified I will post the info and the three fans we have can tune in and chat.

We took the weekend to plan our final shoot. This is our first ever attempt at a movie fight. Some of us have experience fake fighting and choreographing fights from our younger UWA days so we have an idea of what we are doing. I can't tell if this will be easier or harder for a few reasons. Before it was literally one camera and one chance to do everything in front of a live crowd. Now we can re set stuff that doesn't work the first time and do multi angle gimmicks. For me personally I like the one chance as it makes it more pressure filled to do things, but I am also liking the idea of being able to be safe and not hurt myself like I have in the past.

As far as the post production activities go, I am editing. Capturing video is the worst part about it. We are working on merchandising and promotions so if people have hints ideas or interest I. Helping make sure to get in touch

Two More Shoots To Go!

Hey, all you Lawson-Fanatics!

As the two of you may know, we are rapidly approaching the end of this two year production. We are a tall stack of calender pages away from our original April '07 release date but it will be worth it when we are able to sit down with you and watch a well done micro-budget movie.

Last weekend we did one of the final three shoots. It was my last scene as Lawson and our last scene at our Whitman location. I'm sure if you go back and read older posts you will see that we have been "done with our Whitman location" several times, but this time I think we're really done with it. It was a pretty quick shoot. It was cold but luckily I got to dress in the Lawson garb which, as I learned over the summer shoots, is very warm.

The scene we were doing is the last one you will see in the movie. In addition to some continuity errors, you will get to see a pretty great looking prop that Kyle made. To say more might ruin the surprise. Another interesting tid bit of trivia to keep in mind when you see the final scene of the movie is that Commissioner Tunney was very drunk.

In other news, we had a meeting last night to go over a big fight scene we will be shooting soon. Seems like it's going to be good. Any of you who remember UWA will get a kick out of it. That will be our final shoot. So now comes the time when we need to consider how to deal with this movie being done. How, where, and when do we screen it? We are still going to have our big premiere and party of course, with all the fun and games as advertised. We are talking about different ways to make it available online for download and such. Seems like there are a lot of options of what we can do to actually have this movie be seen by some folks. We'll see how all this unfolds as the months go by.

There are some additional promotional things I would still like to shoot so don't be surprised to see me post another blog later on about how I put the retired Lawson costume back on to do a short commercial or PSA. They will be fun to do, but actually finishing the movie itself is the priority right now.

Thank you for sticking around while we make this thing and thanks for reading!

-Tommy

PS: We are doing our Second Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest! Email us a picture of your Lawson: White Heat-related jackolantern by Halloween night, and if it's is the best one you will win a FREE DVD!

Check out last year's winner and an entry from this year's contest:







TODAY'S LAWSON FUN FACT: In the 1989 movie, The Punisher, Dolph Lundgren uses the same shotgun as Lawson during the Fun House gun fight. Lawson has always been an inspiration to low budget action heroes.

The End is Near

One down, Two to go.

We are down to our final two shoots thank god. After two years of blood sweat and tears. Mixed in with some piss shit here and there the end of this long journey is finally upon us. Finishing this is going to be such a load off my back personally. It's been a lot of hard work and a lot of learning on the job. I suppose the only way to get better at this type of thing is to keep doing it, so after the movie premiers and is of course loved by all, I will feel like a seasoned veteran having this experience under my belt.

There are obvious flaws, inaccuracies, inconsistencies (some of which we are well aware of) but that's fine. I can honestly say I am pretty thrilled with how things are turning out. I will be completely honest about the fact that things are far exceeding my expectations, and probably everybody elses.

We still have a little bit of work left, and then I will be doing everything I can to get the post work finished in a timely manner.

One huge lesson which I've mentioned numerous times before...

PRE PRODUCTION IS A HUGE DEAL! Had we given ourselves more time this wouldve been done a while ago.

The other, I am taking a long break from doing a full blown action movie after this. I think a nice raunchy sexy comedy is on tap.