{"id":26709,"date":"2025-11-06T14:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T14:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/26709\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T14:23:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T14:23:08","slug":"two-pittsburgh-filmmakers-craft-wrestling-comedy-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/26709\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Pittsburgh filmmakers craft wrestling comedy gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBLAM is an urban term in Pittsburgh for slamming somebody, so I\u2019m not certain if other cities use it. I\u2019m almost certain that they don\u2019t,\u201d says Jay White.<\/p>\n

Jay \u201cRuffbone\u201d White and Tale \u201cLay Lanskey\u201d Stillwell are in the final stages of editing \u201cBLAM,\u201d a cinematic comedy about a fictional predominantly Black professional wrestling league based in Pittsburgh. In the story, BLAM Wrestling, which began in Pittsburgh years earlier before it went national, returns to the Steel City to recover its lost mojo. Wrestling may be thriving during the Trump era, but BLAM is not.<\/p>\n

The gimmick BLAM settles on to generate excitement for the league in its hometown is a $20,000 tournament designed to showcase tag team wrestling at its finest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if you had the opportunity to become a wrestler, not a spectator, and you don\u2019t know anyone who had a chance to become a wrestler?\u201d White says, fleshing out the movie\u2019s premise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two main characters \u2014 they\u2019re friends, life is kicking their butts, and they run into a guy at a strip club who used to be in the neighborhood running a wrestling league when they were kids.<\/p>\n

One of the characters sees the flyer and decides to get involved for a chance to earn money to become a regional wrestler. \u201cSo it\u2019s all about aspiration and following a dream,\u201d says White.<\/p>\n

After two-and-a-half years of principal shooting, a yearlong delay while a primary cast member mourned the death of his wife and another equally long delay after Nigel \u201cNasty Nige\u201d Pryer, one of the film\u2019s stars \u2014 died suddenly, \u201cBLAM\u201d is finally in a postproduction sprint having finished all shoots earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Duke Davis, left, \u201cwrestles\u201d GJ Coleman aka Black Lobster. Photo by Rob Liggett. <\/p>\n

White and Stillwell have dedicated the film to Pryer\u2019s memory. Pryer was one of the film\u2019s experienced studio wrestlers whose expertise the filmmakers constantly drew upon to make the wrestling scenes pop with authenticity. \u201cBLAM\u201d features Pryer\u2019s last performances as the tag team wrestler known as Mr. PerVeCT.<\/p>\n

Stillwell and White, both in their mid-40s, are optimistic that they\u2019ll have a polished and very funny movie ready to screen for longtime supporters, crowdfund investors and friends by late spring 2026. The duo doesn\u2019t have local foundation support or the backing of any institution that often funds indie film projects. \u00a0<\/p>\n

White and Stillwell will premiere \u201cBLAM\u201d in Pittsburgh for local supporters even before it is entered in national and international festival competition next year. They expect it to run at a respectable hour and 45 minutes once they\u2019ve cut \u201cBLAM\u201d down to fighting weight.<\/p>\n

While \u201cBLAM\u201d reflects Black Pittsburgh\u2019s gallows humor, regional fatalism and stubborn aspiration, it is designed to be relatable to folks who would never consider pierogies a delicacy or order a salad smothered in French fries.<\/p>\n

For all of the satisfaction that making \u201cBLAM\u201d has generated for White and Stillwell, who share writing and directing duties on the film, they are mindful of the sacrifices the cast and crew made to realize their vision despite scheduling and budget constraints even after a 2022 crowdfunding campaign generated $10,000 in a month.<\/p>\n

Asked how many cast members are just actors pretending to be wrestlers and how many know what they\u2019re doing in the ring, they both laugh.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Photo by Rob Liggett. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got about 25 wrestlers,\u201d Stillwell, whom White refers to as \u201cLay\u201d says. \u201cMost of the people in this are first-time actors. It\u2019s a mix of real wrestlers, actors and comedians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re from Cleveland, Baltimore, Buffalo, Norfolk. We were beyond grateful for what we had because we knew we needed that much to actually make it happen or else it wouldn\u2019t have looked authentic enough and it wouldn\u2019t have carried as much juice as far as wrestling is concerned,\u201d Stillwell says.<\/p>\n

While they were able to pay many who worked on the film a pittance of what they deserved, much of the labor in front of the cameras was donated, as were several key sites for scenes in the movie. Some of the shoots stretched on for as long as 14 hours. Sometimes the director\/writer duo had to handle sound and light while instructing the actors and framing the shots.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a crew,\u201d White says, \u201cbut sometimes we didn\u2019t have enough money to pay everyone, so if they get other gigs that conflict, they do what they have to do to pay the rent or the mortgage.\u201d<\/p>\n

White himself does triple duty with a cameo as a referee in the film.<\/p>\n

To help ease the production\u2019s monetary shortfall, several businesses went above and beyond what White and Stillwell ever imagined possible when they were storyboarding the film.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Jaquay Wade aka Sere-Nade prepares to kick T-Doe Rally aka Ran Tan Rally. Photo by Rob Liggett. <\/p>\n

PWX Wrestling in McKeesport donated its entire gym to the project and allowed the \u201cBLAM\u201d production to cover its facility with the faux wrestling organization\u2019s banners. Both filmmakers were amazed by how easily the aesthetics of the gym corresponded to the requirements of the script even before the movie\u2019s makeover began.<\/p>\n

Se\u00f1or Fries, a popular restaurant on West Liberty Avenue doubled as Finger Lickin\u2019 Fried Chicken for several scenes involving a wrestler who is \u201caddicted to fried chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another beloved Pittsburgh site incorporated into the movie is the historic Don\u2019s Diner located under the bridge in the Woods Run section of the North Side \u2014 arguably the most unusual restaurant spot in Western Pennsylvania.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the film, Don\u2019s Diner \u2014 which also appeared in Russell Crowe\u2019s \u201cThe Next Three Days\u201d and Nick Nolte\u2019s \u201cWarrior\u201d \u2014 has been recast as a hot dog shop called Dick\u2019s Dogs with plenty of double entendres thrown in to maintain the film\u2019s comic saltiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cBLAM\u201d is chock full of hilariously twisted characters. Take Bishop Backslide, a fake\u00a0preacher and wrestling Svengali who manages a tag team consisting of one gang member from the Crips and one from the Bloods.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among their many rivals are Slime Ball Paul, the manager of the Backyard Brawlers. The Wing Dust Winos, a tag team consisting of the Late-Night Nibbler and Terry \u2018Ran Tan\u2019 Ralley, are relative good guys in the BLAM lineup compared to the others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"T-Doe Rally aka Ran Tan Rally goes after Nick Angelou aka Wresslin Ric. Photo by Rob Liggett. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the Jaggernaut Giggolos (the team of Serenade and Mr. PerVeCT), Rasslin\u2019 Rick and the current heavyweight champion, a truly strange character known as the Black Lobster.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Black Lobster\u2019s finishing move is called the Lobster Chop,\u201d White says with a laugh. \u201cHe hit you with that claw, it\u2019s over.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Black Lobster\u2019s name is something of a misnomer since the prosthetic claws he wears are actually red. Still, everything in \u201cBLAM\u201d is mostly Black, especially the humor. That\u2019s the film\u2019s greatest asset. It embraces the absurdities of studio wrestling to tell a distinctly American tale about ambition on the knife\u2019s edge of both failure and redemption.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re grateful for people\u2019s time and what they were able to lend us,\u201d Stillwell says. \u201cThe budget was small. A lot of this was done out of love, out of people believing in us.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the moment White conceived of a \u201cwrestling comedy with an urban twist\u201d more than five years ago when he and Stillwell were already deep into another project, every day has been dedicated to advancing \u201cBLAM\u201d to the finish line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was watching some old [World Wrestling Federation] wrestling clips,\u201d White says. \u201cIt was Randy \u2018Macho Man\u2019 Savage and Hulk Hogan doing a hilarious bit in which some invisible magnetic force was preventing them from shaking hands. It was wild.\u201d<\/p>\n

He began to wonder why he\u2019s never seen Black wrestlers rise to that iconic level other than Dwayne \u2018The Rock\u2019 Johnson who is half Samoan, though arguably the most popular wrestler in the world for much of the last quarter century.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Photo by Rob Liggett. <\/p>\n

Originally pitched to supporters as a pilot for an ongoing TV series, \u201cBLAM\u201d morphed into a movie once the filming started because of the intricacy and length of the wrestling scenes. Now that it is being shaped into a film, the duo believes there are sequel possibilities if it is well received.\u00a0They haven\u2019t ruled out making a streaming TV series based on the movie if there\u2019s serious interest in such a project.<\/p>\n

Both men are experienced filmmakers, former rappers and local hip-hop promoters. These days, they support themselves and their families working on various media projects and businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

White, who has worked on many local documentary projects, runs a multimedia company called Future Stars Media<\/a>. Stillwell represents up-and-coming hip-hop artists. \u201cBLAM\u201d remains their mutual passion project when they\u2019re not paying the bills.<\/p>\n

Having known each other and worked together since they were in their early 20s, Stillwell and White have maintained a deep respect for each other\u2019s talents and figured out early on how to work together with minimum friction.<\/p>\n

Asked how the divided duties on \u201cBLAM\u201d to finally get to the postproduction phase, they both exhale, as if recalling a marathon they ran and completed minutes earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to writing, [Stillwell] is a rapper,\u201d White said of his business and creative partner. \u201c[Lay] can freestyle off the top of his head. He\u2019s boom-boom-boom!<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s talking. I record the conversations. He\u2019s great about how a character needs to sound and how they need to say it, how they\u2019re interpreting it, how they\u2019re coming off with it and their hand gestures,\u201d White says.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Directer Jay \u201cRuffbone\u201d White, director Tale Stillwell aka Lay Lanskey, and director of photography Dorin Williams, aka StarrnamedMarr, sit in front of cast members from \u201cBLAM\u201d at PWX Wrestling in McKeesport. Photo by Rob Liggett. <\/p>\n

Both White and Stillwell, who grew up in Beltzhoover and Larimar Avenue respectively, keep forging ahead because they\u2019re inspired by the example of Black Pittsburgh filmmakers\/directors who made the jump to filmmaking from a city that was far from the Hollywood mainstream.<\/p>\n

In a recent Facebook Reel<\/a>, White did a minute-and-a-half tribute to four cinematic trailblazers from Pittsburgh. \u201cShout out to the Black film directors from the Burgh who put in work that a lot of people don\u2019t even know is from the city,\u201d he said after saluting Antoine Fuqua, Rusty Cundieff, Ben Ramsey and the late Xavier (Mike) Q. Kantz as exemplars of Pittsburgh\u2019s untamable creative spirit.<\/p>\n

It was an impressive list that included a quick mention of each director\u2019s most famous work, many of which would be familiar to anyone who has spent quality time in multiplexes over the last 35 years. <\/p>\n

Each of the directors White highlights first dreamed of becoming filmmakers here, but had to leave the city to actualize their dreams. White and Stillwell insist they\u2019re going to buck that trend and remain based in Pittsburgh no matter how big (or little) a success they become as filmmakers. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re committed to telling many overlooked stories about America from the city where they learned to dream these stories in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBLAM is an urban term in Pittsburgh for slamming somebody, so I\u2019m not certain if other cities use…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3747,17515,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-26709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-film-industry","tag-made-in-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}