"We didn't know that was going to happen," one crew member said.

"I was a Seventh Grade Dragonslayer" is a new movie filming in Rio Rancho. It's a children's film about a boy who saves the world from a fire-breathing dragon. It's a fantasy movie in which a blue troll helps the star, Arthur, slay the dragon and defeat an evil vice principal who are both out to destroy civilization.

The film, though, may be the largest homegrown film made in the state to date.

It's a testament to New Mexicans working together to make a movie. The entire crew are students from Central New Mexico Community College. Most of the above-the-line members are New Mexicans. Several of the actors are local. The producers are local.

It's not a big budget film, and it's not likely to become a blockbuster. But it is likely to put several New Mexicans on the map and give some of our local crew something they can be proud of.

It's produced by the team of Ryil Adamson and Gavin Gillette, the pair behind "The Donor Conspiracy," a locally made film that was released on DVD last year. After "Donor," the pair of Albuquerque guys got the movie bug, went on to make some industrial films, and now the $2 million "Dragonslayer."

Adamson and Gillette found the "Dragonslayer" script and realized that it was a fun, light-hearted, family film with some action and some comedy. It's the kind of film that kids will watch over and over.

When Adamson started looking for financing, he contacted his lawyer, who happened to be the brother of Emmy-nominated actor Andy Lauer ("Caroline in the City"), who was looking to get behind the camera.

Lauer, though, said his brother looked at Adamson and Gillette's business plan as a corporate model, "But I looked at it with director's glasses on."

He's not an experienced director, but he did come with a huge bonus: Lea Thompson. Thompson was in "Back To The Future" and worked with Lauer on "Caroline In The City." She agreed to sign on to do the film. Lauer is also friends with Wendie Malick, who played the vapid Nina Van Horn in the TV show "Just Shoot Me."

"We have a niece who lives with us at home," Malick said. "It's nice to do something she can watch. Most of what I do is PG-13."

Just as organically as he met Lauer, Adamson met Coby Dax and Brent Peter son, the two local graphics guys who are making the dragon appear real. Adamson met Dax at an Adobe Users Group meeting and pitched the idea. A week later, Dax had created a fivesecond clip of a dragon in a parking garage breathing fire.

"A week later, they took that to investors," Dax said.

For now, it's a picture of a dragon on a stick, but, once it's done, the pair said, it will look like a real dragon.

"We do a lot of things (in the movie) where you don't realize it's an effect," Dax said. "Its not like a spaceship is coming out the sky."

Like for the scene of the kid hanging by his underwear from a basketball hoop? Actually, the crew from L.A. Stunts Training Center in Albuquerque hung him with wires, and Dax and Peterson will make the wires disappear.

Hopefully, they'll leave the torn underwear.