Logline: A sheltered young loser goes on the worst blind date ever when he and his date must cover up the accidental murder of a crooked cop.

Length: 78 min

Director: Oscar Rene

Producer: Brian Flaccus, Chadwick Hopson, Alex Raines, Mark Dragin

Writer: Oscar Rene, Brian Flaccus, Chadwick Hopson

About the writer, director and producer:

Oscar Rene was born in Albuquerque, NM but currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. He has worked on shows such as Law & Order, Californication and Alcatraz, and is currently an editor on NBC’s Chicago Fire, this is his feature film-directing debut.

Chadwick Hopson is from Flagstaff, Arizona where they shot this film, and is an actor, writer and producer starring in the upcoming features The Long Way and Into the Mystic.

Brian Flaccus is also from Flagstaff, Arizona. He is an actor, writer and producer. He can be seen in the feature thriller Paradox and the Paramount Pictures comedy, Movie 43.

Key cast:

Christina Moses

Chadwick Hopson

Brian Flaccus

Jonathan Kehoe

Narrated by: Ice-T

Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists): Currently looking for all of the above.

Funders: Entirely self funded, with a shooting budget of $1,000

Made in association with: The Knights Young Productions & Lozoya Studios

Release date: 6/11/2016 World Premiere

Where can I watch it at the film festival or in the next month? How We Met will be having its World Premiere at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood on 6/11/2016 at 5pm for the Dances With Films Film Festival. It will also be showing at the Roxbury International Film Festival on July 1st in Boston, MA and at the Hudson Valley Comedy Film Festival in New York. No official screening date has been set for the Hudson Valley Comedy Film Festival.

The date takes a dark turn when a routine traffic stop escalates quickly and Ted and Marie accidentally shoot a crooked cop.

Congratulations! Why did you make your film?

Thanks! We (Oscar, Chad, and Brian) had been making comedic sketches together for over a year, but had always talked about making a feature film. After reading several articles on people making feature films for $10,000, we became convinced we could make one with what we had. All we had was one month and 1,000 dollars. So we did it.

Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?

This movie is a testament to what you can accomplish with creativity and passion. It’s a really fun ride, packed with comedy, adventure, and unexpected twists. You don’t think about the budget during the film because the story is great and the characters are engaging. Ultimately, it’s proof that the walls around classic filmmaking are changing. You can make a wonderfully entertaining film with few resources.

How do personal and universal themes work in your film?

The main universal theme we play on is “fish out of water”. For us, it’s the fun you can have when you slap two people together that clearly don’t match and force them to work together for a greater goal.

What stakes are higher than surviving a terrible blind date? Surviving a terrible blind date and covering up a murder while people are trying to kill you. This universal theme boils down to the personal theme of staying flexible, open, and strong in the face of danger. It’s simple but those traits hold true in casual dating as they do in massive catastrophes.

How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development and production?

As we mentioned, we only had a month to write, cast, scout, and shoot the entire movie so it evolved quickly. The story just about wrote itself once we had our characters and premise, as long as we stayed malleable with the material it proved to surprise us at every turn. We were open to improv, creative suggestions from actors, and even story changes that arose from location offers.

The entire ending sequence took place in a legal marijuana grow house because it was offered by a kind local business owner, certainly not because we wrote it that way hoping we could find one. Finally the tone really evolved once we had our composers Carson Aune and Dane Leon add their spin to the scenes. They really added a lot of texture and life to the film.

What type of feedback have you received so far?

The feedback so far has been tremendous and positive. We have had a couple private test screenings and the comments have been consistently very good when it comes to story, performances, music, and editing. We hoped to make a movie that was not just impressive for the budget, but a movie that was impressive period.

Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?

It was a bit of a surprise, but, that may be due to our own trepidation about going up against movies with budgets that are literally 100 times (or more) than our own. But the surprising feedback has been that people don’t care about the numbers when they are enwrapped in an engaging story and entertained by fun characters. The suspension of disbelief holds if the shots are interesting, acting is solid, and the music is exciting all of which it seems like we achieved.

Just having the cop's body and hidden stash embroils Ted and Marie in an ongoing cartel drug war where they must fight for their lives to survive the night.

What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?

We are grateful for the opportunity! We hope to become more visible to the people who are willing to take a chance on indie films. We know when you sit down to watch a film the options are never ending, but we want How We Met to be one of those options.

We also want to appeal to those people who want to make a feature of their own one day despite the fact that they may think they have limitations. Our recent festival invitations scream, it’s possible.

Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?

Currently, we need the help of film festival directors and programmers who share our vision, as we would like to screen at several more festivals and network with other filmmakers. We also want to meet with sales agents, buyers, distributors, and journalists to get our message and film further out into the public eye.

This is an unprecedented budget for a feature film, and that in itself is exciting. We still need the assistance of people who are innovative and look forward into the next model of distribution for our ever-changing industry.

What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?

We would love for people to just kick back, forget their problems, and laugh for an hour and a half. At the same time, we want to serve as inspiration for filmmakers to leave behind the old paradigm of stalling out wonderful creative ideas for the dread of fundraising or Hollywood backing. It’s possible; it just takes drive and creativity.

What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?

Would this movie be better as a studio film?

Would you like to add anything else?

We hope to inspire and motivate content creators to create. Anybody can have an idea, but to execute the idea is the hard part and where the work comes in. We were tested mentally, physically, and emotionally to make this movie happen and we finally finished. Storytellers don’t need to wait for Hollywood to give them the green light. Today, if you have drive and ambition, anything is possible.

Create and cast who you want and who you feel is the most honest to the character and story. If your content is good and honest, people will notice. It doesn’t matter whether you shot it on a $70,000 Arri camera or a $1,600 Blackmagic camera you bought off Craigslist. If what you are creating is genuine, it will find an audience. “Be the change”, don’t wait for your circumstances to change first.

What are the key creatives developing or working on now?

Oscar is currently developing another feature film. He is hoping to start principal photography in July of 2016.

Chad and Brian are in post-production on their second feature film, an indie romantic drama called Alex & Jaime, looking at completion in August of 2016. In development we have a ½ hour comedy pilot and two more finished feature scripts they are beginning to pitch.

The three of us continue to shoot for our ongoing Youtube channels, Oscar Rene and The Knights Young. More detailed info is up on our site www.knightsyoung.com