Kelley’s new book, The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide: Making the Extreme No Budget Film is available.  Check out his website www.angryfilmmaker.com for more information.

Kelley Baker has lived “The New Model of Independent Filmmaking” for years.  He has found funding for his no-budget films and successfully self distributed them all over the US and Canada.

Kelley Baker is well known for working with other people.  He was the sound designer on six of Gus Van Sant’s feature films including, MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO, GOOD WILL HUNTING, and FINDING FORRESTER.  He designed the sound on Todd Haynes feature film, FAR FROM HEAVEN, with Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore.  He was the picture editor/sound designer on Will Vinton’s The Adventure’s of Mark Twain, and Meet The Raisins for CBS.

Kelley has written and directed three full‑length features, eight short films and a few documentaries.  Kelley films have aired on PBS, The Learning Channel, and Canadian and Australian television and have been shown at Film Festivals like London, Sydney, Annecy and Edinburgh.

KICKING BIRD is the story of Martin “Bird” Johnson, a 17 year old white trash high school kid who runs.  With his Mother in jail, his father gone, one brother in a work camp and his bitter grandfather beating him, there is nothing else to do but run!   One day the manipulative high school cross country Coach sees Martin out run his entire team and figures that Martin may be his ticket to a college coaching position.  On a budget of $6000 and an 18 day shooting schedule this movie was shot in digital video.

Five people collide in a bar one night, one is dead, one never lived, and the other three are lying.  THE GAS CAFE was shot in digital video in 8 nights.  It was funded entirely on Unemployment checks.  This movie has been called “an old Twilight Zone episode, that has collided with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot”.

BIRDDOG tells the story of Harv Beckman, a used car salesman in a trashy part of town who accidentally comes in to possession of a rare 1948 Kaiser automobile, which leads to some disturbing revelations about the facts behind the 1948 Vanport, Oregon flood which destroyed an entire city.  Portland, Oregon is the backdrop of this film that explores racism, greed, and class in a very corrupt city.  Throw in the local Kiwanis Club and you have a very odd unpredictable film.  One critic referred to Kelley’s style as  “Bruce Springsteen meets David Lynch”.  This film opened the 2000 Sao Paulo Film Festival in Brazil.

Kelley self distributes his short and feature films.

Kelley is producing and directing DANGEROUS: KAY BOYLE, a feature documentary chronicling the life of “the most dangerous woman in America” (S.I. Hiyakawa, 1967).  And , The American Dream: A Work in Progress.

Kelley attended the University of Southern California.  He received a BA (1980) and an MFA (1982) in Film Production, and did post graduate work at the American Film Institute (1989).

Kelley has received a Western States Media Arts Fellowship, and grants from the SOROS Fund, Pioneer Fund for Emerging Documentary Filmmakers, The Collins Foundation, Oregon Arts Commission, The Jackson Foundation, Rose E. Tucker Charitable Trust, and The Maurie Clark Foundation. He has done 2 documentaries for the National Endowment for the Arts, and The Juvenile Justice Office of the Department of Justice.

The Stirling Art Centre at Macrobert University (Stirling, Scotland), had a retrospective of Kelley’s work in 2006.  The Pacific Film Archives and The Northwest Film Center have hosted a retrospective of Kelley’s short films.