Kelley Baker

Baker is also the author of The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide: Making the Extreme No Budget Film released in 2008. His second book, Sound Conversations with (UN)Sound People is due for release in 2011.

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

Baker is also directing The American Dream: A Work in Progress 2006-07. He has spent two years, interviewing people across the country about the American Dream. It was scheduled to be released in the late 2008.

Kicking Bird (2005) is about a 17-year-old high school student, Martin "Bird" Johnson. Considered nothing but white trash, Johnson's mother is in jail, his father gone, one brother in a work camp, and a bitter grandfather who beats him. When the greedy high school track coach sees Martin outrun his whole team, he realizes the boy may be his ticket to a college coaching position. The film was shot with digital video in 18 days with a budget of $5000. The Runner’s Gazette says, "Kicking Bird Kicks Butt!"

The Gas Cafe (2001) has been called "an old Twilight Zone episode, that has collided with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot". Five people collide in a bar one night. One is dead, one never lived and the other three are lying. Shot in digital video in 8 nights with a budget of $4000, the movie was said to have been funded entirely on unemployment checks.

Using the money he made from Good Will Hunting, Kelley financed his first feature film, Birddog (1999), the story of used car salesman, Harv Beckman, operating in a trashy part of town. Beckman accidentally comes into possession of a rare 1948 Kaiser automobile, stirring up disturbing revelations about the facts behind the 1948 Vanport, Oregon, flood that destroyed an entire community. The film explored racism, greed, and class in a very corrupt city. It opened the 2000 São Paulo Film Festival in Brazil, and one critic referred to Kelley’s style as "Bruce Springsteen meets David Lynch".

Baker was the recipient of a Western States Media Arts Fellowship (1997) as well as grants from the SOROS Fund (2000), The Collins Foundation (2000), the Oregon Arts Commission (1993), Pioneer Fund Emerging Documentary Filmmaker grant for his film Criminal Justice (1985), Rose E. Tucker Charitable Trust (1984), The Maurie Clark Foundation (1984), and a technical assistance grant from RACC (2004). Baker has completed two documentaries for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Juvenile Justice Office of the Department of Justice (1999).

Baker was the sound designer on six feature films directed by Gus Van Sant, 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 and sound designer on Will Vinton's The Adventures of Mark Twain, Meet the Raisins, and four Claymation Specials for CBS. He has also worked with Roger Corman as Assistant ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) Mixer on Humanoids from the Deep in 1996.

Baker started making short films in the late 1980s. His films have aired on PBS, The Learning Channel, and Canadian and Australian television. His films and style have been recognized in publications such as Runners World to Filmmaker magazine.

Baker attended the University of Southern California. He received a BA (1980) and an MFA (1982) in Film Production from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and did post graduate work at the American Film Institute (1989).

Baker is producing and directing Dangerous: Kay Boyle, a feature documentary chronicling the life of the woman called "the most dangerous woman in America" by S. I. Hayakawa in 1967. This work in progress was featured at the Independent Feature Film Market in New York.

Kelley J. Baker (born July 20, 1956) is an American independent filmmaker and the writer and director of three indie feature films: Birddog (1999), The Gas Cafe (2001), and Kicking Bird (2005). He specializes in creating extreme low-budget narrative films, usually bending a few laws in his favor to perfect his piece that typically spotlights his distaste for corporate greed. His characters tend to be average with some character flaw that draws the viewer in.