Kelley Baker has worked in the film industry for over 25 years. He has directed 3 full-length films (“The Gas Café”, “Kicking Bird” and “Birddog”) and was the sound designer on six of Gus Van Sant's feature films including, “My Own Private Idaho”, “Good Will Hunting”, and “Finding Forrester”. In addition, Baker designed the sound on Todd Haynes feature film, “Far From Heaven”, working with such stars as Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore.

Kelley has written and directed 8 short films which have aired on a variety of channels including PBS, The Learning Channel, Canadian and Australian television. His films continue to be shown at Film Festivals like London, Sydney, Annecy and Edinburgh, Sundance, Chicago, Mill Valley and Aspen. He was an Editor and a Sound Designer for Will Vinton's “The Adventures of Mark Twain”, as well as multiple Claymation Specials for CBS.

Kelley is currently promoting and distributing his short and feature films. His book , The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide Making The Extreme No Budget Film will be out in Summer 2008.

Kelley has spent the last six years touring the U.S. teaching his subversive brand of filmmaking at workshops during the day, including stops at USC Cinema, Columbia College-Chicago, Vanderbilt University, UT-Austin, RIT, Independent Feature Project – Minneapolis, UC Santa Barbara, among others.

In addition he shows his films to audiences at Art House Theaters and colleges in the evenings.

Kelley attended the University of Southern California's "Famous Film School”, where he received a BA and an MFA in Film Production. He also did some post-graduate work at the American Film Institute. This and four bucks gets him coffee at Starbucks.

Review Highlights

“Capturing people who refuse to conform or who exist on the periphery has been a constant theme in Baker’s work. From his first full-length feature “Birddog” in 1999 to “The Gas Café” in 2001, Baker has looked through his camera to find the unseen triumphs and tragedies of ordinary people.”
(David Barnes, Daily Lobo)

“An earnest, Bruce Springsteen ‘Working Life” kind of film dropped into an ironic, cynical Mulholland Drive world.” - - J.H. Tompkins, San Francisco Bay Guardian

“An engaging and funny first feature, Birddog tells an engrossing story and reveals – with colorful characters and funky ‘pot lots’ – a love for the eastside, past and present.” -- Kim Morgan, Willamette Week

“‘Gas Café’ was a tapestry pulled together by a great cast, innovative yet morally uplifting motif, and relatively good set and camera for the budget.
(Ashley Richardson, The Sunflower)

“Kicking Bird is not an art film. It’s a true independent about running, made with volunteer actors. It cost six thousand bucks to produce, and the results are engaging.”
(Matt Farrand, Runner’s Gazette)

“I like big Hollywood movies - they’re what I choose to watch, and I tend to distance myself from the independent film scene, mostly because I can’t stand the pretension and nonsense that the people in the scene tend to spew (I’d rather the nonsense that Hollywood-types spew? Absolutely.) If it’s not abundantly clear by now that Kelley Baker has cut across my built in defenses and mental blocks, I’m a failure as a writer.”
(Matt Osgood, Film-411)

“Kicking Bird is a story of growth, of running for the right reasons, and doing the right thing. It’s gritty, it’s dark, there’s raw language, and real life; the dark side of life that exists all around us. Most of us would rather ignore it.”

(Freddi Carlip, Runner’s Gazette)

If you are interested in having Kelley to come to your university, college,media art center, art house theater, or even over to your house for dinner, all you have to do is ask. angryfilminfo@aol.com.