Back in 2010 I
had the good fortune to be co-director of the Fearless Film Festival. Fearless
was a short lived short film festival associated with Main Street Arts Fest,
one of the largest arts festivals in the country.
The featured
speaker that year was a writer and filmmaker named Kelley Baker.
Kelley hails
from Portland, Oregon and has been in the film business for many years. He is
known as The Angry Filmmaker and has written the landmark book on the fine art
of extreme low budget filmmaking, The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide.
Kelley tours the
country showing his films and lecturing on filmmaking and for years traveled
with his dog, Moses. We had booked Kelley and Moses in a nice downtown hotel
that accepted dogs. I was looking forward to the festival, everything seemed ready.
Of course,
everything was not ready. We received a call from Kelley the day before the
festival kicked off and were told that the hotel had neglected to tinform us dogs
were indeed welcome to stay at the hotel, as long as they were under 15 pounds.
Moses was a black lab who’s head likely weighed more than 15 pounds.
Scrambling
ensued. Calls were made. Did I mention the film festival coincided with Main
Street Arts Festival? Not only were no hotels available that accommodated large
dogs, no hotels were available.
It was finally
decided that Kelley would bunk with me for the weekend. It wasn’t ideal, I’m a
bit of a private person, but the show must go on.
Friday afternoon
Kelley’s big white van pulled into my driveway. Kelley got out, walked around
and opened the side door and Moses slowly climbed out. Moses was a road dog and
had racked up a lot of miles. The old boy had trouble getting around, Kelley
had to help him up my front steps, but he was sweet, smart and adorable.
Friday evening
at Fearless passed without fanfare. Good attendance and the programs were well
received. We returned to my house and sat on the porch for hours, talking films
and work.
Saturday was to
be the marathon. The programs kicked off late morning and ran until almost
midnight. Moses had to be cooped up all day inside my house. Kelley assured me
Moses was used to being inside for great lengths of time and would be
fine.
When we returned
to my house shortly before midnight, I walked up the porch, opened the door
and, without describing what I actually saw, knew immediately that Moses had
passed on.
I froze. I did
not know what to do. To be honest the next few minutes are a blur. I felt
awkward and somehow, at least indirectly, responsible. Kelley felt worse, of
course. He had lost his best friend and traveling companion. We muddled
through.
Kelley is one of
those rare people you are fortunate enough to meet in life who instantly feels like you have
known forever. He is a good and hyper creative man. Over the ensuing years I have picked his mind
about filmmaking, writing and the struggle of being an independent artist.
His new book is
entitled, Road Dog. You guessed it,
the book is about his years on the road with Moses. It is funny, informative,
honest and heartwarming.
Kelley is on the
road again and will be in the Fort Worth and Dallas this October. Look for
dates and more information in the coming weeks. In the mean time, order his
books and films and make plans on meeting him when he rolls through Fort Worth and Dallas. You will
not regret it.
Here is the press release for the book:
Available March 2017
328 pages, Paperback
ISBN 9781540713520
$ 17.95 USD
“As Eat, Pray, Love is to love and spirituality Road
Dog is to the raucous, independent, and contented life.”
- William M. Akers, author, Your Screenplay Sucks!, Mrs. Ravenback's Way
“Often funny, sometimes touching and always entertaining,
Kelley Baker’s Road Dog is a great
read that will make you laugh a lot, cry a little and appreciate the important
people (two legged or four) in your life more.”
- Nic Brown, author, Werewolves, Zombies & Leprechauns: Tales
From the World of Werewolf For Hire.
A Man, His Dog and
The Open Road. What Could Go Wrong?
With no distributor interested in
his independent films, Kelley Baker, the Angry Filmmaker, ripped a page out of
the punk rock handbook and went looking for his audience in a used minivan with
his faithful 120 pound Chocolate Lab, Moses. Every fall and spring they
traveled the country showing his films at art house theaters, film festivals,
colleges, and biker bars.
Logging over two hundred thousand
miles, they encountered a collection of Fellini-esque characters including two
hyper-intellectual pro wrestlers in West Virginia, a lying Chicago hotel desk
clerk who cost Kelley his home, civil rights workers knocking back rum at Hank
Williams’ grave, and a way
overzealous drug sniffing border patrol dog outside El Paso, Texas.
Kelley gave an audio workshop for
employees of a porn channel, got yelled at in a haunted bar in Memphis, was
asked to leave the Prayer Tower at Oral Roberts University, and drove
twenty-four hundred miles in three days so he wouldn’t miss his daughter’s
choir recital. Moses swam in two oceans, fifteen lakes, and enthusiastically
marked thousands of spots from sea to shining sea.
At the end of it all they found a
lot more than an audience.
About the author
A graduate of USC’s film school, Kelley has a BA and an MFA
in film production. He is an author, (Road
Dog, The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide: Part One & Part Two) and an Independent Filmmaker. He has
written and directed three full‑length features (Birddog, The Gas Café, &
Kicking Bird), eight short films, and quite a few documentaries. His films have aired on PBS, Canadian and
Australian television, and have been shown at Film Festivals including London,
Sydney, Annecy, Sao Paulo, Sundance, Chicago, and Edinburgh. 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, and Todd Haynes
film, Far From Heaven.
To learn more about Kelley and his work we invite you to
check out his website, www.angryfilmmaker.com, for more information.
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