Filmmaker shares tips of the trade.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

When he made his first feature film in 1999, Kelley Baker was so certain he'd get a distribution deal that he sank nearly $150,000 of his own money into it.

The only deal he ended up getting was with the Internal Revenue Service, which allowed him to sell his home to pay the taxes, penalties and interest he'd ignored while financing the movie, "BIRDDOG."

"I am the poster boy for bad decision making in independent film," he said Saturday morning during a workshop on "Making the Extremely Low Budget Film" that he conducted during DIVA's OpenLens Film Festival. The festival wraps up today, with a workshop by Baker on sound design at 9 a.m. and a screening of the best films of the festival at 7 p.m.

"Don't do what I did, " he told about 15 aspiring filmmakers at the workshop. "Don't spend money you don't have."

Baker, who has worked with Claymation creator Will Vinton and with Portland director Gus Van Sant, instead urged beginning filmmakers to think small, to cover costs out of their own pockets, to ask for help and to be extremely organized in what they do.

His most recent feature film, "Kicking Bird," was made for $6,000 cash "and $200,000 worth of favors," Baker said. "I got people to donate coffee. I got people to donate food. I got people to work for free. Don't be afraid to ask for things. That is the key to doing stuff for nothing."

"Kicking Bird" tells the story of a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who takes up running to escape his awful life.

Baker partly financed it by writing letters to 100 friends and acquaintances asking them each to pony up $100. In return, the letter offered them "really nice" seats at the movie's premiere and credit in the film.

In two and a half weeks he had collected $5,500, which turned out to be nearly his entire cash budget.

The production was done on the cheap from the first act of imagining the script. Baker wanted to do a story about a runner. He made his hero a cross country runner, rather than a sprinter, so he didn't have to film track meets - with scores of extras to manage, and an actual track to secure.

"Start thinking about budget as you write," he said. "If you don't have any money, what the hell are you doing thinking about a chase scene?"

The Portland School District told him it would cost $10,000 to film at an abandoned high school in the district. He went instead to Estacada, where the school district let him shoot for free - and where students were thrilled to work as free extras.

Movies are about story, first and foremost, he told his audience. "If you walk out of a movie talking about the cinematography, it's a failure," he said. "You should be talking about the story."

They are also about detail work. He scripts everything tightly; he visits and revisits locations two or three times before showing up with a crew. He makes contingency plans for what happens in case of bad weather, in case of equipment failure, in case an actor doesn't show up.

Baker, who is 50, spent a couple years at the University of Oregon in the 1970s before going to the University of Southern California to study filmmaking. He's done everything from corporate videos to educational films, in addition to working on big-name movies such as Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho" and "Finding Forrester."

About two years ago he realized he wanted to stop doing other people's work and create his own. "I got tired of making other people's dreams come true," he said. "If I didn't start doing things for myself, when would I?"

He strongly recommends short films - three to seven minutes long - for beginning filmmakers. It's a good way to learn craft, he says, and you can shoot them in a day if you're organized.

"You'll Change," a short film he made of men talking about parenthood, was picked up by a public broadcast station that showed it every Father's Day for several years. "When you have stuff on TV, guess what? You get paid!"

The film cost him $500 to make and has resulted, directly or indirectly, in half a million dollars in income, Baker said. Having PBS on his resume helped him get into film festivals that had turned him down.

But Baker is no longer looking for that distribution deal.

Now he spends about five or six months each year traveling around the country promoting his films at small venues such as DIVA - Baker was hawking his own DVDs at a table on the side during the workshop - and working on half a dozen projects at once. To be released this spring is a documentary he's working on about people's ideas of the American Dream.

Baker is already living his. "I don't make half the money I used to," he said. "I don't make a quarter the money I used to. And I'm a happier man. I just love making films."

FILM WORKSHOP Sound design on independent films Who: Portland filmmaker Kelley Baker, who did sound design for Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho" Where: DIVA, 110 W. Broadway When: 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. today Cost: $40 More about Baker: www.angryfilmmaker.com More about OpenLens Film Festival: www.divanow.org