Sound editor-turned-writer/director Kelley Baker (aka “The Angry Filmmaker”) has visited the Communication Studies department at Baylor twice in the past two years to talk to our students about the down-and-dirty realities of true independent filmmaking, and during his latest visit he screened his most recent effort, a gritty, shot-on-low-res-video teen melodrama about a perpetually tormented outsider with a gift for running who is manipulated by the high school’s sleazy track coach. Populated with local theater actors and shot on location in the freezing cold around Portland, Oregon, for a reported budget of $6,000 raised entirely through family and friends, the film largely overcomes its budgetary limitations with emotional vigor and a raw honesty about the darker edges of life. Some of the more antagonistic scenes feel a bit forced and the ending is perhaps too neat, but it’s otherwise a compelling story well told. (DVD)