SHELBY – Shelby patrol officer Justin Baker, 28, may never have had the chance to pursue his indie film debut if not for a fateful Uber ride.
Now he has his eyes set on his short film debut, “Ghost with a Rose.”
Filmmaking has always been Baker’s passion. As a kid, he’d record skits and videos on his mother’s flip phone, or write stories in notebooks and laptops. He’d even upload some of the skits to YouTube.
The passion subsided as Baker grew older. He now works as a full-time police officer in Shelby, and has for the past two years. That desire returned when he stepped into Mark Skelton’s Uber when visiting Kent, Ohio, with a friend.
Skelton, 53, is originally from Yorkshire, England. Originally a journalist in London, Skelton made a career turn into film. His first project, “For the Love of Skype,” in 2005 would win a Telly Award, giving him the needed push to follow his passion to Los Angeles the next year.
Skelton worked as a full-time producer in Los Angeles up until the COVID-19 pandemic. With everything shut down in the country’s film capital, Skelton took a job working on a documentary in Ohio just after COVID, picking up Uber as both a side hustle and way to make connections.
“I like to explore places,” Skelton said. “When I’m in a new place, a great way to do that is to Uber. You meet new people … Justin, when we started talking, he told me he had this dream. I pushed him to write the screenplay.”
Baker and Skelton built a working bond from that point on. The two met for coffee consistently, and within months of their initial chance encounter, Baker messaged Skelton to tell him the script was done.
The film itself, as Baker says, is a “psychological drama about love, regret and the weight of words left unsaid.” The plot follows a man who died after an argument with his partner and now looks to make things right from the afterlife.
“You get little fragments of the idea, and then you sit with the idea for a minute,” Baker said. “The first visual I had … was of a ghost figure, and the snow coming down. It started with that, then I was like, ‘OK, what does this mean?'”
Baker fleshed out that visual into the ambitious short film with Skelton’s help and encouragement. Now, the focus is on fleshing out the cast and crew, though, that comes with challenges of its own.
“One of the reasons it’s taken us this long … is our cinematographer had a very unfortunate accident on another film,” Skelton said. “He was on a very high set, and the set collapsed. And he broke his arm, his hand, his wrist and his camera. So, he’s out of the operation.”
The film is mostly self-funded as well, with a budget of $10,000. The money will go toward production and paying Baker’s cast and crew.
Baker’s goal is to begin filming in the summer, when he’ll hopefully have cast and crew set. His vision for the short film also features scenes set in summer and winter.
“The real challenge will come when it’s snowing,” Baker said. “I think that in particular is an ambitious part of the short film, because we want to film it while the snow is coming down … but just gathering everyone, trying to coordinate with the weather, could be tough.”
Skelton said it’s an ambitious film project.
“We’ve got two different seasons, multiple locations, multiple actors, and there’s a costume involved. There are lots of interesting, challenging shots that we’re going for. It’s not just a kitchen-sink drama where the camera’s in one room,” he said.
Baker hopes for a release in quarter one of 2027, assuming everything goes to plan and production goes smoothly. From then on, it’s all about promotion. Baker and Skelton have already begun to use their platforms, though they realize it’s still early.
“We don’t want to have too many people excited about it right now, because they’ll forget,” Skelton said. “When you’ve got a big Hollywood movie, they don’t start promoting it until, at maximum, 12 weeks out.”
Upon release, however, Baker and Skelton plan to send “Ghost with a Rose” to as many film festivals as they can. Festivals are massive boosts for low-budget projects, getting them in front of the eyes of fans and media alike.
The entire process has been a valuable learning experience for Baker, but an inspiring one as well.
“I hope this inspires people, like, ‘You can do it, even from a small town like Shelby,'” Baker said. “Anyone can make a film. You just have to put your heart and some elbow grease into it.”
