Baker Artist Portfolios

I attended the UCF Film School and earned a BFA degree in Filmmaking with a concentration in screenwriting. Writing scripts and short stories gives me an outlet to pour out my thoughts and opinions from my own perspective and experiences and allows me to project myself into situations I may never experience otherwise. Filmmaking provides such a brilliant opportunity to capture and entertain audiences while visually conveying what is often difficult to put into words.

The inspiration for my project, “The Man in the Window,” came after processing the atrocious death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers. The officers’ audacity, evident in killing him in broad daylight, presented a cruel reminder of that we still have not learned to value all human life. Almost three decades earlier, corrupt police officers beat Rodney King within inches of his life. They hid their crime under cover of darkness, unaware that someone filmed them. Fast forward to 2020, under the spectatorship of dozens of bystanders and witnesses, many of whom openly displayed cell phones recording the incident, Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.

Our society gave Chauvin the idea that he could murder a black man without consequence. For years, we have taken the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers, “community watch” members, and random residents in stride. Rarely has justice been served for these deaths—eventually culminating in a scenario where a police officer with the mandate to protect and serve did not feel shamed, worried, or guilty while snuffing out the last breaths from another human being’s lungs. We have successfully created a society that makes murder ok as long as the murderer is from the privileged class and the murdered from an undervalued, unprotected class.

This film project is very important to me. It’s a call to action for the black community to take on the accountability and responsibility for saving our own lives.