I love movies. I love watching them and talking about them. Re-watching them and insisting that others watch them. I love them in black-and-white and color, in English and any other language as long as there are subtitles. I love them silent, and musical. Then there are movies that make me want to be a filmmaker.

Ballard resident John Helde makes that kind of film, feature and documentary, short and full-length. From his short film “Hello,” shot primarily on a Washington State Ferry to his documentary work-in-progress “Field Work: A Family Farm” his works combine beautiful shots with character-driven stories, whether fiction or non-fiction. And I get to watch him run past my house.

It has been two years since I first met John during planning for a local filmmakers’ event at Sunset Hill Community Club. Since then he’s even filmed actors in my house (people who love movies will do this) and I’ve attended previews of his new works. But mostly I see John from afar. Especially from a distance John looks small, but determined. I usually think he’s a teenager until I get a second look. John says that he loves running, but that’s not evident on his face. He looks lost in thought, as though his feet hitting the pavement were an excuse for thinking during exercise.

It’s time to catch up with John, I thought after seeing him pass one day, if that’s even possible. I knew he had two big projects, in progress since 2008 and 2009 respectively, coming to fruition. In addition to his work for hire (such as a Public Service Announcement for Seattle Public Library) and writing short fiction, John is very close to a final version of his documentary “Field Work: A Family Farm.” He is also at the financing stage for what will be his first full-length feature film, “Open Doors.”

I got John to sit down with me one day between commitments. An admitted introvert he seems to prefer writing dialogue for others than talking about his own work. But he admitted that he doesn’t see himself as someone who makes a certain kind of film, whether fiction or non-fiction. “I’m just drawn to ideas and characters as they come up,” he said.

The contrast of his two major projects at this point could hardly be greater. He has been filming the Swanson family, their farm and community in Iowa, for the last three years. He has crouched with his camera in the tractor and filmed the expanse of sky, changing weather and increasing challenges as grain prices fell and a family questioned how to survive as a small farm.

His other work is a screenplay about two marriage therapists who become involved while married to other people. In the short hand used to pitch a movie by comparing it to other movies it’s, “The Kids are All Right” crossed with “When Harry Met Sally.” The screenplay, “Open Doors” has been developed with actors and performed twice for a private audience, scripts in the actors’ hands.

John would like to begin filming “Open Doors” in Ballard and throughout the city starting in April. The budget for an anticipated five-week shoot is, “Scheduled to the dollar,” but he still needs to secure the funding. John wrote the film with intention of shooting entirely in Seattle, hoping to combine local talent with a compelling story. He also plans to incorporate Seattle’s true character as experienced by someone who has lived here for over 20 years. Not in a way that checks off landmarks as though to telegraph the location but instead integrates its new or lesser known charms, from the Olympic Sculpture Park to sailing in Puget Sound (needed: movie lover with 20’ sailboat).

Unlike John running alone in the neighborhood or sometimes working in a coffee shop his therapist characters do lots of talking behind closed doors. The writer Helde will become filmmaker Helde as he takes the script out of doors to employ cinematography to better illuminate the recurring motif of the boundaries, interior and exterior, of interpersonal connections.

Last year John Helde ran a marathon. He hasn’t decided whether to do another one. From my vantage point on the window seat it looks like John is in a constant marathon. He is juggling work for hire with his constant need to be writing. He’s finishing a major documentary while hoping to finance, shoot, and edit a film for release in late 2012/early 2013. He’s quiet in his talent and his running, but he’s clearly a finisher.