His directorial debut film The Projectionist also included the first acting role for actor/comedian Rodney Dangerfield.
Though he finished his first 16mm film, Wild Gunman, in 1978, he had explored his (rather Situationist) desires to eradicate the borderlines between fine and popular art, public and private imagery, the political and the purely aesthetic in several film and photo-essay projects, notably Flick Skin (1977), a Super-8 film that Baldwin made while living in the projectionist booth at a porn theater.