Filming from the living room of his Ballard apartment, Ballard resident and film director Ian Stone is taking his passion for theatre and experience as an actor to the big screen in his upcoming short film “Foster Child.”

“It’s about protecting the ones you love,” Stone said. “The twisted bit is you basically have a woman who wants her foster child back after (the child) was placed back with the biological mother.”

Stone, who grew up on Whidbey Island, said it was a beautiful place to live, but he admits to leaving as soon as he could, exchanging the island life for the big city to pursue his acting dreams.

“Foster Child” will be his second short film with co-director, producer and lead actress Meredith Binder.

Having been involved in the same play writing workshop, friends always assumed they had known each other for years, Stone said.

“She stopped going to the writing workshop about two weeks before I got there,” he said. “Everyone figured we knew each other, it wasn’t until two years after I stopped going to that group that I met her at a bar.”

Stone said he called her a “bitch” and they’ve been working together ever since.

During the past six years the two have produced “Allister McClain,” “Remember Me,” about a woman seeking revenge against her rapist, and others.

Stone said “Foster Child” has been inspired from two pieces of a full-length feature he and Binder have been working on.

“(It’s about) a woman whose first husband dies, so, by common law she marries the second brother,” Stone said. “He dies before she can have a child with him so the father forbids her to bare a child.”

Binder, who majored in electrical engineering and is now a stay-at-home mom, plays the mother of the 30-year-old daughter whose foster child is taken back by Child Protective Services and reunited with her birth mother.

“(In the film) my daughter comes to me and says that she’s been watching her (biological mother) and she’s still dealing drugs,” Binder said. “I want to protect my daughter because I think she’s gotten way in over her head over the emotional attachment of a child that’s not hers.”

Binder explained that it is not until the end of the film that her character realizes the complex emotions her daughter is enduring

“She’s trying to protect her foster daughter, and she really does want to protect her,” she said. “It’s not about her losing the child it’s about her saving the child.”

Still in production, “Foster Child” will be filmed in two locations in north Seattle: Stone’s Ballard apartment and a location near Aurora Avenue North.

Stone and Binder estimate it would take about 18 months before “Foster Child” is released.

“At that point we start submitting it to festivals and it takes a year to start hearing back because we can only afford the early entry fees,” Binder said.

“Foster Child” is funded through Stone’s earnings working at the Fremont PCC and Binder’s savings from various acting gigs.

“All in all, the film is out of our pockets,” Stone said. “It will run us about $15,000 and if we were to actually pay people and do it right and not borrow equipment our film could run to about $10,000 to $20,000.”

Stone said the ultimate goal is to have enough material to contact producers to request funds for their larger projects.

Binder said she’s been pleased with the experience so far and appreciates Stone’s professionalism.

“He really works well with actors, since he’s an actor himself,” Binder said. “He really understands what we need.”