TORCHLIGHT STUDIOS FT.
NOSEEUMS
A NORTH FLORIDA HORROR STORY
DIRECTED BY RAVEN DESHAY CARTER
PRODUCED BY LISETTE ESTRELLA DELGADO
STORY BY JASON-MICHAEL ANTHONY
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY BY
JASON – MICHAEL ANTHONY & HENDRECK JOSEPH
SCREENPLAY BY ANTHONY, HENDRECK JOSEPH AND RAVEN DESHAY CARTER
One person’s backyard could be another person’s graveyard
Noseeums is a haunting story uniquely tailored to Florida, centered around the state’s particular backwoods charm. But this charm takes a grizzly twist as we dig deeper into the roots of Florida’s long history of land disenfranchisement toward free blacks who owned it, starting with the Reconstruction era.
Often, blacks were beaten, intimidated, and even murdered for fighting for their land rights in the 1950s, ultimately tying into the film’s theme of privilege as Ember suffers navigating the forced assimilation of white social systems to discover her own autonomy.
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 25 minutes
FORMAT: 2.39:1
SOUND: Dolby 5.1
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: United States
LANGUAGE: English
FOR PROMOTIONAL QUERIES:
SABRINA REISINGER,
VP of Publicity & Marketing
sabrina@torchlightstudios.org
© TORCHLIGHT STUDIOS PRODUCTION
S T O R Y
Fresh from her toxic relationship, a curious college student, Ember reluctantly agrees to a weekend trip with her roommate and wealthy white “friends” to a secluded lake house in the Florida backwoods. Once she arrives at this unsettling land, it becomes familiar as she unearths troubled spirits that owned it and seeks to reclaim it.
LONG SYNOPSIS
An independent Ember (20s) studies in a library with Jasmine, her exuberant best friend. Ember’s womanizing ex-boyfriend, Paul, appears suddenly. Tessa, Ember’s edgy, Asian-American roommate, arrives, intersecting the awkward situation with a weekend trip they’ve planned with Tessa’s two other white “friends.” Jasmine’s skeptical, reminding Ember just how horrible Tessa’s stuck-up peers are. Eager to decompress, Ember ditches Jasmine anyway for what she imagines will be a fun weekend.
Abigail, the queen bee, drives the girls to one of her wealthy father’s land development projects, which, unbeknownst to the girls, she’s mischievously sneaking them into. The girls stop at a redneck gas station along the way, where Ember bares an uneasy experience with an unpleasant clerk. She storms out of the gas station, oddly encountering Earl (20s), a black local who charmingly introduces himself. Still infuriated by her previous experience, she disregards him. Ember is left to use the bathroom on the side of the road, beginning to feel isolated from her girl group.
They arrive at the lake house, which is less than Abigail’s expectations. Senses heightened, Ember finds this place oddly familiar. As the girls settle in, Ember slips outside to call Paul, hoping to make amends. She hears an unsettling buzzing in the distance. Ember gravitates to the woods in the backyard, discovering an unkept grave. She gets a little too close when she feels something reach out. The black bugs known throughout Florida, Noseeums, plague her. Hysterical, she breaks free, running back to warn the girls. Ember thinks they should leave right then but is outvoted by the girls
Ember finds herself spiraling throughout the rest of the weekend after witnessing threatening premonitions consisting of the grizzly deaths of her friends, bewildering flashbacks, and chilling bumps in the night. With no other allies, she calls Earl, using his business card. They drive to Papa Boyd, Earl’s grandfather, who explains the lore of the land and the angry spirits that haunt Abigail’s property. The spirits restlessly seek retribution after tragically dying for their land. Disturbed, Ember and Earl rush back to the house to tell the girls what they learned.
Back on the property, Ember becomes possessed by the invoked Tilly, who’s been communicating with Ember this entire time. Tilly forces Ember back to the backyard, where Tilly drags Ember into the grave. Ember returns with a deed with Tilly’s same last name, “Wiley.” It dawns on Ember that Tilly’s her ancestor, and this is really her land. Ember crashes the campfire party that the girls are having with some hick locals from the gas station. They’ve been drinking way too much, and Ember overhears a drunken Tessa admitting sheslept with Paul. Enraged, Ember confronts her so-called friends and finally stands up to a narcissistic Abigail, showcasing the deed and how this property is rightfully hers. Tensions come to a head. Abigail forcefully snatches the deed from Ember, charging toward the house where she stands her ground, confronting and injuring Jasmine, who’s come to check on Ember.
Tilly enacts a vengeful killing spree. Things suddenly turn to mayhem as thousands of the noseeums swarm, devouring the guys from the gas station. Tessa tries to escape, but the swarm catches her, pinning her down and suffocating her from the inside out. Abigail runs to her car for safety, leaving Lexi outside. The bugs smash Lexi’s head into a bloody pulp on Abigail’s window.
Tilly enters the jeep, scaring Abigail outside the vehicle, where she encounters Ember for a last showdown. Abigail reveals her true nature through a racial tirade. Tilly closes in on Abigail to protect Ember, and Ember finally allows her to fester in a vengeful act. The swarm lifts Abigail into the air, strangling her, and Abigail’s lifeless, disfigured body falls to the ground, leaving only Ember and Earl alive after the transpired blood bath, or so we thought.
Jasmine wakes, having survived her attack, and embraces Ember and Earl. Relieved, Ember clutches the deed rightfully returned to her by her ancestors, cherishing her family’s reclaimed land and the newfound lineage summoning her back home.
CAST BIOS
CREATIVE VISION
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT | Raven DeShay Carter
When Jason-Michael approached me with this fresh story concept, the story immediately
compelled me. Originally titled Biting Midges, I loved the themes of property, ancestral
ties, and female rage. Little did I know we’d be pitching the concept to Torchlight Studios
a few weeks later. And little did I know, my mind would go into overdrive in the pitching
room as I frantically stated why our story concept was the best one for Torchlight to invest
in.
It worked. We won the pitch competition, and it was time to shoot our first feature film.
One of my goals was to bring light to the issue of black people being robbed of their land
in the South following the Civil War. I wanted to turn a real and very present social issue
into a clever horror film that people could latch onto. Our protagonist, Ember, is only
deeply known by her mother. She clings to people fast out of desperation and cannot be
honest with herself regarding her motives and insecurities. She’s smart yet walks straight
into a trap out of an attempt to dismiss her true feelings of rage and confusion.
We had eight weeks to develop compelling characters and a strong plot within the horror
genre. This also looked like us watching films. Not just horror films but good films in
general, such as Past Lives, Enemy, Talk to Me, and No Country for Old Men, to name a
few. I love telling bold and playful stories that dissect real issues with complex characters
involved.
I feel a younger version of myself was Ember, so it came naturally to direct someone I
used to know. We consistently used the term “homecoming” when referring to Ember’s
arc because she is an extremely disconnected girl who was always meant to find her way
back to her roots. Many people can relate to being disconnected from family and then
compensating with surface-level relationships to try and fill holes.
Collaborating with terrific storytellers is one of my favorite things about filmmaking. Sole
input came from the writers, myself, and the studio. However, I also valued the opinions
of my editor, Ash, and my DP, Chris.
I made it a point to “pitch my tent,” as I was present even on the challenging days. I
dedicated myself entirely and learned more about working with actors and their needs to
respect and acknowledge the places they’re willing to go to accomplish the story I’m
trying to tell.
Around the halfway point of principal photography, I turned twenty-five, which was a
great reminder of the incredible work I had the honor of doing. I’m so grateful to people
wiser than me whose words encouraged me daily.
Noseeums is the product of people who are very good at what they do, who love movies,
who make me laugh, and friends who adore each other dearly. It’s also the product of a
dream. I thank God for my team of dreamers, and I’m glad I was never left to dream
alone.
WRITERS’ STATEMENTS
Jason Michael Anthony
I’ve always wanted to tell a compelling ghost story centered around blackness. In a way, it’s restorative justice, and it’s imperative to embrace the land that black bodies have cultivated while exposing the underbelly of rage that many black Americans feel but aren’t about to express because of respectability politics. This story is for them. This story is for us. I recall talking to some of the locals in this town with Raven, and we chatted about the seasons. Somehow, the conversation came up about biting midges (almost to the naked eye until you see the rashes on your skin), how the property value dwindled, and white people left because the infestation was so excruciating.
Then the gears started turning in my head with my experience living in Alabama, where the term “white flight” was all too familiar to me, how droves of people would migrate to and from a place because they couldn’t handle the natural forces in a specific location. We hear the age-old history of racial disparities in America, the colonization and gentrification of black and brown spaces. Still, I believe this story would be different because it holds a love-craftian lens to the horrors of how there are graveyards in our own backyard, how this land’s soil is inevitably infused with the blood of those who’ve roamed it before us, whose stories need to be told. Initially, we were going to title the feature Biting Midges, but we later decided on Noseeums, which plays on the social horror of disparities we cannot see (whether consciously or unconsciously). Like no-see-ums, these ghosts are the ancestors that only Ember can see, biting at her subconscious until she has to deal with the fact that they are there.
This is powerful because it highlights the issues that haunt us as black Americans. The more Ember tries to inform her friends of the problems at hand, the thicker the barricade becomes between them. They simply can’t see the struggle that Ember is going through until it’s too late. And so, I believe this story is a cautionary tale essential for our coexistence in navigating these trivial concepts of race relations. To relate to one another and move past our surface-level differences, we must master believing each other’s distresses that burrow beneath our identities. This film has the trifecta effect of comedy, horror, and coming-of-age drama that audiences of multiple demographics can sink their stingers into.
Jason Michael Anthony
Working on this project has been a journey and a pleasure. When I was initially asked to join, it was a no-brainer because I’ve worked with Jason-Michael in the past, and it was an easy process from a collaborative standpoint. The story he presented to me felt very tangible and grounded. Admittedly, horror was a genre I hadn’t written before, but I wanted to take on the challenge of trying something different. We both learned a lot about the structure of building this story in this specific genre from the ground up. Speaking of story, the historical aspect partly drew me to this project. Having read and watched stories about Black people having their land taken from them in real-time felt like a fresh way to bring light to a real issue in this country.
As a Florida native, I immediately thought of the town of Rosewood and the horrendous events that occurred there. Still, there are many stories like Rosewood that have gone and continue to go unheard. I think this story gives weight to what could be a simple ghost story. That factual aspect of it all makes this story even more horrifying. Overall, I hope viewers genuinely enjoy what they see on screen and get a good scare. The acquisition of land in the US has many twists and turns. These issues of the past are still current and relevant. People’s heritage and lineage continue to be erased. Who knows how different things would be if we had the same courage and grit as our forefathers? We cannot bury the past. We must study and continue to tell our stories even if the powers that be think these stories aren’t worth teaching about.
PRODUCTION
HOW IT STARTED
A Southern gothic horror, Noseeums is inspired by North Florida’s rich history, highlighting the region’s luscious landscapes and vibrant locals while working on prior sets on student projects. Jason-Michael Anthony explains: “Something I loved about North Florida is its peculiar beauty that not many folks might see when they first think of the Sunshine State. The Spanish moss and the silence of a secluded region naturally lend themselves as the perfect backdrop for a Southern gothic.” So when Jason-Michael pitched the story to his fellow co-writer, Hendreck Joseph, they shared the concept with producer Lisette Delgado.
The story concerns a college student who liberates herself from generational traumas through supernatural encounters. Lisette was ecstatic to partner with the writers. She moved forward, bringing the story to her peer and director, Raven Carter, sparking several discussions on bringing the script to life. Jason-Michael and Hendreck Joseph persisted through 3 months of script developments and re-writes in close collaboration with Raven Carter, preparing the script for production that would start in October. The film is about a college student who goes on a weekend trip with her girlfriends to a lake house, where she experiences a dark presence. But, on a deeper level, it’s about a young adult who battles the social constructs of her peers while being drawn to her ancestors, who were tragically murdered on the land kept from her.
THE NOSEEUM
IN THE PRODUCER’S EAR
Lisette Delgado’s love of reading and telling stories led her to follow the career path of a producer. She studied broadcast journalism during her four years of undergraduate school at Florida International University. During that time, she gained an appreciation for bringing stories to life. In her junior year, she started an internship at NBCUniversal, which opened her horizons to the world of movies and television.
Through her experience there, she realized she could combine her passion for entertaining people with her love for bringing stories to life. And so she started her on the path to becoming an entertainment producer While attaining her Master’s in Fine Arts for production with a specialty in producing, she worked on multiple short film productions with Raven Carter, the Director of Noseeums, and Jason Michael Anthony and Hendrick Joseph, the writers of Noseeums. When Carter and Anthony told her about the idea for Noseeums, Delgado knew this was a story she wanted to convey. The characters’ complexity and the layers the story has, along with its message of “someone’s backyard could be someone else’s graveyard,” is precisely the type of story she wanted to bring to life. She loved the concept and knew the team involved with the project was a truly talented group of filmmakers. Noseeums is the first feature film Delgado has produced. Before Noseeums, she had only produced short films ranging between two- and 15-minute run times. Producing a fulllength feature film was a completely new ball game for her. She gained plenty of experience in all the details and logistics of making a more extensive production come to life. From the insurance to ensuring everything runs smoothly in the day-to-day production, Delgado saw the film grow into what it is now. Like any production, there were a few bumps and hurdles, but all problems had a solution at the end of the day. Delgado’s most prominent belief is that no production will ever run smoothly, so the best thing to do is stay calm and focus on the issues individually because all problems can be resolved. The completion of Noseeums has been a significant accomplishment for Delgado, and all she hopes is that the film gets the attention and recognition it deserves. The solid historical and social message that the film has is something she wants audiences to talk about and think of once the movie ends.
AN ENSEMBLE
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The attunement of character development was essential to the writers and director when crafting the script. The story hits on intricate levels of race relations between a friend group of twenty-somethings while simultaneously blending the elements of supernatural and social horror genres. The writers wanted to ensure they were doing the characters justice regarding the nuances of race, especially considering the dynamics of the girls’ friend group and how people of color navigate their proximities to whiteness in Westernized societies. As Jason puts it: “I think one of the most interesting relationships in the story is the friendship between Ember and her roommate/perceived best friend, Tessa. We’ve all heard of the term ‘model minority,’ so, as a writing team, Hendreck and I wanted to give a little insight into Tessa’s character and see what her perspective might be like living under these certain stereotypes that society subjects her to. Though she isn’t too innocent in the story, we wanted to highlight that sometimes Westernized society has this way of bringing out the ugly parts in all of us as POCs when trying to survive in ‘the system.’ ”
TILLY’S WRATH & THE BUGS
A significant aspect that sets the film apart is the Noseeums, a pest indigenous to Florida.
Industry professionals Ronn Honn and Joshua Little are on the team that designed the
bugs. Ron Honn’s career in broadcast design and visual effects spans 30 years, beginning
as a co-founder of California visual effects company CafeFX in 1993. He currently teaches
compositing and visual effects at Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts.
Joshua Little graduated from FSU’s Cinema and Media Arts program in 2019 with an MFA
in Film Production. He has since pursued a career in visual effects, wearing various hats,
including Compositor, Matchmover, Pipeline TD, and Set Supervisor.
In the process, he has worked on dozens of feature film and television productions, including many for Marvel and Netflix. He is currently based in Atlanta, where he runs a VFX boutique, Alectreon. When creating the bugs, Honn states: “In order to achieve the swarming insect effects for Noseeums, it was determined by the visual effects team–led by FSU alum Josh Little—that particle simulations would be the optimal way to achieve the desired performance. Using Houdini, an industry-leading particle simulation software, the VFX team is able to create the swarms of little insects and impart life-like behavior to them. The controls within the software also allow for interactivity with the actors as the little beasties exact horrific vengeance on their victims. Lighting the swarm is achieved utilizing a light probe, which accurately captures the location, intensity, and color temperature of the practical lighting on-set, storing the data in a High Dynamic Range Image format. This can then be used within Houdini to properly illuminate the swarms so that they appear to belong in the same light space as the actors and environment. The final compositing of the visual effects shots will be performed by Little’s VFX team and the student VFX artists of FSUfx, an educational model developed by CMPA to teach students motion picture industry best practices within their film school curriculum. Little adds: “The noseeums, the titular stars of Noseeums, are created primarily through computer graphics. Given the large number of noseeums, animating individual bugs would be impossible for most shots, and, as such, we are taking advantage of computer simulations, in which each bug is guided by a set of rules and equations. Tweaking these rules allows us to alter the overall behavior of the swarm to fit what is happening in the story. In order for the swarm to interact with the real actors, it is necessary to create digital versions of the actors. This is accomplished through a combination of dedicated tools for face tracking and 3D lidar scans of the actors taken on set.”
KEY CREATIVE BIOS
Special Thanks: Tyler Sununu and Family William David Brice Joel Baldree JR’s Aucilla River Store Florida A&M University Florida State University Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship Away Team Films, CJ Julian & Cory Koller Abel Correa Rendall Mash and The Mash Manor in Thomasville, Georgia Tim Price Steve Saccio and Tally Trailers Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts Faculty and Staff Graciela Sofia Marquina and Thomas E. Joiner Jr. Oh Lemonade Habana Boardwalk Lively Café
The events and characters depicted in this motion picture photoplay are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events, past or present, is purely coincidental.
A Torchlight Studios Production.
@2024 Florida State University. All rights reserved.