The ZOMBEEZ are ready to Swarm
Big dreams are always something we love to celebrate. Right here in the region, a local group of creatives are going after one of the biggest dreams; a full-length future film. It’s a massive undertaking, so we emailed a few questions to Elesia Marie so she could fill us in on the project and the support they hope to gain from the community.
Can you tell us a little about the movie?
ZOMBEEZ is a local, independent, feature film written by actress Elesia Marie. It has an absolutely amazing cast and crew made up of some of the best talent in the Panhandle. ZOMBEEZ is about a small town coroner, Jess Johnson, who has to team up with the man who left her at the altar, Jake Simmonds, to save the town from a swarm of mutant honeybees!!! It’s got a hometown,Hallmarky feel with some SyFy Channel cheesiness thrown in. There’s drama, mayhem, and a TON of bad bee puns. BEE-lieve me!
What genres or movies are your biggest inspiration points for this project?
I’m a HUGE scifi nerd and a really big fan of those SYFY Channel Original movies, like the Sharknados, Piranhaconda, Three Headed Shark Attack, Sharktopus Vs. Whalewolf,etc etc, so I was definitely inspired by my love of these movies to make my own.
Are you still pushing towards a March production date?
Our producer, Nick Smith, will be in Georgia working on another movie until the end of April, so we’ve pushed back production until May. This will give us more time to raise funds, gather more resources, and make sure that we have all the right COVID protocols in place so that this film can BEE all that it can BEE! However, we will be shooting a scene from the movie in March as a proof of concept so we can get investors and more donations.
What can someone do to help this project happen?
Our biggest need right now is financial support. You can help by making donations to our GoFundMe campaign. Movies are expensive to make (who knew?) and we want to be able to pay our cast and crew, many of whom are taking time off from work to make this film. We are firm believers that artists should be paid for their skills and talent. If you are a local business, you can help us by donating gift cards to grocery stores and restaurants, and helping us with PR and advertising, even donating spots on the radio, tv, or news when the time comes. Local eateries can partner with us by donating food. This will help us feed our cast and crew, which means that we can put that money towards another area, such as special effects. If you would like to volunteer your special gifts and talents, such as hair and makeup, special effects and cgi, etc, we would love to talk to you about it. We are looking for locations to shoot at – a school, morgue, and a cafe to name a few (COVID protocols will be in place). We know that these are hard times for everyone, but we also know that people have a heart to help and bring hope to others, so if you want to support us, but aren’t in a place to contribute financially, you can help us generate some BUZZ for the film by liking/following us on social media and sharing our pages and posts with your friends and family. We want this film to not only showcase the talent in this area, but the local businesses as well and we are asking our 850 fam to join us on this journey. Businesses that are able to help will be included in our credits at the end of the movie and possibly featured in the film. We know that these are hard times for everyone. We also know that people have a heart to help, and to bring hope and joy during these challenging times.
Are you still looking for support from certain creative fields to help the film come to be?
Absolutely! If anyone has any film experience and they want to help out, we’d love it if they’d reach out . There will be a few more casting calls before we start filming, which will be posted to the ZOMBEEZ Facebook page. We are also looking for artists and computer animators to help us bring our ZOMBEEZ to life!
If any platform picked up the movie – where would you like to see it shown?
I wrote this film with SYFY Channel in mind, so I would BEE over the moon if it actually got picked up by them. Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu would be pretty sweet as well, but as long as people can see the movie, I would be happy. We are planning to have a theater premiere for the ZOMBEEZ once it’s finished.
Do you already have a sequel concept on deck?
Currently, there are no plans for a “bee-quel.” It all depends on how the first one does and I’d have to have a really awesome idea for a second. I wouldn’t want to just put something out there just for the sake of making a sequel. But we’ll see what happens. You never know!
GoFundMe Link – https://gofund.me/8573c557
IMDb Link – Zombeez – IMDb
Facebook – Zombeez – The Movie | Facebook
IG – @zombeezthemovie
YouTube Channel – ZOMBEEZ THE MOVIE – YouTube
Elesia Marie- Writer, Director – Elesia Marie – IMDb
Nick Smith -Producer – Nick Smith – IMDb
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