Lighting His Own Way

Josh Ceranic left the living room of his parents’ house, stepped outside, fell to his knees, raised his hands to the sky and reveled in a charged moment of extraordinary clarity.

He was 14.

Ceranic was home alone and had been watching a documentary on Jim Carrey and his experiences starring in a film, Man on the Moon, about the late entertainer Andy Kaufman.

“In the documentary, Carrey talks about manifestation and self-belief,” Ceranic said. “I loved movies, and I decided right then that I was going to love making them. It was like my future self was promising me, ‘If you go after this for the rest of your life, everything else is going to be alright. Just keep the main thing the main thing.’”

Now 22, Ceranic, at this writing, is closing in on a bachelor’s degree in humanities from Florida State University. For a man his age, he philosophizes a lot. He has a desire to share life lessons with young people even as he recognizes that he remains in the early stages of self-discovery.

As a high schooler, Ceranic attended the Harrison School for the Arts, a magnet school located in Lakeland. It was there that he began to make films.

FSU student Josh Ceranic has made his dreams a full-time reality. When he’s not in class, he’s on the road capturing major pop culture moments for artists like Quavo and The Weeknd, or making films. Photo by Matt Burke

He wasn’t happy with the equipment that the school had available, so he started a GoFundMe to raise money with which to buy better gear. Soon, he had attracted two-thirds of the money he needed to buy a modest, “decent-for-the-time” filmmaking setup.

While in high school, Ceranic produced films including, notably, David Isn’t Here Anymore, a horror comedy that set him up for future success. He shot the movie (run time, 14 minutes) in Bartow, Florida, at a house that was converted to a funeral home for the popular film, My Girl, starring Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin.

“It’s truly haunted,” Ceranic said of the house in Bartow, which has attracted the attention of paranormal investigators.

The movie revolves around a Realtor, played by Andy Gion, who struggles to sell the notorious property.

“He recruits a priest to come bless the home,” Ceranic explained. “A family arrives early for an appointment to see the house before the blessing is complete, and chaos ensues.”

The film won local awards, leading Ceranic to submit it “on a whim” for consideration by the Cannes Film Festival. He was flabbergasted upon learning that David Isn’t Here Anymore, had been made part of the festival’s Emerging Filmmaker Showcase.

Ceranic’s horror comedy film, David Isn’t Here Anymore, follows a struggling realtor as he tries to sell a notoriously haunted home. In addition to winning local awards, it was accepted into the Cannes Film Festival’s Emerging Filmmaker Showcase. Poster courtesy of Josh Ceranic

That triumph immediately became the star bullet point in Ceranic’s resume. The Lakeland Ledger and a local FOX affiliate did stories about him.

“When I got my equipment, I obsessively researched settings and hacks for turning out work with a $1,200 setup that looked like it had been produced using $10,000 worth,” Ceranic said. “The devil is in the details. It’s not so much what you shoot with but how you shoot and the skills you use.”

It’s a truism that has been attributed to many: A tool is only as good as the hands that wield it.

Ceranic gained acceptance to the film school at FSU but changed majors after deciding the program wasn’t the right fit. Effectively, he instead used his college years studying and practicing the art of making connections.

He contacted a Tampa Bay Times employee he had met at the Gasparilla Music Festival and scored an opportunity to shoot a favorite performer of his, The Weeknd, in concert at Raymond James Stadium. He turned images into fan pages that garnered a million impressions.

Ceranic has had the opportunity to shoot for various artists, including Yeat, an American rapper, producer and singer-songwriter. Ceranic accompanied Yeat on his Afterlyfe Tour, which ran from March 1–April 12, 2023. Photo courtesy of Josh Ceranic

He shot a meet-and-greet event held for the Canadian rapper NAV in Atlanta. Perceiving that the rapper/songwriter Yeat was an artist on his way up, Ceranic reached out to Masshole Media in Boston, obtained a media pass and photographed him also in Atlanta. He also stumbled onto a chance to shoot Yeat and another rapper, Quavo, together.

When safety Richard LeCounte of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers saw the Yeat/Quavo shots, he requested them from Ceranic with plans to forward them to his friend, Quavo. Couldn’t hurt; Quavo has some 22 million social media followers.

Ceranic wound up filming LeCounte’s jersey retirement ceremony at Hinesville (Georgia) High School. He rubbed elbows with ESPN personalities and big-time athletes in shooting a celebrity football game held by Quavo at Berkman High School in Lilburn, Georgia.

Via the Boston connection, Ceranic was able to display work on one of the most prominent electronic billboards in Times Square.

Closer to home, Ceranic made valuable connections with musicians when he worked as the media manager at a Tallahassee nightclub, the Shisha Cafe/Hookah Lounge on Tennessee Street.

He doesn’t believe in moving to Hollywood, accepting any job one can find in the movie industry and trying to scale the ladder. He worked briefly as a grip on a set in California where a USC grad was making his first feature film. The work was grueling, he said, calling it “glorified construction work.”

In 2022, Ceranic, along with some friends and members of the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group, conducted an overnight investigation at the Historic Drish House. Together, they created a documentary, capturing what they believe to be “indisputable evidence of the paranormal.” Photo courtesy of Josh Ceranic

In the era of social media, YouTube and TikTok, Ceranic said, a filmmaker is far better off being himself and producing the kinds of films he would like to see on screens big or little.

“You have to create your own thing with your name on it and demonstrate that you possess intangibles that the film industry desires,” he said.

Post FSU, Ceranic anticipates spending time in South Florida and Atlanta doing commercial jobs to pay the bills while forging music and film connections powerful enough to guarantee audiences for his movies.

All actors want to be musicians and all musicians want to be actors, Ceranic believes. A filmmaker can attract a lot of attention by giving an established musician even a bit part in a film and working him into a trailer.

“I don’t have a large audience, and building one can take a lot of time and energy,” Ceranic said, “but I can take advantage of the audiences of others. It’s a formula that works for me.”

In all that he does, Ceranic will strive to make his parents proud and hold himself to a high standard.

“Nobody can believe in you more than you believe in yourself,” he said. “You may have what some people see as an unrealistic belief in yourself, and it can be lonely being unrealistic, but I’m all in.”