“We’re gonna die out here.” –Heather in The Blair Witch Project “This is Burkittsville…much like a small, quiet town anywhere.” –Heather in The Blair Witch ProjectĪnd because the film establishes these two differentiated versions of her, later when everything descends into mayhem we believe her fear because this is clearly not her fake movie persona. When Heather’s in her movie she puts on a persona. All this added up to the feeling that real people were responding to a genuinely terrifying situation.Īnother way Blair Witch made us feel this was real was by creating a clear division between the movie these young people are supposedly making, and the behind-the-scenes footage they’re filming for fun. Here were these unknown actors, going by their real names, unfiltered by the usual Hollywood gloss and thrown into this uncomfortable set-up designed to get honest, spontaneous reactions out of them. “Okay, here’s your motivation…you’re lost, you’re angry in the woods, and no one’s here to help you…there’s a fucking witch and she keeps leaving shit outside your door.” –Behind the scenes, The Blair Witch Project Each morning they guided the actors via GPS to find hidden film canisters and their instructions and motivations for that day. The filmmakers hid in the surrounding wounds, orchestrating events for the actors to react to. Myrick and Sanchez had the actors actually operate the cameras and improvise their dialogue. The raw footage of the actors in the woods felt “real.”Īnd in a certain sense, this is because it was real. So they channeled this connection to verisimilitude and the documentary format to create a far more genuine scare than audiences were used to. The two loved pseudo-documentaries-they felt the ‘reality’ of these docs made them more terrifying than fictional material of the time. But nothing that really freaked us out like The Exorcist or The Shining…” –on SBS Movie Show So what does the found footage craze have to do with the YouTube generation? In the early 90’s, co-directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez were film students who felt like horror movies just weren’t scary any more.ĭaniel Myrick: “There were horror movies, quote-unquote, and they were kinda fun to kinda go check out and stuff like that…”Įduardo Sanchez: “It was scaring us that they were being made!”ĭaniel Myrick: “Yeah. The Search for Authenticity: Cultivating “Real” So here’s our take on what Blair Witch taught us and whether, two decades on, it might still be able to illuminate what audiences really want. That you need a story around the story to generate buzz and that there’s nothing like confusion and controversy to start a conversation. And what’s really fascinating is that today’s online video ecosystem revolves around truths that Blair Witch demonstrated- like that audiences often care less about expensive production value than that elusive feeling of authenticity, Cut to 2019- we’re years into a cultural obsession with viral video and shareable content. In 1999, this movie was one of the first to unlock the mysterious power of the world wide web to drive meaningful viewership. In the years that followed, countless movies tried (and mostly failed) to replicate the runaway success of this low-budget movie which was (at the time) the most profitable movie ever in terms of return on investment.Įven more than its impact on cinematic style, Blair Witch became the gold standard for what amazing film marketing looks like. ![]() This story of three student filmmakers getting lost in the woods - told through what’s supposed to be their own footage discovered after their death - wasn’t the first found-footage horror film, but it so captured the global imagination that it started a found-footage craze in cinema. ![]() How The Blair Witch Project Predicted YouTubeĭid The Blair Witch Project invent YouTube as we know it?Ģ0 years ago, the Blair Witch Project was more than a movie - it was a movement. Subscribe to The Take on YouTube | Support The Take on Patreon Did The Blair Witch Project invent YouTube and our modern viral culture as we know it? 20 years after its release and in a completely different landscape, the found footage cult classic still illuminates what audiences really want-authenticity, a story around a story, and sometimes a touch of controversy.
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