The Blair Witch Project: Fact or Fiction?

 

 Is it real? that was the question that ran through many minds of the people that saw this movie in theaters. Terror and suspense went through all the minds of the people when they finished this movie and they asked themselves the question is any of this even real? Is what I am seeing a movie or the last moments of peoples lives that happened to be bought by a big company (Artisan entertainment) and showcased to the world for our sick pleasure? I'm going to save your blood pressure by telling you don't worry the three main actors of the film made it out alive. But how did this movie come to be the most successful independent film in film history what did the directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez do differently and how?

On the left is the poster that was put all over the city near the venue where the sundance film festival was to be showcased. They put up the posters up in the city five months before the film festival, more than enough time to cause some hysteria and problems. To the directors surprise people took the poster very seriously by assuming these three teenagers were missing. They did mean to cause and uproar but they did not expect it would rise up to this level. Fun fact! The creators ended up taking the posters down because and executive producer from the film industry actually got kidnapped so out of respect they took them down.
The affect of the poster was huge in that it got the audience to question is what they were seeing a documentary or just a cleverly filmed movie. Another tactic the creators used to add to the films mythology was the use of the films website. As soon as Artisan Entertainment saw the film in the Sundance film festival they bought the rights to the movie and continued to create more ways to make the film seem real. They took the films website and added a timeline to it, police reports, and pictures. People were really into it. Here is a link to the movies website and how it looks now. http://www.blairwitch.com/. Why was the website being used such a good idea and why was the company able to get away with this? The internet is hands down the best way to spread hoaxes, fake celebrity deaths, rumors and more. This is possible because this is perfectly legal. you are completely free to put false information on the web and call it true and if people believe it that is their problem. So what about the very film itself? All the advertisement they did were great but what about the film? First here is a clip of the opening scene.

As soon as you noticed in the opening scene of the movie their were no credits. This is the first thing viewers see when they watch the movie. So you would ask yourself is this just some found footage? This was the first popular movie to use the first person style for their film. So it also received a lot of buzz and attention because viewers want to see this new movie that was filmed like "someone and their buddies made". It added to the terror and fright viewers received when watching the movie, because it seemed real. Since The Blair Witch Project was so successful in using this tactic many horror films and later regular films perfected and used this type of filming style to make their movies. Their is the paranormal activity franchise, Cloverfield, Project Almanac, and Chornicle, and others. "The creators of The Blair Witch Project manipulated the various media through which its narrative was presented in a manner that encouraged initial audiences to experience its fictional story as if it were non-fictional."(The "Witchcraft" of Media Manipulation: Pamela and The Blair Witch project). The bottom line is all viewers want something real. The creators of The Blair Witch Project wanted to project what they were showing was real and we accept it even thou deep down we know it is not. However it's fun to pretend what we are seeing is real and that is what I did with this movie and many others. I tried my best not to spoil the movie so I hope you watch it. I did spoil the fact that it's not a real documentary but its 2015 I hope you figured that out by now.

The Blair Witch Project: 81 min: horror: 1999
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/
http://www.filmonpaper.com/site/media/2011/03/TheBlairWitch_onesheet_missing-2.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntgrRUML2ic