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The Blair Witch ProjectCase Study

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Acknowledgements

THE SPECIAL THANK GOES TO OUR HELPFUL TEACHER, MR. SHYAM SHARMA THE SUPERVISION AND SUPPORT THAT HE GAVE TRULY HELPED THE PROGRESSION AND SMOOTHNESS OF THE RESEARCH PROGRAM. THE CO-OPERATION IS MUCH INDEED APPRECIATED. ALL PROJECTS DURING THE PROGRAM WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT THE ENTHUSIASM AND IMAGINATION FROM HIM. WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR PARENTS WHO HELPED US RESEARCH.

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Executive Summary

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is undoubtedly the "sleeper" hit of the 1999 Made for $35,000 and grossed over $240 million in the U.S., it has exceeded all expectations and been hotly debated and discussed in print, on television and on the Internet. It has turned the directors Sanchez and Myrick into celebrities, and got them the cover of Time magazine in August 1999. As well as inspiring young filmmakers, it has opened up debates about issues such as genre boundaries, and the marketing of mainstream movies.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT defies any easy categorization. Utilizing the codes and conventions of the documentary genre, the story of the three student filmmakers who go missing in the Maryland woods while making a documentary about the myth of the Blair Witch, provides a new twist on the horror genre. As a mock documentary it constructs a world plausible enough for some sections of the audience to be confused as to its ontological status.

It provides an excellent case study of the role that extra-textual material plays in constructing particular viewer positions and readings of the film. In this article I want to discuss THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT as a mock documentary, and I also want to consider the extent to which the film is able to construct a reflexive position for viewers that presents a critical commentary on documentary and aspects of popular culture. In so doing, I will consider the way in which the film utilizes documentary codes and conventions to construct a plausible "reality" as well as examining how these various extra-textual resources were used in the service of this construction.

As has been the case with several other mock-documentary texts, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT caused some confusion as to its ontological status with some audience members assuming that the film was a "real" documentary. Mock-documentary texts usually succeed as hoaxes because viewers fail to read cues that reveal the films' fictional status. But while this partly explains these reactions to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY....................................................................2

CONTENTS....................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION..............................................................................4PUBLIC REACTION.............................................................................................5

BODY............................................................................................5

ANALYSIS......................................................................................7PEST ANALYSIS................................................................................................7SWOT ANALYSIS..............................................................................................8COMPARISON OF BLAIR WITCH WITH OTHER MOVIES...............................................9THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE INTERNET AS PROMOTIONAL MEDIUM............................10CONCLUSION/EVALUATION................................................................................10COMPARISON OF WEBSITES OF HORROR MOVIES..................................................11

CONCLUSIONS.............................................................................13AUDIENCE SATISFACTION..................................................................................13CREATIVITY....................................................................................................13INGENUITY OF THE SYSTEM................................................................................13ROI (RETURN ON INVESTMENT).........................................................................13

REFERENCES...............................................................................14IMDB...........................................................................................................14WIKIPEDIA.....................................................................................................14MISCELLANEOUS.............................................................................................14MOVIE WEBSITES............................................................................................14

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IntroductionThe Blair Witch Project is supernatural horror film made in 1999, which was

written and directed, by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. The Haxan

Films production company produced the film. It was formed by combining

amateur footage and relates the story of three student filmmakers Heather

Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams disappears while hiking in

the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland in 1994 to film a documentary

about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. The viewers are told the three

were never seen or heard from again, although their video and sound

equipment with along with most of the footage they shot was discovered a

year later. This "recovered footage" is presented as the film the viewer is

watching. Over the years many production estimates have been done which

were estimated to be roughly $7,50,000. Filming began in October 1998 and

lasted eight days.

Most of the movie was filmed in tiny Seneca Creek State Park in Montgomery

County, Maryland, although a few scenes were filmed in the real town of

Burkittsville. After Introducing the movie and including a groundbreaking

campaign by the studio to use the Internet and suggest that the film was a

record of real events. The distribution strategy for The Blair Witch Project

was created and implemented by Artisan studio executive named Steven

Rothenberg.

Public Reaction The movie grossed over US$248 million worldwide, which made it one of the most successful independent films of all time. The film has received critical acclaim. The Blair Witch Project is thought to be the first widely released film marketed primarily on the Internet. The film's official website featured fake police reports and 'newsreel-style' interviews. Due to this, audiences and critics initially thought it was an actual documentary about the 'missing' teenagers. These augmented the film's convincing found footage style to spark heated debates across the Internet over whether the film was a real-life documentary or a work of fiction.

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BodyThe success of the “Blair Witch Project” heavily relies on the Internet site developed in parallel. The idea of this platform was to suggest that the film was the re-transcription of a real event. We are indeed talking about the “suggestion” and not a “lie”. At no time did the crew of the film say that it wasn’t a fiction…but they let the doubt float.

Eduardo Sanchez, the director of the film, had thought about this system beforehand, he imagined this site as the last link of the Blair Witch “experience”.

After its first presentation in January 1999, during the Sundance film festival, the film prepared its release in 27 theatres in the US. At that time, no poster, no advertisement, but a 15 000$ budget to create a website: www.blairwitch.com

The crew of the film then worked with Artisan Entertainment, a small distribution company. The marketing director, John Hegemen, didn’t have an advertizing budget so he decided to rework the Internet site created by the directors.

More and more spectators went to see the film, the directing style was surprising (over the shoulder, intimate camera, minimal image treatment, we really felt like we were discovering the “real” film of these three students). This original way of filming intrigued audiences, rumors began on the internet (a very efficient media for this, since the information that circulates there is not controlled): “Finally…is it really a fiction?”To find answers to these questions, one of the audience’s privileged destinations was, of course, the Blair Witch site, where they discovered a series of fake elements of proof echoing the film. Nothing was presented as real proof, but it fed the rumor.

The website contained police reports, excerpts from one of the character’s diary or an interview of the mourning parents. Each week, new elements were added to the website. Expectations were stirred up, online discussions were going strong and the audience enjoyed working up their imagination.

The student director Heather (Heather Donohue) is accompanied only by Michael the cameraman (Michael Williams) and soundman Joshua (Joshua Leonard). With packs on their back, they descend into the forest on Halloween looking for interesting footage to use in their film, most particularly a cemetery where victims of the witch are buried--mostly children. Heather is a compulsive film-maker and takes shots continuously, including bags of marshmallows in a supermarket where they have stocked up for the hike, and of a dead mouse on the side of the trail. The two young men occasionally get annoyed at her, but she insists that she is serious about her documentary and wants to get in as much footage as possible. She is in control not only of the film--perhaps overly so, but of their safety as well. She has a map that they keep referring to as they make their way deeper and deeper into the gloomy autumn woods.

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Not too long after they have entered the depths of the forest, they begin to notice spooky piles of stones on the ground and stick figures hung from the branches of trees. At night in their tent they hear indistinct cries outside in the distance. Although nobody ever sees their source, they are continuously on their minds. Heather takes it all in stride since all of these elements will only help to make her film more interesting.

The mood of the film changes drastically when it is discovered that Josh the soundman has thrown the map into a brook as a gesture of defiance against the overbearing Heather. At first the three head due south in hopes of running into a settled area, but after a sixteen hour hike they end up exactly where they started out from. At night, after pitching their tent, they again hear the eerie cries from within the forest, which seem closer now.

The three young film-makers eventually succumb to the dark forces of the forest and the film purports to be based on their footage, which survived them. An elaborate website (www.blairwitch.com) has been created to fill in details that were left out of the theatrical release. But in keeping with the mock documentary spirit of the film, the website assumes that the events depicted in the film actually took place.

"The Blair Witch Project" is really not a movie about ghosts, witches and monsters. It is about insecurity and it is very good at capturing the genuinely creepy fears that everybody has about being lost in the woods. Working on a shoe-string budget, the directors and cast improvised the dialog. They also worked in tense conditions not unlike those that the film's characters found themselves in. A Newsweek article on the film reports that "Though the actors would pass an occasional jogger, they began to feel cut off from the safety of the civilized world."

Since the film has captured the imagination of the public despite lacking all of the accouterments of blockbuster films--no film track, no special effects, no stars--many journalists and academics have looked closely at it to try to figure out what it reflects about American society.

In an August 31, 1999 NY Times article on "The Blair Witch Project" and "Sixth Sense", another blockbuster horror movie, Robert Sklar, a New York University professor on the editorial board of the left-wing film magazine Cineaste, speculated that its popularity might be driven by unease about the millennium. People are "spooked by all the things that are coming up at this time." He added that the horror genre has always been cyclical, and that its moments of highest popularity have coincided with moments of extreme social and cultural dislocation.

According to an August 22, 1999 article in the British Independent newspaper, Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California's School of Cinema and Television, believes that new interest in the horror genre is linked to America's geopolitical climate. When the enemy was more clearly defined, as in the case of the former Soviet Union, then the monsters in horror movies could be more clearly and logically. With the collapse of Communism, he maintains, "You see the US in

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a bit of disarray in terms of self-representation ... The evil is not so clear in our imagination."

AnalysisPEST Analysis

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Political

A horror movie named “cannibal holocaust” was banned in 1980 due to Extreme Violence

They also feared the same since the movie was based on the same trend as it may have led to a perception of having belief of threat from Burkittsville

Permission from Local Authorities to shoot in the Seneca Creek State Park in Montgomery County, Maryland and parts in the town of Burkittsvile

Social

Motion Sickness – People Felt Motion Sickness while watching the movie

False Portrayal of police reports – the website reports police reports and finding which have been faked to show a real type story

Belief of the Story told was true – People actually believed the movie was true. The producers never told that this was real nor they told this was fiction. They just let the rumors flow

Economical

Haxan Films was low on a budget. The total budget of the movie was around $30,000

After the production was complete, the team was left with $15,000 for the advertisements. The production then hired a small

The profit to cost ratio for this movie is highest of all times, the revenue was $248,662,839 making the ratio 7238.1

Technological

As the producers were low on the budget, the video was shot with a mid range hand camera

The internet penetration in USA in the year 1999 was 50% using Internet as a medium of marketing and advertisement then was a risky affair

The budget Constraint was also a limit to the technological advancements, which would have been otherwise possible

SWOT Analysis

Comparison of Blair Witch with other Movies

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Strength

Relatively New concept of Movie Making

The Concept of Mock- Documentary

Use of Internet for promotion. The website (www.blairwitch.com)

The Actors were actually told, how to use a camera and were not given food purposely to make the acting look real.

The Actors were given daily scripts so that they did not knew how their characters would end up to be.

Weakness

The penetration of Internet was an hindrance in the promotion of the movie

Amateur Actors, script was given on the same day

Low budget, everything was low cost

The hype created by the Blair Witch movie could not be created by the sequel because the innovation lacked the second time

The actors suffered Various medical issues such as mild eczema

Opportunity

The Faking of police reports and Missing reports on the website created a visual that movie is a real documentary

Usage of New medium of advertisement, the Internet. This new model of marketing is the best for getting consumer insights

The producers never made it clear that the story was fake or real. They just let the doubts flow to make it more interesting

The movie was made using a hand camera, the motion of the camera in the filming for the footage, made it look like a real documentary

Threat

A horror movie named “cannibal holocaust” was banned in 1980 due to Extreme Violence

The Budget was low, there was no cinematography involved regular camera movements could have caused dis interest in the viewers

Hollywood was full with horror movie genre The local Authorities would have objected to the fake police reports being used in the advertisements

Top horror movies in the time period of 1995-2000 with Huge Box office(US) collections (increasing order):

Comparison of Movies in terms of revenue and Budget (Values in US $ Million)

Budget Box Office$0.00

$50,000,000.00

$100,000,000.00

$150,000,000.00

$200,000,000.00

$250,000,000.00

35,000

248,639,099

15,000,000

173,046,663

80,000,000

207,068,340

Blair Witch ProjectGodzillaScreamSleepy Hollow

Clearly we can see that The Cost to Profit Ratio of Blair Witch was whopping 7231.8 is the highest of all Movies of that Time

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The Blair Witch Project(1999)

Godzilla(1998)

Scream (1996)

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

The effectiveness of the Internet as promotional Medium

The Internet was commercialized in 1995 when the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic. During the late 1990s, it was estimated that traffic on the public Internet grew by 100 percent per year, preventing any one company from exerting too much control over the network.The success of the “Blair Witch Project” heavily relies on the Internet site developed in parallel. The idea of this platform was to suggest that the film was the re-transcription of a real event.Eduardo Sanchez, the director of the film, had thought about this system beforehand, he imagined this site as the last link of the Blair Witch “experience”. After its first presentation in January 1999, during the Sundance film festival, the film prepared its release in 27 theatres in the US. At that time, no poster, no advertisement, but a 15 000$ budget to create a website: www.blairwitch.com. The marketing director, John Hegemen, didn’t have an advertising budget so he decided to rework the Internet site created by the directors.As the Blair Witch became popular throughout the country, rumors began to float on the internet of its authenticity. Some said they could confirm that the images of the film were taken from real documents, the three students really did exist and some argued that it’s a work of fiction. The rumor increased! Those who didn’t see the film started hearing about it more and more, word of mouth started to spread. Two weeks later, the “Blair Witch” phenomenon had taken over the US.The website of the film experienced audience peaks of up to 3 million connections a day and it registered more than 75million visits

Conclusion/EvaluationBlair Witch was a landmark in movie marketing and distribution because it was the first time that any movie had successfully leveraged the Internet as a marketing platform to reach a wide audience. The marketing team employed a range of innovative strategies and tactics to stimulate audience demand. Nowadays, nobody is surprised by the idea of a website linked to the promotion of a Hollywood film, but the strategy of the “Blair Witch” crew is still ahead of many recent productions. As the World Wide Web began to truly earn its name in the second half of the 1990s, business and individuals seized upon the medium's vast advertising potential. The makers of The Blair Witch Project realized this potential of the internet and built their marketing and advertising strategies to reach out to mass audience economically. The response of this new way of promotion became a revolution and let to a phenomenal success of the film, making it one of the most successful horror films of all times and having the highest cost-to-profit ratio.

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Comparison of Websites of Horror MoviesThe Blairwitch.com opens up with a video clip taken from the movie in which one of the actors is introducing her and the Blair Witch legend followed by the musical theme of the movie which is scary as well as heart-stopping. Each section in the website is introduced in perfect synchronization with the theme which will send shivers down your spine. The Black and White theme of the website gives it a very real and simple look. The home page gives its viewers a chance to buy the DVD and go through its Directors, producers and crewmembers, as well as Mythology, the Aftermath and the Legacy of the Blair Witch. The website has managed to create the plot successfully with all the evidence, pictures, videos and news, which explains the wave it created back in those days. The content of the website makes it look real and believable.

The website is designed to give its audience detailed information about the Blair Witch Legend. Simplicity, informative nature and easy to browse are some of its key features which holds the viewer on the website for a longer period of time.

http://theexorcist.warnerbros.comThe Exorcist, 1973, named as the Scariest film of all time is a film dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her daughter through an exorcism conducted by two priests. The website opens up with the trailer of the Film and some behind the scenes footage. The website is extremely attractive, however its commercial motive can be felt as soon as the home page is displayed. Just like the blairwitch.com this website also tries to sell its DVD and gives the option to download the Film from the website upon making full payment online.Each section of the website has a clip playing in the background which keeps the viewer engrossed in the website. This website has more features than the blairwitch.com which makes this website much more attractive and interesting. Features like video on demand, wallpapers, and behind the scenes footage educates the viewer about the film.

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http://www.amityvillehorror.comThe Amityville Horror: A True Story is a book by Jay Anson, published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of ten films released between 1979 and 2011. The book is said to be based on the real-life paranormal experiences of the Lutz family, but has led to controversy and lawsuits over its truthfulness.In December 1975, George and Kathy Lutz and Kathy's three children moved into 112 Ocean Avenue, a large Dutch Colonial house in Amityville, a suburban neighborhood located on the south shore of Long Island, New York. Thirteen months before the Lutzes moved in, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. had shot and killed six members of his family at the house. After 28 days, the Lutzes left the house, claiming to have been terrorized by paranormal phenomena while living there.The official website of this movie is interactive as well as informative. The website has been designed to convince the viewer of the genuinely and truthfulness of the events that took place in the house without any motive to maximize or generate profits. Just like the Blairwitch.com, the website has published all the evidence, pictures, articles and documents related to the events took place till date. However this website is much more interactive than the Blair witch as it has forums where people can communicate with each other. This website is also open for feedback as the administrator’s can be contacted at any time. The Black background and the red text color adds to the flavor of the original plot of the film.

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Conclusions

In the case of a horror film like this one, the gratification for the audience also comes from this ambiguity that multiplies the feeling of fear (which is often the goal in this type of film) if spectators let themselves get carried away by the idea that all this “might be” true.

Today, a part of the Blair Witch crew has created a marketing agency called Campfire…I strongly suggest taking a look at their work if you don’t already know about it!

Audience satisfaction The facts are there, the success of the film no longer has to be proven. We can conclude that the audience was rather satisfied by the Blair Witch experience; even if though there was also a lot of dissention (which is not always a bad thing), it remains a film that undoubtedly left its mark.

Creativity The Blair Witch project has a lot of points in common with The Last Broadcast, a Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler project that came out in 1998. But we can also think of Cannibal Holocaust, shot in 1978. The format is also a fictional documentary. The marketing of the film was based on the real of fictional disappearance of the film’s journalists (back in the day, the director was even accused of having filmed real murder scenes).The format had already existed, but it also inspired many films such as Rec or Cloverfield.

Ingenuity of the system If we compare it with today’s means, the online strategy wasn’t very expanded. But it remains very clever. Development of the website for 15 000$ (very little for the time), more than 75 000 visits, a amazing result, especially for 1999. A community management strategy that was limited but precise, to create a base of ambassadors, who were the spearheads of the film’s promotion (referencing, link exchange, word of mouth, etc)

ROI (Return on Investment) $35,000 production costs, $248 million box office revenue during the summer of 1999. Who can do better?

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ReferencesReferences have been taken from various websites, and sub-links further an indicative list of all is as given below:

IMDB1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162661/ 2. http://www.imdb.com/search/title?

genres=horror&sort=boxoffice_gross_us3. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/ 4. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/

Wikipedia 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_(1998_film )2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepy_Hollow_(film )4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scream_(film )

Miscellaneous 1. http://www.transmedialab.org/en/case-study/etude-de-cas-the-blair-

witch-project-une-reference-transmedia-2/2. http://www.quora.com/Could-the-Blair-Witch-effect-become-the-

standard-in-movie-distribution3. http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC43folder/

BlairWitch.html

Movie Websites1. http://www.blairwitch.com/ 2. http://www.sonypictures.com/ (Godzilla)3. http://weinsteinco.com (Scream)4. http://www.paramount.com/ ( Sleepy Hollow)5. http://www.amityvillehorror.com 6. http://theexorcist.warnerbros.com 7.

All Images Are Taken From the Respective Websites and/or from Distributors and Film Magazines

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