- #THE ACTORS FROM THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT 1999 HOW TO#
- #THE ACTORS FROM THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT 1999 MOVIE#
In our conversation below, Muncer details the impact and legacy of this low-budget masterpiece, from its seminal use of found-footage, to its innovative promotion tactics and the DIY ethos it engendered among future filmmakers – we dissect one of the most important contributions to horror in the last twenty years.įinn Blythe: When it came out in 1999, what made The Blair Witch Project so radically different from anything that preceded it? In between endless re-hashings of the Freddy Krueger universe ( Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare 1992, Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday 1993) they had to endure Stephen King’s crack-pot debut screenplay Shapeshifters (1992), and several appalling sequels, most notably Jan De Bont’s limp take on Robert Wise’s 1963 classic, The Haunting.Īs part of the BFI’s two month exploration of 90s film and television, The Blair Witch Project will return to the big screen with an introduction by host and producer of the hugely successful podcast, The Evolution of Horror, Mike Muncer. There’s a common misunderstanding that not a lot went into it, but it took two years of effort to make it look like it was just shot by three students over a long weekend.When it was released in 1999, The Blair Witch Project arrived as redemptive salvation for horror fans, a welcome antidote to the dross that had been served up that decade, and a truly terrifying spectacle that not only harnessed the nascent power of the internet but re-drew the boundaries of what the horror genre could contribute to cinema.īut for a few lasting contributions made to the genre – Candyman (1992), Scream (1996) and The Sixth Sense (1999) – the 90s will not live long in the memories of horrorphiles. It popularised the found-footage approach, for better or for worse. Not too many movies have had such a cultural influence. All in, it cost about $300,000 – and it made nearly $250m worldwide.
#THE ACTORS FROM THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT 1999 MOVIE#
The next thing we knew, Artisan had bought the movie for $1m.
There was a queue around the block and out into the parking lot for the first Sundance screening. I got a call from a New York police officer who had worked in Maryland for years and wanted to help.
We already had some buzz going into the Sundance film festival, partly because of the website we built suggesting our student documentary-makers really had disappeared. It cost about $35,000 (£26,000) to get all the footage shot. Then there were the “gags” we’d pull at night that they had to react to – like hearing the children’s voices, or feeling the tent being shaken.
#THE ACTORS FROM THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT 1999 HOW TO#
Don’t take no for an answer.” Or: “Josh, somewhere along the way today, you’ve had it with this bullshit.” They had the freedom to decide how to play it: we only intervened if we felt they needed to tone things down. These would say things like: “Heather, you’re absolutely sure that to get out of this mess you go south. Watch a trailer for The Blair Witch Project Using GPS, we directed them to locations marked with flags or milk crates, where they’d leave their footage and pick up food and our directing notes. It wasn’t like a normal film: the actors would work the cameras, filming each other all the time. The shoot took eight days and was a 24/7 operation. There were 10 to 15 of us there for six weeks, sleeping on couches and on the floor. We set up a base at a house in Germantown, Maryland, that Ed shared with his girlfriend. She said: “I probably shouldn’t be released.” We asked actors to pretend to be at a parole hearing and explain why they should be released. The original plan was for it to be three guys, but we had to cast Heather Donahue after what happened during her audition. The treatment covered what happens, but it had no dialogue – we wanted it all improvised. In the late 90s, with digital coming into its own, it was only a matter of time before someone made this kind of first-person movie. The idea was that this film was put together later, using the footage they shot. Ed Sánchez, a friend from university who ended up co-directing, helped me work this into a 35-page treatment about three students who go missing after heading out into the Maryland woods to make a documentary about a legendary witch. For a long time, I had this idea of seeing a stick figure hanging from a tree and it creeped the hell out of me. I grew up around the woods and swamps of Florida. ‘I had this idea of a stick figure hanging from a tree’ … the Blair Witch symbol