The Blair Witch Project

 The Blair Witch Project

In a nutshell: In 1994, three university students began to shoot a documentary about a local witch. Wandering off into the woods, they disappeared, never to be seen again… their footage was found one year later. And that footage became the “Blair Witch Project”. The previews looked scary, horrific and very realistic, but alas, it was all just a hoax.

What was different/original about it? The Blair Witch Project has often been called “The Biggest Con of the Century”. Months before it’s release, it revealed snippets of footage, media reports, news broadcasts and the first type of “internet buzz” to get the world talking about it. And talk about it the world did, building up to such a high level of anticipation and pre-ticket sales that every man and his dog wanted to see it. Then the day before its release, the real filmmakers behind it all came forward and it admitted it was just a hoax. However, the publicity machine had done its job and audiences still turned out in droves to see it. Despite being a fake documentary, it was still compelling, surprisingly well-acted and plenty scary. It was all shot from the perspective of the three students holding the cameras, resulting in a shaky, unstable and intense viewing experience, which turned off some but fully engrossed others.

How did it change movies? The Blair Witch Project is a classic example of how big things can be done with almost no money and word-of-mouth. Certainly not something seen before in the likes of the film industry, so you could say Blair Witch kicked it all off. Made for something stupid like $30,000 the film went on to make an estimated $150,000,000 bucks at the flicks. Hollywood was amazed at how well this had worked, and to lower production costs and increase their profits, they adopted the style and tricks of Blair Witch to churn out a long-line of copycats that have gone onto to be just as successful, i.e. “Paranormal Activity”, “Cloverfield”, “Project X”, etc. 

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