The filmmakers also put up missing posters at film festivals and directed a short mockumentary, disguised as a traditional documentary which aired on the sci-fi channel called The Curse of Blair Witch. The website showed pictures of police investigations, interviews with Heather’s mother and “uncovered” audio clips from their expedition. The filmmakers made a website before the film’s release to play up the legend behind the film. But Blair Witch reached a wider audience and cemented its authenticity in the public’s eyes through its promotional material. Cannibal Holocaust and The Last Broadcast used many of the same tropes to appear real. The Blair Witch Project wasn’t the first found footage film of course. Meaning that much of the acting feels close to reality because, for most of the production, the cast really were living like their characters. And the crew would pull gags on the actors at night such as shaking their tent. Which often encouraged the actors to bicker amongst one another. According to co-director Daniel Myrick, “ Using GPS, we directed them to locations…where they’d leave their footage and pick up food and our directing notes”. To do this, the actors were sent into the woods to film with the filming equipment and a GPS tracker. To push the film’s realism, the directors cast unknown actors and wanted them to improvise all their dialogue. And the film furthered its connection to reality by employing a different kind of filming process to get its performances. Blair witch project budget movie#But the low-grade film stock, shaky camera, realistic audio, with no score, and no monster made this movie seem like someone’s home movie, not a professional film. Audiences were used to slickly produced horror films. The Blair Witch Project was among the first movies to use an unprofessional style to create an air of authenticity. It’s hard to believe now, as found footage is a staple of the horror landscape, but the style was once both new and credible.
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