Case Study - Blair Witch Project

''In October of 1994, three student film makers disappeared in the woods near Burkittesville, Maryland. One year later, their footage was found...''

We have chosen to do a small case study on one film, The Blair Witch Project. As a group we are interested in this film for several reasons: it's ground breaking marketing techniques, it's clever use of camera movement, and how a small budget film became such a phenomenon. The Blair Witch Project's success was hugely down to it's clever marketing campaign; it was the first film to use viral marketing, a vital part of film marketing today. Also, by making the film seem like a true story a media buzz was created through word of mouth. To make the film seem real, missing posters, broadcasts on news channels, and a fake documentary called 'Curse of the Blair Witch' were released. Another technique used in the making of the Blair Witch Project was the use of hand held camera work, this made the 'students footage' more convincing and emphasised the reality of the film. in fact, the three principal actors, Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams, shot nearly all of the completed film. The use of hand held camera makes the audience feel more involved in the film, therefore empathising and feeling the fear of the aracters. The idea behind the release of Blair Witch Project was for it to genuinely come across as a true event, this was its USP. All these factors contributed to making it the third most successful independent film of all time.

Advertising
Word about three students lost in Burkittsville, Maryland (formally Blair) started to spread over Internet chat sites in early 1999. Users believed that the events were 100% true and that they were merely publicising a horrific and sad tale of three film students. However, what they were actually doing was captivating and intriguing an audience, in a method of film advertisement never used before. During the film promotion, producers claimed that all the footage was real. Some people still believe it. The filmmakers posted 'Missing Posters' of the three main cast members around Cannes film festival, again reeling people into believing the movie footage was real. To further this, before the film was released, the three main actors were listed as "missing, presumed dead" on the IMDb. This again re-inforced to audiences that these events we real.

Genre
The Blair Witch Project utilizes the conventions of genre as a mock-documentary. It’s unique plotline about three students hunt for the Blair Witch, gives audiences a new distinct twist on the genre of horror.

Poster
This is one of the posters used to advertise The Blair Witch Project. It features the iconic image of Heather Donahue’s face which in many ways is the symbol of this movie.
The shadows of forest trees create the setting and adhere to the horror genre convention of an isolated place, making the movie seem immediately sinister. Only the outline is shown to create a fear of the unknown and therefore empathy of the character pictured below.

The main image of this poster is clearly the face, by positioning it in the lower half of the poster, it constructs a hierarchy, and with her being at the bottom, shows her as vulnerable, inferior and depicts her as the victim, not the protagonist. The facial expression only highlighted by torch light, is obviously scared and the audience are drawn into eye contact with the girl.

The text, which also appears at the start of the trailer and movie, is positioned above her face. By using white, the statement comes across as innocent and true. It is written in a non-elliptical way; it gives all the information needed to the audience rather than merely implying, which is the typical horror convention.

Finally, the red Blair Witch symbol is picture above this again. By using red the audience gets a hint of danger or blood, and this technique complies with stereotypical horror conventions. The five-pointed compound symbol with a centre triangle pointing down was a medieval charm among alchemists and wizards. The five lines resemble the microcosmic man with arms and legs outstretched inside a circle.