LO1: The Blair Which Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project.

In 1999 directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez set out to create a new type of horror picture and on a relatively low budget it was very difficult for them to create a large marketing campaign for the picture. The film itself had a relatively young target audience which is likely why the marketing techniques were so successful.

Due to the young age of the films target demographic the posters have been designed to use quite dark colours. The dark colours connote the sinister atmosphere of the product that is being sold with this film and will likely attract the attention of the films intended target audience. I would say that the intended target audience for this film would be late teen to late twenties people of both genders likely with a NRS C or B lifestyle. They would be attracted to the film by the fact that they can relate to the characters featured in it (as that they are in the same age range and will be the same gender as one of the characters.) which is probably why the main protagonist (Heather) is featured on the films second poster (shown below).  
Another poster design (also shown below) features pictures of the three main actors of the film in a "missing poster" format. This advertisement blends quite well with the other aspect of the Blair Witch Project's marketing campaign which was mainly focused on making the movie going community believe that it was real. There were several aspects to this strategy which included:
1. Making Missing posters for the actors such as the one featured below.
2. having the actors not be involved in any of the marketing for the film (interviews and the such.)
3. The now infamous tag line "In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary...A year later their footage was found." was used to promote the film in every trailer and poster released for it and is written in such a way as to tell the audience that what they are seeing is a real film shot by a girl who is really missing.
5. The makers of the film managed to secure a deal with the US "Sci Fi" channel in order to broadcast a "mini documentary" on the Blair which before the movie came out which again gave audiences a chance o see the film as real.
The idea of making the movie seem real to the audience who will be viewing it seems ridiculous to people now but when " The Blair Witch Project" was created in 1999 people didn't have the Internet to quickly disprove such claims of legitimacy and this meant that it was a much easier task to convince people that they were seeing real footage and caused the target demographic to become far more interested in the premise of the film as that it is typically the type of people who  would be interested in consuming  that challenges traditional modes and conventions. As well as this the advertising campaign's message that the people and events in the film are legitimate calls an important ethical question. Is it alright to use a supposedly real life tragedy to profit? and more so. Is it alright to fabricate a story such as this which could upset and offend people who have real life missing family members while drawing attention away from their real life searches with the fake missing people that this film has created?