Advertising campaign of the film "the Blair Witch project: Course from the world"

"The witch from Blair: Course from the world" (eng. "The Blair Witch Project") ;– low-budget mockumentary horror film from 1999, filmed by representatives of independent American cinema. The film tells about three students kinoatele College who went astray and disappeared in the woods of Maryland, where he shot a video for a course project about a local legend – the Blair witch.

The film was shot on Amateur camera and has a mockumentary format of the tape, supposedly compiled from footage shot of the missing students. In the film, whose budget ranged from 20 to 22 thousand dollars, no special effects, violence and music.

The film was a revelation for its time and was hailed by critics at the prestigious festival of independent cinema "Sundance", and also won the Prize of the youth jury at the Cannes film festival in the category "Foreign film".

Advertising campaign of the film was actively underlined by the reality narrated in this history. Videos, posters and other promotional materials were intended to create the impression that the story told in the movie happened in reality. Through these materials the audience reported that the movie characters have gone missing while searching in the forest a mythical Witch.

The legend of the Witch, which became the backstory of the painting that was fabricated by the filmmakers Sanchez and Miriam and described in detail in "the Curse of the Blair witch project" – the television show that came on the SciFi channel in 1999 a few months before the release of the film "Blair Witch". Sanchez and Myrick also maintained a website which contains additional information on this legend. Shortly before the official start of the advertising campaign in mass media it was announced that in the woods of Maryland discovered film shot by students who disappeared while investigating the legend of the Witch. This film was supposedly mounted film.

The filmmakers paid much attention to the details of their hoax. On the website IMDb starring for some time was marked as "missing, presumed dead". On the official website of the film was posted fake police reports, fake interviews, shot in the style of newsreels. It was a short videos in which actors representing police officers and investigators, talked about his participation in the search for the "missing students" and showed them baby pictures. During the demonstrations of the film, the filmmakers also sought to present are shown in this event as real. So, at festivals, they distributed leaflets addressed to the audience from asking you to provide any information about the "missing" students.

Shortly after the film was shot full of pseudo-tape "the Curse of the Blair witch project" (eng. "Curse of the Blair Witch"), consisting of interviews with fake friends and relatives of the missing students, experts in the field of the paranormal, representatives of the police.

Advertising campaign of the film was a huge success. In fact, "The Blair Witch Project" became the first viral movie, even though that was filmed before the advent of technologies that would facilitate the promotion of media production. The picture of the "Blair Witch" became the progenitor of the genre mocumentary and inspired many imitators, not only of the film itself, but the style of his advertising company. For example, in 2008, producer and Director Andrew Shalopa filmed an Amateur horror movie "to Catch a witch", a story about a group of Russian students who went into the woods of Maryland on the scene 13 years ago with the aim to verify the accuracy of events.

The existence of such ways of promotion of the works of mass culture suggests that the descriptions that appear mysterious cases should be checked for the similarity with the plots and the presence of references for the next time the movie premieres, TV series, games, books, etc.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»