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Lo-Tech Cinema
"The Blair Witch Project" is a biting rebuke to Hollywood, which has nearly overwhelmed movies from "Phantom Menace" to "Wild Wild West" with expensive cinematic technology, especially computer-generated special effects.
The BWP, made for roughly $50,000 by two young and unknown filmmakers - Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick - might well spark a new Lo-Tech genre in American cinema. It sure ought to.
As of last weekend, the BWP was the No. 2 money-making movie in America, taking in $30 million. It is pounding the daylights out of big-budget Hollywood clunkers like "The Haunting and "Deep Blue Sea," both of which spent small fortunes on razzle-dazzle effects but forgot to include the rest of the movie.
In fact, the "Haunting" has grossed half as much as the BWP even though it cost at least a hundred times as much to make.
It wasn't that the BWP makers didn't understand or make use of technology. They did.
The movie's website www.blairwitch.com had more than 20 million hits even before the films release this summer in a handful of theaters in a small number of cities.
The site is a model of how to use the Web to capture the style and atmosphere of a film.
The movie is set in a tiny (real) town in Maryland. The (fictional) premise is that three student filmmakers set out into the woods in October of l994 to film a documentary about the Blair Witch, who supposedly has haunted the woods for generations. The kids never come back. A year later their video footage is found. The website presents the story as a literal news event, including newscasts reporting on the kids' disappearance and the search for them and their remains.
Sanchez and Myrick shot the movie with tiny hand-held cameras, one of the many reasons the BWP is so edgily effective. They used Global Positioning Satellite tracking systems to guide the three unknown actors in the movie to their locations in the woods, where they found instructions on the movie's upcoming scenes. The actors weren't told what to say, but required instead to improvise the dialogue and much of the plot. Watching the movie, it's easy to forget you're watching one.
Thus the actors were especially convincing as terrified kids in way over their heads. The WBP is, from the first, permeated with an overpowering sense of gloom and dread reminiscent of the original "Night Of the Living Dead," one of the best and most innovative horror films of its era. I've rarely seen a theater so quiet.
Using technology in this savvy, minimalist way, the BWP reminds us that movies can be much more frightening when they leave some perils to our imagination than when they present them so literally and ultra-graphically (one of the many reasons "Jaws" was so much creepier than its lame sequels).
In fact, the BWP did none of the high-tech things that now seem elemental in contemporary movie-making. It had no score, not a single special effect, almost no lighting, no expensively animated credits.
For the past few years, filmmakers have been drunk on all of their new technologies, from computer-generated characters to numbingly overdone explosions and crashes. The early mythic horror films - "Frankenstein," "Dracula," "The Phantom of the Opera" - were much closer to the BWP than to the gazillion-dollar bombs now produced by the corporatized studios: they were much more frightening for what they didn't show than for what they did.
Sanchez and Myrick may, in fact, have almost single-handedly saved an endangered Hollywood genre. Their movie was made completely outside the Hollywood studio system, discovered when shown out of competition at the Sundance Film Festival (it wasn't even accepted as an entry ).
Had it been a Hollywood project, it would probably have had almost none of the qualities that make it so strikingly original - the realistic, amateurish, herky-jerky home video quality, the restraint and discipline that force us to picture what might be happening.
And a big studio would never have signed Heather Donahue, the previously unknown actress who delivers a grand-slam performance as an obsessive young documentary maker. Nor would a studio have permitted a film to be made without a script.
Yet without sophisticated use of technology, the BWP wouldn't have been nearly as effective. GPS systems permitted the actors to move around without a horde of techs and aides, something which clearly contributed to their performances as increasingly terrified kids alone in the woods. In the first minutes of the movie, the kids are much more worried about returning their car and camera equipment in time than about being lost in the woods with any supernatural skullduggery. That changes quickly.
Digital technology makes possible small and highly portable cameras that can be wielded by actors as well as cinematographers. And the movie's amazing online campaign shows that creativity can do wonders on the Web while giant and overblown corporate ad campaigns stagger and fail. The Web is profoundly anti-hype. The product has to deliver, and Webheads prefer to find it for themselves. People online want to find something good and share it, not be beaten over the head with it. Online marketing reverses the natural laws of conventional media hype. If you make it, and it's good, they will come.
The good news is that "The Blair Witch Project" advances the campaign of techno-savvy, creative, young and poorly-funded filmmakers against a corporatized film system that embraces technology but smothers originality. The bad news is that a sequel to BWP has already been contracted by a Hollywood studio.
I made the mistake of going to see BWP at a
Saturday matinee at the local Cinema-super-mega-plex
stadium seating super-Dolby-sound -- you get the
idea. Anyway, the theatre was packed and I was
surrounded by parents who brought their crying
little toddlers (can you say "babysitter"?)
and on the other side of me was a group of plus-size
women trying to break a world record for loudest
comsumption of three buckets of popcorn, in front
of me was a 7-foot tall guy with a weak bladder
jumping up to go to the restroom every 10 minutes.
I loved BWP! It was the only movie I had seen in
my adult life that actually freaked me out, but
my best advice is see it at a small theatre late
at night with very few people to get the maximum
effect, or wait for it to come out on video.
The key to enjoying BWP is to watch it with
absolutely no distractions because the whole
story is told from first-person point of view
so you sympathize with the chracters and their plight.
This post contains SPOILERS so read beyond
it if you haven't seen BWP:
The ending was brilliant: How do you know the 3
kids are dead? All we know is that they're missing. Yes, Josh dissappears and hints are made
that he was mutilated but is he dead? Are any of
them dead? You can assume that but then again like
any good book or film it's left to the audience to
figure it out the details -- it makes you think.
It's in Maryland. It's pretty difficult to find a roadless stretch of woods anyplace along the East Coast, other than parkland. Just been populated for too long. Keep walking in any direction for a while and you're pretty likely to find some yokel's house, with a satellite dish and a phone.
In fact, that's the emergency navigation plan for greater Boston. Keep going until you find 128. Then you'll be okay.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Look kids, it's JonKatz again. This time he is trying to perform opinion-fellatio on the movie-going segment of /. readership. Yet, somehow he manages to say nothing that isn't obvious.
Indie films have been around for ever. Most are lo-tech, due to lack of funds. BWP is no different. The producers begged, borrowed and quite probably stole, to make this film a reality. The amazing thing is that they somehow showed it to the right people who decided to take a risk by taking the film to the screens. Makes you wonder how many other independent gems got lost along the way.
Katz, once again, misses the point. The movie isn't a huge hit because it's frightening beyond the means of FX. It's a hit because it's completely different than what the movie going public is used to. It's the product of a single mind, rather than a committee... Unlike Katz articles. But now that we've seen it, a sequel just won't cut it. Not even if it's done as gamelan or kabuki. We've seen the original, any sequel will be shunned for being a fad, a recipe and a Zircon. We'll pay $8 to see something original - after that it damn better look fancy.
The really cool thing about BWP, that Katz of course glances off of and proceeds away from the point tangentially, is that the BW legend was planted and took root in the cultural gulibility. Had the release waited for the myth to spread, the movie would have been an even greater success. The triumph of BWP is in the meme contagion it caused. They created a Yeti. People were driving through Maryland LOOKING FOR THE WITCH!! Katz never mentions this once.
When will JonKatz have an original thought? When will he say something that actually makes people think? When will he spawn a mutant meme, rather than spraying us with a homogenized culture of engineered ones?
Well, with the apparent upsurgence of creativity outside of Hollywood (ain't that right Jon?), maybe someone will make a short film about a pundit who isn't trying to suck off the mainstream majority, but rather synthesizes something new from the cultural gestalt... Now THAT would be a great work of fiction.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I finally remembered what the filming of BWP reminds me of. I'm sure a lot of you have read Dream Park by Larry Niven and Stephen(?) Barnes, and possibly the sequels, The Barsoom Project and The California Voodoo Game. For those of you haven't, the books take place in the ultimate high-tech theme park. One of the park's biggest draws is its full-immersion Live Action Role-Playing games (LARPs). Some of you have probably played some of White Wolf's Mind Eye Theatre games, or been in a LARP at a con. Maybe some of you fight in the SCA or other reenactment groups. Now, imagine a fantasy LARP played on a giant soundstage with full special effects. You live in the game for days, stay in character except maybe during rest periods, fight holographic monsters and live NPC actors, solve puzzles, etc. Aside from the competitive aspect (there is some sort of huge international LARP league), the best games are recorded and marketed.
The making of BWP seems more like a low-tech Dream Park LARP than true moviemaking. While I haven't seen the movie yet, Donohoughe and the others sound more like game players than actors. I can imagine that some people would be interested in taking part in something like this more for the experience than for the sake of making a film. Is it possible that BWP represents the future of interactive gaming more than the future of non-interactive entertainment?
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
Inferring from the specific to the general is always a bad idea, and Katz has done just that here (disclaimer: haven't seen TBWP, and know nothing about it)
Remember when El Mariachi was made for sixteen cents and packet of chewing gum? That wasn't the end of the hollywood blockbuster, and nor will this be.
Style over substance will always be Hollywood's signature.
btw, from Jon's description, TBWP sounds remarkably similar in style to Pi, one of the worst fucking movies I've ever seen. Just because it hasn't got a budget, don't assume it's good.
I agree. What really got me was how the movie wasn't dumbed down in any way. You have to really pay attention to understand what the last 5 seconds of film really means. In fact, I had to explain the significance to a few of my friends. What really gets me is that Hollywood would NEVER do anything that requires anything above the intelligence of a rock.
Also, in the Hollywood version of BWP, one of the guys would have screwed Heather. No question about it.
That's exactly what I was thinking reading this article. Both Pi and El Mariachi received critical acclaim and achieved a cult following. Both were made on shoestring budgets. And both used unusal camera techniques.
So why has Blair Witch received so much attention, while these movies, though successful, remain in relative obscurity? Better marketing? Better talent? Succesful use of digital technology?
Whatever. It's because every idiot teeniebopper can identify with a horror movie. Subtitles and heavy themes confuse and bore the MTV crowd. No such problem with a low budget horror movie, because they're so cliched. The suprising thing about this one is it just happens to be done well. That make it's unique and different, therefore it's cool. That's why it's stomping The Haunting and that fish movie.
(And Pi is one of the best fucking movies ever made! What is wrong with it, aside from the technical innacruacies?)
Exec: Kids are all into scary movies these days. But what with all these crazy shootings, theaters aren't letting kids in to see scary movies. So we need a PG-13, or we've got no audience.
Pitchman: They said the f-word a lot in the first one. We tone down on the f-word and we'll get you your PG-13.
Exec: Excellent thinking. So tell me about our sequel here.
Pitchman: Picture this--a team of Army commandos goes into the woods to investigate the missing film students. They've got satellite hookups on their helmetcams so we can watch what they're doing.
Exec: Helmet cams! Good angle! Very high tech. We can have a command center like in Armageddon. Can we get Bruce Willis for the head commando?
Pitchman: I understand he's very interested.
Exec: But those jiggly cameras are such a headache. Can we lose the bouncy-wowncey cameras?
Pitchman: Don't worry--all the running with night vision goggles will be done with dollies.
Exec: Night vision! Very Desert Storm! Very high tech! Now, what about computer generated special effects? Without computer generated special effects, you don't have a scary movie.
Pitchman: The witch is some serious special effects! She's got spells that shoot fireballs and lightning and whatnot, and the commandoes are all shooting back with grenade launchers.
Exec: Computer fireballs! And grenade launchers! Very high tech! How are we on helicopters?
Pitchman: Would you believe an Apache attack helicopter shooting rockets down on the witch's fortress? How's that for fireballs?
Exec: That's some serious fireballs!
Pitchman: We were thinking this for act two: Helicopter gets shot down by witch's fireballs, crew survives, race is on! Who gets to the chopper first, the witch, or the team of commandoes?
Exec: Very suspenseful! You've got your suspense! Can you make it a female pilot? I've always thought Laura Dern would make a great damsel in distress.
Pitchman: I understand she's very interested.
Exec: So her character and Bruce's character, they have a history?
Pitchman: And he suddenly realizes he's got to save her to win her love back!
Exec: We've got our love interest! Tell me about the witch.
Pitchman: You know how scary it was without the witch? Imagine how scary it will be when you could actually see the witch! She's computer generated! She can float, she can shoot fireballs, she can fly through trees! She can become trees!
Exec: Very high tech! Very special effects! So what's her look, you know, when she reveals herself?
Pitchman: That's up in the air--we're debating between etherial and demonic.
Exec: Or you know, you've got this all beautiful, this seductive ghost, seducing commandoes and whatnot, then boom! Demonic! Morph her!
Pitchman: We can morph her!
Exec: Like in Raiders!
Pitchman: Like in Raiders!
Exec: There's our tie-in!
Pitchman: We've got synergy!
Exec: Synergy! Oh and speaking of synergy, how are we on racial balancing? Do we have racial balancing?
Pitchman: The commandoes are all sorts of races. We've got African-American commandoes; we've got Hispanic commandoes. We were thinking a Hopi Native American commando, kinda half-mystic, half-warrior, who can sense the witch's presence when noone else can.
Exec: How mystic are we talking here? Can he shoot fireballs?
Pitchman: He can have a final fireball duel with the witch! Beat her at her own game!
Exec: The duel's gotta be with the main lead. You think Willis can pull off a Native American?
Pitchman: I think of Willis as more of a John Wayne in that whole cowboys-and-Indians schtick, pardon my French.
Exec: What about that kid from La Bamba? Lou Diamond-something.
Pitchman: Yeah, that guy. He could save Bruce and Laura at the very last minute!
Exec & Pitchman: With a computer fireball!
Exec: We've got our surprise ending!
Pitchman: He's claiming his powers in his ancestral forest!
Exec: Very mystic! Very high tech! We gotta get him for the fireball! You think we could get him?
Pitchman: I understand he's very interested.
--
This is not my sandwich.