The Blair Witch Project was an early example of a proactively transmedia project. It was designed from the beginning to distribute its story across multiple platforms. The film's creators established a mythology and website that provided additional information about the characters and plot. This helped generate buzz for the film months before its release. Through a viral marketing campaign utilizing the website and fake documentary style, the low-budget film became a major commercial success despite poor critical reviews.

1. The Blair Witch Project

2. How is this project transmedia?

Mythology

The 'Missing' Poster

The Film

The Blair Witch book

The Website
“The project was always going to be
transmedia, it was a marketing strategy
and they knew because of the genre
audiences would want to get involved.”
-Velikovsky

3. An example of a proactive transmedia
text
The term PROACTIVE refers to a text that is created to be
cross media from the beginning.
The Blair Witch Project is an example of this because the success and
release of the story was designed to be distributed across multiple
platforms. The main platform for this narrative is the website which then
led audiences to watch the film.
Additional content relating to the film is also published on the website
such as

Character information

Mythology

Crime scene photos

4. TIMELINE & RELEASE
The Blair Witch Project:
“The best viral marketing campaign of all time”
-MWP Digital Media
June 1998 – Hexan Films (The Production company owned by Sanchez and Myrick
created the website. www.blairwitchproject.com
January 1999 – The Blair Witch Project featured at the Sundance Film Festival.
Artisan Entertainment bought the rights for 1 Million dollars
July 1999 – Haxan and Artisan collectivity decided that the website was to be the
main marketing platform to make their campaign public. Six months before the films
release it was said that they had spend 1 million dollars on promotion.
During this time content relating to 'recovered footage' and additional information
about the characters is added to the website.
2009 – The website is updated to reflect the 10 year anniversary of the film.

6. “We had created this whole mythology and I just
kept massaging it and building more details into
it. Really for us, it wasn’t about creating this
whole new way of marketing films – people are
on the web asking about this movie, how else
are we going to get it to them?”
-Eduardo Sanchez

7. CONSTRUCTED NARRATIVE TIMELINE

8. Was it a success?

On the films opening weekend it had grossed 1.5 million on 27 full
screenings alone

Although
critics
rated the
movie
itself
poorly the
marketing
campaign
and hype
around
the movie
was
strong
enough to
make a
profit.

9. Bibliography
Lynn Higley, S, & Andrew Weinstoc, J (eds.) 2004, Nothing that is:
Millennial Cinema and the Blair Witch Controversies, Wayne state
university press, Michigan.
Mathjis, E & Sexton J 2011, 'Fandom and Subculture,' [in] Cult
Cinema, Blackwell Publishing, United Kingdom.
Olivier Godest 2011, 'The Blair Witch Project, a Transmedia
Reference?', Case Study 3rd March, viewed 15th March 2014,
<
http://www.transmedialab.org/en/the-blog-en/case-study-en/the-blair-w
>
Velikovsky, JT 2013, Two Successful Transmedia Case Studies: The
Blair Witch Project (1999) and The Devil Inside (2012).

10. Bibliography
Lynn Higley, S, & Andrew Weinstoc, J (eds.) 2004, Nothing that is:
Millennial Cinema and the Blair Witch Controversies, Wayne state
university press, Michigan.
Mathjis, E & Sexton J 2011, 'Fandom and Subculture,' [in] Cult
Cinema, Blackwell Publishing, United Kingdom.
Olivier Godest 2011, 'The Blair Witch Project, a Transmedia
Reference?', Case Study 3rd March, viewed 15th March 2014,
<
http://www.transmedialab.org/en/the-blog-en/case-study-en/the-blair-w
>
Velikovsky, JT 2013, Two Successful Transmedia Case Studies: The
Blair Witch Project (1999) and The Devil Inside (2012).