Online Movie Marketing

The E-Marketing Of A Movie

The surprise hit movie of the summer, The Blair Witch Project, has become a media darling due in no small effort to the film's directors themselves.

It has been reported that the film cost anywhere between $25,000 to $350,000 to make and in its first week grossed an estimated $28.5 million and as of August 12 had grossed $92.4 million. Even at the high end of $350,000, Blair Witch is one of the most profitable films of all time.

The Movie

In October 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary...

A year later their footage was found.

So says the beginning screen of The Blair Witch Project, laying out the premise of the movie. The popularity of this movie is simple to understand. The story itself is compelling and it is told well. It is perhaps the latter point that separates it from the rest of the films in its genre as well as the rest of the films released this summer.

The manner in which the story is told, in home movie-like documentary fashion, gives you the unnerving sense you are with the filmmakers as they trekk out into the Maryland woods that will eventually consume them. That sense that you are there, sharing in the terror the characters eventually experience, is creepy indeed. So too is the picture of terror the movie depicts: A realistic eventual descent into panic and hysteria. Like a Hitchcock film, the story depends upon psychological rather than physical violence for its suspense and tension; there is very little blood in this film.

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention and Blair Witch goes a long way toward proving the cliché. Any writer self-respecting writer will tell you that closure is one of the most important elements of a story. But because Hollywood films are tremendous financial risks, they often have two endings, the natural one and then the focus-group-dictated ending. Thankfully, this small-budget gem lacked the financial resources for focus groups and therefore simply rolled the credits after the natural ending.

It also comes as a bit of a surprise when, a half hour after seeing the film, you realize that the movie had no soundtrack. There was no creepy music to artificially induce emotions but then the flick didn't need any.

The Internet Hype

The Internet is swarming with Blair Witch fan sites, Web boards, mailing lists, newsgroups, trailer sites, and general excitement about the movie. The Blair Witch Project web ring alone lists 87 sites that have joined its network. Deja.com, a newsgroup indexing service, returns 13,659 hits for the search "The Blair Witch Project."

This is a common phenomenon for hit movies; fan sites will proliferate seemingly exponetially. The difference in this case is that the Internet activity started well before the film's release. And the media began to pick up on the cyberbuzz: MTV News covered the profileration of fan sites nearly two months before its July 16 release. The torrent of online talk about the movie aroused the curiosity of the offline press who then began to report it. This pre-release hype created the anticipation for the movie's opening that can drive ticket sales.

The buzz continues now that the film looks to be the blockbuster of the season. And the tie-ins and spinoffs are beginning to emerge. The Science Fiction Channel has run a Blair Witch Project "documentary;" a Blair Witch Project role playing game site will launch at the end of August; parody sites are popping up, including one by Trailervision.com called The Jar Jar Binks Project; and the soundtrack for a soundtrackless film has been released.

The Web Site

Nielson NetRatings listed the official site as the 45th most visited location on the Web for the week ending August 1, with a reported 10.4 million page views and an astounding average visit of 16 minutes and 8 second. That ranking is a jump from its placing of 86th during the week ending July 18, when the film was in limited release.

This enviable traffic as well as the pre-release buzz may be a result of how Blair Witch co-director Eduardo Sanchez used The Blair Witch Project site. Sanchez created the site last year to outline the story of the Blair Witch and to lure potential investors--before the screenplay had even been written. The site's popularity grew (along with the myth of the Blair Witch) as an increasing number of Netizens found the site. After Artisan acquired the distribution rights, they renovated the site by turning it into a serial about the Blair Witch.

An average site visit of 16 minutes is an eternity on the Web but it comes as little surprise in the case of the Blair Witch site. Rather than posting a typical promotional movie site with Shockwave presentations, cute screen savers, a few trailers, and an opening date, Sanchez created a Web site that is an extension of the movie rather than just an online advertisement.

The site has the usual sound and video clips from the movie but it includes something most Web sites, not to mention most movies sites, lack: A compelling story. The myth of the Blair Witch is good reading and Sanchez made the most of it.

The site features an interactive timeline, beginning in 1785, of the events in the History of the Blair Witch which offers further explanation of the myth, complete with historical artifacts such as sepia-toned photographs and documents such as the book The Blair Witch Curse. The aftermath section features the story after the film ends by detailing the search for the missing filmmakers, displaying evidence in the case, interviews with the sherrif and search party participants, and news reports of the case. The Legacy section includes video and audio clips of the found footage as well as excerpts from the main character Heather's diary.

The site not only relies on a story line itself, but it also extends the Blair Witch story to both before the film's beginning and after the film's end; it is an experience in itself but it also extends the experience of the movie. The site includes all the trappings of a typical Hollywood ePromo: Chat, e-mail updates, and Blair Witch merchandise for sale. But it is the story that permeates the site that accounts for the eternal 16 minute average visit.

The Moot Controversy

Salon.com questioned the veracity of the online buzz in a July 16 article called Did "The Blair Witch Project" fake its online base? The article suggests that much of the cyberhype was the work of the filmmakers themselves and their friends. The article makes some compelling points; it doesn't take a great leap of the imagination to believe a faux excitement campaign possible.

But one point renders the controversy moot: All the hype in the world will not turn toad into a prince. The massive marketing muscle of Wild, Wild West and any other countless sure hits could not turn them into blockbusters. The Blair Witch Project, on the other hand, is raking in the cash because it is a good movie.

The best marketing lesson Blair Witch teaches, both the movie and the Web site, is that they tell a great story. And if you tell a great story good things can happen.