The blair witch project analysis

Note: I tried searching for a shorter opening of 'The Blair Witch Project' but this was the shortest actual version of the film, which is why I decided that even though our own film will be 2 minutes, I still analysed the whole of this sequence. Also you have to click this link to access this opening as embedding has been disabled for this film :
http://youtu.be/gmOLAa-LFNU

The girl who is filmed at the beginning of the film



The famous words used whih is terror inducing and is quite a good technique to use. I like the use of ellsion within this and the emotive language used. Perhaps we can incoperate this into our own construction.

The film begins with blurry amateur, handheld footage ( I like this idea of handheld footage which we can mix with tripod footage)where the camera person at this point begins with a reverse zoom of the girl laughing and  joking which subverts traditional horror movie discourse as usually their is an introduction of non-diegetic soundtrack which emphasizes the horror genre as well as creating tension. These few seconds that are shown within these moments are quite realistic, a representation of everyday life and normality which again is an intriguing method.Perhaps we can use this method of handheld cameras to generate a sense of realism as well as jolty footage, though we don't want to make it seem overly student-like.

 An introduction of dialogue is shown next to a closeup of books  'some essential reading how to stay alive in the woods'. At this point there is implicature that this is not just a camping trip, it's going to be dangerous but at this point of time were not sure as to what exactly is happening.The footage is then changed to black and white( another idea which we could use in our film as it is something which other media students are unlikely to use and we want our film to be unique) for a few seconds as the students are playing around with the camera's effects-showing the youth of the characters which does conform to horror victim stereotypes as they are often portrayed as weak and vulnerable to clash against the dominance of the villain.

The next sequence is in the car where there is an informal atmosphere through the diegetic music playing in the car, whilst the students are all chatting and laughing together ( this could be an example of a slow tension build-up as at this point you suspect nothing) and of course a clash of dialogue as the students interrupt each other. This then transcends into a short supermarket scene where they are shopping for essentials that they need for the trip with a large amount of closeups on the food their buying e.g. cereal/marshmallows, again conveying that they are young and perhaps foolish, that they don't take anything seriously which could imply to us as an audience that this is what leads to their downfall.

There is then a tracking shot of one of the students looking at a window decorated with ghosts and pumpkins in a childish non-scary manner which is a symbolisation to the audience that it is Halloween which may or may not ( depending on which way you look at it) make you feel uneasy. This is especially apparent when accompanied by the student's choruses of 'oooh' which although in itself isn't scary the basis behind it may make you fear for the student's safety.

At 2 minutes 08 seconds ( roughly)one of the female students asks the waitress ' Have you ever heard of The Blair Witch Project?' in which the camera effectively frames the waitresses discomfort and unease at the question being asked,making us think that the Blair Witch must be a legend/myth.It also implies clearly to us the reason why they are camping out in the woods, perhaps to prove or disprove the mythically theory which links into the earlier statement about staying alive in the woods.The waitress then replies ' My older sister went to Blair High School' giving us the ideal that perhaps it is connected with the school or it may just be a cover up for something alot more sinister than that.

At 2 minutes 30 seconds their is an intriguing sequence where they are experimenting with camera contrast into black and white both dark and light( note- This seems quite artistic and I would like to see if we can replicate this in our own film except darker) , which adds quite an eerie effect especially due to the location where it is set- a cemetry. Again you can see that they are quite fearless and not afraid of places of which have many frightning connotations( though as a note it is daytime so these locations are less scary when you can see). This scene could be a representaion of their fate in an abstract sense, especially considering that they are messing around with something which is not within their power.The last shot in this sequence is a pan around a student writing on a directors slate, indicating that perhaps he is the more dominant figure, so in turn being the most likely(in the audiences veiw) to survive.

From here on their is a clear ellsion of time as their is an establishing shot of 'burkittsville' indicating that this perhaps is where they are staying.You can see from this shot that the location is very secluded and isolated as well as a quite old village and their is a good use of camera effect here which is a lighter shade of the black and white effect which looks very atmospheric tieing into the old fashioned feel of the village. The film then turns chilling as it ends with yet another shot of a cemetry with the lexical dialogue 'their is an unusually high number of children laid to rest here' an implication of a dangerous society.