The Blair Witch Project: The Website

http://www.blairwitch.com/

The Website played a massive role in the advertising campaign for the Blair Witch project, it was set up a year or so before the film was released to create the illusion that it was all in fact real. So when the film came out all the people who had been on the website obviously wanted to find out what really happened.


Here are some examples of how the illusion was set up that it was real:

The first screen fades to this message (In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared into the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found). So as there is no reason for the viewer to doubt the legitimacy of the site yet, this statement is just taken as a fact

Mythology
There is also a section of the site called 'Mythology', where lots of different stories are told of the 'Blair Witch'. For example:

August 1825
Eleven witnesses testify to seeing a pale woman's hand reach up and pull ten-year-old Eileen Treacle into Tappy East Creek. Her body is never recovered, and for thirteen days after the drowning the creek is clogged with oily bundles of sticks. (and bundles of sticks play a slightly significant role in a part of the film so the part of the audience who have seen the website will keep making links back to it - decreases their doubt)

March 1886
Eight-year-old Robin Weaver is reported missing and search parties are dispatched. Although Weaver returns, one of the search parties does not. Their bodies are found weeks later at Coffin Rock tied together at the arms and legs and completely disemboweled.

After a few more examples of these the story of the 3 filmmakers is told in a few lines - so if the viewer believed the previous stories then they are given no reason to doubt the story of these 3.
(http://www.blairwitch.com/mythology.html)

Aftermath
The section entitle 'aftermath' is just full of police-style photos of different places/props from the film as if they were from official reports. For example, this photo comes under the sub-heading 'evidence' - which again suggest fact.


A more important piece of 'evidence' which increases the credibility of the story are the film canisters:


Under Mythology there is a further sub-heading of 'search' and i think one of the most inventive pieces they put on the website was the missing person's poster:



All of these little words (like evidence and the dates) and photos work together to make the audience believe this tale, and so i think that when the film was released the website played a very large part in it's success - it made nearly £5.9 million in it's first week.