10. Supporting Evidence Website - The Blair Witch Project (1999)
The Blair Witch Project is a film about a group of three students who travel into the woods of Maryland to make a documentary about the local legend of the Blair Witch, but went missing in the process. One year later, their camera footage was found and made into a film. While the film itself was a reasonably dull and turgid affair, it pioneered a wave of found footage-style films that still carries on to this day, with films such as Cloverfield. The film had a modest budget of $60,000 but has made a worldwide gross of $248, 639, 099: not bad for a film that relied solely upon rumours to promote itself. The actors in the film were given a 35 page outline of the premise and the legend of the Blair witch but most of the lines and acting were all improvised to bring a sense of realism to the action. The film is also shot entirely with handheld cameras, again to provide realism to the film. When the film was released many cinema goers suffered from motion sickness and vomited in the theatre. In some Toronto theatres the ushers asked patrons who were known to suffer motion sickness to sit in the isle seats and "try not to throw up on other people." I imagine some people must've got more than they paid for when they went to see The Blair Witch Project. Bearing in mind that this stunt took place well before Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were around to add fuel to the rumours, you get a clearer depiction of how successful it really was. The film makers were ingenious indeed when it came to publicising the film. In order to create some hype and interest in The Blair Witch they first created a website that documented the story of the ghoul, even including various bits of supporting 'evidence'. This was key to the success of the publicity stunt as it provided curious minds with a point of reference to support the teaser footage that they released. Perhaps the most bizarre part of this stunt was the 'missing' posters that were released listing the three actors as 'missing, presumed dead'. This was undeniably one of the most well-planned and successful campaigns in cinematic history.