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The Legacy of the Blair Witch Project · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
0:06
Speaker 2: I'm welcome for stuff I never told you production of iHeartRadio.
0:18
Speaker 1: And welcome. So today we are backtracking a bit because
0:23
Speaker 1: I feel like we bypass Halloween, which is one of
0:27
Speaker 1: our favorite holidays. I mean, the entire crew of Smintya
0:30
Speaker 1: I think really loves Halloween. I know Christina. I'm sure
0:34
Speaker 1: she would tell me otherwise. It's a pretty big fan,
0:36
Speaker 1: as well as Joey. I don't know that Maya. We
0:39
Speaker 1: need to ask her about that. But we're all pretty
0:41
Speaker 1: big fans of Halloween. And I feel like we just
0:43
Speaker 1: kind of slip by with doing very minimal, which is
0:47
Speaker 1: not like us. And you know, you might not know,
0:50
Speaker 1: I don't know because people don't keep up with this.
0:52
Speaker 1: We do this accidentally a lot. We love doing horror
0:55
Speaker 1: movies and classics as a way of both escaping and
0:59
Speaker 1: especially for this traumatic week. Yeah, it's an election time
1:03
Speaker 1: and it's very traumatizing. Like I think we've all lost
1:05
Speaker 1: sleep and are losing sleep and again extending this horror
1:09
Speaker 1: time for us because I feel like we missed a lot.
1:12
Speaker 1: And then if you haven't heard again, this is where
1:15
Speaker 1: I was like, we sometimes do this accidentally, oftentimes we
1:18
Speaker 1: do this accidentally, but this like, we hit the anniversary
1:22
Speaker 1: of for the Blair Witch Project. It is the twenty
1:25
Speaker 1: fifth anniversary for this film. Everybody feels old, right, anybody
1:30
Speaker 1: who's watched this, our millennial crew, you know what I'm saying.
1:34
Speaker 1: What's so funny? I just saw a techtok video of
1:35
Speaker 1: someone asking can someone who was there for the original
1:40
Speaker 1: premiere of Scream tell us what it's like? And everybody
1:43
Speaker 1: just like the comments are like, how dare you? Kind
1:47
Speaker 1: of like how you had mentioned you would love to
1:49
Speaker 1: be born and been to the screen of first, like
1:53
Speaker 1: I as now people are ye, and now people are
1:55
Speaker 1: asking about our experiences with that, and I'm like, hmmm,
1:59
Speaker 1: that's rue.
2:00
Speaker 2: Rood, I would love to talk about mikes.
2:02
Speaker 1: I'm sure you were you were young though, How old
2:05
Speaker 1: were you?
2:05
Speaker 2: I was quite young. I actually was forbidden from watching
2:09
Speaker 2: the play Witch Project, but I my like rebellion as
2:12
Speaker 2: a child was I would watch horror movies. So I
2:15
Speaker 2: did watch it. Uh, and my parents always caught me
2:20
Speaker 2: because my imagination goes wild and I was terrified. I
2:23
Speaker 2: was terrified, and they're like, what did you do? You
2:26
Speaker 2: watched the Player Witch Projects?
2:28
Speaker 1: Right?
2:29
Speaker 2: But yeah, I was pretty I was pretty young for it.
2:34
Speaker 1: So this came out in nineteen ninety nine. I'm pretty
2:38
Speaker 1: sure I watched it. I don't know. I didn't go
2:40
Speaker 1: to the theater for it, because theater was not a
2:42
Speaker 1: thing that we'd often go to my crew of people.
2:45
Speaker 1: We would go and hang out parking lots, I don't
2:50
Speaker 1: know and talk to people.
2:51
Speaker 2: It was weird.
2:51
Speaker 1: We were odd teenagers, this is what I've discovered. But
2:55
Speaker 1: but we did watch it on DVD at friends' houses,
2:59
Speaker 1: and we definitely did this. I can't remember being scared,
3:04
Speaker 1: like it was a phenomenon. So with all that say,
3:08
Speaker 1: I will say it was a phenomenon for this reason,
3:11
Speaker 1: the first being a found footage So though it wasn't
3:14
Speaker 1: the first found footage horror movie, the first was actually
3:18
Speaker 1: kind of given to the nineteen eighty movie Cannibal Holocaust,
3:23
Speaker 1: which is an Italian horror movie which apparently they try
3:25
Speaker 1: to sue the filmmakers of the blair Witch projects, saying
3:29
Speaker 1: that they were copying them, and then they came back,
3:31
Speaker 1: We're like, just kidding. Go watch our movie. If you
3:33
Speaker 1: liked blair Witch, you'll also like Cannibal Holocaust. So have
3:37
Speaker 1: you seen that movie anymore.
3:40
Speaker 2: I've watched. I can't wait to talk about this because
3:44
Speaker 2: I have plumbed the depths of found footage. I know
3:46
Speaker 2: it's not for everyone, but I have seen what there
3:50
Speaker 2: is to be seen. I have that. Yeah.
3:54
Speaker 1: Well, but then there's even another movie that stated even
3:57
Speaker 1: further back in nineteen sixty one called The Connection, which
4:01
Speaker 1: was an art house film by Shirley Clark, and they're
4:04
Speaker 1: saying that's the beginning of that format. Have you seen
4:08
Speaker 1: that one?
4:08
Speaker 2: I have not seen that in it.
4:10
Speaker 1: I don't think assignment. There's also nineteen eighty mockumentary from
4:16
Speaker 1: England that's also being credited as being kind of like
4:19
Speaker 1: a found footage thing, but mockumentary is a different thing
4:23
Speaker 1: in its own, which we should talk about in itself,
4:25
Speaker 1: because we love a good mockumentary in this house. But anyway, so,
4:30
Speaker 1: even though it wasn't necessarily the first, this movie put
4:36
Speaker 1: found footage horror film on the map, like they created
4:39
Speaker 1: a genre. And yeah, the technique is used quite often
4:44
Speaker 1: these days. We know this. All of the paranormal which
4:47
Speaker 1: took me forever to figure out all of them were
4:49
Speaker 1: connected tailor alert. Sorry, is that okay? Just for people
4:56
Speaker 1: I don't know, just in case. But again, this was
5:01
Speaker 1: the film of like one of the first of his kind,
5:04
Speaker 1: and it made a huge mark within the industry and
5:08
Speaker 1: from then on we of course, we've had so many
5:11
Speaker 1: more and continue to do so, and it's made itself international.
5:14
Speaker 1: Like I watched, you know, the the Asylum of Gungenham,
5:18
Speaker 1: I believe is the way it was called, and that's
5:20
Speaker 1: the Korean horror movie that's really good and has some
5:22
Speaker 1: really big actors in there that I forgot about. But anyway, Yes,
5:26
Speaker 1: The blair Witch Project was written and directed by Daniel
5:28
Speaker 1: Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. The two came up with the
5:31
Speaker 1: story of the Blair Witch several years before they started
5:35
Speaker 1: the actual project in filming, creating a thirty five page
5:39
Speaker 1: screenplay which also allowed for all of the actors to
5:42
Speaker 1: improv pretty much. And they during this time they made
5:46
Speaker 1: an ad in the back of the backstage magazine for
5:50
Speaker 1: casting and they that's where they found Heather Donahue, Joshua
5:54
Speaker 1: Leonard and Michael Williams, who were the three main characters.
5:58
Speaker 1: And damn it made some money though it exceeded the
6:02
Speaker 1: budget by ten So the original intention was like thirty
6:07
Speaker 1: five thousand to sixty thousand for its budget, and then
6:10
Speaker 1: after like credit post editing stuff, it went from two
6:14
Speaker 1: hundred thousand to seven hundred and fifty thousand was amount,
6:18
Speaker 1: but they made around two hundred and fifty million dollars
6:22
Speaker 1: worldwide and it's still on top one hundred lists as
6:26
Speaker 1: some of the best horror movies to date twenty five
6:29
Speaker 1: years later.
6:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, if anyone anyone in the industry
6:39
Speaker 2: will know, horror is often your genre you get into
6:43
Speaker 2: because you can make a lot of money when you're beginning.
6:46
Speaker 2: But found footage, like paranormal activity costs like hardly anything
6:50
Speaker 2: to make, and it made a ton of money. However,
6:53
Speaker 2: as I'm sure we'll get into later, there's been a
6:56
Speaker 2: lot of controversy about the payments of the actors and
7:00
Speaker 2: who got the money because it was so successful.
7:04
Speaker 1: Right, and I honestly, I don't know if I've ever
7:07
Speaker 1: seen any of them and anything else since then.
7:10
Speaker 2: A lot of actors who do found footage because like
7:12
Speaker 2: those are their names, you, yes, your real name often
7:17
Speaker 2: found footage. It's it's I mean, like I said, it's
7:21
Speaker 2: how you get started in a lot of ways and
7:23
Speaker 2: a lot of industries. There are some found footage movies
7:25
Speaker 2: that I've seen someone in and they have gone on
7:29
Speaker 2: to be in something bigger, but generally it kind of
7:33
Speaker 2: stays in.
7:33
Speaker 1: That realm vhs that like that is I didn't people
7:38
Speaker 1: turn in as a contest. They're found footage stuff and
7:42
Speaker 1: they just did different stories. Isn't that that one? Is
7:45
Speaker 1: that that one that I'm thinking of.
7:48
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that isn't Atlanta based. It was. I
7:52
Speaker 2: think it still is Atlanta based movie. It might be
7:55
Speaker 2: like that, but I think it is like they get
7:57
Speaker 2: different film they get different film people and are like,
7:59
Speaker 2: you write a story, you go write a story, you
8:01
Speaker 2: go write a story. I don't know if it's a competition,
8:04
Speaker 2: but I could be.
8:06
Speaker 1: Oh, for some reason I saw that. I was like
8:08
Speaker 1: they sent in things and they picked out certain ones
8:11
Speaker 1: and then they spliced them into one movie. So it
8:13
Speaker 1: was different tales in one because in like, the whole
8:16
Speaker 1: premise is that they go into a house and they
8:18
Speaker 1: find all these different movies. Yes, which is a brilliant
8:21
Speaker 1: project and really cheap to make if you have someone
8:25
Speaker 1: else making and turned it in again. But anyway, yeah,
8:30
Speaker 1: so of course the Blair Witch Project and itself has
8:34
Speaker 1: become a franchise with several sequels. I've never seen any
8:37
Speaker 1: of them. I'm assuming you've seen all of them.
8:39
Speaker 2: I haven't seen all of them. I've seen the second one,
8:42
Speaker 2: and I was disappointed with the second one. I'm sure
8:45
Speaker 2: most people were. No shade, anyone involved, but because it
8:49
Speaker 2: wasn't really a found footage, which is fine, but it
8:54
Speaker 2: just felt so different than and then it was like
8:56
Speaker 2: the Book of Shadows was like a witchcraft thing, but
8:59
Speaker 2: it wasn't related to the witch necessarily it was. And
9:03
Speaker 2: then there was like a daughter plot. There was a
9:05
Speaker 2: lot going on in it.
9:06
Speaker 1: There's a lot. Okay, so I know nothing. I just
9:09
Speaker 1: know this one, and I could see why your parents
9:11
Speaker 1: wouldn't let you watch it, especially for me, like as
9:13
Speaker 1: I was coming into my Christian era, really really hardcore,
9:16
Speaker 1: like Witches in itself, like oom naughty. So we'll talk
9:21
Speaker 1: a little bit about that later. But yes, as we do,
9:23
Speaker 1: we're gonna start with the plot. I'm just gonna run
9:25
Speaker 1: through these and any interject at any point because I'm
9:28
Speaker 1: sure you're gonna be like, no, but you missed this.
9:30
Speaker 1: You might tell me afterwards. So we have the three
9:33
Speaker 1: main characters who are off to seek the truth about
9:35
Speaker 1: the legend of the Player, which college students Heather, Josh
9:39
Speaker 1: and Mike traveled together to the woods of Burkettsville, Maryland
9:43
Speaker 1: in search of the creature and the legends it left behind.
9:47
Speaker 1: In the town, they found out about the hermit ruston
9:50
Speaker 1: parr which, by the way, when I was watching this again,
9:53
Speaker 1: I realized, I'm like these actors that they found to
9:57
Speaker 1: do the story. There's that one with the mother and
9:59
Speaker 1: the child. Child's like freaking out, like how did they
10:02
Speaker 1: get the kid to do this? Because kids are not
10:05
Speaker 1: that good of an actor, especially for like found footage,
10:08
Speaker 1: you know, like types of movies, and that child really
10:10
Speaker 1: was like stopped talking.
10:14
Speaker 2: The child could have just really been like he's not
10:18
Speaker 2: freaked out, just annoyed.
10:19
Speaker 1: Just annoyed. And it just happened to like win perfectly
10:22
Speaker 1: because I was like what anyway, So back to the
10:25
Speaker 1: hermit rustin parr Uh, and then he turned out that
10:28
Speaker 1: he murdered children in the forest. The story goes that
10:31
Speaker 1: they learned he would kill them in pairs and basements
10:34
Speaker 1: after like he kidnapped several of them, putting one child
10:37
Speaker 1: in the corner facing the walls while he's killing the
10:39
Speaker 1: other one, so that's the legend that we remember. Then
10:42
Speaker 1: they learn of other horrible murders, including the ritualistic murders
10:46
Speaker 1: of five men in the woods, and then about the
10:49
Speaker 1: student who went missing but came back talking about seeing
10:52
Speaker 1: a woman whose feet didn't touch the ground. So many
10:56
Speaker 1: more horror stories, and they collected all this data went
10:59
Speaker 1: into the forest, of course, and as they travel in
11:01
Speaker 1: the woods with Heather and the lead with only a
11:04
Speaker 1: map and encompass, and of course are cameras and supplies,
11:08
Speaker 1: they start encountering strange occurrences, including finding stack rocks or
11:12
Speaker 1: cairns in places like graveyards. And then they hear snapping
11:15
Speaker 1: of sticks in the middle of the night and other
11:17
Speaker 1: weird noises, all those things. So as they try to
11:20
Speaker 1: go back to their car, they realize they are lost
11:23
Speaker 1: and can't seem to make their way back. And as
11:26
Speaker 1: they try to return, they continue to come across odd
11:28
Speaker 1: and strange things, such as new cairns built around their tents,
11:33
Speaker 1: noises and sounds around their tents, missing items, and then
11:36
Speaker 1: even like pop up of wooden dolls. I guess you
11:40
Speaker 1: would say they are or at least figurines that are
11:42
Speaker 1: tied up in trees, which, by the way, I think
11:46
Speaker 1: haunted most people after the fact that whenever they saw these,
11:48
Speaker 1: it's as like it's a ghost.
11:50
Speaker 2: Oh oh yes, I could go into it, but.
11:56
Speaker 1: Personal experience has found And then eventually they realized they
12:01
Speaker 1: can't find the map and start depending about their situation
12:04
Speaker 1: and argue. Of course, as they slowly start to come apart,
12:07
Speaker 1: if they find out that Mike had kicked and found
12:11
Speaker 1: the well, had found the map, kicked it and thrown
12:13
Speaker 1: it into the water into the creek, I think, saying
12:17
Speaker 1: that it wasn't useful anyway. This was of course, all
12:19
Speaker 1: of them arguing and he just sitting there and being like,
12:21
Speaker 1: be cool, guys, be cool. But during another frfle night
12:26
Speaker 1: of weird noises, including hearing children's laughter, rustling, and shaking
12:30
Speaker 1: up their tent, they run away, waiting for the daylight
12:33
Speaker 1: to return. When they come back to the tent, they
12:36
Speaker 1: noticed more disturbing things, including slime all over Josh's equipment,
12:40
Speaker 1: which kind of landed in like is this a Ghostbusters moment?
12:44
Speaker 1: Because no one really talked about that as an issue.
12:46
Speaker 1: I felt like beforehand, did I miss that part?
12:50
Speaker 2: I think it was. I don't think you missed it.
12:53
Speaker 2: I always assumed it meant like he was being marked
12:55
Speaker 2: for your next Also that part where they shake the tent,
13:00
Speaker 2: you could see children's hands.
13:01
Speaker 1: Yes, it's very schoolish and as you said, if he's marked.
13:07
Speaker 1: Soon Josh disappears, and though Mark and Heather try to
13:11
Speaker 1: find them find him, they aren't successful. Heather finds a
13:14
Speaker 1: new bundle of twigs and which have been, by the
13:17
Speaker 1: way happening throughout their trips, just finding bundles, but with
13:20
Speaker 1: some of what we assume is Josh's shirt, which should
13:23
Speaker 1: be a while to figure out. It's like, uh, okay,
13:25
Speaker 1: it's Josh's shirt. Hit, a tongue, teeth, blood and other
13:30
Speaker 1: appendages which you have to like pause the stare at
13:33
Speaker 1: because you're like, what's happening because it's just in a
13:34
Speaker 1: bloody mess. But she screams and like freaks out about
13:37
Speaker 1: but doesn't tell Mike, which I'm like, the see have
13:39
Speaker 1: they not learn?
13:40
Speaker 2: Okay?
13:40
Speaker 1: Whatever. So that night Heather makes the infamous apology in
13:45
Speaker 1: the video to her and the others parents about taking
13:50
Speaker 1: them into the woods. That has been parodied a lot,
13:54
Speaker 1: a lot.
13:54
Speaker 2: My favorite is mad TV. It's got a really good one.
14:01
Speaker 1: That night, after hearing the screams of what they assume
14:04
Speaker 1: is Josh. They run to find him, or they end
14:06
Speaker 1: up at this abandoned house in the woods. They are
14:09
Speaker 1: like all over the place, and soon they go down
14:11
Speaker 1: to the basement, thinking that's where they hear him. And
14:14
Speaker 1: then we note that there's we hear the screaming of Heather,
14:17
Speaker 1: and then she drops the camera and it points towards
14:20
Speaker 1: the corner where we see Mike were assuming Mike is
14:23
Speaker 1: standing facing the wall, and then the camera cuts off.
14:27
Speaker 1: So all of this is supposed to happen because they
14:29
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four, they went to do a documentary there.
14:32
Speaker 1: I forgot to state the year, but that's how it
14:34
Speaker 1: is very ominous. Yeah, one of the things that I
14:48
Speaker 1: was trying to do because a lot of the movies
14:51
Speaker 1: like that, they have hidden things like shadows or figures,
14:54
Speaker 1: and I just never saw anything. Did I miss something?
14:57
Speaker 1: Did you find those or are those people talking about
14:59
Speaker 1: any of that?
15:04
Speaker 2: One thing I find interesting And this is never ever
15:10
Speaker 2: ever been confirmed before. I don't think it's true personally,
15:13
Speaker 2: but for a lot of people, including me, I remember
15:16
Speaker 2: seeing the feat at the end, like hovering.
15:20
Speaker 1: You know what, Yes, Okay, I think I remember people
15:22
Speaker 1: talking about it, but I've never seen this.
15:25
Speaker 2: I don't think it exists. I really don't, but I
15:28
Speaker 2: remember it and it scared me so badly. And I
15:32
Speaker 2: think that's part of the power of like imagination, in suggestion,
15:36
Speaker 2: in suggestion, because there was a rumor for a long
15:40
Speaker 2: time that there was this like lost cut of the
15:43
Speaker 2: Blair Witch Project and that you see it, and I
15:47
Speaker 2: honestly don't think it exists at all. But one of
15:49
Speaker 2: the reasons this was so successful is it was coming
15:52
Speaker 2: out in the time of the Internet. It had an
15:55
Speaker 2: online campaign where you could go to the website and
15:59
Speaker 2: it would you could like click on images and try
16:03
Speaker 2: to find things and it would. It was It really
16:06
Speaker 2: marked itself as a documentary, and people believed it was
16:09
Speaker 2: a documentary, and so people leaned into this idea of
16:13
Speaker 2: this lost cut where you actually could see the Witch's feed.
16:18
Speaker 2: But I'm like so certain it doesn't exist.
16:22
Speaker 1: But I remember it, so I know that the ad
16:25
Speaker 1: campaign was something that was new as well, because they
16:27
Speaker 1: actually had missing posters for Heather, Mike and Josh and
16:32
Speaker 1: they had all this things. I got, like the site
16:34
Speaker 1: you were talking about and how they try to make
16:36
Speaker 1: it so completely new and as if it was found
16:39
Speaker 1: footage like it again, this this really really worked well
16:43
Speaker 1: for what they did and not having to use CGI
16:47
Speaker 1: for anything like clips of ghosts or that it is
16:51
Speaker 1: a feat in itself, like the way they did this
16:54
Speaker 1: in such a purist form and of course the equipment
16:58
Speaker 1: that they use all of that was such such a
17:01
Speaker 1: new way of doing horror movie because we the people
17:04
Speaker 1: were used to Halloween in a fear on Elm Street
17:07
Speaker 1: and all those things that they were not.
17:12
Speaker 2: Expecting this no, no, and it was really scary. Like
17:19
Speaker 2: I think now people who watch it are kind of like, oh,
17:22
Speaker 2: it's one of those things where technologically things have just changed,
17:24
Speaker 2: even though I think you could make a player witch
17:26
Speaker 2: with their technology. But I remember watching this in because
17:31
Speaker 2: I grew up like you in the woods in northern Georgia,
17:35
Speaker 2: and I watched it with my friends when we were
17:37
Speaker 2: like in her basement and she had just windows all
17:41
Speaker 2: around her and she got so like people were crying
17:45
Speaker 2: because it was so new, and you were like, what
17:49
Speaker 2: a was in these woods?
17:51
Speaker 1: Because noises happened, Like that's inevitable when you're in the woods,
17:55
Speaker 1: Like it's so easy to have that, and yeah, and
17:58
Speaker 1: also in each we have legends. We have stories, We
18:02
Speaker 1: have abandoned buildings that people will talk about. We have
18:05
Speaker 1: like like none of them, most of them are not true,
18:08
Speaker 1: like people that they don't exist, but we have those
18:11
Speaker 1: legends and so it plays on your minds. That's what
18:14
Speaker 1: you know. You know, people will like to go in
18:16
Speaker 1: the middle of the night do spooky things, like all
18:19
Speaker 1: those things. We went in the middle of the night
18:20
Speaker 1: to an abandoned house trying to figure out if it
18:23
Speaker 1: was haunted. We were really dumb.
18:27
Speaker 2: But also I'm pretty sure I could be wrong. I'm
18:31
Speaker 2: pretty sure this is partially inspired by the same witch
18:34
Speaker 2: that inspired The Conjuring, the first one. There is a
18:37
Speaker 2: real witch that is like legally in the record. It's
18:42
Speaker 2: obviously not completely hurt, but I think it was in
18:45
Speaker 2: part inspire Yeah.
18:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, And with that, I thought we would do something
18:53
Speaker 1: a little bit different than what we usually do with
18:56
Speaker 1: and we talk about films because usually we can do
18:58
Speaker 1: themes and all these things, and I feel like there
19:00
Speaker 1: could do that, but instead I thought we would go
19:01
Speaker 1: a different direction and talk about the significance of this
19:04
Speaker 1: film as well as like the concept back and forth
19:08
Speaker 1: about whether this is feminists or not feminist. There's also
19:11
Speaker 1: a small conversation about being queer. I didn't jump into this,
19:18
Speaker 1: I will say that because I was like, maybe not
19:20
Speaker 1: the topic for this time round will come in because
19:22
Speaker 1: we also have a lot of opinions. You have a
19:24
Speaker 1: lot of opinions about this movie, and I know you're
19:26
Speaker 1: you are ready again. Like I said, articles have popped
19:31
Speaker 1: up on how this movie could be feminists for a
19:33
Speaker 1: few reasons, and also how it could be anti feminists.
19:36
Speaker 1: I saw more of that than the feminist parts. And
19:38
Speaker 1: I think, like, it's interesting to have this conversation because
19:43
Speaker 1: when it comes to horror movies, we don't talk a
19:45
Speaker 1: lot about it. We hadn't talked a lot about until recently,
19:48
Speaker 1: more and more and more and be like, this is problematic.
19:49
Speaker 1: Why do people think this way? But for this film
19:52
Speaker 1: in itself, because it's again a different type of film
19:54
Speaker 1: to me. So let's just go ahead and hop into it.
19:57
Speaker 1: Some of the feminist views that I have both read
20:00
Speaker 1: and I've also filmed myself. Because you and I talked
20:02
Speaker 1: a little bit about this. A lot of the articles
20:04
Speaker 1: talked about the fact that this film is not necessarily
20:06
Speaker 1: filmed in a mele gaze, which is not typical, especially
20:11
Speaker 1: during this timeframe for horror movies.
20:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I was thinking about this after you
20:19
Speaker 2: brought it up. I have seen a lot of found footage,
20:23
Speaker 2: and one of the difficulties with the found footage movie
20:26
Speaker 2: is you have to give a reason why why are
20:29
Speaker 2: they filming? Why do they keep filming? The blair which
20:34
Speaker 2: is pretty clear and later devolves into like and I'm
20:38
Speaker 2: sure we'll talk about this more ambitions of women, but
20:43
Speaker 2: that has been in a lot of the found footage
20:46
Speaker 2: that I've seen. Is the break is when women are
20:50
Speaker 2: the ones who are like largely controlling the found footage,
20:53
Speaker 2: leading the project, it feels much less sexualized than when men,
21:00
Speaker 2: the characters or whoever are running the camera. Then it
21:04
Speaker 2: feels much more sexualized. It's almost always more of a professional.
21:09
Speaker 2: This is the thing I'm working on. This is a
21:12
Speaker 2: job that I have or whatever that I care about.
21:16
Speaker 2: As opposed to when men are the ones behind the camera,
21:20
Speaker 2: it does feel much more sexualized. But yes, in general,
21:23
Speaker 2: horror movies do you have a very long history of
21:27
Speaker 2: sexualizing women and being filmed from the male case And
21:30
Speaker 2: this really was not that at all.
21:31
Speaker 1: Right, which is surprising because it was directed and written
21:35
Speaker 1: by men, and as much of the horror genre depicts
21:38
Speaker 1: women as sexualized victims, you know, having sex case you killed,
21:41
Speaker 1: we know this, or virgin heroes the only people who
21:44
Speaker 1: can really save those or those who are pure and taste,
21:47
Speaker 1: or the virgin Mary figure type of conversation. The Blair
21:52
Speaker 1: Witch Project for its characters, it really never uses this
21:56
Speaker 1: as a plot device. Now we're going to talk about
21:59
Speaker 1: the villains in a bit, but like for his character
22:01
Speaker 1: in itself, they don't. And also there's no real sexual
22:04
Speaker 1: abuse or sexual scenes that are needed to push the
22:08
Speaker 1: narrative forward, which I really found that interesting because you know,
22:11
Speaker 1: usually all of them have some type of stories of
22:16
Speaker 1: why some women are really just angry.
22:20
Speaker 2: Yes yes, or like like the woman is dating is
22:26
Speaker 2: they're dating, and that's part of the story. But in
22:30
Speaker 2: this instance, that was not the case.
22:32
Speaker 1: Right again, I think that was one of the things
22:34
Speaker 1: you and I talked about before we were talking about
22:36
Speaker 1: doing this movie. I was like, even more rare. They
22:38
Speaker 1: kept the relationship the three main characters platonic. There was
22:41
Speaker 1: no indication at any point in time that they were
22:44
Speaker 1: any attractions or jealousy, like jealousy and like power, like
22:48
Speaker 1: wanted to take over control or blame the others for
22:51
Speaker 1: the situation. Sure, but not sexual relationship powers like more dynamics.
22:55
Speaker 1: So I thought that was really a different take, especially
22:58
Speaker 1: again during this time where we see this as a
23:00
Speaker 1: constant like don't believe my wife, I don't you know
23:03
Speaker 1: type of type of moments.
23:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, also they're you know, sharingtons and
23:10
Speaker 2: scared and all that stuff, and it just never it
23:13
Speaker 2: never even feels like they're thinking about going that way,
23:17
Speaker 2: which I wonder, as you know, found footage how it works.
23:21
Speaker 2: As you said, there's just like bare outline of a
23:25
Speaker 2: script and it's like get to these points today. I
23:28
Speaker 2: wonder how much of that the actors were kind of
23:30
Speaker 2: just like I'm not feeling it, so we.
23:34
Speaker 1: Just going on with it. We don't know each other
23:36
Speaker 1: like that, let's move on, which again you would think
23:39
Speaker 1: could be an easy plot point. But with all of that,
23:44
Speaker 1: there are many who have felt like stereotypes, especially when
23:47
Speaker 1: it comes to the women villains being like deranged or vengeful,
23:51
Speaker 1: one dimensional characters that still existed in this movie. Of course,
23:55
Speaker 1: this could be the conversation that it was a really
23:57
Speaker 1: short film, It was a really short film with I
24:03
Speaker 1: think they they filmed eighty five hours and cut it
24:06
Speaker 1: down to like what an hour and a half. Yeah, yeah,
24:09
Speaker 1: so like it was. It was like a lot of
24:11
Speaker 1: stuff that they did and then cutting it, editing it down.
24:14
Speaker 1: They're like, Okay, we just want the actions and the
24:16
Speaker 1: creepy moments, not the backstory, which would be like that
24:19
Speaker 1: could have been what they were trying to do with
24:21
Speaker 1: the sequels just didn't do well. Is that what they
24:23
Speaker 1: were trying to do with the sequels.
24:24
Speaker 2: Maybe they heard there's a new one coming out in
24:27
Speaker 2: that I.
24:27
Speaker 1: Think I have heard that too.
24:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why the actors, I mean, for many reasons
24:32
Speaker 2: they should get paid. But they're like, hey, right.
24:36
Speaker 1: I mean they could go back and make an extended
24:39
Speaker 1: cut today, like pretend like it was there with this,
24:42
Speaker 1: because they don't need more technology. Honestly, I know, if
24:46
Speaker 1: they wanted to make a movie, take the original and
24:47
Speaker 1: pretend like there's an extended cut that's missing.
24:50
Speaker 2: Clearly a bunch of us think it already anyway.
24:54
Speaker 1: So here's for a little bit from the McGill Daily
24:57
Speaker 1: dot com. They were writing about this and they say
24:59
Speaker 1: pray for the Blair Witch project. However, does not discount
25:04
Speaker 1: the trope of portraying women as the deranged antagonist in horror,
25:07
Speaker 1: which needs to be addressed in order to continue enjoying
25:10
Speaker 1: the genre. The Blair Witch could be observed as being
25:13
Speaker 1: a villain without motive. No background is given to the
25:16
Speaker 1: reason behind her evil, Nor is Ellie Keedward's character that
25:20
Speaker 1: developed beyond witchcraft, which is the witch which I don't
25:23
Speaker 1: remember her name being mentioned, but I think I just
25:25
Speaker 1: bypassed that they do mention her though, right, she's the
25:27
Speaker 1: one that's the floating one, I think, so, yeah, Okay,
25:31
Speaker 1: so it goes on. This could be attributed to shallow characterization,
25:35
Speaker 1: wherein she lacks a complex and multifaceted personality. Moreover, it
25:40
Speaker 1: perpetuates the association of women to witchcraft, wherein they were
25:44
Speaker 1: believed to be quote more prone to diabolical possession and
25:49
Speaker 1: essentially imperfect following the Black Death. So this was a
25:52
Speaker 1: whole article in which they were talking about witches in
25:55
Speaker 1: general and how they are seen as devil worshiping child killers,
26:00
Speaker 1: no reason behind other than power and greed and a
26:02
Speaker 1: lust for the devil, which yeah, I honestly, because of
26:06
Speaker 1: the way it ended, seemed less about the Witch and
26:08
Speaker 1: more about the ghost of Rust and par like that,
26:11
Speaker 1: because there's so many stories that attributed like so many things.
26:14
Speaker 1: Of course, I don't know. Was it implied that Russe
26:17
Speaker 1: and Parr was possessed by the witch to kill these children?
26:23
Speaker 2: I think that's one interpretation. I always interpreted it as me,
26:30
Speaker 2: there's just something There's been a lot of bad things
26:33
Speaker 2: that happened in these woods, and people were blaming the witch. Okay,
26:37
Speaker 2: and she may or may not have had something to
26:40
Speaker 2: do with it, but people were I think blaming the
26:44
Speaker 2: witch the witch.
26:45
Speaker 1: Again because I was like, the way the two died
26:48
Speaker 1: seemingly seems like a right, Yeah, the Russ par story
26:51
Speaker 1: more so than the Witch story. But I all have
26:54
Speaker 1: that to say is yeah, that is one of the
26:55
Speaker 1: things that they continued with. But again I would sit
26:58
Speaker 1: to argue, and you know, you know us, we love
27:01
Speaker 1: talking about how infamously bad the takes on women villains
27:06
Speaker 1: are in horror movies or why it seems like obviously
27:10
Speaker 1: is a sexist reason for it, but like the fact
27:13
Speaker 1: that it again was a ninety minute movie and they
27:15
Speaker 1: just wanted to base it on them and their experience
27:20
Speaker 1: without bringing in a secondary story. Too much of a
27:23
Speaker 1: secondary story, Like literally the first fifteen minutes was in
27:26
Speaker 1: the town, yeah, and the rest was them in the woods.
27:30
Speaker 1: So I think that had more to do with how
27:33
Speaker 1: they wanted to tell the story more so than characterizing
27:36
Speaker 1: the villain. I don't know, that's just an opinion, though.
27:40
Speaker 2: I think so. I think there's certainly this argument to
27:43
Speaker 2: be made. But I would also say we could add
27:47
Speaker 2: more to it in that it was a legend, Like
27:50
Speaker 2: you said, a lot of these small towns ares included
27:52
Speaker 2: half those legends, and we don't hear beyond that, right,
27:56
Speaker 2: and that is all you know. And they were going
27:59
Speaker 2: into the world. That was their whole point of this
28:02
Speaker 2: documentary was they were going to find out, like is
28:06
Speaker 2: there something there? And I even saw a lot of
28:10
Speaker 2: recent articles about like the Blair Witch was a bell
28:14
Speaker 2: Weather on technology and the dangers of technology, but them
28:19
Speaker 2: being so and especially Heather, but them being so confident
28:24
Speaker 2: and not respecting even the woods necessarily that I feel
28:32
Speaker 2: like the when you see them deteriorate while they're lost,
28:37
Speaker 2: that's to me the true horror of it, right, And
28:41
Speaker 2: we do know through so many horror movies the like
28:43
Speaker 2: negativity that makes everything worse if there is a witch
28:46
Speaker 2: or whatever. But to me, she feels like almost they
28:54
Speaker 2: they heard this legend and made it real. If that makes.
28:57
Speaker 1: Sense to themselves, yeah, absolutely, and I'm going with that.
29:02
Speaker 1: So there's also the idea that the main character, who
29:09
Speaker 1: was a woman being in charge also that was a
29:10
Speaker 1: great step up. They're like, yeah, she's being assertive and
29:14
Speaker 1: taking charge and blah blah blah. Her mishandling of the
29:18
Speaker 1: situation ended up being their demise. So its a woman's
29:20
Speaker 1: faults because she was not willing to like go over ambitions,
29:24
Speaker 1: like she would not stop filming. They were really irritated
29:26
Speaker 1: by that, but all the other things. So here's a
29:29
Speaker 1: bit from a paper written by Dinica MacDonald. Believe they
29:34
Speaker 1: wrote this for a school in Ireland. They had a
29:36
Speaker 1: lot of thoughts about this type of conversation for women.
29:42
Speaker 1: It was called for like Americana, which was interesting. But
29:45
Speaker 1: McDonald wrote, both the witch and the protagonists in the
29:48
Speaker 1: Blair Witch Project overstepped their boundaries in a world that
29:52
Speaker 1: does not accept such trespasses. The Witch by the very
29:55
Speaker 1: fact that she has dared to be a witch and
29:58
Speaker 1: in so doing reject norms of society, and the protagonists
30:02
Speaker 1: because she investigates this transgression. Do not go downstairs, do
30:07
Speaker 1: not go into the woods, do not talk to strangers,
30:09
Speaker 1: and do not open the door when you are alone
30:11
Speaker 1: are reoccurring warnings in the horror genre. Yet these warnings
30:16
Speaker 1: also bleed into real psychological and sociological lessons. Do not trespass,
30:21
Speaker 1: cross gender boundaries, or straightfor or straight from social norms.
30:26
Speaker 1: Carving curiosity has become a horror film tradition. We learn, adopt,
30:31
Speaker 1: and agree that curiosity is a dangerous notion. It is
30:36
Speaker 1: a quality that needs to be controlled for the alternative,
30:39
Speaker 1: lack of control is dangerous and undesirable. So she's going
30:44
Speaker 1: all over.
30:45
Speaker 2: This like no.
30:47
Speaker 1: This is why she is a downfall, and so is
30:52
Speaker 1: the witch. But they continue. In the Blair Witch Project,
30:56
Speaker 1: it is Heather Dona Hue's curiosity to learn which leads
31:00
Speaker 1: her to the woods outside of Burkettsville. Notably, when all
31:03
Speaker 1: of these women endeavor to see, they are punished for
31:06
Speaker 1: their trespasses into temptation. Once you've seen, you must die
31:12
Speaker 1: a gruesome death, or so is the underlying message of
31:15
Speaker 1: the contemporary horror film The Forbidden. Once seen, cannot be unseen.
31:21
Speaker 1: Seeing learning and knowledge are a masculine prerogative. They belong
31:26
Speaker 1: to the realm of public space, which men occupy and
31:29
Speaker 1: are free to move within. Women who violates this rule
31:32
Speaker 1: are dangerous and threatening.
31:35
Speaker 2: We're still talking about this today about ambitious women and
31:39
Speaker 2: how we punish them, and there's I mean, certainly she
31:47
Speaker 2: she did have this passion, she really wanted to get
31:50
Speaker 2: this project done. But I find that so often where
31:58
Speaker 2: if it's the if it was reversed and it was
32:01
Speaker 2: a man doing it, we'd be like he was just
32:04
Speaker 2: trying to get the truth. But with her, we're like,
32:08
Speaker 2: she should have known better. She didn't know anything. And
32:11
Speaker 2: there's a lot of instances in the movie where she
32:13
Speaker 2: was she was trying to get them out, and clearly
32:18
Speaker 2: the Wood's not going to help them out. She's like said,
32:21
Speaker 2: she is making these logical decisions. Yes, it was her project.
32:25
Speaker 2: Yes she did not want to leave, and they really
32:28
Speaker 2: wanted to. I'm not saying she doesn't have some share
32:31
Speaker 2: of the blame, but it is that punishing of Oh,
32:36
Speaker 2: she's this ambitious woman and look what it got her.
32:40
Speaker 1: I mean, and that's saying like curious woman who stepped
32:43
Speaker 1: out of her role. So therefore she deserved to die.
32:46
Speaker 1: Anyone who supports her deserves to die with her. It's
32:50
Speaker 1: that conversation, and it's an interesting conversation. We will hold
32:54
Speaker 1: I will hold her the fact, however, that a mike
33:00
Speaker 1: was really the problem. Why would you throw away the
33:04
Speaker 1: map and then also try to guesslight them into thinking
33:09
Speaker 1: that it just that was one of them, like instead
33:11
Speaker 1: of stepping up immediately, he waited for a couple of
33:14
Speaker 1: days for them to like come to a point. I'm
33:17
Speaker 1: almost like ending everything, you know. They were like no,
33:21
Speaker 1: like yelling at each other, and he's like, all right, fine,
33:23
Speaker 1: I did it, and then saying, she laugh, it didn't
33:27
Speaker 1: matter anyway. We couldn't use this anyway. It wasn't helping
33:29
Speaker 1: us anyway, blaming her mm hmm, saying that she had
33:33
Speaker 1: the wrong thing, essentially same thing with the compass, and
33:35
Speaker 1: there's a back and forth about the compass, and they're like,
33:37
Speaker 1: are you reading this right? Are you doing this right?
33:40
Speaker 1: The entire time? Yes, yes, And.
33:45
Speaker 2: It's made clear whether you want to believe it or not.
33:49
Speaker 2: I choose to believe it. It's made clear she actually
33:51
Speaker 2: is a knowledgeable hiker. She says, she goes hiking. That
33:55
Speaker 2: was her everybody, like, yes, I believe that she knew.
33:59
Speaker 2: I think the Woods were messing with them. Yeah, but
34:02
Speaker 2: they they Yeah, they just kept pushing back and doubting her.
34:09
Speaker 2: And to an extent, it's fair if the Woods are Yeah,
34:13
Speaker 2: to an extent it is, but especially Mike, and I
34:16
Speaker 2: think it's also interesting going back to the technology bit,
34:20
Speaker 2: because he was a new member. They'd never worked with him, right,
34:22
Speaker 2: they just met him. Yeah, Josh and Heather had worked
34:25
Speaker 2: together before. And I think that kind of like when
34:28
Speaker 2: you get a crew together and you don't know about that,
34:31
Speaker 2: like new member and how they're going to turn out.
34:36
Speaker 2: I think that was one of the pieces of what
34:38
Speaker 2: just broke apart, right, the whole thing. But I agree,
34:42
Speaker 2: I think I think it was Mike, I believe.
34:44
Speaker 1: My fault, but also the weak one of this bunch.
34:47
Speaker 1: I would say, this is Josh, which is why he
34:48
Speaker 1: was targeted first, because he was crashing out pretty hard
34:52
Speaker 1: at the very beginning, freaking out, like doubling over into
34:55
Speaker 1: a beetle position, like he was also the one that
34:58
Speaker 1: said that the first night, she was saying that she
35:00
Speaker 1: sleeps like a rock and doesn't hear anything, and he
35:03
Speaker 1: hurt everything and he was speaking out that first night.
35:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
35:08
Speaker 1: He was.
35:08
Speaker 2: Certainly he was, like he was an interesting mix of
35:11
Speaker 2: the calming presence but the one that was really panicking.
35:15
Speaker 1: If that makes he lost it completely, he lost it.
35:18
Speaker 2: He lost it completely, So got in his head for sure.
35:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. That's a pretty old movie, twenty five
35:36
Speaker 1: years older. It can rent the car, but people are
35:41
Speaker 1: still talking about it. I will say the McDonald paper
35:44
Speaker 1: or research paper that I think it was from twenty ten,
35:48
Speaker 1: so it's still ten years older, eleven years older than
35:51
Speaker 1: the movie, I believe, but fascinating in itself because they
35:57
Speaker 1: did they wanted to look at this aspect of like, Okay,
36:00
Speaker 1: this is a this is a film about how women
36:02
Speaker 1: shouldn't be leading mm hmm in itself in this bigger conversation.
36:08
Speaker 1: And I could see that. But again it's also like
36:11
Speaker 1: I really loved that that we didn't have to see nudity,
36:13
Speaker 1: We didn't see you have to see her brusts. We
36:15
Speaker 1: didn't have to have a moment of like her being
36:17
Speaker 1: very sexualized or any of those things. Like she just was.
36:20
Speaker 1: There was no question about boyfriend, husband, anything that she
36:22
Speaker 1: just moved on. Interestingly, though, Donna Hue. Heather Donna Hue
36:27
Speaker 1: did comment about these arguments, saying this, I've heard people
36:31
Speaker 1: say that The Blair Witch Project is a feminist movie
36:33
Speaker 1: because there's a woman in charge, and I've heard it
36:36
Speaker 1: called a completely anti feminist movie because this woman screws
36:39
Speaker 1: everything up. Who cares? Really, it's just a movie, which
36:43
Speaker 1: I'm sure like a lot of people would like it
36:45
Speaker 1: to be just a movie. But we don't have we
36:48
Speaker 1: can't have anything nice here. We know this. I don't.
36:52
Speaker 1: I don't think this is one of those that actually
36:55
Speaker 1: stands for and like it does. It's maybe I'm wrong,
36:58
Speaker 1: maybe I'm being too broad in this. I don't feel
37:00
Speaker 1: like this movie was necessarily a stance on like equality
37:03
Speaker 1: or gender differences. As much as they wanted to tell
37:07
Speaker 1: you a scary story and make money.
37:09
Speaker 2: I think so too. I don't think there was any
37:17
Speaker 2: Now there might have been, but I don't feel like
37:19
Speaker 2: it was trying to say anything particular about women being
37:27
Speaker 2: in charge. Perhaps the issue is that when we see it,
37:31
Speaker 2: it's rare and that's what we.
37:33
Speaker 1: Think, and yeah, it may. I also absolutely have to
37:36
Speaker 1: do with also people who came back and saying this
37:38
Speaker 1: is why women shouldn't be in charge when the movie
37:41
Speaker 1: in itself is like, no, the forces of evil were
37:43
Speaker 1: against them, they were never gonna leave. It didn't matter
37:46
Speaker 1: who it was leading.
37:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, Because again I think if if the man had
37:51
Speaker 2: been playing Heather's character, we wouldn't necessarily be maybe we'd
37:57
Speaker 2: be talking about like, oh, his genius, but instead we're
38:00
Speaker 2: talking about, oh, she didn't know what she was doing,
38:02
Speaker 2: you know what I mean?
38:04
Speaker 1: Right, So it's not necessarily the movie makers as much
38:07
Speaker 1: as the or the creators or writers, as much as
38:10
Speaker 1: what society wants to dictate on it. Because again, yeah,
38:13
Speaker 1: even if it was dudes, because we have seen many
38:15
Speaker 1: you found footage where it was meant the Grave encounters,
38:19
Speaker 1: we have the melee coming in. He's the one, but
38:22
Speaker 1: it kind of similar to where they blame him because
38:26
Speaker 1: they can't get reception, you know, in that same well,
38:29
Speaker 1: but we don't see it as much as a conversation
38:32
Speaker 1: about how men can't lead. But he's the one. He
38:36
Speaker 1: does end up in that such a way station.
38:38
Speaker 2: And I would argue what he did was worse.
38:43
Speaker 1: I remember correctly.
38:44
Speaker 2: I would argue, like I suppose you could get into
38:50
Speaker 2: the nature of who believes what, but bringing in like
38:53
Speaker 2: a fake medium and all this stuff in a place
38:56
Speaker 2: that could potentially be dangerous, right. And you know that's
38:59
Speaker 2: another thing about the which I suppose is in the beginning,
39:04
Speaker 2: when they are interviewing all of those people, they do
39:07
Speaker 2: interview that one woman who you can tell is like
39:09
Speaker 2: the talk of the town, right, who has all of
39:12
Speaker 2: this knowledge about the witch, and it is kind of weird,
39:15
Speaker 2: and they dismiss her. But I do feel at the
39:19
Speaker 2: heart of it there was a genuine curiosity, whereas grave encounters,
39:23
Speaker 2: it was much more like craven.
39:26
Speaker 1: Money making. Yeah, which is I mean, we've seen that
39:30
Speaker 1: in actual ghost hunting shows, reality shows where they do
39:35
Speaker 1: this and everybody's like, this is fake, this is not
39:38
Speaker 1: all these things. And I used to love those. I
39:41
Speaker 1: loved those gust Center shows a little too much, weirdly,
39:46
Speaker 1: but because I wanted to believe and I wanted to
39:49
Speaker 1: see these things, and I also love that aspect of
39:52
Speaker 1: being scared if they're real. I went on a couple
39:57
Speaker 1: of ghost stores, went in roswell, y'all, so we had
40:02
Speaker 1: a moment where the flashlights and everything went out. Ooh, yeah,
40:07
Speaker 1: it was freaking really good. But anyway, but all this
40:11
Speaker 1: to say this movie definitely opened a door for new
40:14
Speaker 1: ways of creating movies at that time. Unfortunately, we kind
40:18
Speaker 1: of already referenced this in any you can get into
40:20
Speaker 1: a little more, I think you know a little more
40:21
Speaker 1: about this movies like like a reality TV. Much like
40:26
Speaker 1: reality TV, it leads very little for the actors in
40:30
Speaker 1: this movie. It seems to leave them behind as in
40:33
Speaker 1: like monetarily they sign a contract not realizing how big
40:36
Speaker 1: this movie is. Because again independent movies like this, you
40:39
Speaker 1: don't know their found footage, so not a lot goes
40:42
Speaker 1: into it, like all of the CGI or any of
40:44
Speaker 1: that is not supposed to be anyway, but I'm sure
40:46
Speaker 1: there's some, but like the intention is bringing in unknown
40:51
Speaker 1: actors for all of the paranormal activity that the first
40:53
Speaker 1: ones are like unknown actors who just come in do
40:57
Speaker 1: this found footage types of movie and then never get paid.
41:02
Speaker 1: They never get really royalties and not really under contract
41:05
Speaker 1: like that they do kind of again, reality TV is
41:08
Speaker 1: very similar to this, where the production or the studio
41:14
Speaker 1: owns all the rise and nothing is given to the actors.
41:18
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think especially because this happened in the
41:21
Speaker 2: early early days, right, they really didn't get anything, and
41:25
Speaker 2: you can find a lot of interviews they've done recently,
41:27
Speaker 2: the actors from this about it. I have worked on
41:33
Speaker 2: a found footage movie. I hope it never comes out.
41:36
Speaker 1: Why does it tell me?
41:38
Speaker 2: It's really fun? I had a great time. But I mean, essentially,
41:42
Speaker 2: you're like running the sound in the camera you're in
41:48
Speaker 2: the woods or wherever you're coming up. You're improving a
41:53
Speaker 2: lot of it. You just have to hit certain more beats. Yeah,
41:57
Speaker 2: and you know bigger there are found footage now that
41:59
Speaker 2: it's a part genre. This is not always the case,
42:02
Speaker 2: but it is a cheap way to enter the industry.
42:04
Speaker 2: So a lot of people who are starting out do it,
42:06
Speaker 2: and a lot of actors who are starting out will
42:09
Speaker 2: sign on to it because and I've said this before
42:12
Speaker 2: wildly enough, a lot of times you don't get paid
42:15
Speaker 2: for this at all. What you're hoping for is to
42:17
Speaker 2: get just credit, just like a shot you can show
42:21
Speaker 2: to other people like I can act. And so it
42:25
Speaker 2: is bizarre to me that you would put you give
42:30
Speaker 2: people like the bare bones of a script and equipment
42:33
Speaker 2: and have them do it all and then they get
42:35
Speaker 2: paid nothing. And it could be incredibly financially lucrative, right,
42:41
Speaker 2: and they get nothing right, there's no guarantees, but wow.
42:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like just as a reminder, in general, actors
42:51
Speaker 1: don't get paid much unless you're a big name movie star,
42:56
Speaker 1: and seemingly those are the people are all children of
43:01
Speaker 1: famous people already that get those kind of breaks. You
43:05
Speaker 1: rarely make.
43:05
Speaker 2: Money now, you really, you really don't. I think people
43:11
Speaker 2: are often shocked by that, and I'm like, yeah, no, uh,
43:15
Speaker 2: it's not much at all. It's usually the vibe of like,
43:18
Speaker 2: you're so lucky to be in this. Right, maybe you'll
43:21
Speaker 2: get seen by someone else and you can take that
43:24
Speaker 2: next step and then maybe you'll make enough to not
43:26
Speaker 2: do whatever other jobs you're doing to do this right.
43:31
Speaker 1: And then the scheduling you have to be so open. Yes,
43:35
Speaker 1: it's such an odd thing, like when the film industry
43:39
Speaker 1: came into the Atlanta and then having all these friends
43:41
Speaker 1: who moved here or like, who have started up really
43:44
Speaker 1: you know, trying to get their career. Like the amount
43:48
Speaker 1: of odd jobs that have to take and do, because
43:52
Speaker 1: to truly be an actor, they have to be able
43:54
Speaker 1: to go on a whim for as long as they
43:56
Speaker 1: want you there and then might not. They might you
43:58
Speaker 1: may not get on on stage at all that day,
44:03
Speaker 1: but you have to be on call just in case.
44:05
Speaker 1: That's absurd to me, and you get paid minimally for
44:07
Speaker 1: being there.
44:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you have to I still think this
44:10
Speaker 2: should be illegal. But a lot of cases you have
44:12
Speaker 2: to pay to audition.
44:13
Speaker 1: Yes's odd.
44:14
Speaker 2: You have to pay to audition, and you have to
44:16
Speaker 2: do it within a lot of times, within twenty four hours.
44:21
Speaker 2: Like you get the script and you have to do it,
44:22
Speaker 2: and you probably have to pay for it. And if
44:24
Speaker 2: you need somebody to read with you, then good luck.
44:27
Speaker 1: There's so many scamy like talent agencies.
44:30
Speaker 2: Yes, oh yes, it's a big problem.
44:33
Speaker 1: Anyway. I'll just to say Heather, Josh and Mike deserve
44:39
Speaker 1: more for the role that they played because I honestly
44:42
Speaker 1: haven't seen them in anything else and we know their names.
44:45
Speaker 1: I will say that we know who they are, but
44:47
Speaker 1: I don't think that's really helped them in the career
44:49
Speaker 1: of like movie industry.
44:51
Speaker 2: Now they're in the industry. They did a great job, Yes.
44:55
Speaker 1: They did for something that's this new, this like this groundbreaking,
45:00
Speaker 1: they did it an amazing job. All that to say
45:02
Speaker 1: is let us know what your opinion is, because I
45:04
Speaker 1: think like it's interesting when you see movies like this
45:07
Speaker 1: and the like trying to get deeper meanings and trying
45:09
Speaker 1: to get like the understanding beyond just this was a
45:13
Speaker 1: new technique. This is a new way of storytelling. It
45:16
Speaker 1: gets into a bigger conversation that people were like, I
45:19
Speaker 1: see it this way, and I see it that way,
45:21
Speaker 1: and I love that.
45:22
Speaker 2: I love it too, And I would love to come
45:25
Speaker 2: back and just talk about found footage in general, because
45:28
Speaker 2: I think there are some movies where the public perception
45:31
Speaker 2: has shifted to Paranoral Activity is one of my favorites
45:34
Speaker 2: where everyone went from like Meek is so funny to
45:36
Speaker 2: be like no, he's a jack, like over time. Yeah,
45:40
Speaker 2: so I think we should come back and look at that.
45:44
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, Yes, if you have any thoughts
45:46
Speaker 2: about this, any favorite found footage movies, oh please let
45:50
Speaker 2: us know. You can email us this stuff and email
45:53
Speaker 2: and stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can had us
45:54
Speaker 2: on Twitter a podcast or on Instagram and TikTok a
45:57
Speaker 2: stuff on theyver told you. We're also on public YouTube.
46:02
Speaker 2: I've been forgetting about YouTube. We also have a book
46:06
Speaker 2: you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as
46:08
Speaker 2: always to our super producer Christina or sank the crist
46:11
Speaker 2: and our coin tricker Joey.
46:12
Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
46:14
Speaker 2: Steffan Never Told You is a protection by heart Radio.
46:16
Speaker 2: For more podcast from my heart Radio, you can check
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