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A Life In Movies: Daniel Myrick · All The Right Movies

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All the rent movies. Hi everyone, welcome to a Life
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and Movies, the interview show from all the right movies.
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My name is Luke. On the show we talk to people in
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the industry about their career in movies.
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Today we're talking to Co writer, Co editor and Co
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director of Seminole horror movie classic The Blair Witch
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Project. It's Daniel Myrick.
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Thanks for coming to talk to me, Dan.
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It's an absolute pleasure. How are you doing?
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I'm doing good, thanks. Good, good.
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Where in the world are you right now?
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I live in Seattle, basically a little island called Bainbridge
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right off the coast of the downtown Seattle.
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Brilliance. Has that always been your base
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or have you moved around in your time?
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I've moved around. I grew up in Florida and went to
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film school there at UCF and moved out to LA around 2001 and
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spent a good portion of my time out there up till about 5 or 6
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years ago and then I I moved to to Seattle with my wife and two
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kids. I've made the move north.
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Yeah, yeah. So you said you, you grew up in
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Florida. Is that where you started in the
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industry? Yeah, back in the early 90s, it
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was sort of being touted as Hollywood East and we were
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pretty excited and just can't kind of a bunch of us like local
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indigenous film people and artists and whatnot.
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What kind of formed a group in Orlando and we went to film
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school and did a bunch of, you know, student films and short
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projects and stuff like that. And then when we graduated, I
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was involved with a couple of small feature films.
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I was ADP on a couple of them. And I also did some editing.
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So sort of got my feet wet in the industry in Florida in those
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days. And then eventually, like right
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after Blair Witch sort of hit, I just felt the sort of the
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gravity of LA pulling me out there, spending so much time in
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LA doing projects and pitching projects that just made sense
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for me to move out there for a while and kind of see how the
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sausage is made, if you will. Yeah.
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So how did you get your big break in the industry?
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Was it right out of out of school?
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Depends on how you define big break.
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I mean, I had been working in commercials and wedding videos
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and all that for almost 10 years.
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Right, you served your time. Yeah, prior to to Blair Witch
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and I mean, everything from car commercials to, you know, real
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estate ads, I did a lot of those.
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And that's how I sort of kind of got into like telling the story
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visually. And and then when I got into
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film school, it sort of really opened my eyes like, oh, here's
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how movies are made. And this is this is what I've
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always wanted to do and tell stories visually.
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And so there's a process, script writing and three act structure
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and how you shoot coverage of a scene and all that stuff I
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learned in film school. So after that I got a few gigs,
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you know, on small productions and, you know, local productions
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in Florida. And, and actually, you know, I
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was sort of doing a day job as an editor at a, at a local
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production facility. And it was two or three years
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after we graduated, Ed and I reconnected and said, you know,
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let's do that Woods movie. We were kind of dreaming up in
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film school. And one thing led to another and
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we got that going. And that's really where
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everything changed. Obviously when Blair Witch hit,
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that sort of was was like the huge break for us.
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Right. So you you said, hey, I imagine
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you you're referring to Eduardo Sanchez.
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Yeah. Your Co writer, director, editor
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on the Blair Witch. How did you and he meet?
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We met in film school, you know, we were both, you know, pretty
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ambitious and had a lot of big ideas that can film school.
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And I liked his work and he liked my work and we just got
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along, had a kind of a creative spark with each other.
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And after a couple of years we were collaborating on projects,
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film projects in film school. And and as you do with with kind
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of collaborators, you sit around and brainstorm ideas and you
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kind of bounce off each other. And we had several different
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ideas in this kind of woods movie was one of them.
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We wanted to do a sort of a horror film that at the risk of
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sounding really pretentious, but we wanted a horror movie that
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actually scared you. We were, we were sort of like in
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this place back in those days where horror films sort of have
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the pretext of being scary, but they were big productions like
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Ghost Ship and stuff like that. And they weren't actually scary.
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They were almost self referential in their sort of
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tongue in cheek approach to horror.
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And like, I miss being really scared, you know, like the
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Exorcist had an effect on me as a kid and Shining and films like
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that. So so yeah, we started
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brainstorming about what what really scares you, you know, in
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a primal level. And, and that's kind of where
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the Blair Witch idea took root. And and and then we didn't
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revisit it until a couple of years later.
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Right. OK, I've been trying to think
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about this because I mean it was kind of a one off.
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I mean this Woods film that you're talking about here as
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well as very quit, but we're talking about the Blair Witch
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Project to the a seismic shift in movie making.
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What were your influences considering, you know, found
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footage films? Were a handful of them in movie
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history up until this point? Well, I think the biggest, some
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of the biggest influences for Ed and I were documentaries
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actually, or pseudo documentaries.
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Like we, we were big fans of the show in search of with Leonard
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Nimoy. Yeah.
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And explored all these issues like Ancient Aliens and the
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NASCAR lines and Peru and all really fascinating stuff that in
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that age at that time was very popular.
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You know, UFO's and, you know, the late 70s, early 80s, it was,
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you know, Bigfoot, all that stuff.
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There was all these pseudo documentaries surrounding these
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subjects and they were scary. They were really chilling.
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You'd open up an old book. I had a subscription to UFO
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magazine and I'd open up and there's these blurry photos of
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hubcaps, basically. But you know, they were, they
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creeped you out. So we sort of just started to
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drill down the theory of why is it that a blurry image of a dude
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in an ape suit, you know, in the woods, has such an effect on the
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brain versus the Hollywood version of that?
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What is it about that realism, that sense of unpredictability
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that works on that kind of primal fear button in everybody.
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So we took a page from those, that inspiration from those old
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documentaries and said, can we create a narrative film that
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sort of plays on those triggers? So then it was about, OK, let's
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create a fake documentary that we have control over the
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narrative. And basically just
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coincidentally, at the same time, MTV was coming out with
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Real World, which was, you know, one of the first reality shows.
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They were also famous for a lot of their shakey Cam coverage of
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interviews and stuff like that. I remember that being a big
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thing. They were the first ones to
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really do that. So at the same time, audiences
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were sort of becoming sensitized to that style of storytelling,
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you know, through news, 24/7 news and MTV and whatnot.
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So we were kind of hitting it right at the right time with
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this idea that coincided with the audience's sort of ability
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to accept that kind of style more so than I think in in days
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prior to that. Right.
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I think in in movies, I think the film that gets touted around
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quite a bit is kind of a Holocaust from 1980.
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Is the is the kind of the found the start of found footage film?
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Was that on your radar at all? No, not when we were shooting.
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We didn't even know about the film until after we had done
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screened the film and someone came up to us and said, have you
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seen Campbell Holocaust? I go, hell, never heard of it.
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So and I went back and watched and go, Oh yeah, the premise is
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very similar, you know, like people lost and you find their
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footage and whatnot. And it was really a disturbing
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movie. You'd be forgiven, yeah, if you
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haven't seen that film. Yeah, it's not.
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A great it's not a nice watch. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a tough
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film to watch, but, but we didn't know about it until
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afterwards. And, and frankly, we were kind
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of surprised that there weren't more films like that because it
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is a it's a pretty cool premise, but it's also almost as
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importantly, very cheap to shoot that way.
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You know, you don't need all the big production trappings of a of
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a Hollywood film, which are very costly.
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But that was a kind of an interesting coincidence that
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that we discovered that film actor we did Blair.
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Can you, if you don't mind, taught me through the the
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writing process for something like the Blair Witch Project?
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I I believe you set out a 35 page treatment.
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Is that right? Yeah, it was basically Ed and I
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spent a lot of time outlining the structure of what the film
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was going to be and maintaining kind of a narrative control,
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kind of a three act structure, you know, laying the groundwork
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that, you know, the pipe, as we say early on about the Blair
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Witch mythology. So the audience had that in
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their head as their actors were going into the woods.
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So all that had to be premeditated as well as all the
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gags. What what were the, you know, we
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wanted sort of a build for each night's interference from the
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from the witch, right. So that had to have a build to
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it. So it was pretty methodically
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thought out that the outline in the shooting was basically a
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full on script, just without the dialogue because we knew the
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dialogue had to be improvised for it to come off genuine and,
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and, and real. So it was, it was about not
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necessarily what the actors were saying, but how they were saying
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it. We had, it had to come from a
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real emotional place. So, so, yeah, so we sort of
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created the stage with the script as being sort of our
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framework for the actors to, to be able to have free movement
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and, and work within. And then that took, I don't
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know, several months, you know, for, for at a night to outline
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it. And then I went off and wrote
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the actual script and kind of filled in the gaps of, you know,
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things like when Mary Brown talks about the horse lady
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story. So I had to write that out and
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the scene at the, you know, at the graveyard.
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And there were more scripted areas, you know, of course, the
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back story and all the kind of world betting we had to kind of
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do together and all that. So.
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So yeah, it was almost an hour by hour structure, you know,
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telling the actors what they needed to be doing any
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particular time. But again, let them kind of have
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free reign of the dialogue. And and we knew later on we were
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going to control their performance both by observing
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them in the field and also giving them directing notes on
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what to say and how to say it in various situations.
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So we could hit those beats that we needed to hit.
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So we didn't know if it was going to work at the time we
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were doing it. It could very easily have gone
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off the rails. But it was one of those
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experiments that at the time, we were trying to capture that
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documentary improvisational unpredictability that kind of
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inspired us for Blair in the first place.
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And and you mentioned there about field notes, so did the
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actors go to a certain location and were given kind of
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instructions and then cleared out the scenes?
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Yeah, we took sort of this method approach to directing and
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shooting the movie where like, for example, Heather was given
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more of the back story of Blair Witch in the mythology because
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her character would have known more about it.
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That was her project and her story to be telling.
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And we left both Josh and Michael a little bit in the dark
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about what Heather was up to because we wanted them to ask
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questions on camera about what it was all about.
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So we come up a little more natural.
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So that's an example. And then once we got into the
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woods, we with the help of our producer Greg Hale, we used AGPS
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system to allow the ACT to sort of navigate to our waypoints
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that we set up in advance without the help of a crew
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guiding them through the woods. So we, because we knew we were
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going to get a lot of good meat as they were walking, just
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talking. And you know, again, the
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methodology being we're probably going to get 1000 hours of
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useless stuff. But if we get this a couple of
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minutes of a really great moment, it'll be worth it.
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So that was our, our thought process.
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So we marked waypoints in the GPS handheld set that they had
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me had a copy of it. So when they got to a waypoint,
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there would be a, a milk crate basket there and within it would
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be new tapes, fresh tapes for them to use, fresh batteries for
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their cameras, as well as some food stuffs that they could they
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could munch on. More importantly, they knew that
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was our spot that they made it and that's where they're going
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to set up their tent. And then within that crate we
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had three film canisters, those old 35mm film canisters that we
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used to have back in the day. And we're had directing notes
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stuffed within them. And they were instructed to read
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their own note, but not anyone else's and not share the note.
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So an example would be like we told Heather in one instance
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that, you know, you're really tired and this is going to be
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the day you're going to get out. Just go South all day.
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Don't listen to anybody else. Just continue going South.
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And she was smart enough to know, OK, that was my cue.
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That was my instructions for the day.
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And I just got to maintain my heading going South.
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And then at the same time we gave like Josh a note like
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you're going, you've been going South all day.
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This is bullshit. So you got to intervene sometime
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in this afternoon. So that was his cue sometime
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whenever he felt the mood was right to go.
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This is bullshit, right? So that that would introduce a
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conflict somewhere and but we allow them to kind of decide how
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they wanted to play it out. But we so it was a blend of us
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directing those beats in those in those moments, but allowing
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the actors to kind of do it when they felt it was right.
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And it worked out pretty well in most cases.
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You know, they improvised brilliantly.
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I was one of the big prerequisites during the casting
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processes, having those improv chops.
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And yeah, we got a lot of great footage.
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It was, you know, obviously it ended up working out for us.
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Incredible footage. Go back to the the custom
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process. How many people auditioned for
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it? How did you whittle it down?
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What was your kind of criteria? Well, we knew going in that we
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wanted people with really good improv skills.
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And you know, that's a different kind of actor.
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There's there are those actors that are really great character
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actors and will memorize an entire script and give you 5
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different ways of a performance of a certain line.
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But if you don't give them a line, they get really
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uncomfortable. They feel like they're unguided
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and that that makes them very uncomfortable.
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And then there's the kind of actor that loves that freedom,
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loves that sort of free association and they can kind of
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just ramble and do whatever. And it comes very kind of like,
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you know, from a primal place, very honest place.
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And that sort of method approach is embrace.
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I think for a lot of young actors, they really, they really
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like that kind of approach. So we needed to set up sort of a
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quick way of screening out the those two different kinds of
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actors. So what we did prior to coming
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into the audition, we had a paragraph that all the would be
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auditioners would would come in and read and it basically said,
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you're coming to a parole board hearing and you were convicted
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of murder 12 years ago and now your parole board meeting is
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coming up and state your case. We didn't tell them what to say
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or how to say it or whether they were guilty or not guilty or,
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you know, just this is a situation.
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And we picked that scenario because it more more closely
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resembled what a casting setup would be with a bunch of people
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behind a desk, camera on them, one chair, they're on the hot
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seat. So right.
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Kind of feels like a parole board hearing.
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So that's what we did. So the actors would come in that
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got it in character. They were already ready to kind
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of plead their case. And we occasionally have an
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actor come in and said, what does this mean?
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What are you talking about on this paper?
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Then we knew you're you're gone, you know, thanks, but no thanks.
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So that was our first level sort of screening.
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And then it was just a matter of them giving us a good story.
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What, you know, they would be in character and they have to make
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it up on the spot. It's nothing they could pre
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rehearse. We weren't interested in their
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monologues or anything. They've already pre rehearsed.
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We just go into your, your story as being a prisoner for 12 years
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and you know, and convince us. And then if I saw someone I
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liked like halfway through their spiel, I would stand up from
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behind the desk and point to the corner of the room and say my
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plumbing's been leaking for the last two weeks.
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I don't know what to do about it.
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It's kind of ruined the carpet downstairs now.
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They had to be a plumber, instantly become a plumber and
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tell me what was wrong with my plumbing.
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And if again, if they were smart and they got it, they would just
16:50
go right into that character and be convincing.
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So we wanted to kind of stress test them to this workshop, this
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quick workshop on who had the chops and who are convincing.
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And that took like over the course of a year, we probably
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saw 2-3 hundred people, I would say, you know, through various
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auditions, you know, they were just open calls.
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So as you imagine, you know, we had tons of people.
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Like in New York, we had a whole hallway full of people just
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showing up. So there was a lot of chaff we
17:18
had to go through. But once you sort of narrowed it
17:19
down to about 15 people that all had the skill, then it was just
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a matter of like pairing people up to see how the chemistry was
17:27
between the groups 'cause we knew we needed three.
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We originally was 3/3 guys, so we kind of paired them all up.
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And it wasn't till later in the process where Heather came into
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my room, 'cause Ed and I were kind of dividing and conquering.
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He was taking a group of people, I was taking a group.
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So Heather came into my room and she was the only only person who
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auditioned who sat down in the chair and said she actually
17:50
didn't deserve to be released. He said, I don't advise you to
17:55
release me. And I laughed.
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I said, that's good. It was because you know, when
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you're auditioning all day and you hear the same spiel over and
18:00
over and over because everyone just kind of defaults to the
18:03
same thing or they get real angry, like here we go.
18:06
It was refreshing. It was just a refreshing change.
18:08
And and that says, OK, you're smart.
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You probably knew that. I've been listening to the same
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I'm innocent story by 1000 dudes coming in here.
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Now you're giving me one that's I'm not innocent.
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So that was a good beat for her. And also she changed it up
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really good. And so I had her come in for a
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call back with Ed and I in the room this time and she really
18:28
kind of knocked that out of the park in the call bag.
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So that's when he and I said, hey, why don't we have a girl be
18:34
the lead of this? And that's where everything
18:36
changed. So then we paired her up with
18:39
Mike and Josh eventually and and narrowed it down to the three of
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them. And yeah, and then we are off,
18:44
off to the races. Yeah, wow.
18:47
Incredible. It's amazing that that her
18:49
audition had the power to change your mind and perception of what
18:52
these characters were going to be.
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And also a ballsy move to do something go against the direct
18:58
instructions of what she's been given coming in for that
19:00
audition. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.
19:02
You have to be open to those audibles, those those changes.
19:07
I mean, I tell like young directors, like, you know, they
19:10
ask what advice do you give is it's kind of knowing when not to
19:13
direct. That's really the key is you get
19:16
it more and more experience. You realize that you have a
19:19
vision of your movie and it's never going to come out that
19:22
way. But what you need to understand
19:24
is that sometimes it'll be better.
19:26
You just haven't thought. You don't know what questions to
19:28
ask yet. And sometimes the film tells you
19:31
what it wants. So you have to be receptive to
19:33
those moments. And it's a tough balance to
19:36
strike. You're trying to maintain your
19:37
vision, but at the same time be open enough to to better input
19:41
along the way. And that was one of those
19:42
instances like this might work even better than what we had in
19:45
mind. And great to have a partner, you
19:47
know, in crime with, with, with me on that because it's like, am
19:50
I crazy? But would she be great for this?
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And I said, no, I think she'd be good too.
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So, so it worked out And and now you know, obviously in
19:57
retrospect, I can't imagine anyone else haven't played that
19:59
role. Not at all.
20:00
Yeah, not at all. So just to go back to what you
20:02
were saying about the directions that you give for example,
20:05
Heather go South all day SSS and then somebody like I think he
20:10
said, Mike said started to then challenge that and there was
20:13
friction immediately and. I don't know how long they were
20:16
isolated in the woods by themselves, but did that start
20:19
to have like a negative impact on on any of the cast of crew?
20:22
Like was it easy to lose perspective of what you were
20:25
doing? Well, it's, I mean, production
20:28
in general is always difficult, you know, because you, there's a
20:31
lot of things pulling in 100 different directions and you're
20:33
trying to like one of the toughest jobs, I think as a
20:36
director is like maintaining the vision of the movie and kind of
20:40
state holding on to that rope is all this chaos is going on
20:43
around you. And it was no different with
20:45
Blair. And, and in some senses even
20:48
more so because it was sort of a 24/7 shoot.
20:51
There was no stop and start and was like, you know, action cut,
20:54
action cut, take 4, take 5. It didn't have any of that.
20:56
It was just kind of an open method, 24/7, free for all.
21:02
So it was a challenge for both Ed and I to kind of maintain
21:08
that structure and that outline and and also adjust.
21:12
I mean, people laugh at this, but I, I saw no other way of
21:16
being able to have control over the process than to be shadowing
21:21
the actors. Ed and I would kind of hide
21:23
behind the bushes and watch them and their performances around
21:26
the tent, in the tent, all that. And we had to wear full camo,
21:30
You know, we had to be camouflaged.
21:32
They knew we were out there, but what we didn't want is them
21:35
moving that camera around and there's two guys standing in the
21:38
background watching, right? That would have blown the shot.
21:41
So we needed to be hidden still be able to view and and guide
21:44
the guys whenever we needed to step in and intervene.
21:47
But but we had to be camouflaged so the the camera wouldn't
21:51
wouldn't catch us. So that was an example of how we
21:55
were directing kind of by remote control, if you will.
21:59
That seemed to work. It struck a balance between
22:01
allowing them the freedom to explore and improvise and
22:06
maintain that spontaneity, but keep them on a path of their
22:11
character arcs that were important for the story.
22:13
Obviously, you know, like the first night when they camped
22:16
out, Heather started screaming like crazy at Mike because they
22:20
heard some rumbling in the bushes or whatever.
22:22
So she just went to 11 right, right away.
22:25
So Mike and her were screaming at each other.
22:27
And then we then we had to kind of say cut, cut.
22:29
We stepped in because there was no place for Heather to build
22:32
to. Like you've got five nights out
22:35
here, 6 nights out here, and we need a gradual progression to
22:39
where you get to this place. So you can be mad and like
22:42
frustrated, but just tone it down a few notches so we have
22:45
something to build to. So that's an example of where we
22:48
had to intervene because they didn't know.
22:49
They had no idea where this was building up to or what the end
22:53
scene or the finale is going to be like.
22:55
So they had no like a script. At least you have some of that
22:58
chronology in your head of where those beats are and where what
23:01
you're building up to. Or in this case, they didn't.
23:03
They were just like in the woods, had the back story, but
23:06
we weren't sure. They weren't sure what the next
23:08
night was going to hold. So that was that was our way of
23:12
of being able to guide that process.
23:14
Yeah, I think John Carpenter on Halloween had a like a a meter
23:18
for Jamie Lee Curtis. So reaction was give me a 7 on
23:22
this one, give me a nine here. So it sounds like a similar
23:25
kind. Of thing, yeah, yeah, I mean,
23:27
you want because the actors, you know, they're just, they're just
23:29
in the moment and they're being as honest as they can.
23:33
And they're not the editors, right?
23:34
They're not, they're not, they're not the ones saying, oh,
23:36
I'm, you know, on minute 75 you should be at an 11, where at
23:40
minute 18 you should be at A2. You know, and a lot of times in
23:45
traditional movies, you're shooting out a sequence anyway,
23:47
so that you need to know where, where, what emotional level you
23:51
need to be at. But we did have the luxury of
23:53
being able to shoot chronologically in sequence.
23:55
But. But still, they didn't know
23:57
where they were going to end up. They had no idea.
23:59
Something that I read that the actors were under the impression
24:02
that the legend of the Blair Witch was was real and and the
24:06
Vt kind of like the talking heads at the start when they're
24:09
in the town were real people telling a real story.
24:12
Is that true? I don't.
24:13
I think the actors knew it was all a movie, but it gets a
24:18
little conflated because what we did in the towns is that we had
24:23
a plant. Like, for example, in a
24:25
restaurant, there would be maybe 3 or 4 people in there having
24:28
breakfast. And one of those people was our
24:30
plant was our person that's going to talk about Blair Witch.
24:33
The actors didn't know which person it was going to be.
24:35
So they were encouraged just to interview and ask people
24:38
throughout because we've got all these great reactions to people
24:40
that know who, when you're talking about, I don't know, you
24:42
know, but you get these great little moments, right?
24:44
And then they hit our, then they hit our, our informant, our, our
24:48
plant. And then we get this a little
24:50
bit of tidbit of, Oh yeah, I've heard of that story, blah, blah,
24:52
blah. So, yeah.
24:54
So that was a combination where they didn't know who was who in
24:58
any given situation. And it was made to look like
25:02
that they they happened upon a person that that did know a
25:05
little bit about that back story.
25:06
And and so from there I could see that how much of this is
25:11
true, how much is not true? And at the end of the day, none
25:13
of it's true, but I'm pretty sure that they were aware of it.
25:18
Heather, Mike and Josh didn't you the player, which wasn't a
25:21
real thing. Yeah, yeah, it was all, it was
25:23
all, it was all made-up. And I mean, there was a Blair
25:26
High School, which just coincidentally there was a Blair
25:29
High School in in the area. But other than Burkettsville,
25:32
which is a real town, it was completely, there are no Black
25:36
Hills. There's no, none of that is part
25:38
of any like legacy folklore of the area.
25:41
We we kind of created that from whole cloth.
25:44
And like from a location point of view, did you scout those out
25:48
beforehand or did you just kind of stumble upon these places?
25:50
No. We had about a month's worth of
25:53
preparation prior, but we were at right next door to Seneca
25:57
Creek State Park, which is where Ed lives.
26:00
So we kind of used Ed's apartment as a sort of base of
26:02
operations. And for several weeks, Ed and I
26:04
went out in advance and just scouted the woods and said, OK,
26:07
this would be a great camp spot for debt for night 1.
26:11
So we'll mark that. And I remember running across
26:15
Coffin Rock, you know, we were just about scouting and says,
26:18
oh, this is a great rock. We're going to have something
26:19
happen here. And I remember thinking, it
26:22
looks like a big coffin going into the water.
26:24
I mean, that's where Coffin Rock came from.
26:26
So yeah. So that was where then we
26:29
created this whole kind of what happened on Coffin Rock, you
26:32
know? So yeah, we walked through the
26:34
woods and found these great locations, both with the story
26:36
in our mind, but also formulating from what we see and
26:40
inspired by, by the locations we were at.
26:42
And, and then the area of the woods where the stickman we're
26:44
all going to be hanging. So we had to kind of map that
26:46
all out. So every, every location, every
26:49
night's camping was all kind of predetermined and, and mapped
26:53
out because the logistics were pretty complicated.
26:55
And also for safety's sake, we didn't want the actors of
26:57
roaming wildly in the woods. If someone, you know, hurt their
27:01
ankle or something. We needed an escape route for
27:03
them to get out, that sort of thing.
27:04
But and then ultimately the house at the end, which was at a
27:07
different park because it was the, the, the House of all
27:11
houses and spooky House of all houses.
27:14
We had to do a kind of a company move to get everyone out to that
27:17
house. And then we picked up from there
27:19
and then we were there for a couple of nights.
27:21
We're shooting that one scene over multiple takes.
27:23
That was more like a traditional shoot where we had to kind of
27:26
stop and start because it was so complicated to get them to that
27:29
house and back down again. So but it needed to kind of
27:32
match seamlessly with the other stuff.
27:34
So that was our one company move for for the show.
27:39
That had been a company move is is quite something what a piece
27:43
of production design that house is.
27:45
Is that something that you did, you know that was there?
27:48
Yeah, well, it was Ben Rock, who is our production designer on,
27:52
on, on. The film did a lot of work,
27:56
believe it or not. Him and his team did a lot of
27:59
work on that house to get it to where it wouldn't kill anybody
28:03
by walking through it. It was a mess.
28:06
So our instructions to Ben were like, OK, we want to try to do
28:10
as much in one take as we can, like get them as far into the
28:14
house as we can in one take, one uninterrupted take.
28:18
So we sort of, so you have to sort of make a path for them to
28:21
come around and guide them in as far as we can without them
28:26
falling through a hole or going in the wrong doorway or
28:28
whatever. So they got rid of all the
28:31
graffiti that was on it. As you can imagine, it's been
28:33
sitting out there since the 40s or whatever.
28:35
So it's, it was a mess. And they moved a lot of the wood
28:37
around and covered up the front door.
28:39
So the actors couldn't go in the front door.
28:41
So they were able to go around to an open door.
28:44
So the 1st 20 seconds or so of that take, they were kind of
28:48
seeing it for the first time. They were they, they, they had
28:51
not seen the house. That was a a genuine reaction by
28:54
Mike when he goes, you know, a year and take a breath then.
28:57
So they go into the house and then they get up this about as
28:59
far as they can and then things kind of went off the rails and
29:01
we stay cut and then we then we stage the next portion where
29:04
they go upstairs, react and then come downstairs.
29:07
And that was all over the course of two nights.
29:09
But but yeah, Ben and his team, they did a, they did a great job
29:14
of prepping the house to look really good and safe for the
29:19
actors. And we did all the handprints in
29:21
the wall and all that kind of stuff.
29:23
And of course, the basement was all, it was a mess.
29:25
I had to get clear all that out. So it's a lot of work to get
29:28
that house ready. But both Ed and I knew we needed
29:32
a big kind of ending, like a finale ending in the trick.
29:36
The tough part for us story wise, and we didn't have this
29:39
ending worked out until the very end, like 3 days before we
29:42
started shooting. We wanted to have this big
29:45
payoff at the end, but not reveal anything, right?
29:49
Not reveal a witch in a costume or a dude in the OR an alien or
29:52
whatever. That would have blown it.
29:54
There's nothing that we could have created on, I think any
29:57
budget that would have been better than what the audience
29:59
had in their head. Yeah, but but there needed to be
30:03
some kind of big punch. There needed to be a finale at
30:06
the end. So both visually and I think
30:08
story wise, we went through all these different permutations
30:11
about how, you know, maybe Mike is hanging or maybe he's
30:14
levitating or we had all these different like, what could we
30:16
do? That sort of ambiguous.
30:18
But there's a payoff and a big, you know, like, what the hell at
30:22
the end. So finally we just said what
30:24
will happen standing in the corner, which would be really
30:26
weird and creepy, and he's not reacting like a normal person
30:29
would. And then something hits Heather
30:32
at the end and just takes her out and that's it.
30:34
We just got the black. Oh, that's that sounds creepy.
30:37
So that's what we did. And again, that took some
30:40
logistics. And then we had to kind of
30:42
inform the actors ahead of time that this is what we're going to
30:44
do. We don't want to just jump on
30:46
Heather at the end and have her freak out.
30:47
So, so yeah, that was more traditional shooting towards the
30:51
end to make that make all that work.
30:53
But it was fun. That was that was a cool, that
30:54
was a cool part of the show. We were exhausted by that time,
30:57
but it was it was a lot of fun. Because that ending is set up
31:00
near the start with those talking heads interviews with
31:02
the guy and it's only referenced Blink and you'll missus.
31:06
The guy says he made them turn in the corner and he killed the
31:08
other. One, yeah.
31:09
And that interview we actually shot later when we went out and
31:12
did some reshoots. It was we we were all so broke
31:15
at the time. And Artisan did a test screening
31:18
for the movie in New Jersey where a lot of the audience
31:21
members were like, confused about what did the ending mean?
31:24
They weren't sure. And but they were all scared.
31:27
Everyone was scared. It was creepy as hell.
31:29
They just, what did it all mean? And of course, studio executives
31:32
like, oh, we have to explain everything, right?
31:34
And so they said, well, I'll tell you what, you know, we
31:37
think you should shoot 5 alternate endings that we'll
31:40
test. And we're like, we don't really
31:42
need to do that. So we'll pay you to do it.
31:45
OK. So we're like, because a lot of
31:48
people, film makers don't realize like when you sell your
31:50
movie at Sundance, you don't see that money for like a year later
31:52
because it comes out of box office revenue.
31:54
You don't see it. So we were still dead broke.
31:57
And so this is like a separate production.
31:59
Oh yeah, we'll pay a production budget to go shoot in five new
32:01
endings. All right.
32:02
So we went out and shot 5 new stupid basically the endings
32:06
that Ed and I flushed, we didn't, we didn't like.
32:09
So we shot those endings and I think they ended up going on
32:13
like the special edition or something, but but we shot those
32:16
endings and brought him back. The test screenings went lousy.
32:20
The audience hated the new endings and we weren't we were
32:23
like, yes. So I got on the phone with Bill
32:26
Block, who was Co president of Artisan at the time.
32:29
I said Bill, look, the guys and I think we should stick with the
32:31
original ending. And he famously said, well, I
32:33
think it's going to cost us a lot of money at the box office,
32:35
but we'll stick with your ending.
32:39
All right. So and it ended up being one of
32:42
the most talked about scenes of the film, right.
32:44
So you just never know then ambiguity can work really in
32:48
your favor. It's it's easy for it to not,
32:50
you know, you got to be careful. But in that case, it really was
32:54
the punch we needed at the end to sort of quote, UN quote, pay
32:58
off without giving anything away and, and and left the audience
33:02
sort of having a discussion post viewing of what actually
33:07
happened. And that's what we wanted.
33:08
That was a sort of, again, a whole back of legacy of of when
33:12
I grew up. And I'm looking at that blurry
33:14
UFO photos, like is it a hubcap or is it real?
33:17
You know, and you can have once I could say it's a hubcap and
33:19
otherwise I said, no, it's not, man.
33:20
There's no way. Look at the shadow.
33:21
You sit there and and that's half the fun is doing the
33:24
analysis. And it'll bring people back.
33:26
That's what that audiences have come back to say.
33:29
What? What was that ended about?
33:30
I must watch it again. Absolutely, yeah.
33:32
And. Again and again.
33:33
I think one of our biggest percentage of box office was
33:36
just people coming back to the movie to rewatch it and also
33:40
bring their friends in that hadn't seen it and like spring
33:42
it on them as well. So it was definitely one of
33:45
those films that that people like to come back and and see it
33:48
two or three times. Well, yeah, I'm, I'm one of
33:51
those for. Service, yeah.
33:55
You mentioned about shooting 24/7 and thousands of hours on
33:59
the cutting room floor. How painstaking was that editing
34:02
job? It was, it was pretty brutal.
34:07
I mean it took us like a 8-9 months to edit the film again.
34:10
We were doing it between our kind of day job work and stuff
34:12
like that. And ironically we were cutting
34:15
videos for Planet Hollywood at the time, which were helping to
34:18
fund the post production process.
34:20
We were still at a stage of the movie that found footage portion
34:24
was going to constitute only about, you know, 20-30 minutes
34:28
of the final film. We, we had shot a phase two
34:30
portion, which was talking heads and analysis of the footage and
34:35
had all this kind of back story stuff that we were going to have
34:37
in the, in the film. And as Ed and I started editing
34:41
the found footage portion, we realized that I think we have a
34:44
whole, a narrative and just the found footage stuff we can.
34:48
And that's again, one of those moments where you have to kind
34:50
of stand back and let the film tell you what it wants and you
34:55
may have a hardened vision in your mind.
34:58
Myself in particular, like this week, this was supposed to look
35:00
like A and in search of episodes that will know.
35:02
It doesn't have to. It can be found footage only,
35:05
you know, so that took some convincing.
35:07
But, you know, I'm glad we listened to our inner cells on
35:10
that. And, you know, Ed and I kind of
35:12
divvied up the duties. He edited some scenes.
35:14
I edited other scenes just so we could get it done.
35:17
But our initial mandate was let's just get rid of what
35:22
doesn't convince us that's real, what feels contrived, what feels
35:25
like a performance. You know, anything that if
35:28
there's a little voice ticks in your head that feels like an
35:31
actor moment, got to get rid of it.
35:33
No matter how good the performance is, no matter how
35:35
great the camera angle is, if it feels for just an instant that
35:39
it feels like a performance, it's got to go.
35:41
So that was the first methodology, first pass
35:44
methodology like let's just get it down to the footage that
35:46
feels convincing and then we'll decide what we want to do with
35:49
it. Cause a lot of the directing
35:50
came out of working with the footage and it was really kind
35:54
of liberating because we had this so-called documentary, but
35:57
we didn't have to follow any of the documentary rules.
36:00
You know, there's, there's the ethical, you know, conundrum
36:03
with a lot of documentarians like, well, you have to portray
36:05
what's on screen. You can't, you can't add music
36:08
or you can't really, you, you start getting in this realm of
36:11
manipulation. If you start influencing too
36:15
much what's on the screen, you can't tell the actor where to go
36:17
or put in the sound effect or anything.
36:19
Well, we could do all that, right?
36:20
We, we were able to like put a sound bite off screen that
36:24
Heather says something over here that we stole from another
36:26
scene, you know, earlier on or what we could because it was a
36:28
movie at the end of the day, we're making a movie.
36:31
So that took a lot of time. You know, like, oh, what's going
36:34
to enhance this moment or what's going to set up this moment a
36:37
little bit better while Heather has this great line off camera
36:40
like 2 days prior. So let's go ahead and stick that
36:42
in the begin, you know, whatever.
36:43
So we did a lot of that shucking and jiving with audio and adding
36:48
effects and stuff like that to help enhance and build.
36:50
We actually even later on in the during the sound mix, we we
36:54
slowly took away the ambient sound like the birds and the
36:57
crickets and all that beginning was very full.
37:00
And then towards the end we just slowly dialed all that down to
37:03
where it was very sparse at the end.
37:05
It was almost like being, you know, in a, just a blank canvas
37:08
towards the end. So to sort of enhance that
37:11
isolation. So all that kind of trickery was
37:14
done in post and that just takes a lot of time because it's, it's
37:16
just trial and error. You know, you have to kind of
37:18
try and experiment with it. But so, yeah, about 8 months in
37:21
the post process for that first screening cut that went to
37:24
Sundance and then we did some tweaking after that.
37:27
So I mean, there's there's a lot of law and mythology.
37:30
It runs very deep for the film. And there's that accompanying
37:34
documentary, The Curse of the Blair Witch, which is it's like
37:37
a companion piece to the the feature.
37:39
Film. So did that come as a result of
37:42
the choices that you started to make in the cutting room?
37:44
Yeah, there was always sort of this kind of hole that was left
37:49
by the non so-called devoted audience.
37:52
Like the devoted audience, our core group that was following us
37:55
online and was looking at our timeline and they knew all that
37:58
back story. But if you just came into Blair
38:01
and you're just the average Joe going to work every day and you
38:03
hear about this Blair Witch movie, you have no clue what it
38:06
is. There was there was no set up at
38:07
all. There's no no back story.
38:09
And it not that the film required it, but we felt that it
38:13
would be cool if we had a kind of a companion piece in in
38:17
sci-fi channel. So sort of commissioned us and
38:20
Ben to put together all that other footage that we shot and
38:24
make this sort of supporting companion piece that if people
38:27
wanted to drill down into the back story in mythology, they
38:30
could do that. So it kind of worked either way.
38:33
If you wanted to just go in blind and see this snuff film
38:38
and then decide what what you thought of it afterwards, you
38:40
could do that. Or if you wanted to watch this
38:43
sci-fi special like a couple weeks prior and get all this
38:46
back story and then be intrigued, then you could go
38:48
watch what the fountain footage was.
38:49
So it worked both ways and it was sort of cathartic in a way
38:54
because we were able to take all that footage that we shot and
38:56
like, oh, here's the story, here's the world building that
38:59
we all spent so much time on that most of our core fans
39:01
already knew about. And that was that were falling
39:04
on the website. But the average viewer can now
39:06
easily digest it on Sci-fi Channel.
39:08
Yeah, I think the curse of the Blair Witch is it's not as
39:11
heavily publicized as the Blair Witch Project itself, which I
39:14
think is a shame because it's a it's a damn good.
39:17
We had so much fun doing it. I mean, it was like in some ways
39:20
more fun than the film itself because it was like we got to
39:23
really fake all these experts, so-called experts in the field.
39:27
And we were almost tongue in cheek playing off those old
39:30
Bigfoot documentaries and stuff. And, and you know, we had a
39:34
so-called Wiccan that we had this guy kind of talking about,
39:37
you know, the, the, the witchcraft and whatnot.
39:39
And we just had so much fun shooting that stuff.
39:42
And we feel like, oh man, so we're not going to use in the
39:44
movie now. What?
39:44
Well, we just put it on the shelf and then we got to kind of
39:46
show it all off during the sci-fi specials.
39:49
And then and then they ended up packaging it with the movie
39:51
itself, the and the the twin pack, VHS twin pack when it
39:55
first came out. So it was very satisfying.
39:57
It was great to see it. Yeah.
39:58
Oh, that's great. And you mentioned about people
40:01
keeping up with you online and, you know, step by step, I mean,
40:05
it's gone down in the annals of history, genius from a marketing
40:08
point of view, using the Internet, which was in its
40:11
infancy. Yeah.
40:12
So how did how on earth did you come up with that idea?
40:16
I mean, it was really, I don't think genius had anything to do
40:20
with it. I think, you know, it was by
40:23
necessity. We didn't have any money for
40:25
traditional marketing campaign. I mean, you know, in those days
40:28
you spent money on ads and newspapers, you spent money on
40:32
billboards, you spent, you know, and the average indie film
40:34
didn't have that kind of money and we certainly didn't.
40:37
So we're like, well, how do we get the word out about our film?
40:40
And early on, you know, the Internet was sort of just coming
40:43
into its own. And Ed had worked at a web
40:45
building company in Maryland for a little while.
40:47
So we kind of know how to the basic structure of how to build
40:50
a website. So we did that and I had
40:52
produced this little 8 minute investor trailer that Greg and I
40:56
did. I was still working at the web
40:57
company, but Ed, Greg and I produced this 8 minute investor
41:00
trailer, which was sort of a micro microcosm of the movie
41:03
itself. And it was a fake documentary
41:06
and it was to convince investors to put money in our movie
41:10
because we hadn't shot it yet. So we did a little mini version
41:12
of the film. So that was a way for us to
41:15
convey back story and, and, and kind of get people convinced
41:19
that the film was real and that our company had access to the
41:23
footage. And then John Pearson, at the
41:25
time, I worked for him as a camera operator on one of his
41:28
shows and he was like the famed producer's Rep for Spike Lee and
41:33
Kevin Smith. And, you know, so I showed him
41:37
that little 8 minute investor reels.
41:39
Hey, John, you know, I know you have a desk full of these
41:42
things, pitches, but check this out.
41:44
Tell me what you think. And he called me like a week
41:46
later and go, Dan, is this real? I mean, is this, you know, and I
41:50
fooled him and this is John Pearson.
41:52
I fooled him. I said, no, John, this is all
41:54
fake. Me and the boys have made this.
41:56
Greg and I cut this little 8 minute reel together to try to
41:58
raise money. He goes, I, I got to be able to
42:00
put that. He said, tell you what, I'd love
42:02
to air this on my last show, my split screen special on Bravo.
42:07
He was, he was doing a series of independent film projects and
42:10
stuff. So I want to show this on my my
42:13
split screen show on Bravo and I'll pay you some money for the
42:16
rights. I'm like, dude, yes.
42:17
So that was a huge break for us. And then he re aired the same
42:22
show at the start of the second season after we'd shot some
42:26
footage and we're going to include some footage.
42:28
So that was a big boost for us. And that got the ball rolling
42:31
online because he had a forum on his website and it just blew up.
42:36
Like what is this player witch thing and who are these guys?
42:38
And when's this footage coming out?
42:40
And everyone bought into it. And then John called us a dude.
42:43
You guys got to start a website because it's just overtaking my
42:47
forum. This your stupid movie.
42:49
So that was the impetus for us to start our own page, to steer
42:53
all that traffic and give them a place to land.
42:56
And as people kept asking questions, where is this Blair
42:59
Witch mythology from, we just kept giving them the answers,
43:02
right? So, So yeah, that was the start
43:06
of the web campaign by as much by necessity as it was by any
43:11
premeditated plan. So when did you decide to start
43:16
leaning in to this being a real documentary?
43:20
Pretty early on, it was kind of an ongoing question slash
43:26
concern for us because without getting too theoretical about
43:31
the process, we wanted to capture that sense of realism
43:35
that a documentary captures. And like I was mentioning
43:38
earlier, it kind of works on a different part of the brain.
43:41
We wanted to, we wanted to pull those strings and and hit those
43:45
triggers in the brain, but have it not be marginalized as a
43:48
hoax. We didn't want that either.
43:50
So how do we get our cake and eat it too?
43:53
How do we how do we portray this as real quote, UN quote and have
43:57
people feel that it's real, but not be accused of trying to
44:01
trick everybody? And that's that was a fine line
44:03
to walk for us. So we sort of like we made a
44:06
compromise. Like for example, on the
44:08
website, if you went to the website and just did a cursory
44:12
glance of it, this would look all real.
44:15
But if you went down and scrolled to the bottom of the
44:16
website, you there was like a making of link and you can click
44:19
on it and you can see, oh, this is a movie and these guys are
44:21
making this cool movie and all they're taking this approach to
44:24
it. So we weren't hiding that we
44:26
were making the movie. And the same early on with the
44:29
press, when the press started getting wind of this movie,
44:31
they're asking, did you, is this real?
44:33
No, it's not real. We're out.
44:34
And basically, like I'm discussing with you, we're
44:37
telling how we shot this thing. And by doing so, we let them in
44:42
on the gag early on and they embraced it.
44:45
They thought, oh, this is so cool.
44:47
So they were reluctant to let the cat out of the bag because
44:50
they were in on the good joke, right?
44:52
So it worked for a while because it was something different.
44:55
And the press, they're human beings.
44:57
They want to write something that's different, you know, and
45:00
I wanted to write on a movie. It's something that different,
45:02
little bit different. So they really embraced it early
45:04
on. And we were, we were able to
45:06
manage this kind of realism. Is it fake or is it not fake?
45:10
Is it, you know, but a lot of people convinced that it was
45:12
real and without falling into the trap of being accused that
45:16
we're trying to pull one over on everybody.
45:17
And that's, that's a was a fine line to walk.
45:20
And we managed to do it pretty well even after the release of
45:23
the film. The actors were kind of laid low
45:25
for a little bit for about a week or so because Artisan
45:28
didn't want people seeing them on talk shows and stuff like
45:30
that until after the big rush at the opening box office, you
45:33
know, But then after a while, the cat's out of the bag.
45:35
You can't, you know, they're then they were doing like
45:38
interviews and all kinds of stuff.
45:39
So, but yeah, it worked to our, it worked to our advantages.
45:44
Most people that I talked to that initially saw the film went
45:47
in thinking it was real. Because, I mean, admittedly,
45:51
most people don't, they don't really drill down into stuff.
45:54
They hear about it. Even with the Internet at our
45:56
disposal, we don't really dig too deeply into stuff.
45:59
They see a byline, Oh, I'm going to go check this out.
46:02
But we could, we always had that plausible deniability.
46:04
Like, well, I'm, I mean, it says right on our website, like you
46:07
could follow us while making the movie, blah, blah, blah.
46:09
So we weren't trying to trick you.
46:10
It's just you didn't want to drill down enough.
46:12
And so it was sort of maintaining that balance between
46:16
allowing people to feel that it was real without portraying it
46:19
that it is actually was real. And that's and that worked out
46:23
because I think that possibility, that notion that
46:26
that this might be real or some aspects of this might be based
46:30
on a true story or whatever. Just keeping that ambiguity lent
46:33
to the fear, lent to the lent to the scares, I think helped out a
46:36
lot with that. So that was our end goal is to
46:39
make a scary movie. Before you got picked up or
46:41
before you went to Sundance? Can't imagine in your wildest
46:44
dreams that you would have expected the film to do as it
46:48
did. What were your expectations?
46:50
Yeah, it was. It was quite surreal.
46:53
I think fairly early on, I remember having a conversation
46:55
with Ed. I don't remember exactly when it
46:57
was. I remember having the
46:58
conversation with him when we were like outside the office in
47:02
Orlando. We're looking at the footage.
47:04
I think we're one of those days. We're just outside getting a
47:07
brush of fresh air from the edit Bay and, and having lived with
47:10
the footage for a while. And, and I remember thinking,
47:12
like, man, if we can convince people that this is real, it's
47:15
going to be a big deal now. Big deal in my mind was like,
47:22
maybe do as well as pie did, right?
47:24
Or maybe a little better, you know?
47:26
The Aronofsky film. Yeah, Darren Ionoski, a big
47:29
success with π with Artisan the year before, it's like we could,
47:32
we could, you know, and you know, we're indie film makers.
47:34
We're complete nobodies. And we're like, if we just get
47:37
bought and make our money back and maybe get ATV deal, that
47:41
would be huge. So we're like, I'm thinking,
47:44
well, if we can convince people that this is real, I think, I
47:47
think this could be pretty popular, but still very much
47:50
within the realm of reality at the time.
47:53
And then when we got to Sundance, I think it was Jeff
47:56
Dowd, actually one of the producer Rep at the time, saw
48:00
the movie during our first screening and he was one of the
48:02
few people said this, this thing's going to make 25,000,000
48:04
at the box office. And we're like, what?
48:07
That's crazy. So that was another indicator.
48:10
Kevin Fox, who's our producer who came on a little bit later,
48:13
who helped set up a relationships with Endeavour,
48:16
the the agents, as well as Artisan.
48:18
He saw a screening on the rough cut that we did in Orlando and
48:23
he was like the like the one like real Hollywood producer
48:26
dude that had a resume that had seen anything about the movie.
48:31
And a mutual friend that was working on the East Coast met
48:34
him and said you kind of come see my friend's movie.
48:36
It's called Blair Witch. They're doing a test screening
48:39
on Saturday. You want to come and check out
48:41
Okay, whatever. So he came and checked it out
48:43
and after the screening and it was a pretty long cut at that
48:46
time and the after the screening, Kevin came up to Ed
48:48
and I said you guys are going to be famous.
48:49
That's the first thing out of his mouth.
48:51
You guys are going to be famous. I'm like, what, you know, And
48:54
we're just like, we just want to sell the movie.
48:56
So we got these little indicators early on that it was
49:00
kind of a special movie or it was like out of the ordinary.
49:04
And even at Sundance, as big as it blew up at Sundance, we
49:07
really weren't prepared for how big it became.
49:12
And when I say big, I meant like ubiquitous.
49:16
It was in the fiber of everything in our culture, it
49:20
seemed like. And I think it was once we got
49:22
into Cannes that it sort of took on a life of its own.
49:26
It was, it was bigger than all of us once we were in Cannes.
49:30
And that's when the machine really hit high gear and we were
49:35
sort of along with the ride. But yeah, it, it ultimately blew
49:40
everybody's mind. It was, it was crazy.
49:42
Yeah, and mine as well at the time.
49:45
Yeah. So the film, I mean, this is
49:48
this all happened 25 years ago. It's just celebrated its 25th
49:51
anniversary. And, you know, a lot of things
49:53
have changed in the years since. Do you think it would have still
49:56
it would still have the same impact today?
49:58
I mean, it's always a good question.
50:00
You know so much about successes in in any industry, I think is
50:04
timing and we hit the right movie at the right time in the
50:08
right way. And whether all those planets
50:10
can align again. For a movie like ours, I think
50:13
the closest approximation was Paranormal Activity.
50:16
I think 10 years later that was a huge success.
50:20
And some people say it can, it can't be repeated, it can't be
50:24
done. I'm, I'm never say never.
50:27
So yeah, I think anything's possible.
50:29
I I don't know if Blair Witch itself could be the same success
50:32
it was back in those days. It sort of took everyone by
50:34
surprise. And we were still a little naive
50:37
with regards to the Internet, like believing everything on the
50:39
Internet was kind of true and where we know it's not now.
50:44
And I think it was so different. I mean, it was like it was so
50:47
sort of counter culture to what Hollywood was putting out at the
50:50
time. No one had seen a movie like
50:53
that before on the big screen. It was completely different.
50:56
And we're now it's pretty commonplace.
50:57
So, so someone else will come up with a different idea that'll
51:01
blow us all out of the water. It always happens.
51:04
But whether or not it could be another Blair Witch to the level
51:07
Blair, which became, I don't, I don't know if that's possible.
51:09
I just, it was such a a product of timing back in the late 90s.
51:15
I mean, it just sort of closed out that whole era of
51:19
independent film. You know, it just was pretty
51:23
epic in its reach. I mean, I've been to places all
51:27
over the world and it's rare to find someone that has not heard
51:30
of Blair Witch Project. I mean, they may not have seen
51:33
the movie, but they've heard of it, you know?
51:35
And it's like, I don't, you know, movie or no movie, it's
51:38
just anything like, I mean, any product does not have that sort
51:42
of penetration. And I'm still amazed to this day
51:45
when people reference Blair Witch in a book or a novel or
51:47
whatever, they still reference it like, wow, wow.
51:49
I just, I can't believe I was a part of that thing.
51:52
But it does. It does elevate past the
51:55
filmmaker. It elevates past the process.
51:57
It just becomes its own entity after a while.
51:59
It's like a virus and, and takes on a life of its own.
52:02
And, and, and, you know, as a case study, it was really
52:05
interesting to kind of witness during, during, during that
52:08
time. I mean a magnificent feat 25
52:10
years. It's going to weigh in the blink
52:11
of an eye, but the Blairwood Project is as relevant as ever.
52:14
And I mean you can see that in the number of handhelds or 4
52:18
documentary horror films that are 10 a penny every year since.
52:22
And that's as a direct result of your film, which is is pretty
52:26
incredible. You've and like I said, and
52:28
countless times when talking about this film, it changed the
52:30
game forever. Yeah, it's pretty humbling.
52:33
It's pretty humbling. And it's exciting too.
52:36
I mean, as a film maker, as an artist, it's it's one of the
52:39
most, I think, rewarding things to hear another film maker, a
52:42
young upstart film maker making movies because you're film
52:46
inspired them to be a film maker.
52:47
And it's like you might be the next Scorsese or the next
52:49
Spielberg. You know you got your start
52:51
because you saw my goofy little movie, and that is it's very
52:55
rewarding. It's great to hear that.
52:57
Yeah, Bess and I mean you've been working non-stop in the
53:01
years since and you currently got a a new project out.
53:04
Dan, can you tell me a bit about that?
53:06
Yeah, this was sort of kind of came out of left field.
53:08
I've got a, a friend of mine, Christian Crumple, who's I've
53:11
produced a couple of projects with.
53:13
I did a movie called Skyman a few years back and kind of
53:16
touches into that Ufology kind of stuff.
53:19
And I met him on that project and he was sort of plugged into
53:22
the special operators community in Florida and introduced me to
53:27
this gentleman, former SEAL operator named Michael Sorelli.
53:31
And Michael was putting together a world record attempt to jump
53:36
skydive into 7 continents in seven days.
53:40
And it was to raise money for Folds of Honor, which they put
53:43
money into scholarships for the children of of the of the fallen
53:47
and 1st responders and say, well, this sounds like an
53:48
amazing project. So Michael post we say, hey,
53:50
could you do a documentary about this?
53:52
And like, well, yeah, it sounds like like the coolest thing ever
53:56
and for a great cause. So we went all in and went to
54:00
training at in Arizona and jumped out of airplanes and, and
54:05
started the the whole venture January of last year where we
54:09
started in Antarctica. We did our first jump in
54:11
Antarctica. Then we went on to Santiago and
54:13
then Miami and then Barcelona and Abu Dhabi and Cairo and Per.
54:18
So we covered all 7 continents and then we did it actually in
54:21
six days and six hours. So, so we blew away the old
54:26
record, which was over a period of months.
54:28
And, and yeah, they broke over all four, four world records.
54:31
They broke all the tandem records and they broke the
54:33
single jump records as well. So it was really a big success.
54:36
And so I spent about six months cutting it with, with brilliant
54:40
editor Michael Cross, who worked as editor on the project and,
54:44
and it has since been released. It's in theaters now as we speak
54:47
and sort of finalizing it's run theatrically and then we're
54:50
hoping to get a streaming deal here shortly.
54:52
So it's, it was a, it was a great experience for a really
54:55
good cause and and it was a lot of fun.
54:58
Cool. So that's it's called 777. 777
55:01
yeah, you can go to the website and@legacyexpeditions.com and
55:05
and check it all out and see the trailer and whatnot.
55:08
Cool. Great.
55:09
And what about in the future, Dan?
55:11
Have you got anything bubbling away?
55:13
Yeah, I always have something in the works.
55:17
There's a reality show that I've kind of think would be cool, a
55:19
scary reality show that I'm working on with a Co production
55:22
team right now. I'm writing a couple of scripts
55:25
as well, you know, a couple passions of my heart I've been
55:28
working on for the last year and potentially another documentary.
55:31
I've kind of got the documentary bug now on a what I feel is a
55:35
very poignant and relevant issue in today concerning AI and
55:41
energy consumption. Oh yeah, big themes, big, big
55:44
themes. So we're working on that
55:45
potentially for an early 2025 production.
55:49
So we're we're seeing how that shapes up.
55:50
So yeah, keeping busy. Great.
55:51
Keeping busy. Yeah, excellent.
55:54
Well, it is has been wonderful speaking to you.
55:56
Dan. Thank you so much for coming on
55:58
the show, spending your time. Incredible to hear these stories
56:01
and wish you all the success with 777 and everything else
56:04
coming up in the future. Thanks, Luke.
56:06
I really appreciate you know the time and and it's always fun to
56:09
talk about it. Great.
56:10
Thank you. Pleasure.
56:11
Sure. A huge thanks to Dan Myrick for
56:19
his time and his wonderful stories.
56:21
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56:23
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