Rory Giddings

Film Opening Analysis – The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The opening of the film starts by displaying the obligatory film company intros then the screen cuts to black which distances itself from its film distributors and companies, making it look like a separate project entirely. Next, the film’s title emerges from darkness in small bold white letters, reading ‘The Blair Witch Project’. After this the text fades out while the new text fades in, again against the black background, reading “In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.” This sets the scene of the movie, as it provides the audience with the backdrop of what will follow. Also, up to this point no sound has been used and therefore more tension is created, especially as no opening credits are shown. This text also explains to us that the characters in the movie are amateur students filming a documentary project, which implies to the audience they are vulnerable and aren’t very prepared for what will follow. The text is also in a small basic font and shakes; again no sound is used to show the uneasiness and hints to the audience that something bad will come of their fascination with the “Blair Witch”.

Then the black switches to amateur handheld footage and we can hear the first sounds of the film; dialogue being exchanged between two characters and the filming is shaky and out of focus which emphasises the found-footage/handheld nature of this film. As the camera zooms out we see a woman, dressed casually in the setting of a house. We can tell that the camera is handheld as the person holding it keeps zooming in and out of the girls face. We have only met one character so far but we know the other character that is holding the camera is a man because of his deep voice. The woman starts off speaking to the camera as if she is making her own video log entry. She says “this is my home, which I am leaving the comforts of for the weekend to explore the Blair witch.” The camera then goes onto a close up shot of some books, from this point we can tell that the woman is now holding the camera instead of the man as we hear her voice from behind the camera as she explains the books are for some ‘essential reading, how to stay alive in the woods.’ She also films another ‘very important book’, something which looks a lot more sentimental and of higher value, which holds “the article about what happened at Coffin Rock.” From this, the audience can infer that this book will be a key piece in the movie. We then meet a different male character, who gets out of his car as if he has just arrived at the woman’s house to go on the adventure with them. The woman, still holding the camera, welcomes him as ‘Mr Punctuality’; this gives the impression that these two characters already have a friendly relationship as they greet each other with friendly gestures and relaxed exchanges.