
From there, the film’s distribution rights were bought by Artisan Entertainment for $1.1 million.

When production wrapped, Myrick and Sánchez had nearly 20 hours of footage to cull into a tight 90 minutes for what would be The Blair Witch Project movie premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Especially at night, production would make terrifying sounds, shake the tents, and resort to other harassing measures to keep their actors exhausted and on high alert. In addition to the isolation the actors endured during the shoot, Myrick, Sánchez, and the rest of the Blair Witch crew relied on other tactics to get “authentic” performances from them. Williams, and Joshua Leonard as their leads.Ĭast and crew then headed off to the Maryland woods to film for eight days and shot the indie flick – for 24 hours a day! To fully immerse the actors in their roles, production kept interactions with them to a minimum.ĭonahue, Williams, and Leonard would instead go to various checkpoints each day to find notes from the directors, as well as fresh batteries for their cameras and modest food supplies. Myrick and Sánchez eventually cast Heather Donahue, Michael C. They decided early on that they wanted their actors to improvise it instead. The two crafted a 35-page screenplay that was deliberately lacking in dialogue.
