The Dark Knight Rises, one of the most highly anticipated movies (at this point) of all time is released next year. Director Christopher Nolan is, by his very nature, a very secretive filmmaker. He likes to reveal as little as possible about his projects, which leaves his fans desperate for the barest snippets of information.

So when the first piece of major viral marketing for the movie was released, the Internet went into meltdown. In keeping with the marketing we have seen previously in Nolan’s Batman series, it was a bit of a game. A website was set-up with the name of The Fire Rises and featured a black page with chanting in the background.

Now, I have no idea how long the team behind this idea were expecting it to take for someone to solve, but it was mere minutes. Some bright spark ran the chanting through a visualiser, which revealed a hashtag, #thefirerises. This lead to a Twitter account called @thefirerises, and a process by which you could use the hashtag to reveal the first image from the forthcoming The Dark Knight Rises. We were treated to our first look at Bane, as played by Tom Hardy, and it was a pretty significant look, showing much of his facial apparatus and costume.

Clever stuff, and no doubt only the first salvo in a viral marketing war to be raged upon the internet community. My problem with these events is the timing. The Dark Knight is released in July 2012 – a full 14 months away. It is obviously important from a studio’s perspective to get people excited for a film, but the problem is, in this case, they are not trying to get people excited for The Dark Knight Rises, they are trying to keep them excited, and this is a level they are going to struggle to sustain.

Think about it. When did the excitement start? For some, it started the minute they walked out of the theatres after watching The Dark Knight. We have of course had Inception since then, so for many others it will have been the announcements of the project, and confirmation that Nolan would be directing it. Then came the casting rumours, the reveal of the movie’s name, and then the first solid casting confirmations. More rumours would follow, then more casting. Character names began to be revealed, and speculation was cut back once the main characters had all been announced. This process took place over the course of a year.

So excitement has been building for a long time. the problem is, once all these details have been confirmed, the long shooting period begins, and with a secretive Director like Nolan, there is very little information to come from the process. So after getting the fans all excited with character and cast information, Warner Bros were rightly concerned that it would all be pointless, as things went pretty quiet for the next 12 months.

To counteract this, we were given our first visual clue from the movie, even though some cast names are even now only just being revealed. To release this kind of marketing so quickly into the movie’s production smacks of desperation. Unfortunately, it gets worse. Rumour has it the first trailer for The Dark Knight Rises will be attached to Warner’s other tent-pole franchise, the final Harry Potter film. A trailer, just 3 months into production? It will obviously be merely a teaser, as there will clearly be precious little footage to cut from, so you have to question what the point is?

There is a danger, in these circumstances, of escalation. You release a picture, then a trailer, and there is still twelve months before the film’s release. What do you offer next? There is no way, after this effort has been expended to keep up audience anticipation that things will go dark, so to speak. So there is a very real danger that more puzzles will be offered, and solved, and more precious information will be released. Now, the internet community is pretty smart, and will jump on every tidbit they can find, to try and extrapolate how what is being revealed fits into the Batman continuity, and subsequently the upcoming film. The marketing wizards may think they are being clever, but there will always be someone more clever on the outside, and there is a real danger of something big slipping out.

In this new age of social networking and millions of blogs, with the best will in the world it is impossible to stay spoiler free. Remember, of course, that Nolan himself is probably against all this information being released, and there is always a possibility that if too much information is gleaned by the public it could be a distraction to Nolan from the task at hand. Nolan is pretty powerful nowadays, but the studios will always believe they know best, and this could give rise to some inner conflicts.

I may, of course, be over analysing it all far too much. Only time will tell what the PR gurus have in store, if anything, for us over the next few months. Fans will see the recently released image and teaser trailer, if there is one, as just reward for their continued interest and commitment, and by no means do I think it isn’t deserved. I just hope the right level of caution is exercised by all involved, as it would be a damn shame if we all go into Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film knowing just that little bit too much.

The filmmaker’s work always involves some twists and turns, making it more of a risk with his pictures than with many others. The biggest laugh of it all is that such intense marketing isn’t even necessary. The Dark Knight broke box office records, and when he Rises he may well break more. I will, of course, try and avoid spoilers as much as possible, and my biggest hope is that The Dark Knight Rises, when it finally does hit our screens, is something truly special to behold.

Bazmann – You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann

It’s the ten year anniversary of The Blair Witch Project, which was released in the UK to coincide with Halloween a decade ago. On Thursday, i looked at the impact it’s release had at the time in The Blair Witch Project: Ten Years On – Part 1, and yesterday reviewed the movie itself in Did you ever see… The Blair Witch Project. Now, on Halloween night, we’ll see how Blair Witch still impacts the movie industry even now.

 Blair Witch immediately set small independent filmmakers off attempting to recreate/replicate the success of the movie. Indeed, a sequel, Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows was also produced. Inevitably, no success was found in any of these endeavours. Blair Witch had come at the end of the nineties low budget independent film boom. Perhaps more surprisingly, Hollywood executives wisely resisted the temptation to commission a raft of imitations. Common sense dictated that to pull off the same kind of marketing campaign artificially would be an exercise in futility.

 The seeds of change had been planted however. For the first time, it had been shown that handheld camera work had a place in film other than just a cost saving technique. It could be used to create atmosphere. The most successful applications of the ‘shaky cam’ style over the last ten years have remained in the supernatural/horror genre.

In 2003, Open Water used the same idea, but the other way around. The movie is based on true events, and the film is shot on handheld cameras. But the finished movie is a fictionalised account of the events, and not purported to have been shot by the protagonists.

 In 2007, the Spanish Zombie film REC, it’s 2008 American remake Quarantine, and Romero’s own Diary of the Dead again in 2007, all made use of the handheld, documentary style technique. Whilst not purported to be ‘real footage’ like Blair Witch, within their respective movies it was shown as documentary footage shot by the movies’ characters.

 Last year’s Cloverfield also used the same idea, with the whole movie as the ‘footage’ recorded on a camcorder during a Godzilla-style monster attack on New York. A group of friends are at a birthday party when the attack starts, and film their journey across town to find the lead character’s girlfriend. Again, this wasn’t marketed as real, but it did involve a huge viral marketing campaign bigger in size than Blair Witch, and there was a similar frenzy of interest when the film was finally released.

 Then this year, almost ten years to the day after Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity echoed the style, budget and marketing campaign to great effect. Supposedly ‘real’ video of events in a haunted house, and filmed using cameras positioned around the residence, Paranormal Activity is an internet frenzy and as i write this, tops the US box office chart. And just last week, rumours began of a potential third film in the Blair Witch franchise.

 Whilst Blair’s distinctive camerawork has had influence over many films, it’s the movies’ breakthrough marketing campaign that now affects nearly every movie released. Blair Witch was the advent of viral marketing for the Hollywood film industry. Since then, internet promotion and advertising of the latest movies has gone from being advantageous to necessary. Every blockbusting film now has at the very least it’s own website, with back stories and clips released in the run up to the films opening to create as much buzz as possible.

 Now, even just an on set photo or promotional publicity still released to select websites can generate literally thousands of hits. In the last few months, pictures from forthcoming movies like Twilight, the A-Team and The Expendables have accounted for a bigger number of hits than full reviews and features.

District 9 was the surprise hit of the summer and internet buzz had been building on it for months. Everywhere you looked, you could see the Warning – No Aliens posters publicising the film. It had gotten to the point that by the time the movie was released, i didn’t need to see it, i already knew everything about it.

 So, whilst people now may curl their lip at the very mention of the Blair Witch, there’s no denying the huge impact it had, changing the face of the movie industry, and altering the very foundations of Hollywood marketing. The Blair Witch Project deserves it’s chapter in Silver Screen history. Just don’t go back and re-watch it knowing the truth, you’ll destroy a golden cinematic memory.

Bazmann

It’s been ten years since The Blair Witch Project hit movie theatres. Yesterday i looked at it’s production and the impact it had at the box office and on the industry in general in The Blair Witch Project: Ten Years On – Part 1. Today i’m looking at the film itself, and tomorrow i’m going to discuss how the Blair Witch phenomena still influences Hollywood today in The Blair Witch Project: Ten Years On – Part 2 .

Due to one of the biggest marketing campaigns in history, there was a tremendous amount of buzz around Blair Witch when it was finally released. Everyone was talking about the movie, and it was ambiguous whether the film was authentic ‘found’ footage, or a fictional movie. Many attended showings of Blair Witch fully believing what they were about to see was genuine, particularly in the early screenings.

Heather, Josh and Michael are three student filmmakers, and they have come together to film a documentary about an old local legend, The Blair Witch. Using rented equipment, they begin by travelling around the small town, questioning locals about the story. Some know very little, but others know a lot more about it. The filmmakers are told that an old witch lived in the woods, and murdered local children. Once finished in the town, the trio set off into the woods, with a tent and supplies, to look at where the killer supposedly roamed.

They find some mysterious small rock formations, and film plenty of footage. On their second night, they make a fire. During the night, they are terrorised by frightening noises, and are freaked out. They decide the next day to leave the woods, but in the middle of a non-descript forest, struggle to make sense of the map. Over the next couple of days, still lost, desperation sets in. Constant disturbances at night deprive them of sleep, discoveries of unusual symbols and formations haunt their day.

Hungry and terrified, infighting begins. As the band begin to lose their grip on their sanity, Josh becomes separated. Fearing they’ll never see their friend again, Heather and Michael discover a derelict old house. Is that Josh they can hear inside? Or the unspeakable evil of the Blair Witch?

In trying to track down a copy of Blair Witch, i was surprised at the reaction i got from people about the movie. No-one had a good word to say about it, and for a movie that made hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide, that baffled me. There are two ways to assess Blair Witch, so i’ll explore both routes.

The first is to look at it through the eyes of those who saw it at the time, in an atmosphere of ambiguity. The (often very poor) handheld camerawork does give the film a very convincing air of authenticity. The interviews with locals come across realistically, and are indistinguishable from those in real documentaries you’d find on obscure cable channels. The trek into the forest begins convincingly, and the young actors are enthusiastic and good natured. Many of the scenes, particularly during the night, are shot in a very organic way, with short cuts and fast movement. As the fear builds up over the days, the changing attitudes of the filmmakers and their fraying relationships are portrayed well.

As the movie progresses, however, and the disturbing phenomena become more pronounced and therefore farfetched, the boundaries of believability then close in. When their equipment is interfered with in the night, the fantasy element begins to come clear. Then when a present is left for Heather and Michael outside the tent after Josh vanishes, any semblance of realism disappears. As a result, the spooky conclusion, though eerie and well shot, is rendered moot. The illusion has already been shattered. A shame, because if the lead up had been toned down to believable levels, audiences would have left the theatre still unsure of whether they had witnessed a true story.

The other way to look at Blair Witch is as i look at it now, as simply a fictional movie. The legend is laid out quite well, and as they enter the woods it’s still holding your interest. The problems begin when it gets dark in the wood. The poor camera work, combined with a lack of light, make the movie difficult to follow. During the night disturbances, the poor sound quality makes it difficult to hear what the protagonists are reacting to. As the movie goes on, the lack of scripted dialogue and hands-on direction means the storyline meanders, with very little interesting progression. The dialogue becomes repetitive, and the whole experience is in danger of becoming tedious.

The storyline picks up somewhat when Josh disappears, and ironically the elements which disable your suspension of disbelief are the saving grace of the plot. With the possibility of a visceral finale, some momentum is generated. Unfortunately, the conclusion is nowhere near just reward for the patience required to reach it.

As an experiment, and a marketing phenomena, The Blair Witch succeeded in it’s goals at the time of release. Going into the movie with some level of faith in it’s authenticity would have made it a great watch. Re-watch value, however, is virtually nil. Difficult to watch for all the wrong reasons, it’s best left remembered as a one time great movie experience.

Come back tomorrow, as i look at movies that have taken a cue from The Blair Witch Project over the last ten years, and discuss how the phenomenon fundamentally changed Hollywood marketing techniques forever.

Bazmann