SCARING UP THE BLAIR WITCH WITH EDUARDO SANCHEZ by Cliff Stephenson

About the Interview : Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick co-wrote and co-directed last summer's most surprising box office hit. With a price tag of a paltry $35,000, Blair Witch Project went on to gross nearly $140 million domestically, and the Internet played an integral role in the film's success. While Artisan is releasing this blockbuster on DVD Friday October 22^nd, just in time for Halloween. There have been rumors of another release with more features, more deleted scenes, and perhaps even a fabled "director's cut" of the film virtually since the DVD was announced. On Friday October 15^th DVDFILE had a chance to talk to one of the architects of the Blair Witch phenomenon, Eduardo Sanchez, and ask him some of these questions and more!

(Please note that no screener of the DVD was available at the time of interview, so neither Eduardo nor myself had seen the disc. Some information came my way on the DVD's features, via a kind reader who received the disc early (thanks Rob!) and I did ask some questions based on that information. Chief among this info is that there is only one deleted scene on the disc. If it turns out that there are more deleted scenes or features hidden on the disc I will post a follow-up. )

DVDFILE: Is there going to be a second DVD release of Blair Witch, with more features and/or a different cut of the film?

Sanchez: We originally talked to Artisan about doing a DVD when they talked to us, actually. We were going to do a DVD in October, and then do (another) one hopefully in December. That date was changed to March. I don't know if they're going to do that or not, I hope they do, I think it'd be really cool. I think we'll be able to include a lot of different things on our DVD that they're not going to include on theirs. They said they'd give us complete control over it, so we're really looking forward to doing that. We're gonna put a 2 hour version on it, a different cut of the film. And a lot more behind the scenes stuff, and some cool stuff we think the fans will really dig.

DVDFILE: Do you have any more specifics on the extras? The current DVD only has one deleted scene, are there more that will appear on the second DVD release?

Sanchez: The 2 hr version literally has more than a half an hour of new stuff on it that has never been seen before. Also, the sound mix is very rough. This 2 hr version was only shown once, it was the first public screening of Blair Witch Project back in July of 98. I think it'll be cool for the fans, there's definitely going to be more stuff on there. Dan (Blair Witch co-writer and co-director Dan Myrick) and I are thinking of putting a film of ours called "Fortune" which was actually our first collaboration in film school. We'd like to do a commentary with the (Blair Witch ) actors, do more comprehensive audio commentary stuff. We're planning some different things. We have a two hour behind the scenes documentary right now that we're editing, which is pretty interesting, I think people will dig it

DVDFILE: A documentary on the making of the film?

Sanchez: On the actual physical making of the film. We were thinking of putting a little bit of that on there, or the whole thing. We're not sure.

DVDFILE: There is the entire 45 minute Curse of the Blair Witch documentary on the current DVD release.

Sanchez: Curse of the Blair Witch basically comes across as a straight documentary based on the legend of the Blair Witch. It's not at all about the movie. It doesn't even acknowledge the existence of this film, it only acknowledges the existence of the "footage."

DVDFILE: OK, so it's in the same sort of "mockumentary" style of the movie?

Sanchez: Exactly, but the making-of says this is how they made the film, physically made the film. How we got up in the morning and shot the film.

DVDFILE: So you're hoping this making-of documentary will also make it on the second DVD?

Sanchez: Yeah, but we don't know. Those are just options we're playing around with, but we'd definitely like to release the 2 hour cut.

DVDFILE: Is that the Director's Cut people have been talking about? I've also heard rumors of a 4 hr cut, as well as there being tons of footage shot for this film.

Sanchez: No, not really. There is literally 22 hours of footage, but you know, more than half of that, I'd say 2/3 of that, is completely unwatchable. It's just not really good stuff. Dan and I have talked, if there was any interest at all, we could put together a 4 or 5 hour version of the film, maybe show it on cable over three or four different nights or whatever. But the 2 hour version is about as far as you want to go in one sitting. The 82 minute version in theaters now and coming out on video now is a director's cut. Artisan really did not make us change anything we didn't want to change. They've been really cool with that. I would call that a director's cut. I would call the 2 hr version, that might see the light of day in the next DVD, I would call that more of an experimental cut, an experimental first cut, more than a director's cut.

DVDFILE: Are you planning on that 2 hr version being the only one on that second DVD? You could use branching to put both versions on there and let the end user choose which he/she wants to watch.

Sanchez: Yeah, realistically for us to do another DVD, to have the 2 hr version you'd have to have to have original film on there too. We haven't really talked about it too much. The only time we talked about it was when artisan initially approached us and said "hey, do want to do your own DVD" and we said "yeah." So we kind of brainstormed a couple times to see if we could come up with some ideas for what we could do. But other than that, we really haven't talked about it. At this point we have no idea what we're gonna do. There might not even be another DVD.

DVDFILE: Was the 2 hour cut the version that played at Sundance?

Sanchez: No, the version that played at Sundance, was actually an 87 minute version, very close to what is now considered the Blair Witch Project. But we went back after Sundance and shaved five minutes off the film, added some things, took off a lot of things, kind of made it a little more audience friendly film.

DVDFILE: One of the things that makes Blair Witch so effective is the taut pace. Is that pacing impacted in the 2 hr version, which is almost literally twice as long as the running time of the theatrical version?

Sanchez: Yeah, it really is. A lot of people who sat through the 2 hr version obviously thought it was too long. A lot of other people thought it was perfect (at 2 hours) They (those who disliked the longer cut) thought the fact that it was drawn out and kind of too long, that it was just shots of them walking through woods, you know?

DVDFILE: Are you and Dan among those who thought the 2 hr version was too long and drawn out?

Sanchez: Yeah, we knew it was too long. We just showed that 2 hr version as an experiment to see if we had anything, because at that point we hadn't shown it to anybody. Dan and I were having a problem being objective with our material. We were so close to it, we just wanted to get kind of an objective point of view. We had a few reservations because of the fact that the sound mix is not done on that (longer) version. It's very raw. Also, we just didn't know if people were going to be able to sit through it, the quality's just not there, even the video quality is just not as good. I think if people see this 2 hr version, and are familiar with the original film they really will appreciate how much editing Dan and I did and how, like you said, how tight really the film is, the 82 minute version, how nicely paced it is.

DVDFILE: How involved were you and Dan with creating the DVD that will be out in stores next week?

Sanchez: We actually weren't too involved with it, you know? They came to us and told us they were thinking of doing this, they were thinking of doing that, and we kind of went in there and told them what we thought they should do. We kind of got together and came to an agreement that we wanted to show the cut that was in the theaters, obviously, we wanted to show Curse of the Blair Witch on there, and we also wanted to show a few of the deleted scenes. The fact that they only put one on there, I don't know why they did that. Between Dan and I, we've edited four different scenes that have never been seen before. I thought they were gonna slap all of those on there, but I guess they're not, and that's cool, they probably have their own reasons for not doing that. But other than that, and the audio commentary, we haven't been too involved at all. We went over to Artisan last month and we saw the cover of the video and the DVD, gave it kind of a thumbs up, but other than that it's kind of their own thing.

Filmmakers Dan Myrick and a very tall Eduardo Sanchez

DVDFILE: Is the idea that you and Dan would be more involved in a second release?

Sanchez: That's the idea, but whether they'll let us do that or not…

DVDFILE: Would Haxan films produce this second DVD, with Artisan only distributing, or would it all go through Artisan again?

Sanchez: They told us that the second DVD was going to be our DVD. As long as we're reasonable we can pretty much put whatever we want on there. If they let us do it, we definitely are going to be a lot more involved. Hopefully they'll let us do exactly what we want to do. I'm looking forward to doing the next DVD. It's pretty sad to say, but we've been so busy that we haven't even been able to pay attention to these details. It's something that we might regret. A lot of filmmakers really make a point of having it in their contract where they supervise the video release of their film. I'm not sure if that'll be us for the next film, because this DVD will be a nightmare. What I was wondering about was whether they were going to go right to the Digi-Beta master and make the DVD right off the video, or were they going to transfer the actual print which is actually a transfer from video, and then transfer that back to video. It's a completely different look. The thing right off the Digi-Beta master is straight video, straight home movie, three people with a camcorder. If they transferred the actual print to video its gonna be a completely different look. It's not gonna look like video. It's not gonna look like film, but it's not gonna look like video. It's gonna look more like what it looked like in the theater. It didn't really look like video, but it didn't really look like film either, it was weird. I'm hoping that they took the Digi-Beta master and just made the DVD off of that.

DVDFILE: But you don't actually know what Artisan used for the transfer elements?

Sanchez: I have no idea yet. I really think the film worked really well before it was even in the theaters. We had a bootleg, kind of underground movement with the film of people just making dubs and showing the film to their friends and it was working, you know? That was just a straight dub and it was working then. So I really think the film works just as a straight video, because that's really what it is. It's a home movie.

DVDFILE: So you're telling me that in some ways you actually prefer that look as opposed to the way it looked in theaters?

Sanchez: Yeah, I think it works better for the film. I might be wrong, and I've been wrong a lot of times on this film.

DVDFILE: But there are parts of the film that are straight 16mm film as well?

Sanchez: Yeah, but once you transfer from Digi-Beta that stuff will definitely look like film. But the other stuff definitely has this video quality to it, and, at this point, with the way the film looks now in the theaters you can't really tell the visual difference between the black and white stuff and the color stuff, except the fact that its in black and white.

DVDFILE: But if you actually see the Dig-Beta video copy…

Sanchez: You can actually tell the difference and see the black and white stuff is not video. It doesn't look anything like video. It's straight 16mm black and white transferred to video. It's going to be interesting to see what they do. I really hope that they release it right from the Digi-Beta master, and I've got a feeling they did, but we'll see.

DVDFILE: Will your schedule allow for greater involvement in a second DVD, should that come to fruition?

Sanchez: We hope it will. I don't think it's gonna take that long to put the DVD together. If Dan and I have to sit down and kind of edit one of our student films again, or whatever, it might take a little time, and the audio commentary, but other than that I don't think its gonna take too much time. All we have to do is send them the 2 _ hr version, the main part of the (second) DVD right there. We have a 2 hr version of the making of movie, the making of the actual film here, and we might include that in the DVD, but at this point we don't know what we're gonna have on the (second) DVD. To tell you the truth, we don't even know if Artisan's gonna let us do it.

DVDFILE: I'd like to hear you put in your own words the role you feel the Internet played in the success of the theatrical release of the film as well as its potential role in the home video and DVD release.

Sanchez: I don't know what its going to add to the home video and DVD release, but I can tell you that you and me would not be talking right now if it weren't for the web site. I think it was that crucial a piece of the puzzle. The film was perfectly suitable for being marketed that way, through the web site. We didn't think of it as marketing, it was just us doing what we needed to do. Putting information up there that we thought people wanted to hear or see, and putting it up there in a way that their interest would remain when they started looking at the material, that they'd stay long on the web site and do their own investigation and look for the hidden links. We just treated the audience with a little more respect and we didn't knock them over the head with it saying "This is a movie, go see it." We concentrated more on the investigation of the case than about the movie. I think people really dug that. It's almost like being able to get into the story of a film, like the characters, before you even know there's a film. It's almost like a novel, like reading a novel and then finding out that they're going to make movie about it.

Have you seen these two filmmakers?

DVDFILE: I also think Artisan's limited release pattern played huge as well, letting word of mouth build, and building momentum on the web site.

Sanchez: The thing about the web site is that it created this momentum on a very low level for this film going to Sundance first of all. Once Artisan took over the web site in April, they completely stripped the web site down, and started slowly adding information that had already been on our web site for a while. We controlled the web site for almost a year. Once they started putting information on it, they started adding and adding, and they started coming out with it every couple weeks, or every week they had new stuff on there, and I think people kept coming back and back to the web site. We were getting millions of hits a week. Sometimes half a million hits a day. So we knew there was going to be this incredible anticipation for this film. We knew that opening up on the first week on 26 screens and going the second week to 31 screens we knew there was going to be this kind of funnel effect where there was gonna be a complete jam because you were trying to fit all this demand onto 26 screens. I had a feeling that our per screen average was gonna be huge but nobody could've predicted that third weekend when the film did $28.6 million. Man, that was the Internet, that was the power of the Internet right there. It wasn't until then that Artisan really publicized the film using conventional marketing techniques, radio ads and TV ads. Up until then it was just newspaper ads here and there, but mostly just BlairWitch.com.

DVDFILE: I think a lot people are going to be looking at the way this film was made, the way it was marketed, and its huge success and using it as a case study for how the Internet can be used to sell a film.

Sanchez: I think that's the first time it happened. It's definitely not going to be the last time. The Internet is a powerful tool. People just have to learn how to use it. We're trying to do the same thing on our next film Heart of Love. Hopefully we're going to be able to exploit the positive aspects of the World Wide Web on that one. We're doing a film called Heart of Love that's a comedy. Dan and I and our partner Dave Brown, have had this idea coming up since we were in film school together. It's an experiment in comedy, Monty Python and Saturday Night Live, and Benny Hill, and Airplane, it's gonna take all these TV shows and movies that inspired us as kids and made us laugh. We're just gonna try and jam them together into a fun little plot and see what we can do. For us it's a very welcome escape from Blair Witch, and from Blair Witch Mania, and from everything that comes along with that.

DVDFILE: Have you already started shooting?

Sanchez: No, we're writing the script right now, that's not going to be out for a while now. We want to keep it real for us, you know, make sure the script is tight before we commit to a shooting schedule. Make sure casting is right before we start shooting… make films like we made Blair Witch. Start of with a good idea, start off with a good script, and work from there. If you don't have the actors then you stop and you continue to cast because there is somebody right out there you just gotta find them. It's the same working plan that we'd like to implement for the rest of our films. Now, sometimes that's impossible. Hollywood makes films backward a lot of times. They set a release date before they even write a script, it's ridiculous. You're setting out at that point to make a bad film, and if you get lucky you make a good film. If you're lucky. For us, we don't like that. Blair has given us the luxury of just chilling out for a while and enjoying life a little bit, and not having to work for the rest of our lives if we didn't want to. We're in no rush right now to get the next film going. We're anxious to start doing it, but everything's got to be right, all the elements have to be lined up before we commit to any kind of shooting schedule.

DVDFILE: There has already been a lot of talk of Blair Witch sequels, or prequels, are you and Dan going to be writing and directing those?

Sanchez: Well, that's the big question right now. We've been talking to Artisan about what they want to do with Blair. We've given them our master plan as to what we think is key at keeping the fan base loyal. Artisan has different ideas than we do. It's really unfortunate, but it's true.

DVDFILE: Can you share what your ideas are?

Sanchez: Our ideas are to basically wait a little while, until 2001, to do another Blair movie, and make it something that's completely separate that stands on its own. Something that has something to do with Blair, but not really with the film, but more with the legend. Approach that film that way. They want to do something flashier, something a little more expected. I don't know who they want to cater to, but…

DVDFILE: They want to strike while the iron's hot so to speak.

Sanchez: Exactly, and I think that's kind of a mistake.

DVDFILE: I've also read you two actually scouted locations for a prequel.

Sanchez: We actually did look at some locations for a prequel. And to tell you the truth, we're very excited about doing it, but it doesn't look like we're gonna get to do it the way we want to do it.

DVDFILE: At that point would you just back away from the movie, and perhaps serve as producers and let someone else write and direct if Artisan isn't going to go the direction you want to go?

Sanchez: Yeah, the thing is that we don't even know if we're gonna do that. We're just gonna check out what happens and see what direction Artisan wants to head in. Because the thing about us is if we're gonna have somebody else direct it and we're just going to oversee the process we're still gonna be directly responsible for the content of the film. And we want to be. We want to be excited about it and we want to make a film that's not gonna piss people off, piss the true fans off. The fans are very important to us, they're the reason that we're here. They're the reason the film made so much money. And that community begins on the Internet. Highest priority is just to stay real, and not put the impression out there that we sold out right after our first hit.

DVDFILE: That's great to hear. The people I know who are big fans of the film were disappointed to hear the immediate talk of sequels. Their thought is that it would be like the rest of the Hollywood product, where if they find something that works they try to duplicate it over and over instead of doing something original. They just want another big hit.

Sanchez: That really is sad, it's the way it is. They look at a sequel and see almost guaranteed performance for sequels to do about 2/3 of what the original did. For us it's not really a question of money, it's not selling out the Haxan name and not selling ourselves out on the film right after Blair Witch.

DVDFILE: Eduardo, thanks a lot for taking the time to talk with me today, I appreciate it.

Sanchez: No problem, thanks a lot.

»» Back To SPECIAL REPORT ARCHIVE