Low budget film making

I have recently watched The Blair Witch Project which had a very low budget to film with which could be seen by the lack of props and actors. The only props they had were a tent, sleeping bags, map, compass and one car. They didn’t even have any food.

In the Blair Witch Project, they didn’t have any lighting and when they did have lighting it was just the natural lighting from the day light as most of the film was shot in the open, outside and during the day. In the night scenes the screen was an unnatural green but if they had a bigger budget for lighting they could have developed the night scenes which would have made it more realistic: you didn’t see any clue to what had happened. How they dealt with this was that the incident was suggested by a scream and the actors running from something.

They did not have enough money to hire real actors they had to play themselves in the film. Also they didn’t have other extra characters because they didn’t have anyone to act them. They did not need to pay for costumes as they just wore ordinary clothes. Also they did the filming themselves. They didn’t need a scriptwriter as they improvised their lines.

Also the cameras they had used were not too good: very old, hand held and had no special features. This was because of the lack of money or funds they had to film with.

In The Blair Witch Project, they shot most of the film in one place, which was in the middle of the woods in a tent and walking around in the wood very close to where they set up camp for the film. They couldn’t afford expensive locations. There wasn’t a soundtrack either.

The publicity, usually an extreme expense, was via viral marketing.

This all could have been why it was presented in a documentary style because in real life you would not have special equipment or lighting. This actually made it more frightening because it was ‘really happening’. Also, the characters were young adults like the audience so the audience could imagine they were there or it could happen to them and their friends.

 In parts it made you jump because as there was no music it was so quiet and this made you jumpy. There was no fast or tense music to let you know when bad things were about to happen.