This page contains spoilers. Turn back now unless you've already seen the movie. There are many interesting behind the scenes anecdotes and trivia about this movie. I've been reading several different places on the Web looking for accurate and dependable accounts. If you have anything you'd like to add to this section of the h2g2 Blair Witch pages, please post your thoughts at the bottom of this page.

During, and immediately after Donahue, Leonard and Williams were told they'd been selected to play the parts, the directors repeatedly made it very clear what their intentions were. "Your safety is very important to us," they said. "Your comfort is not." Although the directors' intentions were clear, the details were not. The project was largely on a need to know basis and generally, the actors didn't need to know. The backstory was given. The actors were told much about the Blair Witch's history and the invented history of the town. However, any plans the directors had for the actors' near future were left undisclosed. The actors were told only that their safety was important. Heather Donahue has been reported as saying she actually asked one of the directors early on if this was a snuff film and decided if she ended up dying during this production she was going to look pretty stupid. There was no script: the movie was based off a basic plotline invented by the directors. Much of the character interaction and all of the dialogue was created by the actors themselves, utilizing something called improvisational theater. The directors have referred to this style of directing as "extreme realism" and "method filmmaking." The goal is to create a believable production by making the experience as real as possible. Some question whether the final result is actually acting.

One of the producers had been a sargeant in the Army Special Forces, with years of experience in survival skills. He briefed the three actors in how to survive in the wilderness, but not before extensively training the directors and their other assistants in ways to stalk prey and elude capture. They used these skills during the course of filming to get close to the actors and harass them without being seen on camera. The film was edited from nineteen hours of video and film footage shot over the course of eight days taken almost entirely by the three lead actors themselves. They had been instructed to film everything, including the most mundane of activities. Some critics ask why Heather and the others continued filming throughout the experience. Compared to how long they were out there, the cameras were only running less than a day: about two and a half hours per day, off and on, each day. The very first scene of the film is the very first scene shot. The directors informed Heather that this was her 'home' and she was asked to perform an impromptu introduction. Except for some areas of editorial discretion, the majority of the film is shown in the order in which it was filmed; about as close to real time as a movie can get. Another interesting point about this scene: the very first scene shot is the only scene not shot by one of the three principals. One of the directors is holding the camera.

Before going out into the woods, the three lead actors were instructed to start their search at a restaurant. The directors had "planted" other actors there with vital information for the three to retrieve before moving forward in the story. Not all of the people they interviewed (which are seen in the final cut of the movie) were plants. Some of the responses were genuine. The woman holding the reluctant child and the girl who thought she remembered her sister went to Blair High School are examples of non-planted responses. The directors equipted the players with, among other things, a portable GPS device designed to function as a homing signal. Using satelites in space, the directors were able to pinpoint the exact location of their three actors. This was used both to keep the actors on track with the plot outline from day to day and also to help insure the actors' safety. The directors had set up several coordinates for the actors to get to during filming. The actors knew they arrived at the proper location by seeing large white crates with orange flags. In the crates were spare batteries for the cameras and other supplies, but just enough food to keep them going, and less each day. The actors had been instructed to leave any film they had successfully completed up to that point. The directors then returned to the crates after the actors left, and examined the videotapes to check the progress of the filming.

Also in the crates were film cans labelled with the initials of each actor. Inside the film cans, each actor would find character suggestions and other information given by the directors. One of the first filmcan directions Joshua and Heather recieved was a request by the directors to tone down their personality conflicts. The directors thought they were peaking too soon. Michael Williams said he once recieved the filmcan direction "ditch Heather" but was unwilling to follow that directive by that point. Other than the filmcan directions, the actors were left largely on their own. The scene where Mike admits to having lost the map was totally improvised. The directors did not tell Mike to say this. He came up with it spontaneously and the other two reacted to the new information. Remember: there was no script, and the directors weren't with them during the process. The actors left completed videotapes and film in the crates before moving on, then the directors would pick up the reels and tapes after the actors left, and reviewed the "dailies" as they went along. When the directors saw the impromptu map scene, we may never know what they thought. One would imagine they would have reacted positively: it was proof this experiment of theirs was working. How could that scene have possibly been written out and then relayed on screen so brilliantly real?

They had emergency coordinates programmed into the GPS device that would direct the actors to civilization, so if something went wrong, the three actors would not be left stranded. They lost radio contact with the directors one night, and turned to the emergency plan in a mild panic. They approached a nearby neighborhood, as marked by the GPS's emergency coordinates. The two boys fell back and asked Heather to go up to one of the houses. They figured they'd have a better chance with her asking to come in. The directors found the three actors later that night at the house of a kind old woman who gave them hot cocoa to drink. The next morning, the directors dropped the actors back in the woods and they went right back to work. The sounds of babies crying which woke the three actors up at least once was actually a tape recording operated by the directors. The directors have stated that their favorite part of the experience was waking the actors up at three in the morning to scare them. After Joshua disappeared, the "Blair Witch" leaves a present for Mike and Heather to discover. Heather sees it first, and opens it to reveal the only scene containing gore in the entire film. It was Heather's choice never to show Michael. However this is not a piece of Joshua's flesh. The directors aquired a cow's tooth with some blood from a dentist friend. On the left side of the screen a few strands of hair can also be seen in the package. This hair is not Joshua Leonard's, as it is too dark: Joshua's blonde. The shirt material is Joshua's. The gory tooth is wrapped in material ripped from the shirt we last saw Joshua wearing.

In a recent interview, Heather admitted a bit of discomfort in staying character at this point. When she realized that morning he was gone, she knew that by then he had already gotten a warm bath, a change of clothes and a good meal. "That b*****d!" she thought. Actually, Josh had another project lined up in New York. In the final climactic scene when Heather and Mike are searching for Josh, he's not physically even there. The sound of his voice was recorded by the directors just before he left. At the house, for the climactic end of the film, Heather Donahue was screaming so hard she was hyperventilating. After the camera was thrown to the ground, the directors had to calm and talk Heather down and ensure her that they were finished and it was over. "We thought we lost her," one of the directors said in a recent interview. After the experience was over, the directors took Heather and Mike out and treated them to a free meal. Their restaurant of choice? Denny's by one report, although Chi-Chi's was the name of another restaurant that may or may not have been where they celebrated the last day's shooting. The directors have said they spent several hours a day at Chi-Chi's while their actors were out working. A happy ending to the story? Well in the movie there is none. For those involved in the making of the Blair Witch Project it's a very happy ending. Thousands of independent films are made every year, and one of the contractual agreements between directors and actors is something called "deferred payment." This means the actors don't get paid much at all, if anything, during the production of the film.

Heather Donahue admitted in a recent interview that she is the first person, of any fellow actors she knows in the business, to actually get a check for deferred payment. If that's not a happy ending, I don't know what one is. The story isn't over though. The directors have a contract with Artisan Entertainment to make another movie, which they describe as a sophomoric tip of the hat to Monty Python and Saturday Night Live. Yes, it's a comedy, not another horror movie. They've admitted that any plans to make a sequel will be kept on the back burner for the time being, and if they make one it will probably be about Russ Parr or the original Blair Witch. The story of Heather, Josh and Mike has pretty much run its course. At least the characters in the movie. As for the actors, their story is just beginning. Mike got married recently, Joshua's working on another independent film, and Heather Donahue is scheduled to appear on Jay Leno's Tonight Show the first week of August.

Not too shabby for three dead people.