IIE: Okay, Haxan Films. How did the five of you get together, and at what stage of the production of The Blair Witch Project?

ES: Dan and I had the idea early on in about 1991-92. We teamed up with Mike while we were all in school. Rob and Gregg came on the year after. We didn't really hang out, though, until 1996. We were trying to get BW going, and Dan pitched the story to Gregg, who jump-started everything. Rob came in to raise the money to be a producer. Mike was a co-producer from the get go. So that's about when we all formed Haxan and shared an office, in 1998.

 

IIE: How did the origine of the story come to life?

ES: Boredom. Dan was in film school on, and weekends we would hang out, watch movie and try to live life with little cash. We started taking about movies that made us scared, like The Exorcist, The Shining, The Amityville Horror (the original) - you know, late to mid 70's to early 80's films, before special FX took over... stuff with gore, like Night Of The Living Dead. We just thought, “what happened to horror genre? What can we do to scare people again?” We love the fact that things could be real to us. We went out and rented movies like The Legend of Body Creek, docu/dramas and the “In Search of...” films. The Woods was the original name for The Blair Witch Project.

www.woodsmovie.com There you can check out the original script for BW along with some great footage and behind the scenes stuff.

 

IIE: Casting: How did that go? Mike, Josh and Heather were perfect for the roles.

ES: They never got the credit that they deserved. The film wouldn't have been anything without them. We knew it had to look real, so we knew the performances had to be right on. We brought in a lot of actors. Probably 1,000 to 1,500 people in NY to find these guys. We called them each in, and as soon as they entered a certain space, they were on. They were given a script without dialogue, they had to improvise, and we was asked random questions like “ when do you get paroled”. Just to see what they could come up with.

Heather had a quality that was not seen in any other actress. She had the ability to take it to a real horrifying level. Josh, a different intensity. An artsy cameraman, smoker. Mike was kind of in the middle of them both. He had the ability to give character along with being a normal tech guy. We had to mix it up. It couldn't have worked with two people with the same personality.

 

IIE: Did any of the cast know each other before the film?

ES: No. They were introduced during the movie. Heather was in NY and we asked her to go in the woods for a week with two guys she didn't know. We were fortunate that she trusted us. Everyone got along. And when they didn't get along, the cameras were on and it worked for many great reasons. Not like other movies, their emotions were real. Josh and Heather fought way more than Mike and Heather did, but due to editing, we were able to kind of reverse it.

Mike was supposed to be the one to disappear, and Heather and Josh were supposed to continue on, but Heather and Josh were at each others throats too much, so we made the call to take out Josh to “keep the peace”. We needed to have Mike and Heather have each other at the end while they were going through this turmoil.

 

IIE: Budget compared to profit: What was your budget for BW?

ES: They're were different stages of the movie- Auditions in 1996-97 and shot in October of '97 equaled to about $20,000. In Orlando, we edited the film, then began shooting the documentary of the movie, like when we did the Rustin Parr interview, Mystic Occurrences and other interviews, which ended up as a special on the Sci-Fi Channel.

That brought it up to about another $40,000. For Sundance, we did another sound mix, another $100-150,000. After that, Artistan added some more money for more sound mixing and editing. The total theatrical version ended up around $500,000.

 

IIE: How much money did the film end up bringing in?

ES: $240M worldwide, theatrical. With DVD sales, $100m. Then sold to HBO, Cinimax, cable channels all over the world, so another million or so. I'd say the total would have been around $450m.

 

IIE: Did it ever seem like this film could have to be shut down at any time?

ES: Yes. When they were crossing the log. If they fell, we were screwed. We had no back-up cameras. Other than that, everything was pretty smooth. See, the area of the woods they were in was not that big. If they got off trail or lost their way, they would come up on someone's house, so it wasn't like they were really out in the middle of nowhere. Actually, there is some footage of one time when they did get lost and we had lost radio contact with them. They ended up on someone's porch asking if they could use the phone. The next scene was the three of them sitting in the people's house drinking tea.

 

IIE: The cast had to deal with the elements of the cold northeastern woods. Did you and the crew have to deal with it more, less or about the same?

ES: I wouldn't say more, because we didn't stay out there every night. Someone would stay at the base camp we would set up. And when we were out there, we were running around at night, delivering food, batteries, technical stuff. A lot of stuff. Then, in the morning, we were walking through the woods - the freezing woods - getting things ready for the next day, then we'd go get some sleep.

But the cast had to sleep out there every night. Except of one night at hotel when we had some technical problems... It was the big joke through the whole thing that this is either going to be a really scary movie or a complete comedy.

 

IIE: Was it your intent to make people believe that film was real?

ES: We wanted to make it real, but we didn't want it to be a hoax. You know, people trying to disprove it. Everything was genuine, there was nothing in the movie to show you that it was a movie. Every detail was worked out. We never dreamed for it to go to the theater. So even if it never did, people could watch the video and do research on the places, which were all real. But Mike, Heather or Josh never attended Montgomery University.

During production, we didn't really know how to end the movie. So we thought “Why don't we just have Mike in the corner, and he does not respond to Heather's screams”. That idea came three or four days before the scene was shot. When we showed it at Sundance we didn't have the interview with the guy telling the story of Rustin Parr making the kids stand in the corner, so people really didn't get why Mike was there. So we went back and shot that interview.

 

IIE: From the stickmen to the rock piles to the child's hand prints... Brilliant, but simple.

ES: Yeah, the stickman was an original idea. Once they was in the woods, everything had to be natural. We liked the idea of a barrier, a warning. Humanoid figures hanging in the woods. It worked. We had other ideas that we ended up not using, like they would see a campfire off in the woods, they'd go to it and nobody would be there. Then, they would see another fire leading them somewhere else. But we just didn't feel that was right for what we were trying to do.

 

IIE: The 'Mary Brown' character's fencing was constructed muck like the stickmen. Was this intentional or coincidental?

ES: Complete coincidence. She dressed everything herself. It opens a door to what's going on.

 

IIE: Did you ever imagine the impact it would make on the world?

ES: No, of course not. It really is an amazing thing. People in Hong Kong knew it. People would tell me stories on how it made them feel. We knew it was a cool idea, but we were just trying to sell it to cable or a distributor to fund our next project.

 

IIE: If you would have known that BW would have been this big of a success would you have used a fictitious town?

ES: No, when we picked Burkittsville, we knew it was a real place and when the film hit, yeah, there were some small things that happened in the town. Nothing major. One of the town's signs were stolen, but we replaced it. The townspeople made there own money from the film by selling stickmen, dirt and rocks.

 

IIE: Any current projects going on? I hear you just got back from Hong Kong.

ES: Yes. Seventh Moon. I was in Hong Kong for a little while. You can read my blogs on my MySpace page about that. www.myspace.com/freebus

 

IIE: If you weren't making films, what would you be doing?

ES: I don't know. Maybe something on the web. Or Target. Probably still with Haxan, doing something corporate.

 

IIE: Ed, I can't tell you how much the gang at IIE, along with so many others, enjoy your work. Thanks for the opportunity to get some insight on your projects.

ES: Not a problem. Thanks for the support.

_____________________________________________________

Mike Williams, actor

Mike, born in The Bronx, is a graduate from SUNY New Paltz with a Bachelor's Degree in theater arts and a concentration in acting. In 2004, he founded the MCW Acting Studio to help bring people both young and old to find their character. www.mcwactingstudio.com

 

IIE: Mike, first off, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions for us. How did you go about getting the role in Blair Witch? Did you know any of these guys beforehand?

MW: Open call in Backstage Magazine in NYC. I didn't know any of them at all.

 

IIE: Was there any doubts about spending close to a week in the woods? You know, being in the fall, it's cold, limited food, etc.?

MW: No doubts. I was actually more excited than anything. I'm a camping type of guy, and trained in improv during my college years as a theater major, so I was really pumped to combine the two passions.

 

IIE: Being a smoker, I have known the dread of being somewhere without a pack of cigarettes. Oddly enough, when you all ran out of smokes, you 'happened' to find some 'all the way at the bottom of your pack.' Were the filmmakers just being nice to you?

MW: I knew we'd be out there for a week, so I planned accordingly. That wasn't my last smoke, just my last smoke in character. I had smokes all the way through the end and probably some to spare. That's a great fucking question, though. I've never been asked that before.

 

IIE: Was there ever a time when you were like, “Screw this.”?

MW: No, I was always pretty much like, “Fuck yeah!” LOL.

 

IIE: What was your most memorable moment?

MW: Definitely the map thing because I came up with that on my own. It wasn't in any of the directing notes – it just happened purely out of the moment.

 

IIE: During the film, is that mostly you that we are seeing or were you portraying a character? Because, honestly, there were some times where you looked genuinely mad.

MW: I really just focused on believing in the circumstances, because if I didn't believe it was happening, I knew the audience would never believe it. I tried to bring as much of myself to it as possible and the circumstances they put us through made it easier for us just to BEHAVE instead of ACT. Which is, in my opinion, what acting actually is.

 

IIE: I know that throughout shooting, each of you (Josh and Heather) were given directions by Ed or Dan without each other knowing what was going to be happening next. Was there ever a time when you were pulled in and completely surprised by what moves the directors made?

MW: Every turn was. I wouldn't say surprised, but rather, completely unknown. It's tough to describe, but everything was like a breath of fresh air – all the twists and turns.

 

IIE: Did you know how to run sound already, or was that something you picked up for the film?

MW: I didn't know how to run sound, but they brought us down to Maryland a couple of days early to give us a crash course on operating the equipment.

 

IIE: OK, we all know the story of Rustin Parr making one child stand in the corner while he killed the other one. At the end of the film, we see you standing facing the corner. This has sparked a lot of jokes and wonder in people. What is your favorite scenario to this?

MW: Josh is blowing me!!

 

IIE: The aftermath of the release of the film made tens, if not hundreds, of thousands truly believe this film was 'real'. Did this hold any ramifications to you personally? Like, people you knew and old friends thinking you were either really missing or even dead?

MW: We got a few messages on my Mom's home answering machine from some guys that went to college with my brother. They were sending their condolences. Wild stuff.

 

IIE: All right. I know you have been answering questions about BW for the past few years now, so I am going to stray away from that topic. I know you and Ed Sanchez got together again for ALTERED, where you played Otis. How was that experience?

MW: It was tremendous. I loved working with Sanchez again, and we make a good team. I loved the character and the story was so different than Blair. Gregg Hale worked on it too, so it was like a mini reunion. I had a reunion with Dan Myrick shooting a film that he directed and I acted in called THE OBJECTIVE. These guys are just about the most solid dudes you'll ever want to meet. And talented ass motherfuckers, to boot. It's fun stepping aside on set and watching these guys work on bigger pictures. I really enjoyed that part of it.

 

IIE: I see you just had a part in Hellbilly 58. Can you tell us anything about that film?

MW: A kid named Russ Diaper from the UK somehow managed to get my number and asked if I'd play a cameo for him. Smart dude and I liked his honesty and passion. I said, “Sure, man.”, and I shot for half a day or something in the States, and we sent the footage over to him. I wish him luck. He's a young kid with some gusto.

IIE: What/who were your inspirations to become an actor?

MW: Jackie Gleason, Jimmy Stewart, Michael J. Fox, Ed Harris.

 

IIE:Outside of acting, what do you like to do, inside or outside of film?

MW: Hang out with my wife and kids, fish and drink beer.

IIE: If you never acted, what do you think you would be doing right now?

MW: Teaching.

IIE: Again, thanks for taking time to speak with us about your career and giving us a little insight on what it was like making the most original and thought-provoking horror film in as many years as I've known. We wish you all the best in everything you do.

MW: Thanks for asking, man. Peace!!