News

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We'd like to thank the YouTube community and Fair Use laws everywhere!

We have been awarded one of the highest honors the YouTube community can bestow on a feature film -- A Short Edition! In the footsteps of Scarface - The Short Version, and The Big Lebowski - F**king Short Version, here is The Blair Witch Project - The Short Version:

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Altered VIRTUAL DRIVE-IN screening tomorrow night, and YOU are invited!

We are excited to announce that Altered will be playing tomorrow night, Tuesday, December 19th at 8:00 PM EST in the virtual world of Second Life, and everyone is invited! Admission is free, but seating is limited so show up early. Ed Sanchez and some of the other people involved in the making of the film will be on hand to talk shop and answer questions after the screening as well. The event marks the grand opening of Flux's Drive-In on Motorati, which is sponsored by Pontiac. Read more about it, and get a special link to the location here. What is all this virtual alternate world stuff you ask? Remember 20 years ago, when everyone was predicting that people would stop going outside and live virtual lives and the world would end because of the internet? Well, that's Second Life! If you haven't checked it out yet now is a perfect time to experience what all the hoopla is about, and a great chance to hang out with friends and watch a scary movie. Download the free Second Life browser now, create an avatar, and spend a few minutes learning the ropes in Second Life, then come hang with us tomorrow night and watch Altered under the virtual stars! See ya there.

BLAIR WITCH co-director's next film going straight-to-DVD! PART V

PART I - PART II - PART III - PART IV 2006 will go down as one of the worse years of my professional life. There isn't any aspect of my abilities that I haven't completely doubted this year. There were a lot of dark paths that I went down in 2006, a lot of sleepless nights. Personally, things couldn't have been better. My family, friends and especially my partners are responsible for me being able to get through it with only some sleeping problems and three or so tiny ulcers in my stomach. Gregg, Rob, Mike, Jamie, Bob, Jeff and Matt have been great. They know I'm disappointed but they all feel proud of the film and have shown nothing but total support for what I've been going through. One day after some meeting in New York, Gregg told me “ALTERED doesn't suck. We made a good film. And even if you think it sucks, great directors make bad films sometimes. No one is batting 1000.” I don't think the film sucks. I really don't. I LOVED this film before December of last year, before all the screenings. But the road since then has been very hard and nothing is quite as painful as people not digging my work. It's like people not loving your kids. It's hard, man, and I don't know how artists do it, to tell you the truth. It's one of these things that I've examined in myself this year wondering if my skin was tough enough to keep going through this shit with every film. The jury is still out on that one. At this point, less than a week until the release of the film, I honestly just want to be done with ALTERED. I want to move on. What reaction do I expect? Well, some people will dig it, some people will think it's all right, and some people will hate it. What else can I say? Maybe it'll do great on DVD. Maybe it'll flop. We're not angry at FOCUS or ROGUE or UNIVERSAL or anyone on that side of the equation. They've been nothing but fair and very cool to us and as great a partner as we'll ever get as a studio is concerned. After our hardships with ARTISAN after BLAIR WITCH blew up, we really appreciate the fact that they've always treated us with the utmost respect. They did what they needed to do with ALTERED and if we were in their shoes, we would've done the same thing. We really hope to make more films with them. We on the ALTERED side of things all believe in the film. Last month, we began our own little marketing campaign with UNIVERSAL'S (who is distributing the film on DVD) approval and paid for with our own money. We've all been working hard on it, we still want to get the film out there to as many people as possible, we still support the film 100%. But we're not hiding from the fact that everyone, including ourselves, expected that this film was going to go theatrical. I mean, how can you go from one of the biggest INDIE successes of all time to a straight-to-DVD release? How? Well, like this. We just did it, folks, and even though pretty much every word of these five blogs was painful to write, we're not afraid to talk about it, because in the end, it's just another movie. Don’t get me wrong, I love ALTERED. I think it’s a fine piece of work and fun as shit and I’m really proud of the work all my collaborators and I did on the film. But it’s just my next film. My next film after a tiny, 30K, shot on HI-8 feature that happened to become THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. My partners and I will make more films. We're already working on a few things for next year, including a slate of films we hope to shoot in China. Gregg will direct one. I will direct one. Bob and Matt are involved already. I'm writing my script with Jamie. Rob, Mike and Andy are ready to get involved again as soon as their time comes. We're all still together. The band hasn't broken up. ALTERED has taught me many things, but the biggest lesson I learned is that this is the group of people I want to continue to make films with. I couldn't have asked for a better filmmaking family. Talented and smart and sexy as hell, too. I ain't no SCORCESE, people, and these guys know that and still want to make films with me. That's what family is all about, isn't it? -ed ALTERED MYSPACE ALIENPAYBACK YOUTUBE

BLAIR WITCH co-director's next film going straight-to-DVD! PART V

PART I - PART II - PART III - PART IV 2006 will go down as one of the worse years of my professional life. There isn't any aspect of my abilities that I haven't completely doubted this year. There were a lot of dark paths that I went down in 2006, a lot of sleepless nights. Personally, things couldn't have been better. My family, friends and especially my partners are responsible for me being able to get through it with only some sleeping problems and three or so tiny ulcers in my stomach. Gregg, Rob, Mike, Jamie, Bob, Jeff and Matt have been great. They know I'm disappointed but they all feel proud of the film and have shown nothing but total support for what I've been going through. One day after some meeting in New York, Gregg told me “ALTERED doesn't suck. We made a good film. And even if you think it sucks, great directors make bad films sometimes. No one is batting 1000.” I don't think the film sucks. I really don't. I LOVED this film before December of last year, before all the screenings. But the road since then has been very hard and nothing is quite as painful as people not digging my work. It's like people not loving your kids. It's hard, man, and I don't know how artists do it, to tell you the truth. It's one of these things that I've examined in myself this year wondering if my skin was tough enough to keep going through this shit with every film. The jury is still out on that one. At this point, less than a week until the release of the film, I honestly just want to be done with ALTERED. I want to move on. What reaction do I expect? Well, some people will dig it, some people will think it's all right, and some people will hate it. What else can I say? Maybe it'll do great on DVD. Maybe it'll flop. We're not angry at FOCUS or ROGUE or UNIVERSAL or anyone on that side of the equation. They've been nothing but fair and very cool to us and as great a partner as we'll ever get as a studio is concerned. After our hardships with ARTISAN after BLAIR WITCH blew up, we really appreciate the fact that they've always treated us with the utmost respect. They did what they needed to do with ALTERED and if we were in their shoes, we would've done the same thing. We really hope to make more films with them. We on the ALTERED side of things all believe in the film. Last month, we began our own little marketing campaign with UNIVERSAL'S (who is distributing the film on DVD) approval and paid for with our own money. We've all been working hard on it, we still want to get the film out there to as many people as possible, we still support the film 100%. But we're not hiding from the fact that everyone, including ourselves, expected that this film was going to go theatrical. I mean, how can you go from one of the biggest INDIE successes of all time to a straight-to-DVD release? How? Well, like this. We just did it, folks, and even though pretty much every word of these five blogs was painful to write, we're not afraid to talk about it, because in the end, it's just another movie. Don’t get me wrong, I love ALTERED. I think it’s a fine piece of work and fun as shit and I’m really proud of the work all my collaborators and I did on the film. But it’s just my next film. My next film after a tiny, 30K, shot on HI-8 feature that happened to become THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. My partners and I will make more films. We're already working on a few things for next year, including a slate of films we hope to shoot in China. Gregg will direct one. I will direct one. Bob and Matt are involved already. I'm writing my script with Jamie. Rob, Mike and Andy are ready to get involved again as soon as their time comes. We're all still together. The band hasn't broken up. ALTERED has taught me many things, but the biggest lesson I learned is that this is the group of people I want to continue to make films with. I couldn't have asked for a better filmmaking family. Talented and smart and sexy as hell, too. I ain't no SCORCESE, people, and these guys know that and still want to make films with me. That's what family is all about, isn't it? -ed ALTERED MYSPACE ALIENPAYBACK YOUTUBE

BLAIR WITCH co-director's next film going straight-to-DVD! PART IV

PART I - PART II - PARTIII The test screening was held in a suburb of NEW YORK CITY at a Mall movie theater with bad sound and projection. This was actually in the same area where we did our BLAIR WITCH test screening. This is one of the places where studios go to test their films. You've heard all the stories of test screenings before, so I won't bore you with details. It was one of the worse nights of my life. I mean other than the birth of my two children, where my wife ended up having an emergency C-Section each time, this was number three. Probably. Well, maybe the time I got beat-up in middle school by Tony Leebrick was worse. Or the day my lung collapsed. Yeah, those were probably worse. But you catch my drift. The audience was the “basic horror crowd,” whatever that is. They had recruited people who had seen HOSTEL and the SAW movies. We had a feeling we were going to be in trouble. Once the film started, things were great. They were laughing in places, seemed into the film. Cheered a bit during the climax. We thought we had them. Seriously. We thought we had them. The test scores were terrible. People hated the film. “Not scary enough.” “Too hard to follow.” “Stupid.” Fucking brutal feedback. Man, does writing this bring on the PAIN!!! We were crushed. I felt worse than before. I slid into a depression and I didn't want to do anything. We met the next day at FOCUS and talked to Andrew Rona, who was heading up ROGUE now. Good guy. You may remember him from PROJECT GREENLIGHT. He was as disappointed as us. They had a lot of hope for this movie and it just wasn't going to be what they wanted it to be. He didn't discuss distribution too much but we knew we were in trouble in that department. Films with these kinds of scores don't go wide. So we all headed back to our respective homes up and down the east coast. We held our heads low for a while but then we started talking strategy. We still believed in the film and weren't going to give up on it that quickly. We thought that the audience they recruited for the test was wrong. It's like they packed horny teenagers into a MERCHANT IVORY film. Or the POOTIE TANG fan club into a Woody Allen flick. Okay, bad examples, but you get the point. We thought that a sci-fi crowd would be into it more. Or horror fans that didn't dig SAW or HOSTEL so much, which I've met a lot of in my days. We knew someone was going to dig the film. And it's not like EVERYONE hated the film. There was that minority of people at the screening that really enjoyed it and thought it was a fun ride. I mean, we got a great review from someone named MILKBONE on AIN'T-IT-COOL-NEWS. The MILKBONE-type audience was out there, we just had to find them. Another test screening was needed. We also went through the test results and tried to address some of the concerns that the audience had. They found it too hard to follow, too much of a mystery, so we figured we'd tack on something to the opening that gave some of the back story, at least the basics. We were going to get Michael Williams to play OTIS again and do a TV news story on the 15 year anniversary of the abduction of the main characters. I called Mike and asked him to get that beard growing again. We were going to have some fun with it for sure. We were also going to tighten up a few places in the film some more and change one of the music cues that we thought could be bigger. Then we were going to do another test screening. And we were going to pay for all of it. Yeah! “Let's all meet in Orlando and really get this ball rolling! We'll give FOCUS a proposal that they won't be able to turn down! Yeah, that's right, we're bad-ass motherfuc...” And that takes us back to the beginning of my story, PART I of this twisted and sordid tale, that sunny day in Orlando where the hammer dropped on our delusional heads. ALTERED was going STRAIGHT-TO-DVD!!! All that was left now was to pick up all the pieces of my broken heart that were all over Rob's beautiful patio floor... -ed PART V ALTERED MYSPACE ALIENPAYBACK YOUTUBE

BLAIR WITCH co-director's next film going straight-to-DVD! PART IV

PART I - PART II - PARTIII The test screening was held in a suburb of NEW YORK CITY at a Mall movie theater with bad sound and projection. This was actually in the same area where we did our BLAIR WITCH test screening. This is one of the places where studios go to test their films. You've heard all the stories of test screenings before, so I won't bore you with details. It was one of the worse nights of my life. I mean other than the birth of my two children, where my wife ended up having an emergency C-Section each time, this was number three. Probably. Well, maybe the time I got beat-up in middle school by Tony Leebrick was worse. Or the day my lung collapsed. Yeah, those were probably worse. But you catch my drift. The audience was the “basic horror crowd,” whatever that is. They had recruited people who had seen HOSTEL and the SAW movies. We had a feeling we were going to be in trouble. Once the film started, things were great. They were laughing in places, seemed into the film. Cheered a bit during the climax. We thought we had them. Seriously. We thought we had them. The test scores were terrible. People hated the film. “Not scary enough.” “Too hard to follow.” “Stupid.” Fucking brutal feedback. Man, does writing this bring on the PAIN!!! We were crushed. I felt worse than before. I slid into a depression and I didn't want to do anything. We met the next day at FOCUS and talked to Andrew Rona, who was heading up ROGUE now. Good guy. You may remember him from PROJECT GREENLIGHT. He was as disappointed as us. They had a lot of hope for this movie and it just wasn't going to be what they wanted it to be. He didn't discuss distribution too much but we knew we were in trouble in that department. Films with these kinds of scores don't go wide. So we all headed back to our respective homes up and down the east coast. We held our heads low for a while but then we started talking strategy. We still believed in the film and weren't going to give up on it that quickly. We thought that the audience they recruited for the test was wrong. It's like they packed horny teenagers into a MERCHANT IVORY film. Or the POOTIE TANG fan club into a Woody Allen flick. Okay, bad examples, but you get the point. We thought that a sci-fi crowd would be into it more. Or horror fans that didn't dig SAW or HOSTEL so much, which I've met a lot of in my days. We knew someone was going to dig the film. And it's not like EVERYONE hated the film. There was that minority of people at the screening that really enjoyed it and thought it was a fun ride. I mean, we got a great review from someone named MILKBONE on AIN'T-IT-COOL-NEWS. The MILKBONE-type audience was out there, we just had to find them. Another test screening was needed. We also went through the test results and tried to address some of the concerns that the audience had. They found it too hard to follow, too much of a mystery, so we figured we'd tack on something to the opening that gave some of the back story, at least the basics. We were going to get Michael Williams to play OTIS again and do a TV news story on the 15 year anniversary of the abduction of the main characters. I called Mike and asked him to get that beard growing again. We were going to have some fun with it for sure. We were also going to tighten up a few places in the film some more and change one of the music cues that we thought could be bigger. Then we were going to do another test screening. And we were going to pay for all of it. Yeah! “Let's all meet in Orlando and really get this ball rolling! We'll give FOCUS a proposal that they won't be able to turn down! Yeah, that's right, we're bad-ass motherfuc...” And that takes us back to the beginning of my story, PART I of this twisted and sordid tale, that sunny day in Orlando where the hammer dropped on our delusional heads. ALTERED was going STRAIGHT-TO-DVD!!! All that was left now was to pick up all the pieces of my broken heart that were all over Rob's beautiful patio floor... -ed PART V ALTERED MYSPACE ALIENPAYBACK YOUTUBE