The My Hollywood System
Chapter 30

"Film recorded with a camcorder?"

James muttered those words with a shocked expression on his face. For a moment, he thought Will was joking, but the young director simply nodded his head.

"Yes, it was filming a movie on camcorder. Old camcorder."

"Are you kidding me?"

"I'm not." Will shook his head, but James cut him off before he could add anything.

With a desperate expression, he said, “Are you kidding? Do you think anyone would pay to watch something on a camcorder? You can't be serious; you give me a video recording, call it a movie. Do you think we run a circus here?”

Will pursed his lips. If this was normal, he would retreat and leave the place now, but another plan came to his mind, so he chose to stay.

"You can judge that after watching this movie" Will replied.

James looked at her for a moment, and then shook his head, he added, "Alright, I'll watch it, but on one condition."

"Oh what?" will ask.

"Don't call it a movie."

“...” Will smiled but chose to remain silent, at least for now.

The two of them then went to one of the rooms with a projector on a large table.

Both Will and James sat on both sides of the table as the film began to play.

“So, about what?” James asked, "The plot."

Will arranges his thoughts and tells him the gist of his story, “It's about three students who decide to go to the hamlet of Maryland to cover up the mystery behind the Blair Witch incident. However, they ended up losing their map and then, things changed unexpectedly. ”

"Oh?" James frowned, “This is quite common.. I wonder why you are so confident in this? I don't even have high expectations when it comes to execution, considering everything is on camcorder.”

"Not everything, but mostly," Will smiled, "And the reason why I'm confident, well, you'll know in the first scene."

"Oh? Let's see, then.” James shrugged and turned on the projector.

[A black screen appeared, and three slightly vibrating words appeared where - Project Witch Blair.

Stay like this for a moment, giving the old kind of movie vibe and then, the screen flashes, and two sentences appear on the wall.

In October 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods in Burkittsville, Maryland while filming a documentary.

A year later, this recording was found.

The two sentences remained on the black background, and the screen trembled slightly, which showed the grim nature of the story.

Staying like this for about ten seconds, and suddenly, the screen became blurred, and slowly, Heather appeared in front of a camcorder, which was being held by a stranger, perhaps her brother.

“It will be blue; wait a minute."

“OK,” Heather smiled while styling her hair into a bun.]

“You are not kidding..” James commented while staring at the wall, “So you plan to make it from a real-life incident? Is that not what everyone does? All horror movies... based on real stories.”

Although he has a valid argument, James is about the naturalness and fairness the film provides, especially with a camcorder - which feels like the perfect choice for the film from the start.

But this is not the only reason why Will is convinced that James will be watching the entire film. It is also because of the almost perfect editing done on the video.

While filming the movie, they had recorded as much as possible, and at the end of the last day, they had over twenty hours of video footage, which then went through extensive editing for days and finally, for days and finally, for a long time, only about eighty minutes of film length was left behind.

Will wants the film to be as clear and clear as possible, with every scene meaningful, both for the plot and the development of his character.

James continued to watch, and in just a few minutes, he would curl up on his chair.

On the screen is Heather showing the city landmarks while talking from behind the camera.

[𝔚𝔢𝔩𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐬𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞 1894

“This is Burkittsville, formerly Blair. This is a small and quiet Maryland town.” His tone was professional, which signified that he was not here to have fun, but rather to enjoy.]

Because of the black and white footage, there was an additional gloomy impression on the film, such as burning gasoline in a horror film.

The film continues, James's face was already serious only in the fourth minute when Heather introduced the baby grave.

["There are a large number of children buried here."

The camera moves away from his face as Josh focuses on the gravestones around the grave.

As he returned it to Heather, he continued.

"Most of them died in the 1940s. Yet it seems that no one in the city remembers anything unusual about this time. Either way for us. But legends tell a different story. The one whose proof is all around us, etched in stone."

Another shot of the angel statue was taken, and that was when the scene ended.]

"Did you make this grave?" James could only ask.

"No," Will shook his head, "This is a real place and a real city, with a real history."

"Oh," James nodded and continued to watch.

This was his final comment for the rest of the film as he was completely immersed in this horror survival incident, and with how flawless the editing was done, it was only a matter of time before he was scared to death.

Not only the tent scene, where the three main characters themselves were terrified of the noise outside, there was also a scene of children's laughter coming from the forest.

But what stole the spotlight was the millisecond appearance of the Blair Witch's shadow, which shocked James so suddenly that he nearly fell from the chair, staring at the screen with a terrified expression.

"This ..." He regains his composure after an unknown time, and when he turns toward Will, he finds Will taking a movie file from the projector and putting it back in the bag.

“Um... let's go.” James stands.

“Hm?” Will raised his eyebrows towards her, "How is it?"

James gulped and sighed, "That's not bad ..."

His words came to a halt when he saw the young director. He thought that the film would be worse than a third-rate independent film, but that obviously scared him, and he could not remember the last time he was feared by a horror film.

But in the end, can he really call this a movie?

It was more like a home video in James' mind. He could not help but be skeptical of his decision.