FS: Independent horror research, Paranormal activity (2007)

FS: Independent horror research, Paranormal activity (2007)

Production

The Focus of paranormal activity was to create a realistic film, so Peli Shot the whole film with a home video camera. This not only created high verisimilitude but reduced the budget significantly, the films budget was only 15,000 dollars and grossed nearly 200 million. This set Peli on track to create a very successful franchise. An almost fly on the wall approach was taken in the production relying on little camera movement, this eliminated the need for a camera crew and focussed the audience more on the knowledge of the characters and the plotline. Also there was no real script, simply an improvised plan, this is known as retroscripting, which was also used in ‘The Blair Witch Project’.  After Auditioning a few hundred people before meeting Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, it was their chemistry which got them both the part, they were both paid only $500 for their work. It was then bought over by DreamWorks for the right of the sequels.

 Distribution

It was premiered at the screamfest horror film festival in October 14, 2007. Paramount then distributed it after a low budget, high intensity marketing.  Mr Greenstein said “We didn't want to show your usual kind of scenes and cutting-style horror movies have been using. We wanted to use an experiential sell to help dictate how and where it rolled out to the consumer."  The viral buzz around the trailer did the marketing for them as people were very intruiged by the trailer and a minimum use of web 2.0 was used. The then allowed the consumer to dictate the distribution with the use of social media, talking directly to the fans through various twitter and facebook pages, there was no need for a mass TV advertisement campaign.