An Interview With Dan Myrick

During the summer of 1999, Dan Myrick suddenly found himself in a position for which there was no preparation or warning. The small indie film that he had co-created, The Blair Witch Project, had gone from a buzz-filled indie release to a national phenomenon almost overnight. Immediately, his world changed. Today, Myrick is preparing to exhibit his latest film The Objective in front of an audience at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival. We got a chance to talk about the differences and similarities between his characters’ extreme experiences and those that he’s found himself in over the course of his career so far.

So why don’t you tell me a little bit about The Objective?

Well, it’s sort of like a psychological sci-fi thriller that revolves around this CIA operative on this mission in Afghanistan to find this so called cleric. But it’s revealed later on that he’s got a different agenda and uses this group of special forces guys to help him find it. They realize that they’re up against something that none of them had planned for. So basically it’s sort of a UFO hunt that the CIA guy is on.

But they’re brought in under false pretenses-

Correct.

And one of them is the protagonist or a group of protagonists?

Yeah. It kind of dabbles a little bit into how there’s kind of conflicting rivalries within our own military structure where you’ve got special forces guys who are tasked to help this CIA agent but they don’t quite trust him and they’re not quite sure what his ulterior motive is. And the CIA agent is out on sort of a personal quest, even outside of the mandate by the CIA headquarters that he’s been tasked to find this so called Romanus. So a lot of conflicting forces going on which I think is pretty typical of any conflict but I just find that interesting. There’s a lot of analogies in there but at the end of the day I think it’s this personal journey. This kind Hearts of Darkness journey of this one guy going down this path to find this so called Romanus or this UFO. And ultimately he is enlightened in some way. It’s open to speculation what ultimately that is but I just find it interesting.

There’ve been a lot of movies made about the war but they’ve all been done realistically. What do you think is going to be the reaction to a movie that uses that as a backdrop but tells more of a sci-fi supernatural story?

Well, I hope the reaction is good.

You’re playing it in New York where the war started.

Yeah. I like to think that the New York audience in particular will respond well to this film. I think it’s a thoughtful film and it really is not a war movie. It’s not a political commentary even though I think some people will derive that from the film. But for me I just wanted to set a thriller or a psychological thriller with the background of the war and the desert in particular because I just hadn’t seen it done before. I think it really goes beyond the war itself. It delves into human nature. And certainly people will draw parallels to Blair Witch with it and allegories to the war maybe. But first and foremost I just wanted it to be a good visceral experience and an old fashioned kind of scare movie that makes you think a little bit and ask some questions about human nature that may not have answers. At least ask the questions, you know?

How do you deal with those sort of comparisons to something that was such a big phenomenon like Blair Witch? How do you get out from under the shadow of that and free yourself to make a film that you feel is completely original and unaffected by those kinds of pressures?

Well, I don’t know if you ever do get out from the shadow of that. All I can do is just focus on the same thing we did when we made Blair Witch which is just make movies that we would want to go see ourselves. And hope that your body of work is recognized as being a good thing rather than one particular movie, you know? I’ve certainly derived a lot of benefit out of Blair Witch and it’s a big part of me and I have a special place in my heart for that film. But the only way I think I’m going to show audiences and critics or whomever that I’m more than one movie is just to concentrate on making the films I want to make. And hopefully they respond to them and then people can step back a little and say “okay, this guys got a body of work here rather than just one project”. So staying focused on the project at hand. Hopefully that will translate into something that people will respond to.

You’ve used the topical war as a backdrop in this one. You did a movie that had the canvas of a suicide cult (in 2007’s Believers). It seems like a lot of your stories draw inspiration from the headlines.

Well, certainly headlines and the topical conversation is gonna contribute to the recipe to the inspiration behind the projects that I do. But what I think kind of intrigues me is how kind of paradoxical our human nature is. I think like when I did Believers it touched into religion and the dichotomy and the separation of science and religion. And I wanted to turn our preconceptions of cults on their head. What if one of them was right? I think The Objective taps into that as well on another level- that the human condition is more complex than we give it credit for and that there are forces out there that we’re driven by. Some good. Some bad. And that when we think we’ve defined something it finds a way to force us to reevaluate. I like it when films do that to the audience and make you challenge and question your preconceptions. And that’s been kind of a theme through what I do and certainly inspired by headlines. No doubt.

It’s tough because I remember seeing Blair Witch at the Angelica in ’99 the week it was released without a whole lot of word of mouth and I was rocked by it. I thought it was great. I had assumed that it was not a real life documentary but at the same time it was quite an accomplishment to inject those kinds of feelings and sensations into a live audience. But now you’re working against people and audiences that see you coming and are ready. How do you tackle the hurtles of an audience coming in with the belief that you’re going to put one over on them or cause them to have those kinds of reevaluations throughout the film. How do you surprise them?

I don’t think you can pander to the audience. They’re much more sophisticated with regard to these fake documentaries now than I think they were years ago. It’s not something that I feel like I can fool people into thinking or anything on the next movie I do or whatever. It’s a weird struggle we had with Blair Witch. We never really intended Blair Witch to be a hoax per se. We wanted to create a movie that felt real but wasn’t real. We were never secretive about how we made the film. We let the press in pretty early on on our sort of technique on how we made it. We were just kind of experimenting with an aesthetic- a sort of documentary aesthetic. And the conceit of which I think played well for that story. And we had hoped that the audience would embrace that. Fortunately people did. So on these subsequent ventures I just think of the audience as being smarter than what I think Hollywood gives them credit for. And not all my films are going to be successful, certainly, but I’d like to think that if I’m going to direct something or write something that I’m doing it with- you know, taking a little of a risk and making audiences- challenge them a little bit and think a little bit and hopefully they’ll appreciate that. And no doubt there’ll be comparisons made but I just think I would drive myself insane if I tried to outdo Blair Witch or do something as innovative or whatever. All I can really do, all I can hope to do, is make a film that I would want to go see myself and trust that there’s a market out there that thinks the way I do. And that’s all I can really do.

So speaking of our market, we’re a geek oriented website. I noticed in an interview that you have a calculator watch. Are you still sporting the calculator watch?

I actually have to of ’em! It was kind of one of those merchandising things. If you’re looking closely, all of the cult members in The Believers movie wear ’em. And we were able to get our hands on some of those vintage calculator watches which I think are pretty cool. You know, little red LED watches. They’re neat!

Is that as geeky as you get, Dan?

Oh no! I’m much geekier. I definitely drive my wife nuts with all the gadgets I have around and we do all of our own post production here at my little facility. I’m very much into geeking out on that sort of thing- computers and kind of the do it yourself approach to filmmaking. So I’ve always been a frustrated engineer, if you will. I think I get it from my dad.

Dan, I really hope the film goes over well at Tribeca and congratulations on getting it in.

Great. Thank you very much!

The Objective makes its world premiere Thursday, April 24th at the Tribeca Film Festival. For screening times, tickets and more information visit www.tribecafilmfestival.org