'Paranormal Activity' was a unique project in that I made it basically on my own, with a little help, and I had no exposure to the filmmaking world when I made it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
By trade, I am a software programmer, so I never really had any experience with movies before. I started out with 'Paranormal Activity.'
On 'Paranormal Activity,' it worked to my advantage not to have much of a crew, but on a bigger movie, where you have to work with a larger group of people who basically become your second family for a few months, it can be a great experience. Even though all of my projects are small scale compared to most Hollywood productions.
There have been movies like 'Paranormal Activity' or 'Blair Witch Project' in Hollywood that showed you could do movies with little or no money. It doesn't prevent them from creating larger than life spectacles as well.
Where 'Paranormal Activity' really comes into its own is its rhetoric of legitimacy - how it uses itself to authenticate itself, and thus furthers the pretence of being real.
I love the paranormal, because there, every genre I write can become one beacon for my imagination.
I'm just considering myself extremely lucky. All I wanted is to have 'Paranormal Activity' be released and become successful. And everything that's happened since then is just an enormous bonus.
Even when I was making the first 'Paranormal Activity,' I didn't tell anyone I was making it, not my friends or neighbors or co-workers. I just kind of found that there was nothing to gain by announcing to the world that you're doing something.
I've been a huge fan of all things paranormal my whole life. For me, it was always a question of when, not if, I was going to write a paranormal series. I dipped my toe in the genre by incorporating a mystical curse into the 'MacCarrick Brothers Trilogy.'
I can not watch either of the 'Paranormal' films alone.
I'd seen the movie 'Paranormal Activity' and was convinced for weeks that it was real.