Origins of Found Footage: Timeline

In the late-00s, a variety of successful found footage films began receiving mainstream visibility. Paranormal Activity, REC, Cloverfield, and George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead all made waves, and inspired an influx of like-minded films. Until recently, most people probably didn't realize that found footage was actually a genre, they thought it was just... The Blair Witch Project. So it's understandable that devotees of earlier found footage films are eager to argue against the idea that Blair Witch invented the format. But you see such a humorous hodgepodge of which disparate films are supposed to represent the "one true original idea," it's clear that the origins of found footage can be rather murky.

I've written a couple of vast, expansive entries attempting to outline the sordid origins of found footage -- only to discover another bit of information that rips asunder much of what I had written! So I've settled on compiling a timeline that outlines what I've been able to learn thus far, for anyone who's interested. The information represents what knowledge I have access to and could be subject to revision where suppositions prove false. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information, but cursory sleuthing will show that at least the majority of it is easily verifiable.

THE ORIGINS OF FOUND FOOTAGE 

1980 -- February 7th, Cannibal Holocaust is released in Italy. Conventional wisdom holds that this is the first scripted movie to incorporate found footage as a significant plot point. It includes the influential premise of recovering footage left behind by a lost documentary crew. It further incorporates "shaky cam" filming to simulate realism and a "viral" campaign in which the movie was promoted as genuine footage, which later got the filmmakers in hot water when they were tried for murder! Cannibal Holocaust is believed to have been inspired by the "mondo" films of the 1970s that depicted ostensibly real footage of gore and extraordinary events.


Circa 1988 -- Director Dean Alioto releases a low budget movie titled Alien Abduction (later known as "The McPherson Tape"). The film depicts a family being taken by aliens and it is likely the first paranormal-themed found footage film. Unlike Cannibal Holocaust, this film is believed to have been presented entirely in found footage style, which would become a standard among future found footage films. Although the film was later destroyed in a warehouse fire, clips purported to be from the film are featured on a Japanese TV show widely available for viewing on the internet. 


Late 80s, Early 90s -- Various low budget films including Manguden (1988), 84C MoPic (1988) and Man Bites Dog (1992) uniquely utilize the found footage format pioneered by Cannibal Holocaust. These cover such varied topics as serial killing and the Vietnam War.


1992 -- October 31st, on Halloween, BBC1 airs a film titled Ghostwatch. Featuring actual BBC personalities, the premise was a live BBC program broadcast from a haunted house, where they quickly encountered a malevolent spirit. Considered exceedingly frightful, the film was then banned from ever showing again on British TV and it was credited with inspiring a man to commit suicide (that isn't movie content, that really happened). A similar TV-special premise would later be revisited in movies such as The Last Broadcast (1998), The Feed (2010), Grave Encounters (2011) and, to an extent, Atrocious (2010).


1994 -- Work on The Blair Witch Project is purportedly begun.


1997/1998 -- Paranormal-themed found footage films begin appearing, including a purported early version of Strawberry Estates and a remake of Alien Abduction titled Alien Abduction: Incident In Lake County (first broadcast on the TV station UPN on January 20th, 1998). As The Blair Witch Project is believed to have been in the works for years at this point, it is unknown whether these films had "scooped" Blair Witch or genuinely preceded it. Incident In Lake County represents the earliest proven use I can find of the "death bed confession" penultimate scene where the cameraman turns the camera onto themselves and gives their last thoughts. Inclusion of this scene would become very common in found footage films, including The Blair Witch Project.


1999 -- July 30th, The Blair Witch Project is released, becoming a massive commercial success and popularizing the found footage genre. Many films followed in its wake although it would be ten years before new found footage films began finding success comparable to Blair Witch.

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My Perspective: As far as "who copied who," it's an inconsequential question. I think that in the late 90s, after a variety of notable but mostly small-scale successes for the genre, many different people were vying to hit gold with the format. Similarly to how in 2007 & 2008 a new rash of found footage films suddenly began emerging, the time was right for a great work to appear and as usual there wasn't just one person looking to succeed.