What DID Happen in Piedmont?

For several weeks, the burning question was whether or not the movie was documentary or if it was fiction. We all know how that worked out - it was marketing of the most brilliant sort...and utterly fictitious. It's now about 10 years later, and the entertainment industry is trying to catch that genie in a bottle again - this time it's "What Happened In Piedmont."

What DID happen in Piedmont? That would be nothing.

The movie "The Blair Witch Project" was a low budget ($22,000) independent film that was the first film that was distributed by the only company up to that time that actually understood how to create myth and how to harness the internet. They understood what has come to be known as "going viral." Understood it to the tune of just about $250 Million in gross revenue.

Much like business at any level, it became important to emulate the process that made the movie successful. The movie industry had it's first demonstration of the power of the internet.

Recently, the movie "Forgetting Sara Marshall" tried to take a similar approach. For weeks before the movie was released, we began to see billboards and Google Ads for the movie. Clicking on the link went to a website that told the story of a man who had just been dumped by the hottest woman ever and how he was trying to get her back. The ads were white with black letters, but something about it just didn't seem legitimate - perhaps it was the fact the "guy" looked a little too much like that guy in "How I Met Your Mother." As it so happened, it was.

So, as I'm poking around through the web, I come across this little gem. My first thought was, "hey, cool looking blog. I wonder what the backbone is." I can't find it. Hmm. Then I start looking at the content. Peculiar.

The big thing I learned from the Blair Witch Project, was that if there's any question in my mind whether something is real, its probably not.

Here's the deal: this guy gets a panicked call from his sister in April and since has been unable to connect with anyone in his hometown. He's a college sophomore in Berkeley, California, and is from "Piedmont, Utah." He's freaked out and starts a blog. Great.

A blog that was "just set up" that's not on blogger or wordpress and without any sort of copyright for a downloaded package? So this dude just wasted all that time - a journalism student, no less - and compiled a blog from scratch.

So, I look a little more. He's soliciting information from folks, asking them to send a text message to one of those 5-number "short code" sms/txt numbers. Those cost a few bucks to set up - they'll typically run you $500 a month for a randomly assigned one and you're typically buying them in blocks of 3/6/9 months

The next stop, then, is to do a WhoIs. Whathappenedinpiedmont.com is registered to CSC Corporate Domains, and was created on...January 25, 2008. Wow. SOMEONE knew something was going to happen in Piedmont in April...I wonder how this guy got CSC Corporate Domains to let him use it.

The intricate story line doesn't necessarily make a good story line - the more you look at it, the more phony it gets - do a google maps search for Piedmont, UT. See what you get. I got Piedmont, WY - which is near Utah, but isn't Utah. Those pictures are some dreadful looking places, but alas nothing nefarious has happened.

The Blair Witch Project was simple. It was low budget, so it had to be simple. It was genuine. It was through word of mouth that demand was built. The setting was real. It was perfectly plausible. There are just too many holes with Piedmont, such as, it is now Mid-May. Aren't college kids out of school? One suggestion - if you're concerned, perhaps you should - you know - go home.

He seems to have enough money - buying online ads for his professionally built blog, setting up the 5-digit SMS accounts, all that - why wouldn't he had you know, gone home right after exams...or before?

There there's that little thing of the domain registration....and that there is no Piedmont, Utah.

The beauty of Blair Witch was that it never pretended NOT to be a movie. The only question was if it was a documentary or fiction - a most plausible question. I have no idea what Piedmont will be - a television series, a movie. Whatever. The story line is shaping up as something I could totally into - I'm a X-Phile after all - but I'm so turned off by the terrible marketing and I have to believe that whatever this is, it's terrible.