They are famous for producing the cult classic independent horror film The Blair Witch Project.
The company was founded by five graduates of the University of Central Florida Film Program Eduardo Sánchez, Gregg Hale, Daniel Myrick, Robin Cowie and Michael Monello.
They discussed films that scared them in their childhood, such as Chariots of the Gods (1970) and The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972).
He similarly found that films such as The Exorcist (1973) and The Shining (1980) were terrifying, because they played on psychological fears.
He and Myrick felt that they could similarly play on their audience's psychological fears, while working with a minuscule budget.
[1] They came up with the idea of a pseudo-documentary horror film, because they found that "cheesy" documentaries about Bigfoot were scarier than regular motion pictures, as their documentary-style suggested that they were based on reality.
The co-directors liked the look of the film format, but came to realize that their main character Heather could reasonably own her own Hi-8 video camera.
A second one included a 1970s-documentary show called Mystic Occurrences, in imitation of In Search of.... A narrator character explained the history of the Blair Witch.
A third scene involved video footage of the police, discovering the film reels, Digital Audio Tapes (DAT), and Hi-8s left behind by the missing characters.
Following the third day of their stay in the woods, the film crew provided the actors with additional food.
[1] The directors edited out early scenes where an angry Heather Donahue was yelling at her two co-stars, and all three actors were "cussing at each other".
While these scenes fit in with the eventual mood of the characters, the actors were already angry and performing them too early.
The chosen actors were given background details on their characters, but were allowed to "bring their own personalities" when fleshing them.
[1] John Pierson was approached to help finance the film, and viewed a tape with early footage.
[1] The production company also produced the Fox TV series FreakyLinks, and the feature films Altered (2006), Seventh Moon (2008), and Lovely Molly (2012), along with Exists (2014).