Promotion for 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'

Promotion for 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'

Website:

The ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ website is set out  in the style of a family  tree with everything linking to a scull and cross bones shape, suggesting  mystery elements to the films narrative with the scull connoting death and danger  linking with the film’s thriller genre.  The particular scull and cross bones at the head of this website is not traditional with lightning bolts taking the place of bones  hinting to a possible subversion of the audiences expectations and introducing modern and unexpected elements to the audience.

The websites colour palette consists of a lot of dark and muted colours, adding to the dark and brooding feel of the site and linking to the  crime/mystery genre of the film.  Backgrounds are predominantly black with  light grey writing on top allowing it to fit smoothly with the gloomy tone of the site instead of standing out as it would if it was white.  Text is also written in capitals in a font resembling that of a typewriter, this links to the crime nature of the film as this style of font is often connected  to police documents.

The ‘Girl with a Dragon Tattoo’ website contains  different pages for  the film’s characters, cast, filmmakers and story .  Giving the audience a taste for what the film will be like, allowing them to use their communal knowledge of actors and filmmakers to judge whether or not they wish to see the film and telling the audience what to expect through the plot summary and character descriptions.  Within these pages the character profile photos are also frames to resemble mugshots, reminding audiences of the film’s crime genre and subverting audience expectations as even the clear protagonist (who is often expected to be the good guy) is made out to be a criminal.

One of the website’s biggest features is it’s gallery which contains a series of stills from the film displayed in a collage formation allowing the audience to scroll along as they wish.  Among these stills are an autopsy report, suggesting murder may play a key role in the film’s narrative,  pictures of young people with Mohicans and tattoos , showing the audience the role of underground youth culture within the film and presenting them with the issues of an ‘outsider’, and a list  names accompanied by numbers e.g. ‘Sana 32109’, implying the presence of prisons, or some other form of institution within the film.

Posters:

Poster 1:

The first ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ poster  is coloured in black and white, making it appear very visually dynamic as well as establishing the dark nature of the film.  The background of the poster at first appears to show a blank white background but actually shows a remote, grand house.  The grandeur of the house could be seen to indicate to audiences the involvement of organised crime within the film due to  its link to wealth.  The house is also presented  as  highly isolated, with nothing visible around apart from trees , this  indicates to the audience possible dangers within the film with isolated locations often being indicatory of the horror and thriller genres. 

This poster only contains two characters clearly showing them to be the protagonists.  The male character is staring directly into the camera, setting him up to to be the main focus of the film,  and is  fairly smartly dressed in a scarf and coat suggesting he is a serious  and authoritative character.  The female character is placed behind the male and facing to the side making her appear secondary to him, like a side-kick.  In contrast to the male character the female is not presented to be particularly smart with her hair styled in spikes marking the film’s links to underground youth culture.

The Poster’s font can been seen to reflect the film’s  genre with the spiked letters connoting danger , suggesting  the films thriller/crime genre to the audience.

Poster 2:

The second ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ poster is again coloured in black and white  seemingly having a vertical divide of dark and light down the middle with the upper right corner being particularly dark.  This divide can be seen to be a battle between good and evil within the film or could be seen to present faulted characters as both appear in a mixture of dark and light tones (the darkly clothed man in the light half of the poster and the much lighter female in the dark.

On this poste the female is presented to be topless making her appear vulnerable, especially in comparison to the fully clothed male, however she does not appear at all scared contrasting the audiences expectations, instead she seems in control and slightly  angry making her look dangerous and potentially threatening.  In spite of this the male character does have his arm around her body gripping to her  in an  action which appears to restrict her movement, enforcing her position as submissive.

This second poster again used spiked font to present it’s genre but  also has huge block font in the middle of the poster indicating the films release date.  This not only gives potential audiences vital information about the film, but the partially filled colour of the text gives a sense of setting highlighting the underground culture of the film.

Trailer:

The trailer for ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ is accompanied by a deep, almost beating, score which works to set the pace of the trailer.  This pace increases through the course of the trailer as the drum beats grow faster and the sound of a piano is introduced (at the same time as the crime based plot line, at the 45 second mark).  As the tempo if the music increases so too does the editing for the first 45 seconds of the trailer the editing fades to a black screen between cuts slowing the pace of this section, this is then dropped for straight cuts with scenes becoming gradually faster through the course of the trailer (excluding a slight relax as the two protagonists meet ), eventually leading the a high speed montage ending around 15 seconds from the end of the trailer, dramatically slowing the pace with two fairly long duration shots.  This gradual increase in the  pacing of the trailer help to build suspense within the audience giving them a sense of the crime/mystery genre of the film and capturing their attention making them want to watch the film.

The colour palette for the trailer consists of the contrasting tones of light and dark, using black, white/grey and yellow colours throughout.  This gives a dark feel to the trailer intriguing the audience and reflecting the crime/mystery genre.  Mise-en-scene is also used in the trailer to build suspense and interest within the audience, the third scene of the trailer is off a woman with spiked hair, piercings and leather clothes walking through a traditional office area, full of smartly dressed workers, subverting the audiences expectations and capturing their attention.  The trailer also contains a long shot of the protagonist looking at a wall of evidence with him standing in the foreground and the wall looming over him overbearingly in the background, this gives the audience a sense of his overwhelmed by the case and gains interest in it’s potential complexity.  The trailer also uses signs and signifiers in order to portray the films genre with fancy cars and smartly dressed men being synonymous with the crime genre and the inclusion of Daniel Craig, famous for his role as spy ‘James Bond’, making his role as an inspector immediately clear to the audience.