This document provides an analysis of the trailer for Pulp Fiction, summarizing its narrative structure, characters, cinematography, editing, and sound design. The trailer is divided into three parts that introduce different storylines and increase in pace, matched by changing music. It features iconic shots and costumes that helped define the characters. Fast cuts and title cards are used to build suspense and highlight the film's awards. Different songs correspond to the tempo of each storyline presented in the nonlinear trailer.

1. TRAILER
ANALYSIS
GENRE – Crime
Fiction/
Thriller/
Indie/Drama
PULP
FICTION

2. NARRATIVE CHARACTER TYPES
Protagonists/AntiHero’s –
Vincent Vega and Jules
Winfield
Butch Coolidge –
Protagonist
Marsellus Wallace –
The Dispatcher
Mia Wallace – The
Princess

3. NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
•
Part 1: Equilibrium, trailer lists all the titles that the film
has won e.g. ‘Best picture of the Cannes film festival’, a
relaxing music accompaniment is played along side of
this. All is then disrupted when loud gunshots shoot
through the titles and a fast paced iconic song kicks in, to
match this pace, every clip is shown for a few seconds
and then cut, I think this is representing the pace of the
film. Later on in this part, the music changes to an off
beat, slow-paced song where multiple narrative plots
begin to be explained.
•
Part 2: The equilibrium is then disrupted when we see 2
of the main characters shooting towards the screen as it
flashes, I think this was done to show a clear division
between each act, Tarantino clearly wanted this to be a
significant part in the trailer. A funkier, faster song then
bursts in and the action begins in sync, the cuts then
gradually build up whilst the music does.
•
Part 3: The music cuts out again (this happens frequently
during the trailer so that we can hear the dialogue
clearly) and then the song that was played in the intro
comes on, the actors are introduced visually and verbally,
as the trailer comes to a close we see the iconic shot of
Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta firing their guns.

4. CAMERA AND MISE EN SCENE
•
Throughout the trailer there is a large
range of postmodern shots used e.g. the
shot on the left has been filmed from
inside the boot of the car, this makes the
characters look very intimidating and
makes the viewer feel as if they are in the
boot. I have noticed that this shot is a
signature shot from Tarantino’s films
because he used it in almost every one.
•
Tarantino paid a lot of attention to
costumes, props and décor in this film, as
you can see all the characters had a very
bold costume on that helped you
remember them, the costumes that these
characters wore are now very iconic and
well-known e.g. Jules Winfield and Vince
Vegas black and white suits.
•
On the left they feature a shot in some
sort of celebrity look-alike café, where we
see a Marilyn Monroe clone rein acting a
famous photograph of her dress blowing
up.

5. EDITING AND SOUND
•
The editing in this trailer is all done very fast, they use
cuts edits between each clip to match the speed of the
film and also to keep the suspense throughout the trailer.
•
A lot of title cards were used in this trailer e.g. at the
beginning rolling credits were used to promote the
awards that the film won and was nominated for. Whilst
these were being shown, a narrator was reading them
out, I think this was done to bring more attention to them.
•
When these titles stop, suddenly bullet holes burst
through the text signifying the genre of the film – CRIME
•
The red titles represent the blood and gore that will be
shown in the film.
•
In this trailer a lot of different songs are played, I think
each song is played along side each separate narrative,
each song is specialised to the pace of the storylines.