To build anticipation for Showtime's highly anticipated literary mash-up Penny Dreadful, we created what our clients happily called a 'megasite'. It featured creepy interactive props, a dreadful (and shareable) romantic tarot reading and of course, Eva Green.
The robust site was a Cabinet of Dreadful Curiousities that familiarized fans with the characters, themes and period of the Showtime series. We had 3 major refreshes to the site to coincide with new trailers, each including a significantly deep interactive experience.
Major tentpoles included:
- an Interactive Map of 1890s London.
- a Dreadful Romantic Tarot Card reading experience
- Character Cinemagraphs shot and created exclusively for the site
- Poetry, o' so much poetry
- In-season updates and episode recaps
- an Interactive Map of 1890s London.
- a Dreadful Romantic Tarot Card reading experience
- Character Cinemagraphs shot and created exclusively for the site
- Poetry, o' so much poetry
- In-season updates and episode recaps
Badass design by Garrett Warren.
This interactive experience splattered the standard series location map with blood and slick design. Pinch and zoom capabilities, a slight z-axis, 3-D rendered locales, and within each pop-up of the character's home or lair, there are beautiful galleries, backstory and video.
(Boy, do I ever get to work with awesomely talented designers, ADs, motion graphics guys, devs and clients.)
To show the power of the Tarot and dark magic, we created this Penny Dreadful Tarot reading.
It was dark. Very dark. I wrote over 300 romantic fortunes for the Penny Dreadful Tarot deck - one for each of the Major Arcana in Past, Present & Future - while going through a break-up.
Each user would receive a dreadful romantic fate - or they could improve their fortunes by passing the dark energy onto another friend by creating .
Click to get your reading now. Or just dip your toes in the romantic darkness with the walkthrough below.
The reading begins innocently enough, but soon the dark forces will find you...
The first reading would deliver a random good fortune for your romantic future.
However, the dark forces would sense something dark within you - and they would reverse the Future card - and thus your fortune.
The dark forces found you - and your dark romantic fate is sealed. Or is it? What if you could pass the evil onto someone else's heart? Someone you knew well.
Seal Your Friend's Fate
A menu allowed you to use your knowledge of your friend's romantic life to customize their reading. You already know their Past & Present romantic stories, and the site helps you choose the appropriate card. Then you get to select a Dreadful romantic future for them.
The reading gets delivered as an innocuous, 'get your fortune' link to the unknowing victim - I mean friend. Who soon finds a reading that nails their past and present to establish accuracy - then uses that accuracy to predict that the future will be much, much bleaker.
Cinemagraphs
As fans scrolled through the site, these seemingly innocuous character portraits would prove not so innocent. Other than the trailers, these were the first images released to the public, helping set the tone for the series' characters.
In Season Updates
We created widgets to provide in-season updates, giving fans episode guides, previews and more good reasons to keep coming back to the megasite for more.
