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I was in doubt of August’s [the films of]. Originally it was going to be Cameron Crowe, but then I realized he had a new movie coming out in December and a trailer could hit any day now. In a larger sense he’d compliment Luhrmann in being a director who’s known to combine music with film. Unfortunately though, he has a fairly scarce amount of films and I think his latest, We Bought A Zoo, will determine the kind of filmmaker he is. I have a big chalkboard in front of me, scribbled from top to bottom with names you requested and directors I want to feature. One name that stood out was Guy Ritchie. A truly unique master of his genre we haven’t really seen before in [the films of], making him the perfect pick.

Before we begin, there’s two slightly different versions of the video. The first is the YouTube version, which is censored to accommodate the larger audience. The unrated version is on Vimeo. I can highly recommend watching that version is you can handle a bit of f*cks and bloodshed, because it’s the way I originally edited the video. There will be more info on the differences below.

The video opens with Hans Zimmer’s Discombobulate, which is from the Sherlock Holmes soundtrack. It goes really well with these super-slowmotion shots (one of Ritchie’s trademarks) but also has a real cheekiness to it, so almost predicting the mayhem to come.

I love Sherlock Holmes. It’s probably my favorite film of Ritchie. It just perfectly reinvents the character and I can’t want for the second one coming this Winter.

I had a bit of fun with the title. The last few frames of the Sherlock-shot, I zoom from 100% to 1000% and tilt the image about 5 degrees and then I made the title rotate in the same direction, so that it seems like you’re flying into it. I originally had gunmarks around the dots on top of the i’s, but that didn’t really work.

Difference numero uno. I’m not going to upload someone blowing his head off on YouTube so replaced it with this nice little dance by Brad Pitt in snatch. I also removed the shot of Bullet-tooth Tony wielding his knife with blood running out of his mouth.

I love this bit, you already hear the intro of Red Right Hand over the final bit of Discombobulate.

Anything to declare? - Yeah, don’t go to England.

I reversed the final note of Discombobulate for a comedic effect, you might not really notice it but without it the joke worked about half as good.

Difference dos.

This is the first time we see Rock’n’rolla for the simple reason that it’s shot in widescreen and I don’t want to hussle 16:9 and 2.35:1 up too much, because it can get really annoying.

This is Red Right Hand by Arctic Monkeys by the way. Originally by Nick Cave, covered on the B-Side of Crying Lightning (which was in Cinema 2009, actually).

At first I had a shot of One-Two (Gerard Butler’s character in Rock’n’Rolla) running on train tracks to fit the lyric Go across the tracks, but then I realized he was running ON them, not across them, and unfortunately my monkey brain couldn’t handle the confusion, so I replaced it with this great shot from Rock’n’Rolla.

I really liked this sequence in Revolver, I think the A Scanner Darkly-ish style is something Ritchie could incorporate more often in his films.

Frankie Four-Fingers, how do I begin to describe Frankie Four-Fingers? (I hear he does car commercials… IN JAPAN.) All jokes aside though I love this character but couldn’t find a proper spot for him, so I set him to the lyric A tall handsome man to do him some justice.

Bad weather, Mary fucking Poppins, London!

This is censored out on YouTube.

People ask the question, “What’s a RocknRolla?”

Rock’n’Roll Queen by The Subways is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Guy Ritchie. That tune perfectly displays the raw edge and bluntness of his films.

A real rock’n’rolla wants the fucking lot.

Two differences here: first is fucking censored out, second is this shot of this poor bastard getting shot to pieces in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I had it linked with a shot of blood spraying across someone’s face in Revolver but then I realized I just did that to have blood spray on someone’s face. And that’s not very nice.

One of my favorite characters ever, Tommy the Tit. This scene in snatch. is absolute legend.

I went for a snatch. kind of look on the titles with a slightly disalligned background.

How d.. wha.. ok let m…. let’s move on.

How to make a chess game look cool: hand Guy Ritchie the camera.

Did anyone notice them moving in the rythm of the song?

Very simple but cool effect here, I added another layer of footage over the title and color keyed the darker flames so that they would dissolve the title. Looks pretty cool I think.

Final differences here: some alternate shots of Johnny being the total rock’n’rolla he is.

And that concludes our lesson! I hope you guys forgive me for picking some personal favorites of mine over classic filmmakers like Scorsese. We’re heading into the final 4 episodes of the series now and I’ve definitely saved some of the best for last.

Here’s your hint: next month’s director made my favorite film of 2010. Happy guessing!