The editing style of Guy Ritchie

Guy Ritchie was an iconic figure in the music and film industry in the 1990s and onwards. In 1995, Ritchie got a job as a runner and this proved to be the start of his film career. He quickly progressed and was directing music promos for bands and commercials by 1995. The profits that he made from directing these promos was invested into writing and making the film, The Hard Case (1995), which is a twenty minute short film that is also the prequel to his debut feature Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998).

Guy Ritchie is a very good filmmaker, some would call him the first of the MTV music video turned feature film directors. Although, MTV music videos tell a story with its fast cut editing style than actual cinematic shots, and Ritchie's films are nothing like that. Yes, he does use quick shot to shot editing techniques to set up a situation and/or scene, but when he gets into the nuts and bolts of a conflict in his films, Ritchie almost always keeps the shot going without any cuts.

In fact, I would consider Ritchie a landmark filmmaker. This is a man who understands the camera and it's lenses, film stocks and camera toys and he uses them with such style while he tells his plot heavy and multi-character stories with a modern musical soundtrack to carry the emotional beats of its story.

I watched the film RocknRolla directed by Guy Ritchie to really get a feel of his style. I also viewed this interview where Ritchie talks about RocknRolla and other films he has directed.



A typical Ritchie scene works like this:

- a seamless transition from the past scene to the new scene by dollying the camera and giving us something different while also keeping the same art direction style intact.

- first focus on the person and/or prop that is the focal point of the scene.

- cut to the antagonist of the scene. The person and/or thing that will get in the way and set up the overall conflict.

- cut back to the first focus as the camera moves inward, outward or side-to-side to give us the overall master shot and whereabouts of the location.

- same shot as we move towards the main conflicting situation with the character.

- same shot as we move back as the situation resolves.

- camera dollies to next scene.