Work was probably the last thing on Ringan Ledwidge’s mind during a recent night out at the movies. Yet as he sat in the darkened theater waiting for the previews to start, he got a super-sized reminder of his chosen profession. "Getting Dressed"—a Lynx spot out of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), London, that won a Gold Lion at this year’s Cannes International Advertising Festival—was being shown. "It’s out in cinemas now," he says. "And … there it was."
Many directors would consider it serendipitous—an opportunity to view one’s own commercial larger than life, on the big screen. But Ledwidge, who directed the ad via his London production company Small Family Business, didn’t feel that way. "I was like, ‘Oh god, I don’t really think I want to watch it again,’ " shares the director, who is repped stateside via Park Pictures, New York. "I’m kind of funny. I do the edit, and if it’s something I’m happy with, I enjoy watching it for about four or five days. After that, I tend not to look at it because all I can ever see are the mistakes."
Others, however, would be hard-pressed to find mistakes in Ledwidge’s work—particularly the seamless "Getting Dressed," which begins with a naked man and woman in bed together. The details of their Lynx cologne-instigated tryst are slowly revealed as the couple travels through the house, busy streets, alleys and vacant lots, retrieving discarded clothes. Finally, the lovers wind up where they began: a supermarket, where they go their separate ways and continue shopping.
Ledwidge was immediately drawn to the idea, which he visualized as a "fairytale kind of love story, but in an industrial setting." And, since he was brought in at a very early stage, he was able to play an active role in what turned out to be a highly collaborative pre-production. "Location, storyboards, even the actual vignettes themselves, weren’t set in stone," Ledwidge relates. "There was a script, with the idea of a couple waking up in bed together, and revealing that they began in a supermarket. Everything else was up for discussion, which was great."
After deciding to shoot the spot in Cape Town—"It’s one of those places that can look like a lot of different cities"—Ledwidge says he spent less than two weeks scouting locations. "We had a few specific places we needed—obviously the supermarket," he notes. "But otherwise, I just drove around with the location guy, taking photographs of anything that had the right sort of texture and feel."
During that time, he had frequent brainstorming sessions with BBH creatives, during which they hammered out the specifics of each vignette. "I do prefer to get on board as early as possible, and work quite closely with the creatives to look for that extra something—whatever it is that’s going to take it that step further," he remarks. "By the time I’m shooting, I’d like for all of us to be one hundred and ten percent convinced that we’re going about it the right way. I don’t want to be having conversations on the set about things that hadn’t been discussed before."
Some of Ledwidge’s other spots—such as Camry’s complex, action-packed "Car Chase," which he directed for Saatchi and Saatchi LA, Torrance, Calif., through his previous roost, the now defunct Harry Nash—have made for difficult shoots. "Car Chase" utilized multiple cameras of varying sizes, mounted on both moving and stationary vehicles. But "Getting Dressed," which only required two cameras, was a relatively simple undertaking. "We just went with choosing great locations, making sure the wardrobe and colors were right, and using natural light, with the odd reflector here and there," Ledwidge states. "It wasn’t stressful, so we had time to explore the subtleties of the actors’ performances, which was the thing I was really keen to get."
Indeed, natural, believable performances are what keep the ad’s humor from becoming too broad or obvious—something Ledwidge was aware of from the start. An admitted perfectionist, the director focuses intently on the needs of each disparate spot he takes on—whether it’s driven by acting, clever visuals, or a combination of both. "I’m not one of those directors that can hop out of one shoot and two days later be shooting something else," he relates. "I prefer to see the whole thing through and spend a bit of time making sure it’s as good as it can be."
New Deal
After graduating from London’s Ravensbourne School of Design, Ledwidge worked as a photojournalist in the Middle East before returning home to direct commercials and music videos. Throughout his spotmaking career, Ledwidge says, he’s been picky, only going out for projects "that I can put on my show reel," and trying to "make sure the next job I take is remarkably different from the previous job I’ve done, so I don’t get stuck in one place."
That desire for self-improvement led him to found Small Family Business at the end of last year. "If you’re somewhere for a long time, you can get a little stale, and I wanted to put a bit more pressure on myself," he explains. "Having your own company—knowing you’re representing your own name—gives you an extra edge."
At the beginning of this year, he entered into a reciprocal agreement with Park Pictures. While Park Pictures represents the British director for U.S. work, Small Family Business handles European assignments for the Park Pictures roster, which includes company partner and director/DP Lance Acord. From his first meeting with Acord, Ledwidge says, "we got on really well, and it seemed [Park Picture’s] philosophy fitted with ours. We didn’t want to tie each other down. We just thought it could be really great, and it has been, actually."
Though Ledwidge says his current ratio of European to U.S. work is "probably eighty-twenty at the moment," he’s hoping that will change. "I’ve seen a lot of good stuff coming out of [U.S. agencies], which I haven’t been able to do because I’ve been working on other things," says the director, who is currently in pre-production for a Nike campaign out of Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam. "Timing’s been a bit crappy for me. But in the not-too-distant future, I’m sure I’ll be shooting in the States again."
But only those spots that meet his very high standards. "As a director, you’re only as good as your last job, and if you make a couple of bad ones, you can be dropped pretty quickly," he observes. "I’m in it for the longevity rather than the short-term."Z
