Ale and Amiability: Rich and Ringan in SHOTS
Many thanks for this great feature from SHOTS about Rich and Ringan’s long and prosperous partnership!
Things rarely get
tense between
director Ringan
Ledwidge and editor Rich Orrick, who have enjoyed 17 years of sharing beers, “talking bollocks” and making great commerials together, for clients such as Sainsbury’s, Lynx, Hovis, Stella and The Guardian. Full of trust, admiration and an unspoken understanding of tone, it’s a beautiful friendship from which beautiful work has flowed. But what if things do get a bit stressy in the editing suite, asks Iain Blair? Easy – they just go for a little beer break.
A long-time relationship between a director and an editor is eerily similar to that of an old married couple – at least the ones still talking to each other – who effortlessly finish each other’s sentences and thoughts, and are perfectly happy sitting alone together for hours in a darkened room staring at a screen.
Top commercials director Ringan Ledwidge and acclaimed editor Rich Orrick are just such a couple, although instead of watching TV ads they spend most of their time making them – apart from the occasional beer break to let off some steam during a long edit session. And over the best part of nearly two decades, those sessions have produced hugely popular commercials for such high profile clients as Lynx, adidas, Nike, Sainsbury’s, Britvic, Hovis, John Lewis, Puma, Axe and The Guardian, along the way picking
up awards at D&AD, British Arrows and Cannes, including a coveted Grand Prix at the last.
Ledwidge, who graduated from London’s Ravensbourne School of Design and then worked as a photojournalist in the Middle East, first teamed up with Orrick in 1999 when they worked on a low-budget promo for Supercharger’s We Rock. “I’d just started directing,” says Ledwidge, “and it was a lot of running around in East London and the City, being chased by police, while I was trying to film a tall, lanky man in a green suit jumping up and down – it probably sounds a bit silly and ridiculous. But Rich brought something great to it, using split screens and freeze-framing and moving stuff around. It just worked.”
Apart from being artistically simpatico right from the start, the other key ingredient to their budding friendship and collaboration was “a mutual love of beer,” recalls Ledwidge, who co-founded Rattling Stick in 2006. “That definitely helped in terms of bonding. We were also both at the very start of our careers and we just got on really well – like instantly. And now I feel I’ve known him my entire life, and I can’t imagine not working with him.”
Orrick started editing in 1995 at NWH in Soho, and set up the boutique editing company Work, alongside award winning editors Bill Smedley, Neil Smith and EP Jane Dilworth. He’s been cutting for Ledwidge for 17 years now. “He’s cut 95 per cent of what I’ve shot during that time,” notes Ledwidge. “I can’t get hold of him for the other five per cent as he’s so famous and busy now.”
Their long partnership actually improves their efficiency: “It just seems like we’re always on the same page,” says Orrick. “And the more we work together, the more shorthand everything becomes. It’s like second nature now to get a cut together from where we can really start working and trying things out. So it makes the whole process a lot simpler in a way – despite the fact that the jobs get trickier and bigger all the time – and that allows us the time to experiment and the freedom to play around with ideas a bit more.”
In a high-pressure industry where partnerships can crash and burn, Ledwidge and Orrick seem
to have created a pretty stress-free working environment. “First of all, we’re good friends and that developed very quickly and naturally,” says Ledwidge. “It’s never put any strain on our work
– we’ve got very similar tastes.” Orrick adds: “We’ve both got a very similar work ethic, too.
We can be mates and have a good laugh, but we also know not to cut any corners whatsoever. We both set as high a bar for ourselves as we can, so it’s not like either of us is hoping to scrape by on a job with the minimum effort. If anything, we try and push each other, in a healthy way.”
According to Ledwidge, the only time tension visits the edit suite is “when we’re both not satisfied with where the cut’s at. We feed off each other, and then it’s all about trying to make it as good as possible, and even if you’re fucking knackered and it’s been a 17-hour day, and you’ve had five of them in a row, we still have the appetite to keep going and push it even further. We’re both very meticulous in terms of detail and exploring every frame of the footage so we know it inside out and know what’s working and what’s not. And we know each other’s minds really well, and the friendship alleviates those moments where there’s a problem. There’s never any shouting and yelling. If it’s tense, we’ll take a break and go for a beer.”
He goes on to stress that, “from a director’s point of view, Rich is a brilliant editor, and a
great storyteller in his own right, and we both understand the tone of whatever it is we’re trying to make – and very quickly, without really having to talk about it. And a lot of the stuff we’ve done together is very different tonally, so there’s this understanding we both have that makes a lot of discussion unnecessary. And that’s a great relief for me, because as a director you end up spending your time talking way too much.”
“The whole tonal thing is kind of impossible to explain anyway,” Orrick states. “You either get it and you’re on the same page, or you don’t and you’re not.”
So what do the pair talk about in the edit suite as they work? “A lot of bollocks, obviously,” says Ledwidge. “We talk a lot of shit while we’re working. We talk a lot about football and sadly there might be talk of internet shopping and clothes. And of course we have a good moan every so often about work-related things – being English we have to moan. It’s part of our job, the great joy of moaning. And in amongst all that, we’re working and concentrating on the job, and then every
now and then we’ll dig deep into a scene and a moment, and we’re focused on thinking about it.”
“We’ll also try and explain, via influences, what the idea we’re aiming for is, and what the scene’s supposed to be about,” adds Orrick.
“The other great thing about Rich is that he’s not precious with what I’ve shot,” the director says. “He’s able to look at material very coldly.”
“That’s your strong point as well,” says Orrick. “It’s all about telling the story, and the very best version. So if a great shot doesn’t work or it’s superfluous, and even if it took him half a day
to get, he’ll just get rid of it. And he’s brilliant at being able to do that – to cut to the absolute heart of what’s required, nothing more.”
“Yeah, we don’t fall in love with shots because they’re beautiful or were hard to do,” agrees the director. “I think we’re always making sure that each shot moves the story forward, and that it isn’t excess and fat. There’s nothing worse than something outstaying its welcome, and I think Rich is really good at knowing – and this is largely unspoken between us – what should and shouldn’t be there. And if there’s an emotional thread to the story, he’ll find it and follow it all the way.”
As an example, he cites 1914, the 2014 Sainsbury’s World War 1 Christmas spot. “That moved through a lot of different emotions, from the feeling of friendship to fear and then warmth. He’s brilliant at bringing out each emotion in a very effective way,” he explains. “As a viewer, it moves you, but there’s nothing mawkish about it.” For Orrick, it’s a case of “bringing out the emotions in the actors, and it was done in such a subtle way. It feels effortless, which makes it easy for me when you’re given those kinds of performances.”
In addition to their similar tastes and work ethic it’s clear the duo also benefit from mutual trust and honesty. “That’s crucial,” notes Ledwidge. “We can be brutally honest with each other about whether scenes are working or not, and I think we know in our hearts if they are or not. Rich always nails exactly what I hope for – and then surpasses that. There’s no ego in the room, as we know the other person’s only trying to make the best cut possible. We have each other’s backs all the way. We’re not going to stitch each other up.”
That loyalty and willingness to fight for their shared vision is also vital, “especially when you have so many outside voices and opinions trying to knock you off course, whether it’s comments from the clients or the agency or whoever,” says Ledwidge “Trying to keep on track is always the hardest thing to do in this business. But I think we’re both good at filtering those comments.”
“You need to be able to read between the lines,” Orrick notes. “It’s sometimes not what they’re asking for, but you have to interpret it.”
“We’ll change anything if it’ll make the edit better,” Ledwidge sums up. “Whatever it takes.”
