Ledwidge was acknowledged for his meticulousness when it came to all features of craft. This kind of was on total exhibit in acclaimed spots such as The Guardian’s “Three Little Pigs,” a modern-working day choose on the traditional nursery tale developed with BBH London, and Puma’s “After Several hours Athlete,” via Droga5, which earned the Film Craft Grand Prix at Cannes.
Davud Karbassioun, president of Pulse Movies, had been a producer at BBH London on some of Ledwidge’s most memorable work, such as the “Three Minor Pigs” ad and places for Levi’s, Lynx and Barnardos. Karbassioun considered Ledwidge his “hero” and dear friend. He noted that even though the director was an obsessive craftsman and researcher, he “also had this incredibly rare potential and enthusiasm to get everyone psyched and on his aspect. Clientele, organizations, crew, artists, talent all respected and reliable him and ended up eager to leap into his eyesight with him.”
Matt Hunnicutt, former head of creation at Wieden+Kennedy, labored with Ledwidge on key spots for Nike this sort of as “The Switch” and “Winner Stays.” He much too saw in Ledwidge a pied piper who summoned all those all around him into his exhilarating innovative entire world, all whilst celebrating the talent they introduced to the get together.
“As a inventive associate, Ringan normally required you to experience the identical infectious joy of loving one thing just as deeply as he did,” Hunnicutt said. “That energy for elevating and empowering individuals was his magic. It’s what designed Ringan these a remarkable storyteller, lover and pal by way of the several years for us. He was uniquely interested in each and every particular person and what moved them in buy to comprehend a genuine emotion that would transcend.”
All, in the company of the information. “I opt for what I do purely on the plan,” he explained to Advertisement Age in 2014, when speaking about the bold, cinematic Sainsbury’s holiday centered on the Entire world War I 1914 Christmas truce.
And all around those people suggestions, he designed worlds that commanded viewers’ rapt interest. “There is an effortlessness to his visible storytelling,” stated Stuart Brown, a former Wieden+Kennedy group innovative director who had worked with Ledwidge on Nike. “Like with the finest creating you get so dropped in the tale that you never come to feel the writer, in his function you get utterly lost in the tales and you don’t come to feel the director or any manufacturing possibilities.”
Ledwidge’s techniques extended to songs videos, for the likes of Large Assault, as effectively as on characteristics with the 2006 horror thriller “Absent.” But his cinematic mastery was most palpable in his legacy of advertisement entire world assignments that entertained as substantially as they sent for the client.
“He in no way did a director’s cut—he never ever required to,” Karbassioun said. “He thought his obligation was to get the extremely ideal expression of the operate out to the real earth and would fight for what he believed in each action of the way, generally with the best intentions.”
In 2018, Ledwidge was awarded Director of the Yr at Advertisement Age’s Creativity Awards, subsequent an specifically standout operate of assignments that provided mesmerizing adverts these kinds of as an conclusion-of-times tale for Jose Cuervo from CPB L.A. and a fully out-of-the box shift for Audi, by using BBH London. Advertisement Age also considered the latter, “Clowns,” as 2017’s best ad of the year, for its artfulness as nicely as its inspired approach to showing off the item.
And while his advertisements worked tricky to do their position, Ledwidge “created promotion that did not look or come to feel like advertising—it transcended it,” Karbassioun additional. “So significantly can be realized from learning his entire body of function. It’s a welcome reflection of the real innovative chance in this mad marketplace as well as a reminder of why so many of us are drawn to it.”