Meet Ryan Ward & Mackenzie Leigh | Film Writer/Director & Producer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ryan Ward & Mackenzie Leigh and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ryan & Mackenzie, what do you attribute your success to?
We would say the most important factor behind our success is creating a collaborative professional environment and being fun to work with.

We are a husband and wife team who run a film production company called Memory Pill and split our time between Manitoba, Canada and Los Angeles. We have worked together for the past 10 years with Ryan as Writer/Director and Mackenzie as Producer.

Our work primarily focuses on original, narrative features and shorts that are often inspired by our own personal experiences. However, our portfolio is rapidly expanding and we are now branching out into documentary, as well as producing films for other artists we admire.

Our debut feature film, SON OF THE SUNSHINE (Slamdance) was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award (Canadian Oscar). It was called “a gem of filmmaking genius” (National Post) and “a mature, immediately involving story” (Indiewire). Some of our other credits include IN THE BEGINNING WAS WATER AND SKY (PBS), AMERIKA (Berlinale JETS Initiative), and TIME TRAVELING THROUGH TIME (Tallinn Black Nights).

In 2017, Mackenzie won the U.S. INPUT Producer’s Award. The national producing fellowship supported the presentation of one of our films at a conference in Greece for over a thousand public television executives where we won Best Film. Mackenzie is also a fellow of the Hot Docs Accelerator Program, Telefilm’s Producers Without Borders at the Berlinale, and Women in Film (WIF) LA’s Producing Program where she was mentored by Michelle Raimo Kouyate (SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK) and Laura Caulfield (THE WOLF OF WALL STREET).

As an actor, Ryan originated the lead role of Ash in the Broadway show, EVIL DEAD THE MUSICAL (Just for Laughs, Original Cast Album) that MTV called “the greatest musical phenomenon on the planet” and for which he received a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination (Canadian Tony). He also starred in ABOUT FACE (Tribeca) and WE ATE THE CHILDREN LAST (TIFF). He also teaches hybrid screenwriting courses at UCLA.

Our production company, Memory Pill, is currently in post-production on a new feature film that we shot in Manitoba last summer. It was chosen to be part of The Gotham’s 2022 FIRST LOOK USA program, a sales initiative that presents promising new films to LA and New York buyers.

We are also in pre-production on a new feature film that shoots in California this spring and have been financed for the development of two new features that will shoot in Manitoba, one of which is Mackenzie’s directorial debut. So, yeah. Things are super busy and we force ourselves to take a day off every few weeks!

I guess ultimately success for us, as both creative artists and as employers who answer to financiers, means that above all else we prioritize being great to work with. For us this means loving collaboration with other artists and providing a nurturing environment where the best, most interesting ideas can thrive. It means being reliable and putting in the work with a smile and positive attitude.

This is basically summed up in what Mackenzie calls our “strict no-assholes policy”.

Often, we both look back over our careers and realize that the most gifted and experienced people we have worked with have also been the kindest. And it’s probably no coincidence when you think about it.

Filmmaking is hard. It is militant. The conditions are not always comfortable. On set you are often cold or wet or tired, or a combination of all three. But being able to laugh and joke while getting the work done makes the whole experience so much more enjoyable, and sometimes even transcendent!

We have a number of colleagues who continue working with us from project to project and we are always meeting new people we want to partner with on future projects. In this way, our success continues through word-of-mouth and positive experiences that cultivate long-term professional relationships

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?

We are so fortunate to be at the point in our careers where we are able to make a living from our own original films. We really work hard to make art that we believe in, which is not always the easiest road to take, but is certainly the most rewarding!

Recently, we realized that there is some sort of powerful alchemy that happens when the two of us come together. It is something palpable we have felt from the moment we started collaborating. Our combined energies and personalities bring an intensity and immediacy to our work, an obsession and artistry that amplify the quality of the projects we create. Not only do we have complementary visions, but we are always willing to sacrifice to make our dream a reality, so in this way we make each other stronger.

One of Ryan’s favorite quotes is from Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict (1982) where Paul Newman, playing a down-and-out lawyer who has taken on a big case that seems impossible to win, repeats the mantra, “There are no other cases. This is the case.”

We say this often and it is how we have come to approach each and every project we create. “There are no other movies. This is the movie.” We treat every film as equally important and necessary and this is ultimately the fuel that keeps us going.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
When our friends visit LA, we always recommend some of our favorites:

RESTAURANTS—Meals by Genet for Ethiopian; Masa Bakery for deep dish pizza (no corkage fee)
ACTIVITIES—Biking down the Ballona Creek Bike Path reservoir through Marina Del Rey to the ocean boardwalk; taking a picnic lunch to the Getty
ENTERTAINMENT—The Fonda for concerts; Jeffrey Deitch for off-the-beaten-path art; the Last Bookstore and Skylight Books for books, movies, records, and souvenirs; Los Feliz Theater for an intimate indie movie house (Natalie Portman sat a few rows ahead of us the last time we went)
DAY TRIPS—Salton Sea for abandoned beach art (great documentary about the area called Bombay Beach by Alma Har’el); Death Valley for salt flats and sand dunes (camp under the stars and propose to someone); Scary Dairy for spooky graffiti in an abandoned mental hospital; Retro Row in Long Beach for brunch and thrifting
BUSINESS MEETINGS—Poolside at the Viceroy Santa Monica; overlooking DTLA at Perch Rooftop Bar

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Shoutout all of the directors who inspire us like John Schlesinger, Andrea Arnold, Jean-Marc Vallée, Todd Field, Chloé Zhao, Vincent Gallo, Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy, as well as musicians, visual artists, and weirdo icons like Pipilotti Rist, Alice Coltrane, Doug Aitken, Michel Legrand, and Jessica Pratt.

Website: www.memorypillfilms.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/memorypillfilms

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/mackenzieleighw

Twitter: www.twitter.com/memorypillfilms

Facebook: www.facebook.com/memorypillfilms

Youtube: www.vimeo.com/memorypillfilms

Image Credits
Photos courtesy of Cheryl Koss