Nick McCaffery- Crabtree films

Industry week kicked off today with a talk from Crabtree Films founder Nick McCaffery. He discussed what Crabtree Films do, how he came to creating his own business and the problems that can arise when trying to get films into cinemas and onto store shelves.

McCaffery started out working as a waiter in a hotel before moving on to promoting weddings for hotels. However, he started to sell records on the side to gain some extra money. He would buy cheap records and then advertise them in local magazines to gain a profit.

Through a contact, he met a man in Derby who wanted to start a record company that would stream live videos of bands and music onto the internet. He thought that, given his experience at selling records, this would be an opportunity to be involved in something he had a passion for. He then spent five years in London dealing with artists such as The Rolling Stones, Duran Duran, Jeff Beck and Queen who all wanted to begin to stream their new music to attract wider audiences. This led him onto the development of pay per view concerts.

In 2005, using his experience in the music promotion industry and knowledge of film, he decided to create a website that would give independent short films makers a platform to promote their work. After an unsuccessful attempt at organising a film festival at the Broadway cinema in Nottingham he attended the Cannes film festival and negotiated contacts of short film makers to release their work on dvd’s. This was a new venture separate from his website and so he launched it as Crabtree Films.
Crabtree now go all over the globe to many film festivals in search for independent films that they will help distribute to cinemas and retail. They look at each film and find a target audience before contacting cinemas, supermarkets and high street shops to screen and sell the DVDs. Their most recent film to distribute was Holy Rollers, about two orthodox Jewish friends who become ecstasy dealers with ties to an Israel Drug Cartel. It starred Justin Bartha from The Hangover and Jessie Eisenburg, who was about to be nominated for an Oscar for the film The Social Network. He revealed that there are always problems that can arise when attempting to put out a film and timing is everything.
One clear message from Nick’s experience is that you should never be afraid to try something new and any experience is an opportunity.

By Matthew Darbyshire, Level 3 student in Film and Television