Today we’d like to introduce you to Grady Craig.
Hi Grady, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Originally from Chester Springs, a farm town west of Philadelphia and east of Lancaster (the hub of Pennsylvania’s Amish Country), I entered the Hollywood finance and production community from an unusual route. Today, I’m the VP of Business Development & Operations at BondIt Media Capital and an Executive Producer at Buffalo 8 Productions. Both companies are located in Santa Monica, CA, and co-founded by the same partners.
Before venturing west, I worked in onsite demolition — pouring, shaping, and saw-cutting concrete. I operated loud and clunky, destructive machinery, jackhammers, and sawzalls, often spending lunch breaks learning and trading English and Spanish with those around me. On the weekends, I was managing a landscaping company that I started in middle school. It was the profits from this endeavor that afforded me the opportunity to transfer into a private high school and eventually attend my alma mater: Boston College.
When I graduated from BC in 2018, I had dual degrees in Economics and Film Studies, a concentration in Entrepreneurship, but no job. I had been managing my Pennsylvania-based landscaping business from Massachusetts for four years and felt confident I could support a three-month move across the country. My mission was to discover if film and television, the curious itch I never scratched, was my true vocation, and if, during the time I was away, I realized entertainment was not for me, I’d move back to the east coast and fall back on the Economics degree.
Fast forward: I’m living in a three-bedroom with seven people, in a room so small I had to walk into the living room to pop my arms through their sleeves just to put a shirt on. My internship at Buffalo 8 was unpaid, but it was providing a fast-tracked education on entertainment across its numerous divisions: talent management, public relations and marketing, production, payroll, post-production, development, distribution, and finance. It was the media finance side of the organization, made available through Buffalo 8’s sister company, BondIt Media Capital, where I found my interests and education aligning.
By the end of that summer, BondIt Media Capital offered me a position as their first employee. I quickly realized that I had to sell my landscaping business (a decade in the making) to give this opportunity my full attention.
In the three-and-a-half years, I’ve worked at BondIt, I’m proud to say I’ve supported over 300 film and television fundings and over $200M of deployed capital. Together with Buffalo 8, we’ve financed and produced a number of major film productions starring John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, Megan Fox, Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Robert De Niro, Liam Neeson, and many more. I’m responsible for sourcing high-quality projects, investment structuring and analysis, business development, and supporting the companies’ operations. I also develop, package, and pitch a number of original feature films and episodic series on my Executive Producing slate and continue to leverage my passion for filmmaking with an entrepreneurial grit in order to excel in my profession. During my time at BondIt Media Capital and Buffalo 8, I’ve had the privilege of speaking at events across the globe, from The American Film Market to the Cannes Film Festival. I love what I do and feel blessed to have the opportunity to work alongside this industry-leading team.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Days were long growing up. In the frigid winters, I’d come home shivering and sopping wet; in the summers I’d return head-to-toe, green as a ghillie suit of grass debris. On my first day in demolition, suspended above a steel catwalk in a decrepit factory, I nearly severed the hand that was anchoring my partner and me in place. Working in harsh conditions made me appreciate the education I was getting at school while late nights in the library made me appreciate the opportunities I was afforded when I graduated.
Hardships elicit profound gratitude once they’re overcome. That’s why I was undaunted by the majority of “no’s” I’d get from knocking door-to-door. It was the few “yes’s” that was enough to get started as a budding, blue-collar entrepreneur with a hankering for financial independence.
That drive continues to burn today, and even though I’m in a completely different industry than where I started, I’m still knocking on doors to find the next opportunity, the next partnership to explore, and the next feature film to greenlight.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Buffalo 8 & BondIt Media Capital?
The BondIt Family of Companies has an entrepreneurial culture fused with a love of storytelling, the creative arts, and delivering original content. We’re a full-service film and media organization focused on development, production, payroll, post-production, distribution, and finance, with many of our films have premiered and received awards at Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Tribeca, and SXSW.
Buffalo 8 Productions was founded in 2010 by college friends Matthew Helderman and Luke Taylor. A few years later, they launched BondIt Media Capital in 2013 as their financing wing and eventually acquired ABS Payroll (a 30-year-old firm) in 2018.
As the VP of Business Development & Operations, my day across the companies mainly consists of actively managing BondIt-financed projects, analyzing risk, as well as overseeing much of our cross-divisional workflow and strategic third-party partnerships. On the Buffalo 8 Production side, I serve as an Executive Producer to develop, package, pitch, and capital structure new film and episodic series opportunities for greenlight.
Buffalo 8 and BondIt Media Capital have supported numerous well-known films including Midway, The Stanford Prison Experiment, BlacKkKlansman, Sharknado, Loving Vincent, The Invitation, and so much more.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
During my teenage years, I learned the value of hard work, rejection, and relationships. Do what you can with what you’ve got. Push through the resistance to find reward. Put on a friendly face and cultivate friendships at every level. Those lessons continue to pave stepping stones to my success today. Only now, I’m trying to improve my attention to rest and relaxation — don’t burn out before you get where you want to go!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9967018/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gradyac/?hl=en
- Other: https://bondit.us/
