Why We Started

Why We Started

By Cat O' Nine Engineering

The film industry runs on solutions. Every department, every day, solving problems that nobody outside the industry would believe exist — and solving them fast, quietly, without anyone upstairs noticing that something nearly went wrong.

Camera and grip departments are particularly good at this. You learn early that the kit doesn't always do exactly what you need it to do, and that the gap between what exists and what would actually be useful is sometimes surprisingly wide. You learn to bodge, to adapt, to make do. And then, after enough years of making do, you start to wonder why nobody has just made the thing properly.

That's where Cat O' Nine Engineering came from.

The problem

I'm a working 1st AC and my partners are working Grips. I've been in the camera department long enough to have a long list of frustrations. Some of them are universal — the cinelock that rotates every time you tighten it, the cheese plate that strips faster than it should, the bracket that doesn't quite fit the thing it's supposed to fit. Some of them are specific — the rigging solution my grip partners and I kept reaching for that simply didn't exist in a form we were happy with.

That last one was the one that started everything.

We needed a proper rigging clamp. Not a compromise. Not an import from overseas with a three-week lead time and a customs bill on the other side of it. A precision-machined,, built-to-last rigging clamp that did exactly what it was supposed to do and kept doing it.

We looked. We couldn't find what we wanted without paying the earth. So we decided to make it ourselves.

The first attemp

I had some experience in design and 3D printing — enough to know what I wanted the part to look like and how it should function. I drew it up, got a prototype made through a third party, and learned my first lesson in manufacturing: prototyping costs are eye-watering when you don't know what you're doing.

I was naive about a lot of things at that stage. The cost of getting from idea to physical object. The gap between a prototype that looks right and a production part that actually performs under load. The difference between something that works in a controlled environment and something that works in February when everyone is wet, tired and the schedule has slipped.

But the prototype worked well enough to show us the direction. And more importantly, it showed us that the gap we'd identified was real — that there genuinely wasn't a UK-based maker producing this kind of precision grip and camera accessory at a quality level we were happy to put our names to.

What we built

The CAS Clamp range came first. Modular, fully interchangeable across 16mm, 19mm, 25mm, 32mm, and 48mm tube diameters, hard anodised in black, CNC-machined to tolerance. The kind of clamp that grips and camera teams can actually rely on day to day, in the conditions a British production actually involves — which is to say, often cold, occasionally wet, always fast.

The camera accessories followed. The cheese plates. The Holdfast. The Stiller. The Brolly Bracket. The Borg Cube. Each one started from the same place — a real problem, on a real set, that didn't have a solution we were satisfied with.

The philosophy hasn't changed: if we wouldn't trust it on a shooting day, we don't sell it.

Why UK-made matters

Post-Brexit, buying precision camera accessories from European suppliers means import duties, unpredictable shipping times, and the particular frustration of a customs hold arriving two days before prep. We've been on the receiving end of that. It's not a small inconvenience when you're trying to build a kit bag you can depend on.

Everything Cat O' Nine makes ships from Warrington. There are no import surprises. No six-week lead times. No duty bills landing with your order confirmation. Just kit, made properly, ready when you need it.

Where we are now

Cat O' Nine is still young. The range is growing, the products are improving, and we're still learning — about manufacturing, about running a business, about what our customers actually need from us. We're building this the same way we approach a camera prep: methodically, without shortcuts, with the understanding that the details matter because on a shooting day, the details are everything.

We started because we couldn't find what we needed. We're building what we wished existed.

If that sounds like something you've been looking for too, you're in the right place.

Cat O' Nine Engineering makes precision CNC-machined camera and grip accessories for working film and TV professionals. All products are hard anodised in black and built for daily use on set. Browse the full range at catonineengineering.co.uk.