Hollywood is a place and an industry
Public references describe Hollywood, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, as widely recognized as the center of the U.S. film industry, and the word is also used as shorthand for American commercial cinema. Around that center sits a web of small businesses that most people never see on screen: equipment rental houses, grip and lighting companies, catering trucks, location scouts, post-production shops, prop makers, drivers and independent crew.
Most of those companies are not studios. They are vendors who sell services to productions, and they are paid on the production's schedule.
The net-30, net-60 problem
A production often pays its vendors thirty or sixty days after an invoice, and sometimes longer. During those weeks the vendor still has to pay its own crew, rent its own space, maintain its own equipment and feed its own fuel tank. The bigger the production, the bigger the invoice, and the longer the vendor funds someone else's film.
| Vendor type | Biggest cash pressure |
|---|---|
| Equipment rental | Fleet and maintenance costs ahead of payment |
| Catering and craft services | Food and labor bought daily |
| Post-production | Staff and software during long edit weeks |
| Independent crew and drivers | Living costs while waiting for payment |
A job-sized example
For illustration only, and not our terms: a lighting and grip company supplies a ten-day shoot. It pays its crew weekly, buys consumables, and covers fuel for its trucks. The production's invoice terms are net 45. By the time payment arrives, the vendor has covered nearly two months of cost and may already be working on the next job. If two productions run back-to-back, the vendor's unpaid receivables stack up while the bank balance falls.
Feast and famine
Production work is project-based. Busy stretches can be followed by quiet ones when a show wraps or a pilot is not picked up. Vendors who can bridge a quiet month can retain their crews and be ready when the next call comes. Those who cannot lose experienced people to other shops.
Working capital is not a substitute for a steady client list, but it can keep a good vendor in business between jobs.
Applying
The application takes about five minutes. You provide roughly three months of business bank statements, and we use a soft credit pull with no tax returns required. FICO 500 and above is considered. Funding runs from $25,000 to $5,000,000 and may arrive in as little as 24 hours. Sole proprietors, including freelance crew who operate as businesses, can apply. Start here.