Nash’s insights:
— Focus on your root strength. What is the one thing people say about you?
— Pay attention. Sometimes if you just shut up you will learn a lot that will help you.
— Being in awe of the star power is not going to get you anywhere. Stars just need you to care about them and help.
— To grow a business in the movies, you need to build and nurture real relationships.
— Join local movie industry associations to learn what’s available.
— Volunteer as a production assistant, doing whatever is needed. If you are good, it could grow into a paying gig and a way to learn other job and business options.
— Start small. Make sure you love it before digging yourself into big debt.
Making oodles of dollars is just one sign of entrepreneurial success. That’s not the measure for Denise Nash, a 47-year-old who struggled after being laid off from a management job and fell into bankruptcy. Her success has been building a business she would have never predicted, making enough money to show her kids she could get back on her feet and finding a career she loves. Hanging with Hollywood stars is just an extra perk.
Nash’s Sandy Springs-based Southeast Craft Services isn’t big. Her profit is about what a mid-career school teacher makes. The venture is tied solely to her own sweat and smarts: she’s the only full-time employee. But she’s growing the business, which serves food throughout the day — and often night — on production sets. She counts about 20 movies, pilots and TV series she’s worked on.
I grew up singing and acting. Friends I grew up with, they are in the movies or they are producing movies or they are directing movies. I graduated from Parkview High School. I sang and went on the road with a band. I was locally successful. I didn’t have the guts to take it any further. I wasn’t up for the competition.
She found it hard to get another management job in 2010 after being laid off from a company that picked up clothing donations for a non-profit. With a son in college and bankrupt from medical debts tied to an earlier divorce, she and her teenage daughter lived in a one-bedroom apartment. Nash slept on the couch. She worked a series of odd jobs: from babysitting and working in a sandwich shop to serving in focus groups.
I couldn’t figure out what to do. I had a friend that was producing and directing (his first) feature film in Savannah. He knew I needed work. He called me and said, “I just need you there. I need your energy there. What can you do?” I said, “Well raising kids, I can do anything with food.”
It was a really fast learning thing. I read as much as I could. You can go online to other craft services in L.A. and try to figure out what they had.
Caterers, sometimes those brought in by Nash, typically provide breakfast and lunch for the cast and crew. Nash handles any other snacks, drinks and meals needed on set for people who are largely stuck there, often sitting behind a camera.
I was thrown to the wolves. We had 300 people some days. I thought I was going to have little snacks for them. I didn’t think I was going to be a vital part of anything. I had no idea that it was really feeding them all day. If they are vegetarian and pescatarian. If they are on this diet. (On that first movie) it was really hot and there were sand gnats. We were in the mud sometimes and in the middle of the woods. When you are with people for 30 to 45 days, for 12-plus hours a day, you become a family. Those are friends you keep.
I thought it was a one-time gig and then the phone started ringing. The connections I made in the very beginning have followed me and allowed me to keep going. I did a film in L.A. and that came from the second assistant director on (the first film). And then a makeup artist would call and say, “I’ve got this film you might want to put in for.” I’m not really selling a business; I’m selling myself. In the beginning they thought of me because I was able to create something out of nothing because the (first film’s) budget was really low. That’s where the single-mom syndrome came in. I did things really cost effective and came in under budget. I thought that was expected. But I came to find out that on most films all the other departments are over budget.
Early in the business, she took her daughter out of high school and home schooled her from movie sets. Her daughter, who has singing and acting credits of her own, is about to graduate from high school and go on to college.
Every film there is something crazy because you are in crazy locations. I did one film in a mansion surrounded by woods. We had a wrangler on set because we had snakes and all kinds of stuff that he had to handle. Every one of us got stung by bees. You don’t know where you are going to be when you sign up for this. If it is really, really cold, the food freezes. Or taking towels and ripping them up and soaking them in ice water for the crew to put around their necks because it is 105 degrees and they are holding metal.
You set up your whole spill — two large 10-foot tables full of food and three or four coolers full of different kinds of drinks and the ice to deal with and if it is hot or cold or whatever the problems are. But you might be at this location for only three hours, so you have to load it all back up, go to the next location, set it all back up. Then they say they have one more shot at this other location, so you have to do it all again. It is back breaking. People don’t see that. People are like, “Oh, who did you meet this week? Samuel L Jackson?”
“Yeah, I talked to him. But my back is killing me.”
No day is typical.
Most of the time I have an average of 100 people, that’s cast and crew, that basically need mama on set. That’s what I am. They have to be fed, according to the union, every six hours from the start. There are times when I might have an hour to come up with (a full meal) for 100 people. It could be 2 in the morning. I have gone out to the community, usually to a mom-and-pop restaurant, and said this might be happening, are you interested? If I don’t get it, it costs thousands of dollars in penalties to the production company. I love the challenge.
You are feeding the skinny little girls their hummus and grapes, and you’re feeding the big old guys their oatmeal pies and Slim Jims. I love the creativity. Doing mom kind of things. I bag grapes every morning. (At other movie sets) the gaffer that just touched a cord on the ground in the mud comes and grabs grapes off the table and the talent comes and grabs grapes, too, and it is so nasty. So everything I have on my table is individually bagged. They are so excited that nobody is touching their food.
Not all Hollywood needs are easy to fill.
When the crew is moving everything, actors are standing around. They come to me for food and hang around where I am. I get to know them very well. I’m like the bartender: they tell you stuff. The stars are just a little perk. 99.9 percent of the time they are everything I hoped them to be.
There were some bad experiences. You figure out who the divas are. You figure out I can let this go and I can go ahead and take care of them. A particular star is on a particular diet that has weird stuff like hemp milk. That’s expensive, and it takes away from your budget of your regular stuff. One needed wine in order to get through a kissing scene at three o clock in the morning. We happened to be in an area that had a lot of bars but they were closed. I went and banged on windows. I told them the particular person that they were helping out. They gave me a bottle.
Nash needs confidence before her next business move.
I’m not getting hired on big six-month shows because I don’t have a food truck, and I don’t have a mobile kitchen (which would cost $35,000 used). The way people make it lucrative is they have people that work with them and they have three or four gigs going on at one time. I don’t want to go into debt on my own. I wish I was confident enough in my business knowledge to take that step.
But what she has already gives her freedom.
I’m in control. It is my thing. I love the creativity.
