From 'Barbie' to 'Bridgerton': Entertainment Partners is the Secret Sauce Behind Many of the Films & Shows You Love
As seen on MPA's The Credits.
For nearly five decades, Entertainment Partners (EP) has been the secret sauce behind the scenes of your favorite films, TV shows, and commercials, from Barbie to Bridgerton. Headquartered in Burbank, California, the company has revolutionized the way the entertainment industry manages payroll, accounting, and production finance, with a world-class team of experts specializing in a wide range of areas, including global tax incentives, labor compliance, residuals, and healthcare.
Their industry-standard digital platform featuring Movie Magic Budgeting and Scheduling, SmartAccounting, and SyncOnSet is the gold standard for studios big and small. Also part of the EP family is Central Casting, which dates back to 1925 and remains the largest and most trusted background actor service in the United States.
As a member of the California Production Coalition, we sat down with Entertainment Partners to get the inside scoop from Mark Goldstein, EP’s president and CEO.
For those unfamiliar with Entertainment Partners, how would you describe the company’s remit?
At its core, Entertainment Partners is a trusted production partner that’s been supporting the entertainment industry for nearly 50 years. We help productions of all sizes – from small indies to major studio blockbusters – bring stories to life. Whether it’s choosing the best location, forecasting costs, managing budgets, or making sure crew and talent are paid accurately and on time, we support the full production lifecycle. We also help studios make strategic decisions across multiple productions, providing the tools, insights, and expertise they need to plan, scale, and operate efficiently.
What has been the central stepping stone in the company’s growth?
Over the last five decades, Entertainment Partners has grown alongside the industry, constantly adapting and innovating to meet changing client needs. We started as a payroll services company, but quickly expanded into production accounting, residuals, and technology, creating the first integrated software and hosted services systems in the industry. As production became more complex, we broadened our offerings to support every phase of the process. Today, our ecosystem includes payroll, onboarding, timecards, payables, payments, production accounting, and document management. We also provide global-standard solutions for budgeting, scheduling, and script-to-screen document control, along with Emmy-award-winning SyncOnSet for on-set coordination.
Since you mentioned SyncOnSet, what type of productions can benefit from the service the most?
One of the most overlooked challenges in production is keeping track of creative details, such as costumes, props, hair, makeup, and set dressing, which must match from one scene to the next, even when shooting out of order. That’s where SyncOnSet comes in. It’s the first and only digital platform built specifically for those departments, supporting film and TV productions of all sizes. Creative departments use SyncOnSet from pre-production through wrap. It helps with script breakdown and budgeting early on, tracks continuity photos and notes in real time during the shoot, and generates reports that make wrap and archiving more efficient.
The industry is evolving much faster now. How has EP adjusted to new trends in the last three years?
The pace of change has been dramatic, and we’ve made it a priority not just to keep up, but to lead. We’ve reimagined our platforms to give production teams greater flexibility and control no matter where they’re shooting, and enhanced our casting technology to meet growing demands for speed, accuracy, and compliance. We’re delivering intelligence, not just technology. With our Insight Solutions, productions can make faster, smarter decisions on everything from budgeting and scheduling to compliance and labor costs. That visibility is a game changer, reducing risk while improving efficiency. We’re also actively investing in advanced technologies that can move the industry forward – building connected tools, scalable technology, and more intelligent insights that work across any size production, anywhere in the world.
EP has introduced SmartStart, SmartTime, and SmartPO. How has that helped users?
What we’ve done with our Production Finance Studio solutions is bring together all the core parts of production finance into a modern, connected system. These solutions take what used to be a paper-heavy, manual process and digitize it for production anywhere in the world. Because everything is integrated, teams aren’t wasting time chasing approvals or re-entering data. It speeds things up, reduces errors, and gives better visibility and control across departments.
For a producer or accountant just starting out, where is the best place to begin on the EP platform?
A great starting point is the EP Academy – our on-demand, online training hub designed for individuals new to the industry or transitioning into new roles. It covers fundamentals, workflows, and how production finance really operates, with walk-throughs of our most widely used tools and courses in production accounting. We also encourage professionals to join The Production Lot, our global online community for people working in production at all levels. It’s a great space to ask questions, exchange ideas, and connect with peers and mentors.
Central Casting is celebrating 100 years. What contributes to its success?
Central Casting’s success over the last century comes from evolving with the industry while staying focused on what they do best: delivering quality, reliability, and great service. It’s the original name in background casting, so iconic that it inspired the phrase “Straight Out of Central Casting.” Since the earliest days of film, Central Casting has made it faster and easier for productions to find, hire, and manage background actors, saving time and money. For background actors, it’s been a trusted gateway to finding work in Hollywood – many actors can trace their first gig back to Central Casting.
How has the EP Casting Portal improved workflow for clients?
EP’s Casting Portal has completely changed background casting. It’s the industry’s go-to platform for casting directors and agencies to find, book, manage, and pay all in one place. Things that used to take days, such as onboarding, approvals, and timecard processing, now happen in hours.
How important are competitive film tax incentives for keeping productions shooting locally?
Production incentives are huge in how film and television are made today. They don’t just influence where a project shoots – they can determine whether it gets made at all. For many productions, especially in the current climate, the incentive can be the deciding factor in both location and budget. Strong incentive programs create a ripple effect, bringing jobs, boosting local economies, attracting infrastructure investment, and supporting workforce development. With more than 120 jurisdictions worldwide offering incentives, studios have more choices than ever. At Entertainment Partners, we support productions globally with the strongest tax incentive team in the industry. We partner with productions from day one, offering strategic guidance to maximize eligibility, structure budgets intelligently, and ensure full compliance.
What is something EP offers its competitors that they do not?
What really sets EP apart is the breadth of our services and the depth of our expertise. We’ve been doing this for decades, and that experience shows up in everything we offer. We bring together a fully connected ecosystem backed by knowledgeable, hands-on support. We’re not just a service provider – we’re a strategic partner. Our platform is backed by the most experienced in-house team in the business, with experts in production finance, legal, labor relations, tax, and incentives. People who have worked in the field, negotiated contracts, and helped pass legislation that shapes how productions get made.
How have EP’s acquisitions contributed to the company’s growth?
Through strategic acquisitions and investments, we’ve expanded globally across Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, allowing us to serve productions of every size in every major production hub. Most recently, we acquired CASHet, a leading provider of digital payment solutions, which will offer our clients a single, integrated process for managing production finance.
What was something EP saw missing in the industry that the company sought to change?
Early on, we saw productions slowed down by disconnected systems and paper-heavy processes. There was no real integration – onboarding, timecards, accounting, and approvals all lived in separate places. EP set out to fix that by developing a truly connected, end-to-end platform designed to work together within a single ecosystem. The difference between our platform and others claiming integration is that we’ve built ours with decades of hands-on industry knowledge. We know what it takes to run any scale production, and we designed our solutions to support both indie and major studio tentpoles with the same precision and control.
This article is part of an ongoing series that raises awareness about businesses in the film and television community. Entertainment Partners is a member of the California Production Coalition. The series includes:
Building Hollywood’s Village: HPA President Kari Grubin on Community, Innovation, and Change
Sylmar Studios: Hollywood’s New Production Powerhouse Built for the Modern Era
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