Hold Date

A hold date is a reserved day that a performer, crew member or supplier keeps free for a project that has not booked them yet.

What this is about

Commercial productions live in this state for weeks, because the client has not approved the cast and the schedule is still moving. The etiquette is well established: whoever asked first holds first option, a second project can take second option, and if the second one wants to book, it challenges. The first option then has a short window to confirm or release. What goes wrong is silence. Holds that nobody releases block calendars, damage relationships with agents, and eventually get ignored by everyone.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

Where this differs from the general case:

  • A hold is stronger than an availability check and weaker than a booking: it obliges nobody to pay and nobody to appear.
  • Challenging means asking the first option to decide now. Answer within the agreed window or the date goes to the other project.
  • Release holds actively as soon as a date is dead. It costs one message and buys goodwill for the next project.

With TillyGen

TillyGen shows which shooting days still rest on options rather than bookings, before the call sheet goes out.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.

Frequently asked

What happens if another production challenges my hold?

You confirm the booking or release the date, usually within a day. There is no rule that a first option can sit on a date indefinitely.

How long does it take to get started with TillyGen?

A first project takes under an hour to set up. There is no configuration phase in which templates and fields have to be defined before the tool produces anything.

Can the results be exported?

Yes — as PDF for the crew, CSV for downstream systems and through the API for anything automated. The plan stays the source; the exports are views of it.