This was a awhile ago. I work freelance in the film industry. This was a commercial for a large corporation. I've worked for this company before and they always take a long time to actually pay you, like over a month. This time it's particularly bad, almost three months no payment. It's so late in fact that the commercial is already finished post production and available for the public. I know this because the producer sends out an email saying “Congrats again on a good shoot, you can stream the commercial here.” Idk why we would want to stream a commercial but people are responding normal things like “great working with everyone, commercial looks great!” Then at about 230am an email comes in from the art director “Glad the circlejerk has begun, but when do we get our fucking money?”
Next day there's a bunch of emails apologizing for “One coworkers inappropriate late night email” and how “This person will not be working for us again.” But then a week later the cheques arrive and they seem hastily handwritten rather than typed up and official.
I saw that art director again on other shoots and congratulated him but he looked kind of embarrassed. He's still my hero