Don't understand the progression pipeline without going bankrupt. casting prostitutes seem to be a net loss.
It isn't, it just takes a few days to make good on your investment. On rare occasions you will recruit someone quite pricey from the streets ($500+ per Boy-Girl scene) which might be a net loss at such low quality. Keep churning out films, don't spend too long editing, get the cheapest camera + light ($200+$600) at the mall for a cheap boost and like someone else said, once you get work orders, distributor deals and a photostudio, you should make money quite steadily and can invest more into production quality.
How do you get Vita, she never spawned after saying doing one project after one week
She keeps showing up in the cinema on weekdays (Monday-Thursday it seemed). Eventually she gave me a quiz about movie history and then I think it was one or two more meetings where we fucked and she got recruited. She starts out as a personal assistant though, you'll have to switch her job to theoretically make use of her unique trait if it worked.