Shylock Strikes Again

We anticipate his arrival. We pretend to be very busy and hide all the actual work. We sit at our desks and as the hour approaches we watch it pass. "Where is he?" we wonder and then, just as we think it's safe...Shylock enters the office. With his little hunched shuffle and paunchy face. "Can he smile?" Silverscreen wonders, "or is that just a reaction to some shifty deal he's working out to screw us over even more?"

That's obviously why he started this company. Not to actually make movies but to terrorize interns. Why else would he hole us up in this scummy little office and make us haul out trash, buy us the bare minimal of office supplies and then bother us with ideas about contacting Jane Fonda? That's why he prevents us from getting a studio deal and wants us to hire the trailer trash he wants to represent. Can you imagine this playing opposite this? Why else would he pester us about checking our Dell laptops in case they're the exploding kind? I told him in response to that statement that laptops catching on fire would be pretty exciting.

Yesterday he unleashed a new form of terror on us. Just as we did to Cuba and Isreal did to Palestine or Lebanon, Shylock is putting an embargo on us.
Maybe that's a little overdramatic, I was listening to NPR as I drove here to work. As I drove here to work. Let me specify. We are interns. We don't get paid. That's fine. I'm just learning the business and don't expect to get paid like a pro. But now Shylock has stepped it up one. He's not paying for anything. Nothing. Not gas for the interns to get to work, not food for the interns to eat and most detrimental to our company--he's not paying for office supplies. How are we supposed to mail scripts to the actors we want to get, or offers to their agents if we don't have any money for it? How are we supposed to do anything?
What pisses me off the most isn't just that he's not paying us gas money and it is costing me money to work here, but that we could have a deal already. A major studio deal, if Shylock would step back and take a pay cut for now! It wouldn't be a permanent thing. It would just be until he understands the game a little better. Then we could bring in a producer who does know what he's doing and get this deal closed and then Shylock wouldn't risk losing everything. I don't think he knows he's about to lose it all but he is. Our director isn't going to sit around like this for much longer and neither are our actors. But Shylock won't listen to a word we say. Us interns are too young obviously to know anything other than what boy band is currently hot. Nevermind that I'm sending out press releases and talking to the media like a PR queen. Nevermind that Indieflickers is talking to agents and getting our cast together like a bloody professional and Christy is working her ass off as a real estate agent and getting her work here done while moving into her new house and being sick. Obviously you need to talk down to us. Otherwise how would we know who the boss is?