A couple months in development, we now have official rules for this challenge! The start date is March 1st and all proceeds collected will be going to Elevate Hope, a foundation that aims to heal abused and abandoned children through music and the arts.

Thank you to Sarah of Sylar’s Army for being fantastic and getting this off the ground!

The announcement was made on Tuesday: the WGA Strike has ended. Writers will be going back to work on Wednesday. Congratulations to the WGA for continuing the Strike until their concerns were met!

From the Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA)

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/business/la-fi-strike13feb13,0,2886229.story

STRIKE REPORT

Hollywood writers strike ends

Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

After 100 days, WGA members vote overwhelmingly to go back to work.

By Claudia Eller and Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

February 13, 2008

The strike is over.

Hollywood’s costly 100-day walkout came to a widely welcomed end Tuesday after members of the Writers Guild of America voted overwhelmingly to go back to work.

More than 90% of the 3,775 writers who cast ballots in Los Angeles
and New York voted to immediately end the work stoppage, capping the
entertainment industry’s most contentious labor dispute in recent history.

“Rather than being shut out of the future of content creation and delivery, writers will lead the way as TV migrates to the Internet and platforms for new media are developed,” said Patric M. Verrone, president of the WGA, West.

On Feb. 25, writers are expected to ratify a new three-year contract that ensures them a stake in the revenue generated when their movies, television shows and other creative works are distributed on the Internet. Whether the benefits from the new contract will be enough to offset the income writers and others lost because of the strike is a matter of debate.

Steven Beer, an entertainment attorney at Greenberg Traurig, predicted that working writers may have fewer opportunities as studios use the strike as a means to cut programming budgets, greenlight fewer pilots, reduce fees and limit the number of production deals on their lots.

“Writers got hard-fought and well earned improvements but it could be tougher sledding for the rank and file in the future,” he said.

Other experts believe the writers won a victory that transcends any financial gains.

“It was a defining moment,” said economist Harley Shaiken, a professor at UC Berkeley who specializes in labor issues. “It showed that a very disparate group of individuals could act with real solidarity — and that packed real economic power.”

The walkout, which began Nov. 5, proved to be far more economically damaging than the studios had expected, shutting down more than 60 TV
shows, hampering ratings and depriving the networks of tens of millions in advertising dollars.

Labor experts said the crippling effect of the strike helped writers achieve gains they might not have otherwise attained.

The new contract gives them residual payments for shows streamed over
the Internet and secures the union’s jurisdiction for programming created for the Web.

“They successfully faced down six multinational media conglomerates and established a beachhead on the Internet,” said Jonathan Handel, former associate counsel for the Writers Guild of America, West and an attorney at TroyGould. “When you consider what they were initially offered and the enormous odds they faced, that’s quite an achievement.”

Handel noted that studios had originally balked at writers’ demands for new media residuals, proposing a multiyear study instead.

Yet the new contract falls short of what writers were initially seeking.

“It’s a good deal, but not a great one,” said Handel, adding that both sides made key compromises.

For example, writers received guarantees that any guild member hired to create original shows for the Web would be covered under a union contract. But the tentative contract enables studios to hire nonunion writers to work on low-budget Internet shows, giving them the flexibility they sought to compete in the burgeoning world of Web entertainment.

The writers agreement was largely patterned after a recent deal studios made with directors. Writers, however, got some important improvements, especially in pay for shows that are streamed on advertising-supported websites.

Writers were unsuccessful, however, in their efforts to shorten the 17- to 24-day window that studios have to stream their shows for promotional purposes without paying residuals. Many writers complained that most viewers watch repeats online within days after the initial broadcast.

Entertainment attorney Alan Wertheimer, who was hired by the guild in January to help break the logjam in its negotiations, had extracted a handshake agreement from studio chief executives for a “favored nations” provision related to new media, assuring writers that they would also receive any improvements actors may get in their upcoming contract negotiations.(Directors got a similar verbal promise.) The actors’ contract expires June 31.

But last Friday, when lawyers on both sides were hurriedly drafting the final writers contract, Wertheimer heard from WGA insiders that the studios forgot what they had verbally promised a week earlier. When confronted, the CEOs relented and agreed to honor it.

With the strike now over, economists are tallying up the cost to the industry and the Los Angeles region. Measuring the financial losses is inherently difficult and estimates vary widely.

Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development
Corp., estimates the walkout cost the local economy more than $3 billion. Of that total, an estimated $772 million came from lost wages by writers and production workers, $981 million by various businesses that service the industry, including caterers to equipment rental houses, and $1.3 billion from the ripple effect of consumers not spending as much at retail shops, restaurants and car dealers.

Still, the total is relatively small considering that the L.A. economy generates $1.3 billion a day. The entertainment industry employs about 250,000 in the Los Angeles region, including the thousands who are self-employed.

CNBC is reporting tonight that former Disney exec, Michael Eisner, has declared an agreement has been struck between the WGA and the AMPTP. More information about this development will be posted as it is obtained. What it means to us in the Save Nathan Petrelli Campaign is that it is time to fully mobilize our efforts.

Something really cool I’ve seen here, and I knew, but I never fully commented on: you guys are all really crafty. Seriously. And crafty things, if you are so willing, are good for fundraising. The t-shirts that Andy designed (still working on how to distribute those), Kame’s prints, and a secret project that Hinata is working on, but I assure you that you will love! All of this has me thinking: is there anybody else who wants to make something to be sold to fellow fans to gain funds? We still very much need a treasurer to keep the PayPal account (someone in the US, I think, because that’s where most of the things for fundraising will occur, but I can check on that.) If you’re interested in donating, or helping with being treasurer, please comment here!

We are now affiliated with the Milo Ventimilgia Forum! Thank you for your support!

We now have representation on another site!

Campaigner Roseganymede has created the Save Nathan Petrelli Facebook.

If you went to Jules Verne Festival or want to read the update, go to this thread in the forum area. To sum it up, there’s no news which suggest that we should relax and be relieved. In fact, I’ve heard reports that suggest the reverse elsewhere.

What does this mean to us? We have to work harder. We need to intensify our campaign. If you haven’t send any mail or postcard to NBC and Tim Kring, please do so. You can find the address either inside the forum or in one of these entries. If you have access to the media (reviewers, journalist, etc), please use them and ask for our help to increase our profile.

Most of all, we want to kick-start the advertising idea. If you live in the US and can help us calling several magazines about advertising cost, please go to the “List of campaigns to do” and offer your help. We also need people who can contact PayPal about setting up an account in which all of us can chip in for the ads.

We knew this is going to be a long-term campaign so we really should not expect things to get easier. But look where we are now. We now have over 100 members in the forum. That means we have substantial amount of members to do any kind of movement we need to bring Nathan back on the show. If we work together, we can get this done. So let other Nathan fans know about this movement and do anything you can think of to bring him back.

Update: You can read detailed description of the trailer at brokenbacktango’s LJ (contains spoilers for volume 3).

During the presentation of the Jules Verne Lifetime Achievement Award to Stan “the man” Lee at last night’s Heroes event, Doug Jones, the actor who played the Silver Surfer, read a quote that was written by Stan Lee and said by the Surfer:

“It is not given to us to know whether we shall succeed
or not. In failure there is no disgrace. There can be but
one ultimate shame — the cowardice of not having tried.”

What ever happens in the end, we are all better for the actions we have done. And for the love of the character, and the sharing of this love, it is our belief that Nathan shall be saved. Stay strong everyone.

If you’re Nathan fan and you happen to live in Los Angeles, California, today at 6PM, Adrian and other cast members will be at the “Jules Verne Adventure” Film Festival. This is a chance to show our support for Nathan so if you live nearby, come to the festival. There are free tickets offers inside the forum if you can’t afford the entry fee. So turn up in droves and show your support for Nathan.