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Post by mredwrdo3 on Oct 21, 2008 22:24:35 GMT -5
Well folks, this might be the final nail in the coffin for the GAH fanmade web series by collazo and co. I've been checking the site every few days or so out of curiosity, and today, suddenly, tgah.com redirects me to... cannell.com. - without explanation.
It's a shame, in a way; the clips we had showed some promise. However, we now have a Cannell backed endeavor to look forward to, so I'm not sad.
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Post by HoudiniDerek on Oct 21, 2008 22:37:08 GMT -5
I think everyone on this site will probably confirm my response: We are not surprised. Thankfully though, we have an SJC production in the making. We are not sad either.
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Post by MelMac on Oct 21, 2008 22:46:25 GMT -5
Well folks, this might be the final nail in the coffin for the GAH fanmade web series by collazo and co. I've been checking the site every few days or so out of curiosity, and today, suddenly, tgah.com redirects me to... cannell.com. - without explanation. It's a shame, in a way; the clips we had showed some promise. However, we now have a Cannell backed endeavor to look forward to, so I'm not sad. I would believe so - I had the URL to their messageboard in my browser and opening it, saw it too is now gone. It had been gone for about a week or so then suddenly popped up - no explanation. That said, the few minutes they did post up and the trailers are still on YouTube. My guess about the redirect is that Collazo did not buy the address www.tgah.com, therefore, Cannell could possibly do so and Collazo have to reopen it under a new address. It's the same (at least I believe - greenguy correct me if I'm wrong) if he had wanted www.thegreatestamericanhero.com (still broken link), which was the old address here. Then again - something went wonky and site went down - and is currently being worked on. I've hashed and rehashed my opinion on the "TGAH 2008" project that it's not worth doing so again. That said, I wish that we had heard something from Collazo and company at least a month ago as to why there was nothing new posted up on the series. At least we'd known what happened. Of course, I do concede if there were by chance some legal aspects here we don't know about, he might not have been able to say something.
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Post by HoudiniDerek on Oct 21, 2008 22:47:37 GMT -5
I will take that as a confirmation of my post, Mel.
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Post by MelMac on Oct 21, 2008 23:06:11 GMT -5
I will take that as a confirmation of my post, Mel. True, and explains the possibility as to why it auto-redirects to Cannell's site. (Plus, I had started writing it when you posted. )
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Post by MST3Claye on Oct 21, 2008 23:57:24 GMT -5
OH well. Wonder when we'll hear more news about the movie? BTW, what is the date for the comic book to hit the stores?
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Post by MelMac on Oct 22, 2008 0:57:22 GMT -5
OH well. Wonder when we'll hear more news about the movie? BTW, what is the date for the comic book to hit the stores? All I have heard or read is that it'll be the last part of November for the "GAH" comic book. The animated shorts are planned to be released sometime in 2009. Now the only one I've not seen an estimate on is the filming date for a "GAH" movie, but I"m sure as soon as they know, it'll be listed somewhere.
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Post by HoudiniDerek on Oct 22, 2008 3:40:53 GMT -5
I was right. Confirmation all around. ;D
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Post by Ms Boku on Oct 22, 2008 6:28:11 GMT -5
OH well. Wonder when we'll hear more news about the movie? BTW, what is the date for the comic book to hit the stores? The end of November, If I have my info correct.
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Post by MelMac on Oct 22, 2008 8:39:01 GMT -5
I was right. Confirmation all around. ;D Derek, I had confirmation about a week after they put up the first five minutes and not the rest of the first episode when they said they had the first part completed but needed to "re-edit" it instead of posting it up in four parts. That belief was cemented at least one month after that first posting, and I'd say nearly four months after really says it. But, like I said - I just wish we knew what happened to it (no one ever said why the long delay), because even the harshest critic here said it had some promise. And, it'd bring closure to one of the more determined efforts by a fan to bring the show back in film form.
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Post by HoudiniDerek on Oct 22, 2008 11:54:49 GMT -5
You had your suspicions, Mel. Those are different.
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Post by MelMac on Oct 22, 2008 12:25:09 GMT -5
You had your suspicions, Mel. Those are different. Yes, but I had more confirms too when I'd e-mail them at their e-mail addy to see if it was going to continue and never got a response.
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Post by readmcg on Oct 22, 2008 17:47:02 GMT -5
I haven't really wanted to speak up about the project because I haven't wanted to burn any bridges (though I have communicated some of my suspicions privately), but now that it looks pretty certain the project is dead, I guess I don't have much to lose... My guess about the redirect is that Collazo did not buy the address www.tgah.com, therefore, Cannell could possibly do so and Collazo have to reopen it under a new address. I don't think that's the case... if Collazo hadn't bought the domain name, he couldn't have put that page up in the first place; he'd have to have already owned the domain name to do that. Actually, I'd been keeping an eye on the domain registration anyway--which was due to expire around the beginning of November--figuring that if it was renewed, that would probably be a sign Collazo still intended to do something with it, and if he let it lapse it would be a pretty good sign that he didn't. I wasn't really expecting the domain registration to be changed before that... but I guess it's not all that surprising. My guess--though this is only speculation, and I emphasize that I do not know this for sure; I have not been in contact with Collazo and have no inside information--is that Collazo ran into legal trouble, and as part of the settlement had to turn over the domain to SJC. There were certainly plenty of grounds for a copy infringement lawsuit. It has been said several times that Collazo owned the trademark to the title "Greatest American Hero". This is true; I searched the US Patent and Trademark Office site myself to verify it. (You don't have to take my word for it; you can search it too: just go to www.uspto.gov, click on "Trademarks" on the left side and then on "Search TM Database", then on "New User Form Search" and enter "Greatest American Hero" as your search term.) However... there is a huge difference between a trademark and a copyright, and it's a difference that a lot of people don't understand. (I don't claim to understand it fully myself--I am not a lawyer--but at least I'm pretty sure I know the basics; still, take what I say here with the requisite grain of salt.) A trademark applies only to a title. The fact that Collazo owns the trademark to the title "Greatest American Hero" allows him exclusive use of that title (under certain circumstances). It does not allow him use of anything else pertaining to the series. His use of characters and situations from the original series, and certainly his use of clips from the original Heroine episode, was all fairly blatant copyright infringement. (It could be argued that if Collazo's film--except maybe the clip from the original series--was copyright infringement, then so is any fanfic. Well, technically, it is. If a publisher or IP owner wanted to sue fanfic writers, technically he could. This almost never happens, though, because it would be horribly stupid from a publicity standpoint. Fanfic in general isn't harming a property's sales; if anything it's helping its publicity; and a publisher has nothing to gain by squashing fanfic and plenty of goodwill to lose. Collazo's project, though, was different; he clearly had plans to make money from it, and even implied that it was some kind of official continuation. This is the kind of thing that had much more potential to be harmful to the original intellectual property and that SJC would be much more motivated to put a stop to...) I'm not sure whether Collazo didn't understand the difference between trademarks and copyrights, or whether he thought his ownership of the trademark would give him enough leverage to bargain his way out of copyright infringement--if the latter, he was clearly wrong; not only did the fact that he infringed copyright before anyone infringed on his trademark put him into a really bad bargaining position, but I'm not really sure SJC wouldn't have had a valid case for being able to bypass his trademark anyway; like I said, I'm not a lawyer, and I'm certainly not an expert on these things. Either way, though, I think that's by far the most likely scenario for what happened--that SJC pulled Collazo up on copyright infringement charges, and put a stop to his project. For my own part, I have mixed feelings about the apparent (well, okay, by this point looking pretty certain) demise of TGAH 2008. On the one hand, well, I'm kind of proud of my own acting work in it, and I think the other actors did a good job too, and it's a pity that work will never be seen. On the other hand... I have to admit that many of Collazo's posts--and Brian Padraic's posts even more so--have left a really bad taste in my mouth, and I can understand people's antipathy toward the project... after seeing things like that, if I hadn't been involved with the project, I'd have probably been rooting for its failure myself. So... I don't know. As much as I may regret the loss of the work the other actors and I did on the project, maybe this is for the best. [EDIT: Huh, just found out, though, that "my.tgah.com" still works. That's... odd. Not that there was ever much of anything in the TGAH 2008 "community site" anyway, but it's kind of strange that it's still up when the main site redirects to SJC's site. Well, on second thought, I guess it's not that odd; it's a subdomain, after all, and it would be easy to overlook subdomains when redirecting the main site; probably just an oversight...]
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Post by HoudiniDerek on Oct 22, 2008 19:11:13 GMT -5
Never mind, Mel. As usual, it was taken too literally.
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Post by MST3Claye on Oct 22, 2008 20:26:01 GMT -5
I haven't really wanted to speak up about the project because I haven't wanted to burn any bridges (though I have communicated some of my suspicions privately), but now that it looks pretty certain the project is dead, I guess I don't have much to lose... With all this being said. I'd like to say to the actors/actresses and those that put their hard work into this that I am sorry that this couldn't work out like it was intended to work (as far as the fan movie part). I've been mildly outspoken about this project since day one, the reasons have been said before and some of the reasons you have said were also my arguments for this. Even so, the ones that really put an effort to try and do this legitimately are not to blame and I just hate all that work went into this and nothing came from it except a 5 minute clip. Read, I know I said some things on the yahoo board that were misinterpreted or maybe confused on my part. For that I apologize. I don't however apologize for calling out Collazo and brianpadriac in those times that I have done. Unfortunately it has been proven this was going to happen the way it was done. I hope it doesn't hurt your career in the field and I wish you the best of luck with whatever comes for you!
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Post by HoudiniDerek on Oct 22, 2008 20:27:32 GMT -5
Agreed. It would be nice if the actors don't suffer because of this.
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Post by Ms Boku on Oct 22, 2008 20:47:18 GMT -5
I don't think anyone really rooted for its failure. It's just that collazo was shooting off his mouth about it and saying he was going to make $$ from it and that he was talking to people about buying it or whatever, when It wasn't his to sell. I do feel bad and maybe if he went about it differently he could've shown it as a webseries and maybe got recognized for the talents of his work he did on it. (Assuming he had anything to do with the special fx which I thought were great from what I've seen.)
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Post by MelMac on Oct 22, 2008 21:00:22 GMT -5
Agreed. It would be nice if the actors don't suffer because of this. I went to a couple of the MySpaces that BadBoy had posted here some time back when this first started (I mean first too, such as when Erin White was slated to play Morgan), and I know at least one actor who got a fair amount of work on a movie since the endeavor was filmed. There are a couple of others (those who stayed and left during the attempt) who also have had some success. Read too from what I've read even has had some success since, but out of respect for him I'd rather not elaborate on it unless he wishes me to. As the others said, I've been outspoken a lot on this project for several reasons (most you've commented on), but I was never against the actors. I'd like to have seen everyone's hard work on the project, and am sad that it will not be shown. There were some good things in the five minutes we saw, and there was promise. That said, I do agree here (and had for some time) on how Collazo and BP handled it in particular. If they had been a little more open, it might've helped out everyone and made this a fun spinoff or AU series (I say this now because of the official comic and animated shorts coming out) to "GAH."
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Post by HoudiniDerek on Oct 23, 2008 8:57:56 GMT -5
Hopefully the comics and shorts will come out and we will have something else to talk about other than this failed endeavor. ;D
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Post by readmcg on Oct 23, 2008 15:36:09 GMT -5
Read, I know I said some things on the yahoo board that were misinterpreted or maybe confused on my part. For that I apologize. No worries. I think there may have been some unfortunate things said on both sides; I did at one point say in my LiveJournal that MelMac struck me as a "nutbar" (sorry again about that, by the way). Anyway, though, I'm not easy to offend, and to be honest I don't even remember exactly what it was you said in the Yahoo group; don't worry about it. Absolutely no hard feelings at all. No, I don't blame you at all for that. Some of what they said and did (brianpadraic especially) was completely inappropriate. I don't think anyone really rooted for its failure. Sorry; that may have been a bad choice of words on my part. What I meant was that given some of Collazo's and brainpadraic's behavior, I could understand the ill feelings some seemed to hold toward them, and might have felt that way myself in your position. But "rooting for its failure" was probably a little strong. Didn't mean to imply anyone here actually was actively hoping for the project to fail. I hope it doesn't hurt your career in the field and I wish you the best of luck with whatever comes for you! Well, of course if would have been nice for my career if all of Collazo's aspirations for the project had actually come to fruition--he'd been hoping, among other things, to get the project picked up by television, to get all the actors into SAG, and to release a comic book line based on the series. (I'd been kind of looking forward to seeing how my character looked in the comic book...) But even without the copyright violation issues, that was probably somewhat unrealistic. And anyway, it's not as if this was my one and only chance to have a career, and things have stagnated since then. I'm still not in SAG, and I'm not making enough to quit my day job just yet (I work as a middle-school/high-school science and math teacher), but I've been busy. This last week, I've been shooting a part in an independent movie, and I'm in another that shoots next month (and that one's a relatively high-budget affair that might end up getting some visibility); a movie I had a (small) part in that was shot last year ( Faded Memories) is finally getting (very limited) theatrical release next month; I've been doing stand-up comedy; I've got a number of things in the works that might end up amounting to something soon. (I'm hopeful enough for the next year to have just auditioned for something called MuseCast that tracks the progress of five people building careers in the entertainment industry...) So, while the failed TGAH 2008 project certainly hasn't done anything to help my career (except maybe giving me one more thing to put on my résumé), I certainly don't think it's hurt it. I've been doing okay. Anyway, thanks for everyone's support here, and seriously, there are absolutely no hard feelings toward anyone here. I know there's been a lot of criticism of Collazo and brainpadraic--which I fully understand and sympathize with--but I think everyone's made it clear they don't blame things on the actors involved. I probably won't be posting here much, if at all, in the future (well, at least after this topic completely dies down), but not because of anything against this board or the people here, but just because I've got a lot going on and am too busy to keep up with a lot of messageboards (that, and quite honestly I don't keep up with TGAH enough that I'd have much to say). But anyway, I wish everyone here the best, and thanks for the well wishes from you.
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