"Below-the-line" entertainment industry professionals and vendors rallied in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday to urge Hollywood writers and producers to strike a deal.

    The rally was designed to press both sides to return to the bargaining table and reach a settlement, organizers said.

    The "Strike A Deal" march and rally was the result of "a spontaneous grass-roots outgrowth of the concern and desire and below-the-line industry professionals and vendors whose jobs, livelihoods and futures hang in the balance," according to a statement posted on its blog, Strikeadeal.blogspot.com.

    The rally and march is intended to "put a face on the thousands of us adversely affected by the current strike" and "to show a united front in calling for responsible and serious negotiations," said the statement.

    The rally came two days after talks broke off between writers and the studios and networks, with both sides blaming the other for the impasse.

    According to a statement from the Writers Guild of America (WGA), J. Nicholas Counter III, the president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), told negotiators for the writers, in the presence of a federal mediator, "We are leaving. When you write us a letter saying you will take all these items off the table, we will reschedule negotiations with you."

    The alliance, which represents the studios and networks, requested that the writers abandon their demands to use the distributor's gross as the basis for residuals, jurisdiction over animation and so-called reality programming and for "Fair Market Value," which mandates arbitration when studio licensing arrangements for Internet businesses are questioned, according to the guild.