Fall TV Season is here, there goes my life....

Ok, so I get how it is still August, but the Fall TV Season in the US has already started, you know how those silly Americans don't know their earthly seasons (the clothes stores are already just selling WINTER clothes!!!!). Anyways, the major television networks have these things they call "seasons" for their prime time tv shows, and they usually start in the Fall, which is at the END of September, but now they're twitching it a bit. FOX decided to start early because they broadcast Major League Baseball in October, and that means that we get season or series premieres in August, more specifically yesterday, August 29th, and boy was that a good way to start the season.

FOX aired the Series Premiere of their new suspense thriller "Prison Break" with 2 back-to-back episodes to get you and ME hooked from the beginning, and, at least on my part, they delivered. This show is about this guy who decides to rob a bank, arm in hand, so he can get caught and go to prison, with the sole purpose of breaking his brother out, who is already there serving a death-row sentence for killing the U.S. Vice President's brother, and is scheduled to die about 5 weeks later, on the fictional May 21st. But this guy's intelligent, he so happens to have been working in the firm where the prison was designed, so he had access to the blueprints of the whole place, and so, he had them disguised in a full body tattoo.

Since his brother's crime is government related, you can expect a whole lot to happen to involve government conspiracies, especially now that the brother's ex-girlfriend (who is a lawyer) is gathering information that could potentially prove that he is innocent and about to be killed for a crime he was framed for. All the while, the new inmate is already gathering information in the inside about some of the inmates that could help him with his escape, befriending ones, giving outside info to others, and going way too much to the infirmary to get shots of insuline which he doesn't need. And now, after only 2 episodes, i'm hooked, there are various different plot lines that you know are going to intertwine at one point or another of the story, and the teases, like the one left in the 2nd episode's last scene, just leave you thirsty for more.

For starters, it's a good drama in the 24, LOST, Alias, sense, with thrilling moments, prison riots, conspiracies, and a full-on mental game that makes for good TV.

My Grade: A-

Fairytale Sand Castles...

So i went to a movie this weekend, it looked pretty cool in the previews, with witches, warewolves, armor, a town in peril and two brothers who save them from the enchantments that sucumb them. These were the "Brothers Grimm", con artists at their best. And overall I did have fun watching it.

This film is very slow at first, trying to put in place the story of the brothers Grimm (Matt Damon & Heath Ledger), who go from town to town promising and delivering in getting rid of enchantments, curses and so forth that haunt the peoples of the town. What the people don't know is that the same Brothers who save them are the ones who plant the supposed "enchantment" in the town in the first place so they can later on go there, get rid of it, and charge for their services, taking into account old stories and fairytales in each town so the townspeople can believe that there actually are witches and deamons haunting them.

It is not until the brothers are caught and sent on a mission to get rid of a curse in a town that is actually true, they don't really know what to do because they don't really believe that it is for real. The little girls in this town are disappearing, one by one, one is wearing a red riding hood, another is looking for water in a river, another is wearing glass slippers, and the witch that's behind all of this (The Matrix Reloaded's Monica Bellucci) has long hair coming out of her tower reaching the ground, as you can see, all of these are related to present time fairy tales "Little Red Riding Hood", "Cinderella", "Hansel & Grettel", etc., because it is my understanting that the real "Brothers Grimm" are the one who created those fairy tales we know now as Disney movies. So it is not until we find out the actual purpose of this movie, which is like 1/3 into the movie, that you can get really interested in the plot, when the story of why the witch is capturing all these little girls, and how the brothers, with the help (or lack thereof) of the soldiers that are guarding them, are going to get rid of an actual enchantment.

Overall, it is enterntaining, the visuals are, if not totally unique, very impressive and great to watch. But that lack of a good and interesting building point for the movie makes it feel dull at first, and maybe that is why when the good part comes it feels great, to compensate for the bad beginning.

My Grade: C+

oh, the odyssey of the graphic designers...

Ok, here it goes for all of you that are and aren't graphic designers, (those ones that are will know exactly what i'm talkin about)...

I got an email once, that i probably sent out to you all, that takes the pleassure to explain what the life of the graphic designer is, how clients treat a graphic designer, what we have to put up against, so basically i want to do the same here, because it is time that i vent, i just find it completely and utterly WRONG to treat professionals the way people treat us. Lets make examples, because, well, we are all professionals here:

If you hire a lawyer, you don't tell a lawyer how to present your case to the judge.

If you hire a chef or go to a restaurant, you don't tell the chef how to prepare the food.

If you hire an accountant, you don't tell the accountant how to add or substract your earnings.

If you hire a marketer, you don't tell the marketer who to interview.

Hell, if you hire a freakin gardener, you don't even tell the gardener how to care for a plant.

Then.... how is it that if people hire a graphic designer (who went to a university to get all the knowledge about this particular subject, by the way) they feel the need to tell said graphic designer what colors they want, the layout of the work, to use or not to use some pictures, what font to use, to move this, to change that, and not take the graphic designer's advise for anything at all unless it is thought up by them!

Do i find this unfair? Hells yeah!, can i do something about it? If i don't wanna work again i can! Man, is this a tough business! I've gotten to the point that i figured out something, you have to own your own design firm so you can have any respect as a graphic designer in this and any town!. People don't like to pay what a good design deserves, people think it's just a waste of money, but they want their money to show something great. It doesn't add up!

But we can't leave it with that!, with this new digital era that is upon us, design software is making its way to the common man, now mostly anybody can get a copy of photoshop or (in mexico) corel draw and feel like a graphic designer. Places everywhere are popping up where they print stuff and they promote that they do "graphic design", which is basically some computer technician or a high schooler that knows how to move the tools in these programs and pass it off as graphic design and charge a miniscule amount for the job. That takes us real graphic designers out on a limb, we can't charge what our work really deserves because there are some other fakes out there passing as graphic designers who charge less. It's either that or they feel like we are just their puppets who know how to use a computer to do what they want to do but they don't have the tools for.

Either way, it is annoying how one has to go through all these stages in one's life to prosper, we all have to climb up a "corporate" ladder that in this business is just made by ourselves and the goal is our own success. Hope this helps and gives some insight and understanding as to what a graphic designer is in this century and just think about the lawyer and the chef and the accountant and the gardener, and maybe just think about your own profession and analyse how you would feel if your client wanted to tell you how to do your job before you go off with your little tantrums when you hire a graphic designer.

Thank You.

p.s. wow, that felt good!