For the course Machines of Knowledge, our group had to partake in a four-hour storyboarding session. Although we had prepared the day in advance to ensure that we were all on the same page and would use our time effectively, I found that the planned exercises affected my creative and work process in an unexpected manner. Our exercises included drawings, creating elevator pitches, making a storyboard on a large paper with post-its, and creating mock versions of our script. In this blog post I will reflect on storyboarding as a way to evoke, manage, and increase a creative process.

Countless deadlines
Whereas I normally take plenty of time to brainstorm, and allow my creative process to dictate the amount of time spent on storyboarding, we were forced to adhere to strict time limits. Initially, this added a level of tension to our results, which was uncomfortable. However, it did make us more productive within the set time frame. As a result, we were able to start the actual storyboarding without focussing too much on details. We found that a general idea of what the scene looked like, and having to synthesise our thoughts in such little time, made us be more succinct and precise.

Comfortzone?
As a creative, I have my own methods. And although this method has worked for me in the past, I did notice that I became rusted, and less flexible to try out new approaches. Our storyboarding session forced me to use different methods and tools. Furthermore, as this was a group effort, doing this in a more practical way (on paper and with post-its) rather than using software, we had something tangible that shed a different light on our ideas. As a video essay is a visual narrative, it worked well to export the storyboarding process on something not- digital.

Group dynamics
When placed outside of your comfortzone, it becomes clearer how group dynamics affect the creative process. Whereas some of our group actively engaged in the brainstorming session, others would retreat and focus on other tasks outside of this assignment. This gave us the opportunity to address these discrepancies and try to think of alternative approaches. As a result, we assessed our task division and decided that we would shift the responsibilities to what we saw as appropriate. When during a session like this not all members are engaged, or 100% understanding how we linked the academic terms to our visual and audio elements in our narrative, then this could lead to friction later on in the creative process. The storyboarding session therefore laid bare possible obstructions, and had us re-evaluate our current strategy.

Paper or digital?
On a final note I want to further elaborate on the physical aspect of this storyboarding session. To compare it to the Bullet Journal, the idea is that we relate differently to concepts, words and narratives that we consume or construct on a screen than we do on paper. This is why a Bullet Journal is entirely ‘offline’. From my personal experience as a writer, I am becoming more interested in exploring how the medium we use to synthesise ideas might affect the final result. As an academic, this might also mean that solely reading and studying articles from digital sources might not yield the best results. This means that I will experiment with using similar storyboarding techniques for my other creative and thinking processes. All in all, the session brought me new approaches to work both individually and collectively in a creative process.