I was at a video scribing shoot the other day, when the director said something that really got my attention.
“Can you flip where that older skycap ends up in your image?” the director asked, scratching his chin. “You’ve got the story ending toward the left… but in film the story tends to go from from left to right.”
I had just walked the team through how I was going to draw out the next scene on the whiteboard… and his comment made me stop and look again at my bigger-picture storyboard for the scene.
Sure enough, it didn’t go left-to-right. Actually, it went more in a low left-to-right, then high right-to-left arc around the main character. And when we shot that scene, it was really hard for me to move that last part over to the right! My hand – and my eye – really wanted to draw it in that upper left area of the whiteboard. What was up with that?!
Then last night, when I had finished collaging another part of my visual business plan, I looked at it and realized: the story the images told went from right to left, not left to right. Wow! It wasn’t intentional… it just happened! What was going on?
Fortunately, the answer was waiting for me over a slice of cheesecake at dinner. Well, that slice of cheesecake and Dan Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind. He was outlining the four basic differences of how our left- and right- brains operate, and it all came together for me:
- The left hemisphere controls the right side of the body; the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body. In Western languages, reading and writing involve turning from left to right, and therefore exercise the brain’s left hemisphere. (That’s why our stories typically move from left to right as well!)
- The left hemisphere is sequential; the right hemisphere is simultaneous. Pink puts it this way: the right brain is the picture, the left brain is the thousand words. (Well, I certainly have been exercising my picture-making portion of my brain… )
- The left hemisphere is in text; the right hemisphere specializes in context. In other words, the left hemisphere handles what is said; the right hemisphere focuses on how it’s said. And interestingly enough, languages that require us to understand context are typically read from right-to-left! (Hey! That’s what was going on with my visual stories!)
- The left hemisphere analyzes the details; the right hemisphere synthesizes the big picture. (Enough said on that one… my business is all about analyzing a group’s details, synthesizing it and distilling it down into their big picture!)
So there you have it. Due to my work, I’ve been doing more reps with my right hemisphere… distilling details down into big picture visuals. It’s literally changed the way I think… and how I tell a story!
How has your brain changed from working visually? Post a comment… I’d love to hear!
I cannot wait to see what you draw forth,
