What is Workflow?

Work•flow /ˈwərkflō/

“The sequence of industrial, administrative, or other processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion.” – lexico.com

What is a quality workflow?  How do we develop it?  Below are elements of the production cycle that most creative people move through as they create something.  First, we must identify the stages of project production. What is each stage and what are the quality checks for each stage.  Read on and find out!

Stages of Creation Development

Inspiration

I personally find ideas to develop by watching professionals in the industry perform those same ideas to spark my own.

• To accomplish this, there will be tools needed, specifically Youtube and some sort of instrument. Said instrument could be anything, from a full blown acoustic drumset to your voice.
• The process is relatively simple: Watch somebody professional in the industry (i.e. for guitar, James Hetfield of Metallica) do what you are trying to accomplish (i.e. perform the song Master of Puppets) on any streaming service, usually Youtube. Then, you take notes on what they did that you aren’t doing: everything from technique to posture. Then, you make those adjustments in a way that feels comfortable to you.
• Quality to me is normally measured in effort and the time put into the project itself. Because work normally pays off in terms of a better overall performance.
• Only the individual that makes the art can truly measure the art’s quality because at the end of the day, only they know how much work they put in.

Intention

We clarify specific goals for a project by defining what that goal entails.

Pre-Production

How can we brainwrite, brainstorm, storyboard, and plan our ideas at this phase?

We can plan our ideas by defining our intention and then discovering the steps that it will take to get to the intended result.

Production

How do we communicate with each other and execute our plan for this phase? This is where we actually make the project.

We communicate with each other many ways, for this, we should use email, text, and things like that.

Post-Production

We communicate with each other many ways, for this, we should use email, text, and things like that.

Presentation/Performance

We share our projects to the world by uploading them to Soundtrap, Soundcloud, and any other FREE media streaming service.

Feedback

This is simple: Let the advisory committee listen to the projects, get said advisory committee in a Zoom call with students, and let them give their advice.