Pick up a Pencil!

Filmmaking is by nature a visual medium.  That means as filmmakers, we need to be able to accurately convey ideas in a visual manner.  And it is not as hard as some people make it out.  In an article called Don't Be Afraid of a Pencil, Caryn Vainio makes a compelling case that anyone is able to pick up a pencil and sketch out a basic visual idea.  And she makes sure to differentiate between drawing, which is accurately rendering a three dimensional shape, and sketching, which is just using basic shapes to convey an idea.  She makes a good case:

The only thing you have to know how to draw in order to sketch effectively for communication are basic shapes, like boxes, circles, and arrows. Can’t draw a sword or a house? That’s okay. You’ll probably still convey more information in your amateurish attempt than you would trying to explain something. Because when it comes to sketching, a picture really is worth a thousand words.

She goes on to explain how communicating visually instead of verbally or relying only on written words can make it easy for a group to have a unified idea that can be quickly communicated.  This is important in all fields, but especially one like filmmaking that is intrinsically visual.  So go out and play a game of pictionary-- It's good practice!