New Delhi, Aug. 8 -- It drives me crazy when studios release making-of featurettes from films that are yet to release. It feels like more than ever, we're getting the explanation before the work. Today's cultural landscape is outcome-oriented to a fault, obsessed with the hard evidence of box-office, views, listens. But it's also intensely process-curious, zeroing in on the details of creation even before the final work is out.

In this backwards-looping culture, the mood board has acquired an exalted status. Anyone with a Pinterest account has made these: collections of stills, clips, sounds, fashions, textures, anything that could serve as inspiration or a vision statement for a future project. The more popular the completed work, the m...