The peculiarities in the dynamics of the director reorientation in confined nematic liquid crystals (LCs) under the influence of a strong electric field E have been investigated theoretically based on the hydrodynamic theory including the director motion with appropriate boundary and initial conditions. Analysis of the numerical results for the turn-on process, when a strong electric field E is suddenly applied in the positive sense, provides an evidence for the appearance of the spatially periodic patterns in confined LC film. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.