Audience
During the initial discussions, planning and shooting, our group’s awareness of the film’s audience was virtually non-existent; the only time I can recall our group considering the audience was during the editing process. For me personally, this didn’t matter. My approach to the music, writing and film I create in my own time has always been very personal. It has been about creating something for myself, something that I could get great fulfilment out of. Therefore, naturally, I took this approach coming into the film.

In my opinion, there are two aspects when considering the audience. There is the ostentatious aspect, where you create something with the purpose of impressing the audience. And there’s the assembling aspect, where you construct your work in a particular way to allow the audience to understand it. Our group ignored the former for a few reasons. Firstly, as I mentioned, my approach to art is about self-fulfilment, and I’m certain it is also Alaine’s. Secondly, Robin has always encouraged us to experiment. And thirdly, the form and purpose of The Other isn’t to provide the audience with a traditional cinematic experience. With assembling, however, there were several occasions where we had to consider how the audience would respond to a particular moment. The Other is quite convoluted, which I like, but it’s not complex for the sake of being complex. We wanted to provide the audience with subtle clues throughout, and I feel we achieved that during the editing process. Ultimately, however, I honestly don’t care what the audience thinks. Maybe because we don’t really have one. Should I care? Probably. I do care what Robin thinks.

Collaboration
I never talked to Alaine before this project, so coming into the group I was quite intimidated by her. Which was silly. From the beginning, Alaine and I were on the same conceptual page. We had countless philosophical discussions, and acted upon the same impulse in relation to our choice of ‘moments’. Chynnae was also an important contributor who made this project a lot easier to work on. The three of us had strong chemistry and an understanding of one another, and our relationship with The Other is very personal. Sam’s presence, however, felt missing. There were plenty of occasions where he didn’t contribute as he didn’t have the same attachment to The Other as the rest of us. He would even admit that he probably didn’t need to join our group.

I think I could have done a much better job producing The Other. There were several times that Alaine or Chynnae were the producer. I think I spent too much time with the conceptual side of things, but then again, if I didn’t, maybe I wouldn’t have had the same relationship with The Other that I do today. I probably got away with it for this project, but in the future, I’ll need to balance my roles better.