The OA

In the first episode of The OA, a van full of children crashes off of a bridge, plummeting into the cold river below. After escaping the sinking van, the scene culminates with one of the children, Nina, having a strange, spiritual experience before her ultimate rescue. We at Phosphene were responsible for the visual effects underwater.

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Previously Phosphene collaborated with The OA’s VFX production team on an underwater scene for Boardwalk Empire. This would be a similar process.

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The scene for The OA was shot in an indoor pool in Connecticut. A van was rigged for underwater filming– one side of the van and the tires were removed– and was suspended upside down and partially submerged. There were divers in the pool to help protect the safety of the young actors.

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Our goal was to make it appear as if the van were slowly descending in a murky, cold river. To accomplish that, we would need to remove the divers and production equipment, rebuild the missing parts of the van and make the clean pool water look dark and dirty.

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To start, we used rotoscoping and keying to separate the parts of the plates that we wanted to keep (the children and the van) from the parts that we wanted to lose (the divers, equipment and background).

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We replaced the background with a gradient. We didn’t need to add much detail in the background, since visibility was supposed to be minimal.

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We added layers of particles to simulate silt, plant matter and other debris.

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In some shots we added CG aquatic plants and a CG eel per the director’s request.

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We were happy to contribute to a scene which is dark, surreal, and ethereal, supporting the story of Nina’s strange, near-death experience.

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