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THE OA: Season 2: Brit Marling’s Update on Part II of Netflix’s Sci-fi TV Series

Brit Marling Emory Cohen The OA

Brit Marling’s Update on The OA Season 2

The second season of Netflix‘s The OA is still happening. In fact, the second season is so far along, that the episodes are done filming and the sound-mixing, the process that gives voice to the on-screen visuals, has been completed.

In a Instagram posting, creator and star Brit Marling goes into the granular details of how traditional TV show episodes are produced, adapted, and created and how The OA‘s story-telling does not allow for that structure to be utilized. Because of that fact, the production of the second season of The OA has taken much longer than a traditional television show.

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It is a fascinating read and it really shows the care that is going into the show. It also gives the uninitiated a behind the scenes look at how a TV show episode and a season of a television show is produced and constructed.

Brit Marling’s Update on The OA Season 2

 

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short answer: @z_al and I just finished soundmixing chapter 2 so it is coming! long AF answer: swipe ?? to deep dive

A post shared by Brit Marling (@britmarling) on

Brit Marling’s Instagram The OA Part II Message and Update

Fans of the OA –

Many of you have been asking “why is Part II taking so long?” Because the OA is categorized as a TV show this is a very fair question! Let me try to give an answer that honors the question:

(Warning — this is gonna get granular!)

TV shows are created on a yearly cycle primarily because they function off of a pattern narrative. The show creator acts as a master tailor — she crafts the pattern for the original garment (pilot). Then other great tailors come in and create new garments out of this same pattern. This allows for creation with great speed and also familiarity, which is one of the things we all love about great TV.

In addition, many TV shows are adapted from previously written material (novels, comics, foreign TV shows). This allows the writers to work quickly adapting the story for the screen rather than having to create characters and a world or plot from scratch. Finally, most TV shows leap-frog their production cycle. The writers’ room writes 3-4 episodes and then another team begins shooting those episodes while other writers continue writing.

The OA doesn’t function this way. Our chapters vary in length, scope, and even genre. There is no pattern. As a result, every step along the way nothing can be imitated, it has to be invented. For example, our producer on Part II had to throw out the “pattern budgets” the industry normally works with because each chapter required completely different resources to achieve scripts of different lengths, casts, and ambitions. Once she cracked on chapter’s budget she couldn’t apply that code to the next to save time. The same is true for editing — an editor may solve how best to cut chapter 3, but that learning curve doesn’t apply to chapter 5, which is a completely different genre of storytelling.

We also aren’t an adaptation. So we are drawing from just our imaginations every time we go to write a new part, and this takes time. Finally, because I’m both the lead actor and a lead writer we can’t leap-frog the production. We have to write all eight chapters up front before we can begin shooting the first chapter.

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Some people thought of Part I of The OA as a long film. If you look at it from that perspective Zal and I write and create an 8-hour film every 2 years. That’s pretty fast considering most 2-hour films take at least 2 years to make!

But the truth is, these days, we’ve been thinking of The OA as neither film nor TV, but as some new kind of storytelling that has only just become possible because of internet-streaming technology and a partner like Netflix that is genuinely interested in trying new things inside narrative. We are learning every day how to best function in a completely new space with little production precedent.

Forgive the longwinded reply — I just realized that there is no way for of this to be evident if not shared by the people inside these new modes of storytelling. I can’t say when Part II’s release date will be just yet. I can only poise you that we go to work every day in the post house and work as hard as we can to make something that feels worthy of all the time and talent our collaborators have poured into Part II, and worthy of all your encouragement and enthusiasm for this story.

Thank you for being patient and being kind. Your goodwill gives us the energy to keep going. We just finished soundmixing chapter 2 yesterday so it is COMING!! We are going to do our best to let you more inside the process in the coming weeks… — B.

My review for Season 1 of The OA is COMING as well.

Background information on The OA

The OA is an American mystery drama Netflix series with science fiction, supernatural, and fantasy elements, which debuted on Netflix on December 16, 2016. Created and executive produced by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, the series is their third collaboration…In the series, Marling stars as a young woman named Prairie Johnson who resurfaces after having been missing for seven years. Prairie now calls herself “The OA” and can see, despite having been blind before her disappearance.

On February 8, 2017, Netflix renewed the series for a second season, dubbed “Part II”. Production started in January 2018

The OA: Season 1 starred Brit Marling, Emory Cohen, Scott Wilson, Phyllis Smith, Alice Krige, Patrick Gibson, Brendan Meyer, Brandon Perea, Ian Alexander, and Jason Isaacs.

Leave your thoughts on Brit Marling’s Update on The OA Season 2 below in the comments section. Readers seeking more TV show news can visit our TV Show News Page, our TV Show News Google+ Page, and our TV Show News Facebook. Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, and Facebook. This was brought to our attention via Geektryant.

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Rollo Tomasi

Rollo Tomasi is a Connecticut-based film critic, TV show critic, news, and editorial writer. He will have a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in 2025. Rollo has written over 700 film, TV show, short film, Blu-ray, and 4K-Ultra reviews. His reviews are published in IMDb's External Reviews and in Google News. Previously you could find his work at Empire Movies, Blogcritics, and AltFilmGuide. Now you can find his work at FilmBook.
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