VO vs OS vs OC...

[RKBentley]

For dialogue specifically, when should VO or OS or OC be used?

[jimjimgrande]

VO= voice over - used for narration

OS= off stage - meaning we hear them but don't see them

OC= off camera - pretty much the same as OS

(OS= off screen)

[refriedwhiskey]

It's pretty flexible. I've seen (V.O.) used for dialogue from a character speaking on a telephone or radio, or a television that's not onscreen.

[altoption]

INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY
Marge and Joe stare at the answering maching. A BEEP, then a YOUNG WOMAN'S breathy voice over the machine:

YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)
Hello? Are you there? It's Eugenie...

MARGE
Eugenie?

JOE
I swear. I don't who she is.

YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)
I know I shouldn't call at home, it's
just, God, Joe, I miss your smell.

Marge quietly turns and walks off into the bedroom. She closes the door shut behind her.

JOE
Please, Marge. Come out. I can explain.

The distinctive SOUND of a shell being jacked into the chamber of a pump shotgun.

MARGE (O.S.)
Be right there!

[jimjimgrande]

personally - I don't like to see VO used for anything but a voice over. I think it's easier and better to accurately describe the source of the voice as (on machine) (on radio) (on walkie) (on tape) if you think it's necessary for the reader to be reminded on every line where the voice is coming from.

OS and OC are interchangeable as far as I can see, but V.O. is something outside the context of what's happening within the scene.

[altoption]

I seem to recall that Cole and Haag say just the opposite.

V.O. for telephones, answering machines, mechanically produced sounds, etc.

O.S. when the person is on set, but not being filmed. The point being, in a shooting script, if you write O.S., the actor should be on set. Not the case with V.O. Typically you wouldn't schedule actors for phone calls if they're not needed in front of camera. The script person will usually read the missing actor's lines. The costs of carrying extra actors adds up pretty quickly. Something to avoid.

O.C. comes from television. You do see it, but it's not the standard for film.

But... The fact is, other than production managers, no one really cares about this. Certainly not in a spec script. Not something to lose any sleep over.

[altoption]

Aw, hell. You made me dig it out.

From THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO STANDARD SCRIPT FORMATS, Part I: The Screenplay by Cole/Haag...

Page 75:

Use of (V.O.) and (O.S.)

(V.O.) or VOICE OVER means the character is not usually seen on screen but we hear his voice conveyed over some kind of mechanical contrivance such as a telephone or tape recorder. The situation may be one where the character is thinking out loud. We will hear that character's voice on a pre-recorded sound tape while the camera is on the character. When someone is talking over the other end of the telephone, we would not see that person.

(O.S.) or OFF SCREEN or OFF STAGE means that the character is not seen on the screen but we hear him talking from another room in a house or from some adjacent area. In an (O.S.) situation the character is readily available to be on camera. Both (V.O.) and (O.S.) appear capitalized in parenthesis, abbreviated after the character cue.

So, there.

[TwoBrad Bradley]

BRADLEY'S VOICE
I'm talking but you can't see me. I
could be in another room or on the other
end of a telephone. I could be on TV or
the radio. I could also be narrating.
(beat)
I could just be thinking out loud. But then
you could see me.

[Queen Uhuru]

That's an interesting take on it, that V.O. is used for a mechanical device that is still "inside" the actual scene. I thought ALL sound sources (actors talking, TV, whatever) that ocurred on camera were not V.O. material because V.O. indicated a "disembodied" voice - meaning there is no visual source for it in the scene (like a narrator).

Hmmm... learn something new every day.

[dexter]

Reviving this thread, 'cause I can't find this...

Any recommendations for the extension to use when a character is watching herself on T.V.? So she's in the room (say, LAURA) and then watching herself be interviewed -- LAURA (ON TV)?

Thank you for any advice!

[ComicBent]

The best way is to indicate somehow that it is all on TV and that she is watching it. The TV screen acts as a framing device. As long as everything is clear, you can just use:

SEQUENCE ON TV

LAURA
I began my career at age nineteen.

HOST
What kind of training did you have?

END SEQUENCE ON TV

In some instances it may be convenient just to use (ON TV) as in:

LAURA (ON TV)
I began my career at age nineteen.


The TV sequence is not a true Voice-Over because it is a replay on TV of something that will have to be shot just like a regular scene. It is, however, a Voice-Over when Laura turns away and can still hear herself saying something on TV, as in:

Laura turns away from the TV and reaches for her drink.

LAURA (V.O.)
I began my career at age nineteen.

None of this is all that important, as long as you make yourself clear.

[Tony R]

/agrees with ComicBent

[dexter]

Thank you, ComicBent!

[QueenOfCups]

/agrees with ComicBent

/agrees with Tony.

[LatteAddict]

This has been discussed to death, do a forum search and you'll find at least two or three more threads about it.

What everybody seems to agree on:
(V.O.) is used for voice-overs and narration, i.e. sounds not physically present in the movie's world
(O.S.) is used for characters that are on set but not visible, i.e. under a blanket or in a closet or obscured by something, perhaps simply behind or beside the camera.

What people disagree about:
Whether (O.S.) or (V.O.) should be used for radio, TV, phone conversation etc.

Theory #1 (advocated by Cole & Haag et al) is that characters not present in the room should be (V.O.) as they do not have to be on the set at the day of shooting.

Theory #2 (advocated by the Nicholls, Michael Hague, et al) is that everything that originates in the actual movie world (such as a TV set, a phone, a rtadio etc) should be (O.S.) whereas (V.O.) is reserved for non-diegetic (google it! :)) sounds only.

I am a strong fan of theory number two, since there is no telling where to draw the line for when a non-visible character might or might not be summoned to the set.
Also, using (O.S.) for diegetic sounds and (V.O.) for non-diegetic sounds gives the actor, director, or any other reader information about what characters in the scene are potentially able to hear — and what is impossible for them to hear because it's just there for the audience, not in the world of the movie.
The use of (V.O.) for radio, for example, gives no such information to the reader, as a REPORTER originating from a radio ON the actual set would read exactly the same as a REPORTER that's been added as a narrative layer over the film, one that the character cannot hear because it takes place somewhere else (or even at another time).

Again, everyone to their own. But I think it's valuable to know the difference, and to make an active choice to use either of the methods above.

/L.A.

[Hamboogul]

My rule of thumb is that if it's spoken by Morgan Freeman, it's VO. Otherwise, it's OS.

[LatteAddict]

My rule of thumb is that if it's spoken by Morgan Freeman, it's VO. Otherwise, it's OS.
James Earl Jones? And, more importantly: James Earl Jones in Star Wars?

[ComicBent]

Just so the rest of you do not have to Google the word.

Diegesis refers to the "story world." From Wikipedia (I think):

Sound in films is termed diegetic if it is part of the narrative sphere of the film. For instance, if a character in the film is playing a piano, or turns on a CD player, the resulting sound is "diegetic." If, on the other hand, music plays in the background but cannot be heard by the film's characters, it is termed non-diegetic or, more accurately, extra-diegetic. The score of a film is "non-diegetic" sound.

As I think I said when this word came up the last time, I will not remember it tomorrow. I was right. I forgot it and had to look it up again.

[LatteAddict]

Well, while the word may be hard to remember, I hope the concept is pretty obvious.

Some things just aren't present in the world of the movie: Voice-overs, musical score, or even audience laughter in a sitcom. Those things fall into the category outside-of-the-movie-reality, and if described in the script in dialoge form (yeah, I know, score wouldn't be but you get it) they should, according to method #2, be V.O.

Easy, right?

[ComicBent]

I might even remember the word this time. :)

[DavidK]

Theory #1 (advocated by Cole & Haag et al) is that characters not present in the room should be (V.O.) as they do not have to be on the set at the day of shooting.

Theory #2 (advocated by the Nicholls, Michael Hague, et al) is that everything that originates in the actual movie world (such as a TV set, a phone, a rtadio etc) should be (O.S.) whereas (V.O.) is reserved for non-diegetic (google it! :)) sounds only.

I am a strong fan of theory number two, since there is no telling where to draw the line for when a non-visible character might or might not be summoned to the set.

I so tried not to join in but regulars know I'm a sucker for the VO/OS discussion. (I think they've found the gene that causes this.) People are making this too complicated - I've posted a summary of this stuff in the past, it should be easy to search.

Without wanting to rile anyone or diss Nicholls, Hague & co., theory #2 is 'wrong' for two simple reasons.
(1) O.S. means only one thing and applies only to a character; it means a character is present in a scene and can be heard, but can not be seen by the camera. That's all. (And yes, I know some writers use the equivalent television term O.C. meaning off-camera and nobody complains.)
(2) Any broader or more creative use of the term has only one effect - it makes the whole issue less clear and gives rise to threads such as this.

Devices which transmit voice - a phone, radio, TV, Skype, answer machine - are best treated as either V.O., with or without FILTERED, or VOICE OVER PHONE, OR VOICE OVER RADIO etc. whether we see the device or not.

Of course V.O. also means narration or thought track in its various incarnations.

Every now and then someone comes along - often someone writing a how-to guide - who feels they are contributing to the creative power of screenwriting by making elaborate extensions and revisions to the use of simple indicators such as V.O., but I think this is because some people just can't resist trying to fix what ain't broke.

There's a perfect reason in the above for not redefining these terms: "...there is no telling where to draw the line for when a non-visible character might or might not be summoned to the set." For O.S. the actor is there. Make that 'should be' there. Everything else is (or can be) V.O. (the exception being that an actor might be present to speak into a remote device for the purposes of production expediency but that is not the concern of the screenwriter).

In the context of screenwriting, whether the sound is diegetic or not doesn't matter and shouldn't have any influence over the use of V.O. vs O.S. If a writer sticks to the simple conventions for using V.O. and O.S. it's remarkably simple. If there was a good reason for revising their usage I'd go along with it, but when I see this become a controversy only one thing comes to mind: you're worrying about the wrong stuff.

I haven't looked at the FAQs but maybe it should be explained there.

[reddery]

yeah, I always figure something that's OnS, but a VO is (FILTERED)

[ComicBent]

Why don't we move on? This has been thoroughly discussed.

[Hahnlove]

Ok since I came across this thread, just a question. Can you have a Protagonist and the Antagonist speak in V.O at times throughout the script? Or is only one entity recommended?

[FADE IN]

Aw, hell. You made me dig it out.

From THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO STANDARD SCRIPT FORMATS, Part I: The Screenplay by Cole/Haag...

Page 75:

Use of (V.O.) and (O.S.)

(V.O.) or VOICE OVER means the character is not usually seen on screen but we hear his voice conveyed over some kind of mechanical contrivance such as a telephone or tape recorder. The situation may be one where the character is thinking out loud. We will hear that character's voice on a pre-recorded sound tape while the camera is on the character. When someone is talking over the other end of the telephone, we would not see that person.

(O.S.) or OFF SCREEN or OFF STAGE means that the character is not seen on the screen but we hear him talking from another room in a house or from some adjacent area. In an (O.S.) situation the character is readily available to be on camera. Both (V.O.) and (O.S.) appear capitalized in parenthesis, abbreviated after the character cue.

So, there.
Here, our friends Cole and Haag seem to miss what's probably the most common use of (VO) and that is narration. Odd that.

OC is a television convention, don't use it in a spec.

Rather than being something a spec writer "shouldn't sweat," as stated in the thread, I think proper use of these conventions is crucial to getting your movie on the page so that a reader can imagine it as you intend it to be, which is, after all, a spec writer's job, eh?

A reader should simply know in every case what the source of any dialogue is, which of course in 95% of cases will be an on screen character speaking.

But when the character isn't on screen a writer has to choose, is this (OS) or is it (VO)?

Speeches that are (OS) are pretty easy to apprehend, the speaking character isn't on the screen but is sufficiently proximate to the scene (behind a door, in the next room, on the street below, etc.) to be heard by characters that are on screen and who's speech will be recorded live as the scene is shot.

Speeches that are properly identified as being (VO) are those that are NOT recorded live when the scene is shot but are, rather, recorded at a time different, usually in a sound booth. This includes any and all narration, inner monologues, voices from the unseen parts of telecons, and voices that emanate from some device like a radio or a TV or a tape recorder.

Proper use of these conventions allows your reader to envision your scene as you intend it to appear on the screen, which is, after all, your goal.