radio & phone

i've got a character listening to the radio, and I'm not sure how to format it. She's listening to the DJ, not music; should I use filtered, vo, os...? Also, do phone conversations not get (filtered) anymore...is it vo? Thanks for the help.

per The Screenwriter's Bible,

Voices coming through radios, phones, walkies etc. are voice overs. (V.O.) or (VO). The person speaking is not on camera and not at the location.

LES NESSMAN (V.O.)
... could not explain his nudity. In other news...


OR


Treat the radio as a separate character. If a specific character is speaking on the radio, use the character's name as the character cue. Add (on the radio) for clarity -

TOM LEYKIS (on the radio)
Women are just attention whores. I hate fat chicks. Blah blah blah.


OR


Just an action line -

A cheezy morning DJ babbles in the background.

I find a lot of overlap in defining OS & VO.

The accepted examples are:
VO is the voice of a narrator
OS is someone speaking in a room but not on camera

To eliminate overlapping definitions I use this:
VO is heard by the audience but not the characters
OS is heard by the characters but the source is not seen

Your example is a DJ's voice is heard by the character, so now it depends on whether the radio is visible...

DJ
(from radio)
And tonight we are...

or

DJ (OS)
(from radio)
And tonight we are...

It's consistant and makes reading smoother because you immediately know whether the characters are hearing what the audience hears.

I agree with Rat and disagree with Deus and Trottier. I'm no expert but I read a lot of scripts. The only thing that's important to my understanding of the story is whether or not the actors in the scene can hear the words. V.O. tells me they can't. That's it. Simple. It bugs me when guys like Trottier try and screw this up.

Note that I'm not trying to tell you what to do, only what I like to see.

What if a character can hear what other characters think? :evil

Seriously the tradition comes from shooting a scene with "live" sound so characters with lines from off camera (OC), which became off screen (OS), was used for those characters who are physically in the location of the scene but not actually seen on camera.

(VO) was used to indicate dialogue recorded elsewhere and added to the scene in post production. This was done for phone conversations, radios and character's thoughts.

Your definition of VO being only for that which the audience alone can hear seems to be your own and not widely shared by HW.

I suggest you use (on radio) or (on phone), that's what I do so it must be right

OS is when the character is physically there (though unseen) and his voice is heard organically (because of the physical proximity of the character talking and the person hearing it).

VO is when the character's voice is reproduced artificially (Tape Recorder, PA System, Intercom, Radio and hearing the Character's Thoughts).

"What if a character can hear what other characters think?"

Automatic pass.

(on radio) or (on phone) is fine. My definition of VO may not be widely held . . . yet. But I'm working on it.