Here's the scenario: EXT. shot of a car (not a convertible) in traffic. We (yes, that WE, the audience) can hear two characters inside the car talking. (No, I'm not planning to use a WE HEAR in my script. Don't worry, Vig!)
Question: Are the characters speaking O.S. or V.O.?
1) Technically, the characters are at the location; we just can't see them. So this would seem to make the characters Off Screen, ergo there should be an (O.S.) tag after the character captions.
2) But wait, not so fast! The dialogue that we (that audience WE again!) are hearing could not possibly be heard by us if we were actually there at the scene standing next to the car. (Assume that the car windows are up.) We hear what we shouldn't be able to hear, almost like we are listening in on a character's thought bubbles. (I am, of course, taking advantage of the fact that the medium of cinema allows us to violate all sorts of physical laws of time and space.) Therefore, would the correct - or at least, more appropriate - usage after the character captions be (V.O.)? I'm not sure which way to go on this one.
Undoubtedly, someone can cite an example from a produced script that will settle things definitively.
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Question: Are the characters speaking O.S. or V.O.?
1) Technically, the characters are at the location; we just can't see them. So this would seem to make the characters Off Screen, ergo there should be an (O.S.) tag after the character captions.
2) But wait, not so fast! The dialogue that we (that audience WE again!) are hearing could not possibly be heard by us if we were actually there at the scene standing next to the car. (Assume that the car windows are up.) We hear what we shouldn't be able to hear, almost like we are listening in on a character's thought bubbles. (I am, of course, taking advantage of the fact that the medium of cinema allows us to violate all sorts of physical laws of time and space.) Therefore, would the correct - or at least, more appropriate - usage after the character captions be (V.O.)? I'm not sure which way to go on this one.
Undoubtedly, someone can cite an example from a produced script that will settle things definitively.
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