After the Flood: a voice-over screenplay example

Voice-over (V.O.) vs off-screen (O.S.)

V.O. (voice-over) marks dialogue spoken by someone who isn't physically in the scene: a narrator, a character's inner thoughts, a recording or a voice on the phone. O.S. (off-screen) marks a character who is in the scene's location but out of frame, such as someone calling from the next room.

Both are extensions written in parentheses after the name in the character cue: NOOR (V.O.). After the Flood uses V.O. because Noor narrates from some later point, outside the scenes we watch.

A voice-over screenplay example: narration against the picture

Voice-over against image means the narration and the pictures disagree, so the scene means more than either says alone. Weak voice-over describes what we already see; After the Flood does the opposite:

• "My mother always said our house was lucky" plays over mud to the windowsills and a sofa on a roof.
• "Too high, too strong, too stubborn" plays as Noor rinses a family photo and the faces "blur and run."
• "She was right about stubborn" turns the contradiction around: the house wasn't lucky, but her mother is still here.

The last image has no narration. Her mother holds the empty frame up to the street, framing "the town still standing," and laughs. The voice steps aside once the picture can finish the thought.

Formatting V.O. in a script

Put the extension on the character cue, never in the dialogue or a parenthetical, and keep narration short so it fits between images:

EXT. ORCHARD - DAWN

Frost on every apple. SAM (12) picks one and bites.

SAM (V.O.)
Grandpa said the first frost makes them sweeter.

Sam spits it out and throws the apple at the fence.

Narration that spans several scenes, as Noor's does, takes a new cue in each one. The screenplay format guide lists every extension, and montage and flashback covers narration laid over a sequence of images. In Scenaloom, cues are typed elements; see formatting.

When to use narration

Use voice-over when it adds something the image can't: an unreliable view, irony, distance in time, words a character could never say aloud. Skip it when it explains plot or names feelings the actors already play.

Common voice-over mistakes

• Describing the picture: "I walked into the ruined house" over a shot of someone walking into the ruined house.
• Patching the story, such as explaining a motive the scenes never set up.
• Leaving off the extension, so the reader can't tell narration from on-screen dialogue.

Try it

1. Write a short scene with no dialogue that shows a loss.
2. Add three lines of voice-over in which the narrator believes something the images disprove.
3. End on an image with no narration. Then open After the Flood in the screenplay editor, change only the voice-over and watch the same images change meaning.