A GUIDE TO USING VOICE OVER 

IN YOUR SCREENPLAY

Written by Curt Wiser

     American Beauty, The Usual Suspects, Sunset Boulevard, Network and All the President's Men; what do all of these films have in common?  They all have won Academy Awards for either Best Picture or Best Screenplay.... and they all use voice over.

     Many of my favorite films have voice over and that is usually one of the things that I really love about them.  Over the years writing voice over has gotten a bad wrap, as if just daring to type [V.O.] is the death knell of any spec script.  This is probably because it is used improperly in sloppy ways by many writers as a short cut, an easy out.

Well I would like to set the record straight and give writers the ability to write voice over with confidence and not worry that it has a bad stigma associated with it according to some.

     So far every spec script I have written has had voice over in it and one of those, Web-Cam (2011) landed financing and was produced with the voice over left in tacked.

Web-Cam is a Thriller about a web cam stripper who is pushed to the limit when held hostage by an unknown gunman.

     I decided to tell this story with voice over because the film revolves around Gessica, a cam girl.  Using voice over lets me bring the viewer into what it must be like to work such a strange job and how it could affect them.  If it is something your character cannot put it into words like that, then you can say it with voice over.

The first question you should ask: Is this story one that would be better told if it had voice over in it?

     Think about a classic film like Taxi Driver.  If it did not have voice over it would just be a quiet DeNiro siting alone in a cab.  What about Danny Boyle's 127 Hours?  If it was for the voice over or those video tape messages that the character made, the whole movie would be James Franco caught under a rock screaming.

The next question: Is dialogue/voice over your strong suit as a Writer?

     If not, then you can force yourself to have a better ear for it.  Go to a party and just listen to all the different conversations around you.  The other option is you could find a writing partner to write it for you.

     I know what you are thinking.  The main mantra has always been show don't tell, so why should I put voice over in my new masterpiece?  I agree that you should show and not tell but that refers to the stories plot and inciting incidents.  That is way I say:

NEVER USE VOICE OVER AS EXPOSITION.

     That means do not tell why something is happening or has happened or explain why a character is doing anything with voice over.  I will not list some titles but there have been some major motion pictures that managed to get produced somehow with poorly written voice over exposition.  Those films have flopped hard at the box office and maintained one star ratings on NetFlix.

NEVER SAY ANYTHING IN VOICE OVER THAT IS CLEAR TO THE AUDIENCE OR SAID ALREADY WITH DIALOGUE.

That one goes without saying, you do not want to be repetitive or waist a single word in your script.

So how should voice over be used?  Here are some examples from films that I admire and writers that are a force to be reckoned with.

• CONVEY WHAT A CHARACTER IS FEELING.

     This is the most common way voice over is used. It is also the most likely form that can be miss-used.  So make sure there is no alternative to using voice over this way, then make sure it is not overtly stating how the character is feeling.

Here is the immortal Taxi Driver as an example:

Travis Bickle (V.O.)

Damn, the days go on and on, they 

don't end. All my life needed was 

a sense of some place to go. I 

don't believe one should devote 

his life to morbid self-attention.

(a beat)

I believe that someone should become 

            a person like other people.

     What Paul Schrader is implying here is that his character Travis is so isolated and disillusioned in his pathology of loneliness that he does not even feel like a real person, he does not feel alive.  Now the character could have just said “I'm lonely, it's like I'm not really here, I think it is because nobody loves me” but that would be nothing compared to Schrader's prose.

     Remember, a good actor should be able to convey any emotion or feeling with just their eyes.  But not even the best actor in the world can put a feeling into words that hit you in the gut or sound like pure poetry the way great voice over can.

• REVEAL SOMETHING IMPORTANT ABOUT A CHARACTER.

     This would be some internal detail, like the character's point of view, their hidden intelligence or private thoughts.  Take Frank Darabont's sleeper break through film The Shawshank Redemption for example.

Red (V.O.)

I must admit I didn't think much 

of Andy first time I laid eyes on 

him, looked like a stiff breeze 

would blow him over. That was my 

              first impression of the man.

Notice how the line “That was my first impression of the man” subtly says that there is more to Andy than appearances, he should not be underestimated.  That is good writing.

It could also be used to show how a character lives a double life.  Look at American Psycho, One Hour Photo, Mr. Brooks and Secretary for examples of that.

• DRAMATIC IRONY.

     This is the classic writing term that means the audience has knowledge about something before the character(s) in the story do.  This technique is a great way to create suspense.  I chose Alan Ball's brilliant script American Beauty as an example of this.

Lester Burnham (V.O.)

I'm 42 years old, in less than

 a year I'll be dead. Of course 

I don't know that yet. And in 

               a way I'm dead already.

That was the opening of the film.  It leaves us wondering how this poor guy meets his end as we grow fond of him over the course of the film.

• COUNTERPOINT OR COMIC RELIEF.

     Well placed voice over can completely break the tension or change the tone of a scene by showing what a character would say if it was appropriate.... but it is not.  It could also be a funny non-sequitur like in Diablo Cody's Juno.

This is what Juno is thinking when she sees the high school track team run by as she breaks the news to her teenaged friend that she is pregnant and he is the father.

Juno (V.O.)

When I see then all running like 

that with their things bouncing 

around in their shorts I always 

picture them naked even if I try 

not to. All I see is pork swords.

Now that breaks the tension and how can you not laugh at “pork swords”?

• SCENE TRANSITIONS.

     One of the staples of good writing is how well one scene transitions into the next.  If it plays well, the voice over at the end of the scene could be the start of the spoken dialogue at the beginning of the scene that follows.  This can make your screenplay more concise by keeping things moving and it can show how the two scenes relate to each other.

My example for this would be the operatic ending to The Usual Suspects, the film that put the screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and the Director Bryan Singer on the map.

     The film ends with an iconic montage that strings all of Verbal Kint's interrogation together as voice over along with quick cuts that reveal it was all a lie and that he is the notorious Keyser Soze.  The last line of the film is Voice Over.

Verbal Kint (V.O.)

... and like that, he's gone.

• FORESHADDOWING.

Lastly, voice over can plant a seed in the viewers mind.  By that I mean to hint at but not fully explain what will happen or what the scene is really about.

See how this one single line from Fight Club is not given much thought at first but speaks volumes by the end of the film.

This voice over takes place during the scene when Edward Norton's character is beating himself up in his bosses office so he can extort money from his employer.

Jack (V.O.)

For some reason I thought about 

my first fight... with Tyler.

     With that screenwriter Jim Uhls makes a clever hint to the film's big reveal at the end, that Edward Norton's character and Tyler are the same person.  If an audience can pick up new things in your film on the second of third viewing, that is good writing.  Such is the case with Jim Uhls adaptation of the groundbreaking iconoclast novel Fight Club written by Chuck Palahniuk.

     Good screenwriting is all about structure and if you use voice over, that needs to have a structure too.  It should be consistent. If you have 30 minutes worth of voice over in the first act only that will come off as bad structure.  The viewer will get used to hearing that voice over and then you would be taking it away.

     Most scripts that use voice over have it mostly at the beginning and then at the end. American Beauty is a good example of this. Juno begins with the voice over “It all started with a chair.” Then the closing echos, “It ended with a chair.”  Now that is symmetry, that is good writing.

     I hope I have let you think about voice over in a different way. So that maybe your characters will be able to make us laugh, cry, be inspired or even experience something new through the well crafted thoughts in their voice over.

Curt Wiser (V.O.)

Fade Out