I don't know if this has already been asked, but I'm working on a script that contains a good deal of voice over narration. The character's sole purpose is the narrator and he never appears in flesh. My question is that is it necessary to include (V.O.) after NARRATOR every time I start a new narration? It just looks awkward seeing it over and over and over again. Since the character is addressed as NARRATOR, do you think I could mention it once and let it be hoping readers get that the Narrator speaks only in voice over?

Yeah, if it's a V.O., you do need to designate it as such.

In fact, it will be MORE confusing if you were to suddenly stop using it -- we might think this guy is now on-screen for some reason.

Quoted from Jdawg2006 It just looks awkward seeing it over and over and over again.

Without having seen the script, this is a clue to me that you are using way too much V.O. to tell your story.

If you find yourself relying on V.O. to move the story forward, you need to rethink your methods of telling this story.

(V.O.) is also needed to point out that the Narrator isn't talking off screen (O.S.).


Phil

I would give the man a name, lets say Frank, then I would say FRANK'S VOICE, rather than FRANK (V.O.).

This also depends on who is this narrator, is he part of the story? Is he going over events he was part of, or witnessed when he was young?

I used the voice-over technique heavily in my story * Sweet Little Dream * and I like it because it gives insight to the character. But many people don't like this style, they think the writer is too lazy to create certain events and uses V.O instead. So you need to be careful when you tell the story.

Voice-Over has been used in alot of successful movies. Sunset Blvd, Forest Gump...etc...

I get what you're saying. The Narrator is actually a character in the film who we see constantly, but I refer to him as Narrator because as we learn throughout the film, though they are the same person, they are not the same character. Understand?

The premise of the story is this film is really a young writer's memior, so the narration is sort of like the character reading his one words while the action occurs. It's sort of a film within a novel premise.

Thanks for the help. I've decided to add the (V.O.) because it's not hard to type at all.

Another good movie that used a lot of voiceover is Amelie. It's a French film from 2000 or so and the first 20 minutes are nearly 100% voiceover. I was worried, but then it enabled the story to move like it could never have otherwise. We got introduced to a myriad of characters, their backgrounds, their likes and dislikes, and it would have been near impossible to get that amount of info without the voiceover. It was effective there.

Most of Stanley Kubrick's films have voiceover as well. It was a trademark of his. A Clockwork Orange was almost nothing but V.O. The argument continues...

So I read here a while ago and in several script writing books to avoid voiceovers in scripts and I just don't understand why.
Some of my favorite movies such as American Beauty, Fight Club, Goodfella's and Fear and loathing in Las Vegas all have voice overs. In fact in my opinion voice overs always enhance the movie rather than take away from it. Maybe I have just missed the movies and scripts that have given voice overs a bad name.

Anyway, for my next script it needs a narrator. Without it I just can't write it. Everything needs to be told from the main characters point of view and his feelings on past events need to be included. It's absolutely essential to portray the story and the message that I want to get across. Does this mean my story is already flawed? If not  what should I avoid doing without taking out the narration? I know you are supposed to show rather than tell but I really don't understand why most screenwriting books stress to avoid using voice overs. So far I don't think I'm telling things that can be seen but like I said, the books I have tend to state to stay away from narration at all costs.

Any examples of scripts that overuse it, or things to avoid doing would be greatly appreciated as I want to make this script as solid and can be and I think that doing wrong things with the voice over could be a big turn off right from the start.

Listen. Take those screenwriting books with a grain of salt. You want a Voice over. You put it in there. The guys that write those books are mostly people who like to stick to "rules" when writing scripts. Which is why they end up writing books on how to write scripts rather than writing scripts themselves. Ever seen a book writen by a great screenwriter? David Koepp? True, you need to be careful when using voice overs, but it's not like you get only one shot, that's the beauty of computers. Unless you're using a typewriter, then that could be a pain in the ass.

I have a few books by "filmmakers" but I've always wanted to ask them: "If you've got all the d*mn answers, why aren't you putting them to use?" One book was written by a guy who had made two independant movies, and was flauting that around like he was a god, telling the reader that they should "never do it this way" and "always do this because I say so and I have made two movies that barely made enough to cover their budgets and wasn't critically awarded by anyone. In fact, only 9,000 people know they exist, but you should listen to me because I know everything about movies."

I don't know either. I love movies with voice overs and love using voice overs. The Shawshank Redemption is another great movie with voice over.I think people are just too picky about the wrong things some times.

I think most of the problem with voice over is that sometimes people use them to cover plot holes, or just tack on a quick explanation for something they didn't show or forgot. But I don't think it's all that big a deal. Some other squabble with v.o. is that it just tends to get tedious when reading sometimes. In a movie, it's just there, so you accept it, but when reading I don't think people like it too much. I also don't think that people envision the movie with the voice over all that well. Sure it may be a pain sometimes to read and takes up space, but if it were in the movie, it wouldn't be that big a deal.

So, I say just go with your voice over. Don't let anybody tell you you can't do something. Instead of books, I've just read other screenplays and comments, which are a lot more useful. Then you could just pick and choose what you like and don't like and stick with what you think would work well for what you want.

I'm also in the "nothing wrong" crowd. Anything you use should be done in a way that can't be done any other way. Voiceovers are another device that films use to convey a story. If you can't convey certain things any other way, then use it. No one will give you grief over it unless they're in the "hate" camp. The same thing has been said of flashbacks.

It's your story. Write it however you want to write it. As long as a story is told, you did your job.

Voice Overs have a bad reputation, and rightly so. Telling a story with images is essential to the craft of screenwriting and since this is something quite difficult to achieve, this is where many amateurs fail. Voice Overs happen to be the perfect tool to feed information to the audience when the author doesn’t know how to externalize his character’s feelings or find the right visuals for his plot points. And since it’s an easy tool to “solve” a difficult problem, it’s very used by amateurs.

If you want to truly understand the statement written above, forget American Beauty or Fight Club (which I also enjoyed). Just go to triggerstreet, zoetrope, look for some unproduced crap, and you’ll see it for yourself.

Opinions from those who write screenwriting books but not successful scripts should be taken with a grain of salt, but it’s always better to take their advice than the advice from those who didn’t write none of them.

Voice Overs are difficult to use correctly and easy to use incorrectly. I woudn't advice to avoid them, but make sure that your craft is advanced enough to handle them. Here are some pointers: http://www.scriptsecrets.net/tips/Tip260.htm

Great article, Mr. Z. There's a lot of good suggestions regarding the voiceover in there.

Very good article Mr. Z. Following those check points it gives me a good understanding of where I could possibly go wrong and it also reassures me that the voice over in my story is okay. It's mainly just funny comments adding over flashbacks as my main protagonist tells the story of his life. I shall look over that check list as I go along and won't violate any of it's suggestions. Thanks for that. And everyone else that responded thanks too.

On a related topic would anyone mind reading the first page 5 pages of my script to make sure that my narration is okay? How I have it set up the beginning is how it basically will go throughout so if I'm making mistakes now they will probably continue.

The reason why voice overs are shunned is because most people use them incorrectly.  They use them as an easy way to tell the story or explain things.


Phil