Off-Screen (O.S.) differs from Voice Over in that the character is present, just not seen.
Here’s an example from Taxi Driver:
Dishelved middle-aged New Yorker looks up from the desk. We CUT IN to ongoing conversation between the middle-aged PERSONNEL OFFICER and a YOUNG MAN standing in front on his desk.
The young man is TRAVIS BICKLE. He wears his jeans, boots and Army jacket. He takes a drag off his unfiltered cigarette.
The PERSONNEL OFFICER is beat and exhausted: he arrives at work exhausted. TRAVIS is something else again. His intense steely gaze is enough to jar even the PERSONNEL OFFICER out of his workaday boredom.
PERSONNEL OFFICER (O.S.)
No trouble with the Hack Bureau?
TRAVIS (O.S.)
No Sir.
PERSONNEL OFFICER (O.S.)
Got your license?
TRAVIS (O.S.)
Yes.
PERSONNEL OFFICER
So why do you want to be a taxi driver?
TRAVIS
I can’t sleep nights.
PERSONNEL OFFICER
There’s porno theatres for that.
TRAVIS
I know. I tried that.
Paul Schrader gives us the setting, using O.S. so that we hear the full conversation, but don’t see who talks until halfway into the scene. Here’s another excellent O.S. sequence, from X-Men:
WASHINGTON D.C. – THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE
A woman’s voice holds over the proceedings. It is the voice of JEAN GREY – whom we will soon meet. As she is speaking, we come to a large screen television at one end of the room.
JEAN (O.S.)
In every organism on Earth there exists a mutator gene – the X-factor, as it has come to be known. It is the basic building block of evolution -the reason we have evolved from homo habilus...
FOOTAGE REFLECTS THE VARIOUS STAGES OF HUMAN EVOLUTION. Accompanying it is a GRAPH with a DIAGONAL LINE indicating the ascent of the “human being” as we know it. Accompanying the graph are evolving images of the “evolution of man.”
JEAN (O.S.)
to homo erectus, to homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and, finally, to homo sapiens.
The animated demo on the screen zooms in on the lowest order of human depicted – homo habilus – a primitive, ape- like humanoid covered in hair. As he is singled out, the terrain of his time appears, along with the harsh signs of his winter.
JEAN (O.S.)
Taking its cues from the climate, terrain, various sources of nourishment, the mutator gene tells the body when it needs to change to adapt to a new environment. The process is subtle, normally taking thousands of years.
As the graphic changes and depicts WARMER CLIMATE, the HAIR STARTS TO DISAPPEAR ON THE MAN’S BODY -- gradually evolving into the human we now know as ourselves.
Now the terrain is modern, the weather pleasant. The image pulls back and places this man back in line at the front of evolution.
JEAN (O.S.)
Only in the last few thousand years did mankind begin to make clothes for himself, build shelters, use heat and grow food in large quantities. With this man-made environment remaining relatively stable, the X-factor became dormant.
QUICK SHOTS: early huts, early clothing; then early homes, later homes, air conditioning, cars, modern high- rises, etc.
PULL BACK WIDER
JEAN (O.S.)
Until now.
Keep in mind with production drafts, you’ll sometimes find screenwriters directing like above (QUICK SHOTS, PULL BACK WIDER.) You get scripts that look like this, from Leprechaun:
As he lays there, breathing heavily... then we begin to HEAR STRANGE “IRISH MUSIC” coming from the crate. Then his MOTHER’S VOICE begins to sing the Irish song “Danny Boy” in the most beautiful voice we’ve ever heard...
LEAH’S VOICE: (singing “Danny Boy”) Oh, Danny Boy... the Saints they are a’calling...
Now we CRANE BACK... and...
SMASH CUT TO:
“YUMMY, YUMMY, YUMMY I GOT LOVE IN MY TUMMY” 70′s rock and roll song blasting out of:
TIGHT ON A CAR’S TAPE DECK
that is playing the song that brings back memories of a summer in the seventies.
ON A BEAT-UP OLD JEEP, open top, traveling down a country road. A beautiful morning. And the SONG CONTINUES as we roll credits. The driver of the jeep, J.D. REDING, is singing along with the song.
Do not direct your spec script! When you give us camera angles you take us out of the reading experience. You also encroach on the director’s domain. Don’t do it.
Good Reader, all my advice is geared toward helping you find the money to make your movie. Of course if you’ve already got the money, forget everything I’ve said. I mean it. Go ahead and write in camera angles; write in every SMASH CUT and CRANE shot; while you’re at it, write the script in 9 fonts, or in pink Crayola crayon. You’ve got the money!
