GlossaryPage elements
Voice-Over (V.O.)
Also: V.O. · voiceover
Voice-over, abbreviated (V.O.), marks dialogue spoken by a character who is not physically present in the scene as a sound source — narration, a remembered line, a phone voice routed through a device. The (V.O.) extension sits next to the character cue to flag it for the reader and the sound team.
V.O. covers any voice that originates outside the world of the picture as the audience sees it: a narrator, inner monologue, a letter read aloud, a radio host. The defining test is that the sound is not happening in the room on screen.
It is easy to confuse with off-screen (O.S.). The rule of thumb: O.S. is a real, present sound source you simply cannot see; V.O. is a voice with no physical source in the frame at all.