Format of heard thoughts

[icerose]

I did a search but couldn't find my answer, so I apologize if this has been answered before.

How do you format thoughts that are heard on the screen but the character isn't speaking them with their mouth. Do you use the (V.O.) tags, and describe it in the action of what they are doing?

Or is there something specific that does it.

Also narrator voices. Do you call them a narrator, or if they are a character you have their name then do the (V.O.) to the side of their name?

I just want to make sure I am doing it correctly.

Thanks

Sara

[Writer1]

Action lines.

CHARACTER(V.O.)

Action lines.

NARRATOR(V.O.)

[icerose]

Okay, do you have to say anything in the action lines though that specify that the character is present but not speaking, but his narrator voice is?

[bluejester12]

Fight Club was written with just V.O. I'm guessing that's fine.

[dpaterso]

Okay, do you have to say anything in the action lines though that specify that the character is present but not speaking, but his narrator voice is?

No, (V.O.) is enough, the extension implies that a voice track must be recorded elsewhere and dubbed onto the film. Even if camera is pointed at the character, V.O. tells us he isn't speaking live, his lips aren't moving... unless he's talking, while also thinking something else, e.g. and just for fun's sake:

JOHN
Thanks Bill, I got your report okay,
I appreciate your getting back to
me so quickly.

JOHN (V.O.)
I appreciate the microsecond you
must have spent compiling that
poor excuse for a report, you
incompetent a$$.

...And you probably know this already, but if V.O. doesn't provide different info from what we're already seeing on screen with our own eyes, then adding the V.O. is pointless, it's just an annoying echo, e.g. and pardon the exaggerated example,

John looks behind the desk. He finds a woman's body. She's dead.

JOHN (V.O.)
I looked behind the desk and
found a woman's body. She
was dead.

...On the other hand, depending on content/mood/genre, it could still work, e.g.

JOHN (V.O.)
I looked behind the desk and
found a woman's body. Hubba
hubba, what a babe, she had
the face of an angel and the
body of my second wife, the
ex-hooker I'd married in Vegas.
If she'd still been alive I would
have asked her out to dinner.
Unfortunately someone had
put a bullet in her pretty head.
I hated them for ruining our
beautiful relationship.

...Er... I'm just saying. Carry on.

-Derek
My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies. (http://hometown.aol.co.uk/DPaterson57)
Take the critiques you get with a grain of salt. Invariably, some of the critics will be kooks, bitter curmudgeons, or complete fools. ~odocoileus

[icerose]

Okay, I thought so, but I wanted to make sure. I rarely do narrative in anything, but I might be pulled on board to help out with an anime and they tend to have a lot of heard thoughts inside the features.

Thanks!

Sara