Voiceover (VO)
Off-screen narration recorded in post. Documentary, ad, tutorial - all live or die here.
- COINED
- 1930s
- TAXONOMY
- AUDIO
- RELATED
- 4
- TEMPLATES
- 0
Voiceover, or VO, is off-screen narration recorded in post. Documentary, ad, tutorial - all live or die on the VO. It is also the most-misused tool in the kit, the thing student filmmakers reach for when the visuals aren't carrying the story.
A good VO doesn't restate what the picture shows; it counterpoints it. The picture is a man walking into an office; the VO is the line he wishes he'd said yesterday. Use VO for interiority - what the character thinks, what they remember, what they can't bring themselves to say out loud.
Recording matters. A clean booth, a quality mic six inches off the speaker's mouth, a pop filter, and a script the speaker has read aloud twice. Get those right and the VO sells the project. Get them wrong and no edit will save you.
Documentary. Tutorial. Commercial. Interior monologue in narrative. Recap and recap-style content.
When the picture is doing the work - VO that restates the visual is dead weight. In dialogue-led drama.
Terms next to this one.
Mic on a long pole, held above the actor out of frame. The cleanest dialogue source on most sets.
Tiny clip-on mic worn on a costume. Backup to the boom. Lifesaver for wide shots.
Removes hum, hiss, or HVAC. Modern tools (Adobe Enhance, iZotope RX) work miracles. Use sparingly or voices go underwater.
Automated Dialogue Replacement - re-recording lines in a studio to replace bad production audio.