V.O., O.S., CONT'D and MORE explained

The parentheses beside a character cue each do a different job. When to use which, whether CONT'D should be automatic, and how they differ from CONTINUOUS.

Those small parentheses beside a character cue are the most commonly confused part of a screenplay page. They all say either where the voice comes from or whether the speech was interrupted. Four of them do four different jobs.

(V.O.) — voice over

The voice has no physical source in the scene: a narrator, a letter being read, a character's inner voice, the person on the other end of a phone. The audience hears it; the objects in the room do not.

(O.S.) — off screen

The person is in that space but out of frame. A mother calling from the kitchen, a neighbour shouting behind a door. That is the difference: V.O. is not in the room, O.S. is in the room but unseen.

(CONT'D) — still speaking

Used when the same character resumes speaking after an action line interrupts. StudioBinder puts it plainly: a character speaks, an action line follows, then the same character continues.

If another character spoke in between, there is no CONT'D — the speech was broken and a new one began. Nor is it used across a scene change.

Automatic or manual?

The experts split here. Final Draft and Celtx do it automatically. John August argues it should be off, with a good example: in Gravity, minutes pass between two of Sandra Bullock's lines, but because nobody else speaks, the software stamps a CONT'D the writer never wanted. "Your script is exactly what you type," he writes.

In Movrito the setting is on by default, and can be turned off per document in the Format panel.

(MORE) — a break at the page bottom

When a speech will not fit on the page, (MORE) goes at the foot and CHARACTER (CONT'D) at the head of the next page. StudioBinder's summary is worth remembering: MORE always needs CONT'D, but CONT'D does not always need MORE. They are separate jobs and should be separately switchable.

Don't confuse CONT'D with CONTINUOUS

They are entirely different. CONT'D sits beside a character cue and is about speech. CONTINUOUS goes in a scene heading in place of the time and says the action runs on unbroken. John August is wary of it: it is far too easy to lose track of what time of day it is meant to be.

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