↓ Skip to main content
DRAFT ZERO
§ RESOURCES / TOPICS / Voiceover

Voiceover

Every episode covering Voiceover.

"So he is looking back at this and telling this story. And the question is, what does he want?"

— Stu Willis  |  DZ-111: Unreliable Narrators and FIGHT CLUB

Start here

DZ-110: Voiceover

How can you use voiceover without it feeling like a cheat?
AI✦Chas, Stu, and Mel apply four levers to distinguish when voiceover works as character revelation rather than expository shortcut, using Veronica Mars, The Emperor’s New Groove, and Pain & Gain as models.✦
⏱ 1h 41m
31 MAY 2024
Listen to explore how voiceover can set tone, reveal character, enhance empathy, and create tension.
▶ More Info

KEY IDEAS

Voiceover As Motivation Gateway

"And like one of the most important bits of voiceover where like voiceover, we've got whole episodes on voiceover. Go and look at that. But it gives you that access to a character's motivation such that you will jump over hurdles, what might otherwise be narrative hurdles."

— Chas Fisher (00:10:50) · DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling

Even More

DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall

How is the effect of breaking the 4th wall different to voiceover?
AI✦The episode’s central question hinges on contrasting voiceover with fourth-wall breaking, establishing how these two direct-address tools operate through different mechanisms of audience involvement.✦
⏱ 1h 52m
31 JUL 2024
Listen to understand how breaking the 4th wall directly involves the audience in a character's emotional present.
▶ More Info
As part of our series on how filmmakers can directly communicate to the audience, we finally examine the most blatant tool of them all: when character look directly down the barrel of the camera… and thus look directly at us, the viewer. Chas, Stu and Mel take the craft tools/levers they identified in previous episodes and use them to examine the tv-version-of HIGH FIDELITY (“Top Five Breakups”), ABBOTT ELEMENTARY (“Attack Ad)”) and - of course - FLEABAG… →

DZ-111: Unreliable Narrators and FIGHT CLUB

How does the unreliability of a narrator impact the way a story is told?
AI✦Fight Club’s voiceover functions as the connective tissue that stitches together a deliberately disconnected sequence-driven structure, making it central to how the film’s unreliability operates.✦
⏱ 55h 26m
2 JUL 2024
Listen to learn how unreliable narrators shape storytelling through voiceover, structure, and control.
▶ More Info
In this episode, Stu and Mel (sans Chas!) take a deep dive into FIGHT CLUB and its use of the unreliable narrator. This is a bridging episode between our previous episode on VOICEOVER and our forthcoming episode on TALKING TO CAMERA as Fight Club does both.… →

DZ-109: Talking DIRECTLY to your audience

What are the different ways a filmmaker can ask something of the audience?
AI✦The episode uses voiceover as a primary case study for understanding how filmmakers communicate directly to audiences, ranging from omniscient narrators in Flanagan’s work to unreliable voices in Fight Club.✦
⏱ 1h 20m
1 MAY 2024
Listen if you've wondered what a character actually wants when they're talking directly to the audience!?
▶ More Info

DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling

How does Film Noir show us terrible people doing terrible things without endorsing it?
AI✦Mel and Chas show how voiceover contextualizes stupid but understandable decisions differently across films--in Devil in a Blue Dress it justifies Easy’s choices through his perspective, while Woman of the Hour uses it sparingly to maintain distance from its killer.✦
⏱ 1h 10m
30 JAN 2026
Listen if you need audiences to root for characters who do terrible things
▶ More Info

DZ-15: World Building Rules, Okay?

How does setting up rules help you build a world?
AI✦Voiceover functions as one of several world-building tools the hosts identify for setting up rules in opening pages, allowing you to communicate worldview and establish how your particular universe operates.✦
⏱ 2h 0m
4 NOV 2014
Listen when your opening pages feel like exposition dumps (which is bad, okay?)
▶ More Info
In our most epic/longest episode yet, Chas and Stu tackle world building in films. Specifically, how the rules make something a world and not just a setting. Starting with world-centric genres like sci-fi and fantasy, we also cover horror, crime drama and - er - “other”. We discuss a variety of techniques for setting up the rules of the world, including cold opens, voiceover, title cards and outsider characters! We’ve limited ourselves to the opening 3-5 pages... mostly... because (so the theory goes) they’re the pages that teach the audience how to read/watch your story/film… →

DZ-7: On Rewriting - How much Bull is left in the Hustle?

What can be gleamed from the substantial rewrite of a famed spec?
AI✦Stu and Chas identify voiceover as a specific tool O’Russell deployed differently than Singer’s original spec, making it a focal point of their analysis.✦
⏱ 55m
25 MAY 2014
Listen to learn how impactful rewriting can be.
▶ More Info
Stu and Chas look at AMERICAN BULLSHIT (the 2010 Black List spec script by Eric Warren Singer) and the film it became… AMERICAN HUSTLE (co-written and directed by David O’Russell), which garnered 10 Oscar nominations in 2014… →

DZ-115: A Christmas Special - Rewatching & Rituals

What magic do Christmas movies use to make them so rewatchable?
AI✦The hosts discuss how voiceover contributes to the rewatchable charm of holiday films, positioning it as one of the craft tools that sustains engagement across multiple viewings.✦
⏱ 1h 56m
23 DEC 2024
Listen if you want to understand what makes holiday films enduring parts of our seasonal rituals!
▶ More Info
In this “backmatter” episode of Draft Zero, Stu, Chas, and Mel Killingsworth embark on a festive exploration of what makes holiday films so engaging and so re-watchable that they can become part of our rituals. To that end, we breakdown the charm of of Christmas films like KISS KISS BANG BANG, RIDERS OF JUSTICE, and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE… →