Every single time!

Here’s my two cents:

Use O.S. for when a character is in the room but not in the frame. Delete the (into microphone) parenthetical — it’s redundant and a little confusing. Either explain in your action line that she’s speaking into that headset she’s adjusting, or say (into headset) instead so that I don’t have to think through the fact that she’s speaking into the “headset” microphone. i.e. don’t make your reader think. People in Hollywood don’t have time for that (more about that later).

Go with RAJ (OVER HEADSET) — i.e. a parenthetical next to the character name in all caps. The parenthetical you used gets the info across, but someone doing a fast read (any agent, exec or producer reading your script as part of their weekend read, during which they are reading a stack of other scripts/books) will miss it. The kind of parenthetical you used is often (but not exclusively) used to convey info about how the line is read, e.g. that it’s read “softly” (bad example, but you get the point). The all caps parenthetical is traditionally used to convey from where the line is spoken, as in V.O. (which suggests that it’s narration) and O.S. (which suggests that the character is off-screen but in the room. Of course, people do all kinds of things in practice. I personally like to vary it in a way that is consistent with text book usage. So JOHN (OVER MEGAPHONE) or NEWS REPORTER (ON TV SCREEN) tells you where the line’s being spoken from just like O.S. and V.O. do, so I do it that way.

I first saw it done after reading another writer’s produced screenplay for a film I much admire and realizing why it worked for me as the reader. In general, I recommend produced scripts as a great place to get ideas. If you see it and it makes for a clear read, then it’s probably a useful technique. (Btw, I don’t know if you’re just starting out, but when I was, I’d read or hear all the time that as a beginner I couldn’t take the kind of license that the professionals take. Not so. Could someone be annoyed because they don’t like your parentheticals. Yeah, I guess, but I’ve never heard of someone not meeting with a writer because they didn’t like the way they did their parentheticals. If you see something in a pro’s script that makes for a better read, feel free to use it. Just make sure the technique really works so that you look like a good writer, which is really your goal).

P.S Another idea that I picked up from another writer, which I sometimes use when a character is speaking on the phone and we don’t see them (for example, when I’m intercutting between characters and for some reason it matters that we’re hearing but not seeing one of the characters) is to say JOHN’S VOICE (OVER). I use this instead of JOHN (V.O.) because it says that we’re hearing the character’s voice but that it’s not narration. I prefer this to JOHN (ON PHONE) because as much as I like the all caps parenthetical for things like people talking on megaphones or people talking on a TV Screen, I think it can be over-used. And since phone conversations often occur in scripts, this is an easy way for me to not run the risk of over use.

By the way, Farley, I got the joke. Very funny.

INT. MAIN CONTROL ROOM – UN CAMP

Cicily is sitting at a bank of monitors. She adjusts a headset she is wearing while Joel stands behind her quietly observing.

CICILY(into microphone)Are there any change in the readings? RAJ (O.S.)(over headset)Radiation levels are the same. Atmosphere, temperature, everything’s normal.

I did it this way because it immediately lets the reader know that Raj is not on screen. I also wanted to let the reader know that Cicily is not talking to Joel, but into the microphone to Raj. Does this seem like it would be acceptable?