Voice-over from a character's perspective — thinking aloud or inner monologue. Creates intimacy but risks feeling heavy-handed or manipulative if overused.
Internal monologue — making a character's thoughts audible — is one of the trickiest tools in editing. You sit in the edit suite and immediately ask yourself: Does the scene really need this, or are we just hiding bad screenwriting behind it? Internal Dialogue (ID) works when it reveals something that cannot be shown visually — inner contradictions, lies, abysses. It fails immediately as soon as it states what you are already seeing.
Technically, it works like this: You cut the performance, then lay the voice-over over closed or thoughtful moments, making sure the lip-sync isn't jarring. The actor often has to record the thoughts afterward — it's important that the emotional tonality matches the on-screen action, that it doesn't become mere spoken text. A common mistake: telling too much. Good ID says in three sentences what the character is really thinking while doing or saying something else. In Goodfellas (Scorsese), Henry's ID works because it's not explanatory — it's ordinary, sometimes funny, always in motion, just like the character himself.
Where it becomes problematic: Indie productions resort to ID to compensate for a lack of visual storytelling. You notice it immediately in the rough cut — the audio carries the entire burden. Avoidable through better blocking, better on-screen reactions. Also: ID must not be superficially emotional ("I'm so sad"). That's poorly written screenwriting that editing can't save.
Practically in editing: ID usually sits over visual edit transitions or during silent moments. You have to control the rhythm — pauses that are too long between blocks of thought feel sluggish, too fast and it becomes rushed. The mix is crucial: the ID must be present, but not make it feel like a voice-over film. Breathe, leave space, let the images speak where possible. And: once per film is an artful device, more than three times it becomes a dramatic crutch.