What is the purpose of B roll?

B-roll is essential in narrative features to create a sense of time and place and add layers of meaning to the story. Establishing shots at the beginning of scenes that show city streets or the exteriors of buildings are usually B-roll, along with other shots that cut away from the main action.

What are the 4 main uses for B-roll?

Mostly, B-roll is used to give the editor options. It can help break up a scene, a monologue, and dole out information. It can also help you use most of a take you like, even if there's a mistake, because you can cut around it with the other footage.

What is B-roll for dummies?

B-roll is the extra footage that's used to enrich the story you're telling and provide greater flexibility during the video editing process. Having shots of your environment makes a finished piece all the more interesting and having extra “safety” footage is super important for a great edit.

How do you use B-roll effectively?

A great way to capture B-roll is to use a tripod with your camera or phone. You plug it in, turn on the feature, and then walk around your subject with your phone to film the surroundings. Then you can edit all those clips together at once into one larger video.

How often should you use B-roll?

A good rule of thumb: shoot enough B-roll to cover four to six times the final video length. For example, if your finished interview is one minute then you should shoot 4-6 minutes of B roll to complement that interview.

A Roll and B Roll Explained

How slow should B-roll be?

A good B-roll shot should be at least ten to fifteen seconds long for short videos, and around a minute if you're working on slower-paced shorts or features. Anything less than that, and you'll find some frustrations in the edit.

What does the B in B-roll stand for?

In film and television production, B-roll, B roll, B-reel or B reel is supplemental or alternative footage intercut with the main shot. The term A-roll, referring to main footage, has fallen out of use.

What is the best focal length for B-roll?

Both the 50mm and 85mm lenses are good choices as lenses for shooting video B-roll and primary footage. Besides lens choice, other techniques, tricks, and tips for video B-roll can be found on our site.

What is the difference between a roll and B-roll?

In movie production, A-roll will contain all the action shots, whereas B-roll might contain landscape and scenery, establishing shots, backgrounds, or any other scenes not part of the main plot of the film.

What are the types of B-roll?

What is the opposite of B-roll?

In video production, A-roll is the primary footage of a project's main subject, while B-roll shots are supplemental footage. B-roll provides filmmakers with flexibility in the editing process and is often spliced together with A-roll footage to bolster the story, create dramatic tension, or further illustrate a point.

What is an example of B-roll footage?

The term B-roll refers to accompanying footage intercut with a main shot in an interview or documentary. So, for example, your interview subject talking to camera may be your A-roll. Any alternative footage, such as cutaways to surroundings or significant places, will be your B-roll.

Why should B-roll be mixed with a roll footage?

In any video production, the A roll is the main footage or shot of the main subject and the B roll is considered as the supplemental or support footage. The B roll is combined or spliced with the A roll to make the story more engaging and eliminate the boredom that the A roll shot alone could cause.

What is AB roll editing?

A/B rolling is a technique used in film editing to hide ugly splices. When a splice (two pieces of film stuck together with splicing tape or glued with cement) rolls through a projector, the area of tape or glue will appear fuzzy. To eliminate this nasty blip in a finished film, the negative is a/b rolled.

Why 50mm is the best focal length?

The simplest answer is that the 50mm focal length is equivalent to 'what our eyes see'. It can easily be used to capture a range of angles including overhead, straight on and 45-degree without experiencing too much perspective distortion.

What is the most realistic focal length?

Seeing through and composing with a 28mm lens is like seeing it with your own eyes. A 28mm lens on full-frame just seems natural, closest to real life.

What focal length should I avoid distortion?

The best focal length for portraits is 50mm and above when trying to avoid distortion.

What does B-roll look like?

In video production, B-roll footage is the secondary video footage shot outside of the primary (or A-roll) footage. It is often spliced together with the main footage to bolster the story, create dramatic tension, or further illustrate a point.

What is an a roll?

It's the primary audio and video that often consists of one or more people discussing a topic or relating a narrative. A-Roll is the driving media in most documentaries, news broadcasts, talk shows, and reality shows.

What is B-roll in an interview?

The term B-roll refers to accompanying footage intercut with a main shot in an interview or documentary. So, for example, your interview subject talking to camera may be your A-roll. Any alternative footage, such as cutaways to surroundings or significant places, will be your B-roll.

What frame rate for B-roll?

But recently I decided to give 30fps a try for my B-Roll shooting and now its my new favorite way to shoot! The first thing a lot of people do when shooting B-Roll is immediately switch to a slow motion frame rate like 60 or 120fps.

How much B-roll is too much?

There is no such thing as too much B-Roll. The key is to film enough of it so that editors are able to insert the footage where it best fits. It is for this reason that there is no such thing as filming too many additional shots. The goal is to keep the story moving, to let it flow seamlessly.

Why do people shoot 30fps?

It also allows for a bit of a faster shutter speed. Assuming we are following that 180 degree shutter rule, we will inherently have a faster shutter speed with 30fps. This allows us to see action and motion much more clearly. I've been shooting drone footage, both normal and FPV in 30 fps for a while now.