Importance of Using B-Roll in Your Work

When it comes to filming, it's important to keep your audience interested in what their watching, which means you need to very your visuals. One of the ways you do this is to shot extra footage, b-role, to make a scene more interesting. This is most effectively mixed with shots of a person talking, maybe showing what their talking about or where they are, to make things more interesting.

B-roll is more valuable then it seems at first. B-roll can be used to fill in scenes that are lacking, can cover up transitions, and maybe give more elaboration to something a person is talking about. If you have a scene where the shots you have are people talking to each other and not much else, b-roll can add some extra shots the screen needs to feel complete and visually interesting, and create a better overall work.

If you want to make some interesting transitions, b-roll can be your best friend, and create some interesting scene changes. Lets say you have some smoke for example, if you shot some b-roll of it and edit it properly, it can create a cleverly hidden scene transition. Hiding transitions is mostly what b-roll is used for in this sense.

If you're making a documentary, or maybe a vlog like the video example, b-roll is almost essential to keep the viewers attention. In the case of documentaries, b-roll is mostly for showing what a person is talking about, as to give a visual explanation alongside the vocal explanation. Vlogs have a harder time doing this, and rely more on b-roll to hold the attention of the viewer.

In the end, it's never a bad idea to shot some random b-roll, as you may never know when you may need it. This falls into the category that you can never shot enough footage in general, and to keep this footage in a separate folder, that way you can have it to pull from. Doing this can create an interesting final product.

Really, I've seen examples of b-roll in a lot of things I watch, no matter what type for filmed media. It seems like it would be something to think about, but it's easy to forget about, but having a reminder in notes may really help. I'll personally try and remember that next time I film.