Knowledge Bank
3 min read
B-roll for YouTube: shoot 20% more than feels necessary
B-roll is what you cut to so your video isn't one unbroken shot of your face. Shoot more than feels sensible, because the edit always wants more.
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B-roll is everything that is not you talking: the close-ups, the cutaways, the establishing shots, the hands doing the thing. It is what stops a video being ten minutes of a single locked-off shot of your face, and it is almost always the footage creators wish they had more of and almost never the footage they wish they had less of.
The cost of thin B-roll is a video that feels static and a little cheap, and an edit with nowhere to hide a cut. The cost of plenty is a slightly longer shoot. That trade is so lopsided that the rule is simple: when you think you have enough, get a bit more.
What counts as B-roll
More than you think. Anything the edit can cut to while your voice continues underneath.
| Type | What it does |
|---|---|
| The subject, close up | Shows the thing you are talking about |
| Hands working | Covers a process, hides edit cuts |
| Establishing wide | Sets the place, gives the eye a rest |
| Detail and texture | Adds richness, fills transitions |
Work the shot list first, so the essential covering shots are captured. Then, while the setup is still up, get the extras: another angle, a few seconds longer, a slow push in. Those are the shots that save an edit.
Shoot it longer than you'll use it
Hold every B-roll shot for longer than feels natural, around ten seconds, even for a clip you will trim to two. Long clips give the edit room to choose the in and out points; short clips force a cut exactly where you stopped, whether or not that is where the edit wanted it. Steady and a touch too long beats snappy and unusable.
A handful of genuinely good B-roll shots, used well, lifts a video more than any transition pack or effect. Good cutaways, cut at the right moment, are the edits that hold a viewer. It is the cheapest production upgrade available to a small channel, and it costs only the extra ten minutes at the end of a shoot you have already set up.
Where Chewbr fits
Get the B-roll is step 15 of the 47, the middle of the three capture steps. A-roll gives the spine, B-roll covers it, and one capture step is left after this one: the thumbnail frames, taken while the lights are still up.
Keep reading
Before any of that footage gets cut, protect it: back it up in two places. Then the first real edit decision is pace, not polish: the rough cut.