Documentary B-Roll

From an editors standpoint B-Roll is awesome. B- roll can save video crews butt when something goes wrong. For example, lets say you and your crew are filming an interview with Senator Anderson about Montview high school and during the interview he happens to pick his nose. Since your crew does not want to show Anderson picking his nose, the editor will choose to transfer to some b-roll footage (maybe some footage of Montview highshool) and keep the audio from the interview track. This is effective because it hides Anderson picking his nose while at the same time showing footage of what Anderson is talking about in his interview. This leaves the your video crew happy and satisfied. Hooray for B-Roll!!!

" Its not necessary to watch the whole video clip "

The video clip above although funny also makes a valid point about b-roll. It shows exactly how you would use b-roll. For example, in the video clip above the host goes through explaining all the b-roll clips they have. While doing this, the video of the host is being covered by some b-roll footage. During specific points in the clips the video shifts back to him talking. This is an awesome effect that a crew can use in a documentary. A great example of this is in class when we watched the garden. The film makers would often start with film of a person talking, then the video would shift to b-roll footage of what they were talking about, and then it would shift back to them talking.