B-roll

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B-roll or B roll is supplemental or alternate footage intercut with the main shot in an interview or documentary.

This technique of using the cutaway is common to hide zooms in documentary films: the visuals may cut away to B roll footage of what the person is talking about while the A camera zooms in, then cut back after the zoom is complete. The cutaway to B roll footage can also be used to hide verbal or physical tics that the editor and/or director finds distracting: with the audio separate from the video, the filmmakers are free to excise "uh"s, sniffs, coughs, and so forth. Similarly, a contextually irrelevant part of a sentence or anecdote can be removed to construct a more effective, to-the-point delivery. This can also be used to change the meaning of the speaker to fit the view of the producer. In fiction film, the technique can be used to indicate simultaneous action or flashbacks, usually increasing tension or revealing information.

"B roll" also refers to footage provided free of charge to broadcast news organizations as a means of gaining free publicity. For example, an auto maker might shoot a video of its assembly line, hoping that segments will be used in stories about the new model year. "B roll" sometimes makes its way into stock footage libraries.

[edit] B-rolls in EDLs

In an Edit decision list (EDL), b-rolls have an entirely different meaning. Linear editing systems are unable to dissolve between clips on the same tape. Therefore, the EDL can mark such clips as "b-roll" to indicate that they should be dubbed onto another tape to make the dissolve possible,

[edit] B-roll history

One use of the term B-roll or B roll relates back to the older form of linear-based editing and the common naming conventions used by most television production facilities. Traditionally, the tape decks in an edit suite were labeled by letter, with the 'A' deck being the one containing the main tape upon which the interview material was shot. The 'B' deck was used to run tapes that held additional footage that often supported comments or descriptions made by the interview subject. Before the advance of A/B editing systems, most editors only had precise control over two decks — their record deck and one source deck, which was typically the 'A' deck. Whenever an editor wanted to do a live dissolve from material on the 'A' deck to footage on the 'B' deck during an edit, he/she often had to manually roll (i.e. play) the 'B' deck at the appropriate moment before the dissolve was made — hence the jargon B-roll was born.

Other historical references to the term relate similarly back to traditional camera naming conventions. The 'A' camera and crew ran the main interview camera while the 'B' camera and crew typically shot the additional support material. The term may have evolved then through the listing of tapes a single camera crew shoots — with the 'A' tape containing the interview footage and the 'B' tape containing the support material.